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Mike has amassed the best collection of climbing literature I have ever seen. Fred Beckey, Galen Rowell, Jim Thornburg, Dean Fidelman, Alex Huber, Heinz Zak and my personal favorite, John Long. In the bad weather I pore over pictures and stories, oscillating between a variety of dreams: that I could write that well, that I could climb that well, that I could live that well. I put down a book feeling more inadequate than inspired, my own small achievements paling in comparison to the monumental ones of my heroes. In two days I will step on El Cap for the first time, and I am nervous: two facts I am embarrassed to admit. I have been climbing for over 12 years, spent at least a week in Yosemite each of the last six. You would think I would have at least touched the Big Stone by now. Less experienced climbers than myself regularly stroll up the NIAD (Nose in a Day) with little consternation. Meanwhile I sit worrying about getting on arguably the least intimidating, most trafficked and most developed big-wall route in the world. The feeling brings me humbly back to the memory of my first alpine routes half a dozen years ago in Rocky Mountain National Park—perpetually gripped. Ashley and Miranda are watching something obscure in Vietnamese on YouTube. Snowmelt drips gently on Mike’s roof, making us feel warm and dry inside his place. Looking over at Miranda, I realize she is not just one of my best friends, but one of my climbing idols. We started climbing together in Maryland in 2003. She belayed me on my nerve-wracking first lead, up a four-bolt 5.10 in the New River Gorge. We only had six quickdraws between us—we were young, college-poor and scared to jump headlong into the arduous DREAMS OF GLORY task of purchasing a reasonable amount of climbing equipment—so our options were HEROES ARE MADE BY CHRIS KALMAN limited. Now Miranda and I both own racks, BY HOW THEY LIVED ropes, cars and ... well, not much else. After college, Miranda headed to Yosemite and never looked back. Since then, she has OCTOBER 28, Yo s e m i t e Va l l e y. T h e s n o w h a s s t o p p e d amassed an impressive list of ascents, and now, the sky returning to the perfect California blue climbed all over the world. Yet it is not her I know so well. Melting slop drips from the boughs. poise and skill as a climber that I admire Steam rises, sublimating, from the hood of my navy most in Miranda, but her unwavering blue 1987 VW. Mike Gauthier is out of town. I’m appreciation of climbing in all its forms, and passing a pleasant rest day at his house with his two of all its participants; her humility; and her crazy cats—one yowls for nearly 30 minutes upon comfort with the form her life has taken. She waking in the mornings—and our friends Ashley climbs, and that is fine. Somehow, I manage Helms and Miranda Oakley. to make everything far more complicated, 70 | ASCENT 2014 and constantly question the validity of my we struggle to match their adventurous tells me as much. We talk a little about passion, obsession, addiction—whatever spirit even with the advantage of modern her own path in the climbing world, you want to call it. inventions. Even with our stickier and I try to explain to her how good a The viral Vietnamese video ends, rubber, lighter ropes, smaller camming candidate for sponsorship she is. “Build Miranda heads out the door, and Ashley units, pin-scarred cracks and aluminum a website,” I tell her. “A website really and I start talking about writing. carabiners, we can but barely keep up helps, because it gives you a cohesive “I heard a recording of John Long with the tin-can-tunafish/net-hammocks way to present all your achievements reading ‘The Only Blasphemy’ on the generation who faced the biggest obstacle and accomplishments—all of what Internet,” I tell her. “Now when I read his of all—not even knowing if the damn makes you great.” But I know a website stories, I can hear his voice speaking the things could be climbed. won’t present even an iota of what makes words. That’s the mark of a good writer. The Golden Age is over. What is left Miranda great. What makes Miranda A good writer has a unique and defined to us is the mutant strength of Tommy great is, in part, that I know she won’t voice. That voice is what distinguishes Caldwell, the infallible composure of build a website to sell herself to gear the writer’s work.” Alex Honnold, and the knife’s edge of companies. She’ll just climb—humbly When I read my own writing, I hear increasingly