Tommy Caldwell on the Dawn Wall route of El Cap in Yosemite; Photograph by Brett Lowell, BigUp Productions

Yosemite’s Rock Climbing Revolution Breaks into the Mainstream in Valley Uprising

ByMary Anne Potts
January 15, 2015
8 min read

Yosemite Valley captured the attention of the world yesterday as Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson completed the spectacular first free ascent of the Dawn Wall on El Capitan, bringing interest in climbing in the valley to a fever pitch. This flame of Yosemite climbing enthusiasm sparked last fall with the release of Sender Films’s Valley Uprising (read about the film).

Drawing on interviews with more than 50 living legends, the documentary depicts the rock climbing revolution that ignited in Yosemite Valley in the 1950s and 1960 and is still pushing the limits of what’s possible today. The film has won the grand prize in all eight of the film festivals it has screened in, capturing a mainstream audience with its depiction of the epic rivalries, pursuit of freedom, and pushing into unknown realms of athleticism. Seven years in the making, Valley Uprising is the breakout adventure film of the decade.

Today, the film is available for download with bonus scenes—including a segment about Tommy Caldwell and the first ascent of the Dawn Wall—featuring legendary climbers of both the current and previous generations.

Here co-director Nick Rosen tells us about the impact of the film.

Adventure: Your film has racked up eight grand prize awards at each of the eight prestigious film festivals where it has screened. Why has this film been able to resonate so well with audiences beyond the core climbing community?

Nick Rosen: This was one of our biggest challenges: making a film that spoke to a broad audience. Most people know absolutely nothing about this part of American culture and history. What’s more, the sport of climbing tends to be technically mind-boggling to the broader public (as evidenced by the comments section of the New York Times‘s Dawn Wall coverage). Add in all the conflict over esoteric climbing ethics in the 1960s and 1970s, and it could be a tough sell. To explain this stuff, we spent months (years, really) trying to strike the right balance between keeping things simple but not dumbing them down.

More important, we tried to focus the film on big, general themes–rivalries, exploration, counterculture, freedom vs. authority—that everyone could appreciate. It’s gratifying to know that audiences from Krakow to Catalonia are digging the film!

A: Are today’s climbers still a reflection of the wider culture/counterculture in the United States, as the climbers were in previous generations?

NR: Well, times change. Does a wider counterculture in the U.S. even exist? Within the Yosemite Valley scene, I think you see two diverging strands: One is represented by the likes of Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell—clean-living, law-abiding, lazer-focused bad asses who don’t have much interest in counterculture. Another is represented by guys like Dean Potter, who carries that torch of scofflaw rebellion that started in the 1960s. So just as in past eras, we see the broader culture reflected in the Valley. As Honnold says on a piece of interview that didn’t make it into the film: “The 1970s are long over.”

A: Do tensions between the park rangers and climbers run as high today as they are portrayed in the film?

NR: It’s complicated. On the one hand, one could say that over the past 50 years, increasingly tougher rules, increased law enforcement, population pressures, and the advent of illegal sports like BASE have made relations between rangers and climbers worse. Certainly, one could look at the anemic full-time “climbing culture” in the valley and conclude that things are worse than ever for climbers there.

On the other hand, there are real signs of improvement in the last couple years. The Yosemite Facelift, where climbers and rangers work side by side to clean up the park, as well as great climbing rangers like Ben Doyle, and the work of folks in the Superintendent’s office like Mike Gauthier to rebuild trust among climbers and rangers, has had a really positive impact.

A: You captured Royal Robbins before his heath diminished. Were there other important moments that were documented for the duration before it was too late?

NR: Well a lot of these legendary climbers are getting on into their 80s, so it felt good to be capturing their stories and memories at this time. But we are still haunted by those we missed: We had scheduled an interview with the legendary free soloist John Bachar the year before before he died, but Tioga Pass closed and we had to postpone it; we never got a second chance. And would have loved to interview Harding! May they rest in peace.

A: The Tommy and Kevin’s current Dawn Wall climb presents another chapter of incredible Yosemite storytelling, which you all have as a digital bonus with the film. You’ve been following that effort for years, correct? What other bonus scenes available?

NR: Yeah together with Big Up Productions we have been filming with Tommy and Kevin on the Dawn Wall for years. It’s really cool how their adventure echoes the story from 25 years earlier, of Warren Harding’s crazy first ascent of the Dawn Wall, which we detail in the film.

In addition to the Dawn Wall piece, the digital download has a bunch of great bonus material:

– Intense solo climbing action with Alex Honnold and Dean Potter

– The, tragic, funny untold story of soloist John “Yabo” Yablonsky

– Short documentary on Dean “Bullwinkle” Fidelman

– Short documentary on the influence of Jack Kerouac and the Dharma Bums on climbing culture

– More great outtakes featuring Jim Bridwell, John Long, and others

A: Yosemite continues to attract incredible, boundary-pushing athletes. What feats should we look forward to seeing in the years to come? It seems like there is potential for some women to set some new overall speed records.

NR: The potential in Yosemite continues to be limitless, and we hope it continues to be a place where people come to raise the bar of human achievement. Indeed, 20 years after Lynn Hill redefined the sport with her free ascent of the Nose, the potential for women to continue to make their mark in climbing remains huge. Just recently, Mayan Gobat-Smith and Libby Sauter smashed the women’s speed record on the Nose, racing up it in five hours and two minutes.

A: Do you think the film is inspiring more young people to try rock climbing? Have you been getting comments to that nature?

NR: We certainly hope so. One of the objectives of making a film that would reach a wide audience was to introduce people to the joyful adventure of rock climbing. With or without Valley Uprising, It seems like more and more kids around the country are getting into climbing. You go to a climbing gym in Boulder these days and it seems like every toddler-aged grommet in the joint are hucking V9 dynos. We just hope that everyone who is getting into it can now see the film and have a deeper appreciation for climbing’s history.

A: What’s in store for your tenth anniversary REEL ROCK tour?

NR: Reel Rock 10 is going back to our format of short films from across the spectrum.  We’ve got great stuff lined up, and with showing Valley Uprising on REEL ROCK last year we are on a two-year cycle on our current projects. We’ve got stories in the making that range from the epic  to the quirky to the touching.

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