Posted on August 19, 2008 - at 8:30 am

Yosemite Museum Climbing Exhibit

While in Yosemite we had the good fortune of visiting during the Climbing Exhibit that was on display at the Yosemite Museum.  The free exhibit is an incredible journey back in time over the past century of climbing in Yosemite.

It was amazing to see the gear used on the first climbs in the Valley along with the gear used on the some of the early big walls like the Nose on El Cap.  The exhibits recounted stories and provided insight on what the motivations were for early climbers which was really cool, and a fair bit humbling.  (When you see the 10” hardware store nails that used to pass as protection you start to reevaluate what you think qualifies as scary when climbing with cams today)

As the exhibit reached more modern times they became less impressive in part owing to the fact that modern climbing has become a much more refined sport.  It wouldn’t really be all that impressive for them to have the cams that Tommy Caldwell used for his Nose free ascent on display would it??  The obvious highlight of the newer material was video of Lynn Hill on her free ascent of the Nose back in the 1990’s.  If you are in Yosemite before the exhibit closes in October, I highly recommend stopping by.  Here are a few pictures I don’t think I was supposed to take:

The Yosemite Climbing exhibit.  Loads of awesome rusty old gear in the middle and right from the olden days.  Loads of cool glossy photos on the left from recent times.

There are a lot of ways up El Cap

Mrs. Narc practicing her RURP placements…

On a side note, this post marks the 500th post on Climbingnarc.com.  Thanks for reading!