challenging alpine routes and proudly on old, outdated gear—and nothing more than the cumulative noise on the world’s scariest mountains. I find be happy. Miranda doesn’t need any help. of my surroundings. A slight breeze in From the comfort of Mike’s armchair, the treetops, the whir of passing cars, I question how the torch can possibly birds, crickets, etc. But when I’m feeling pass from such great heights to mere really spry, I give my words the sound mortals such as myself. The truth is, of Long’s deep baritone, steady and The Golden Age is over. the torch passes gracefully from hero certain; reverent and brazen in equal What is left to us is to hero, generation to generation. I parts; unapologetic, yet sympathetic believe it comes to those who do not to the terrors that the antics of his the mutant strength of seek it. Sure, the Stonemasters liked Stonemasters evoked in normal climbers. Tommy Caldwell, the the attention, sought it out, competed Miranda bought her ticket to Patagonia infallible composure of among and within themselves to be today, so I did, too. Found a good price, Alex Honnold, and the the best they could be. Yet I believe not quite to Cochamo, but close. Miranda what makes them great in retrospect is headed back to El Chalten. El Chalten knife’s edge of increasingly is not the individual things they gives me night terrors. Last season, as I challenging alpine routes climbed, but the manner in which they waited hopefully for the opportunity to on the world’s scariest existed. Passed on to us in black-and- attempt the iconic pinnacles looming mountains. white photos and colorful stories is an above me, I felt hopelessly overwhelmed, overarching and simple truth: They dominated and thwarted by them as well. lived for what they loved. Here, in Yosemite, the feeling is much What makes the Stonemasters and the same. While the picture-perfect myself and my friends venturing out into Miranda heroes is that uncompromising granite walls look appealing, exciting, ever more dangerous terrain. I wonder if simplicity in how they lived or live even attainable, the books on Mike’s it is in part because everything else has their dreams. The root could not be shelves document how much bigger were already been done. something so base as a hubristic yearning those who climbed them first. It is not Ashley goes back to making jewelry, for greatness. It must be something so much that I doubt my friends’ and my and I return to what has of late become greater. All the stories and photos, and ability to dispatch the NIAD, but that I one of my own crafts—e-mailing. my experiences with my own modern question how my greater feats will ever Picking up my laptop, I look back over climbing heroes, point to a pure love of stack up against those of people like the my message to the owner of a backpack the sport, and adherence to a life without Stonemasters. In a moment of self-pity, company. Satisfied with my tone— compromise. sitting on Mike’s couch, again leafing confident, but not arrogant—I press From down here on the Valley floor, it through some of the world’s finest send, hoping that he will help to support is easy to see that now; easy to see where armchair mountaineering literature, I my upcoming trip back to Cochamo. I want to be. “And you’ll find yourself realize that my dreams and my abilities Those backpacks will help, I’m certain. there,” I tell myself in my best John Long do not quite match up. Small I am, and Inexplicably, my feelings of inadequacy voice, looking up at thin clouds lifting shall remain. The realization is not have somehow manifested in the form off freshly dusted peaks, “as soon as you exactly disconcerting, but I am saddened of sponsorships. I used to gain some finish writing your e-mails.” by it. Where did I get off dreaming so confidence knowing that I could climb as Smiling at my own absurd joke, I know large in the first place? well as some sponsored climbers I knew. that my work lies not so much in climbing How, I wonder, is the torch passed? Now, with a couple of companies helping well, but in living well. That is the route, After the likes of Warren Harding, Royal to provide support for my trip, I think of laid down by others, I hope to follow. Robbins, John Bachar, John Long— all the unsponsored Yosemite dirtbags what is left to the dreamers of the new (i.e., my friends) who laugh lightheartedly Chris Kalman spends summers generation? Where those climbers about a casual walk up the Captain.

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