Early Years
“WHEN I STARTED CLIMBING THERE WEREN’T GYMS OR GUIDE SERVICES, IT WAS MENTOR-BASED BACK THEN, SO I READ EVERYTHING I COULD ABOUT CLIMBING. I HUNG OUT IN MY TOWN’S MOUNTAIN SHOP AND MET CLIMBERS AND STARTED ROPING UP WITH THEM. BACK THEN THAT’S HOW YOU LEARNED.”
Yager fell in love with climbing at 12 while growing up in Davis in northern California. Soon after he started driving, he picked up Warren Harding (who made the first ascent of El Cap via The Nose) hitchhiking; shortly after that, the two started climbing together. Meeting the visionary behind the first ascent of the Nose in 1958 gave Yager a greater appreciation for climbing history, specifically in Yosemite. Now he leans toward me and says, “When I started climbing, there weren’t gyms or guide services, it was mentorbased back then, so I read everything I could about climbing. I hung out in my town’s mountain shop and met climbers and started roping up with them. Back then that’s how you learned.” At age 18 in 1977, Yager and his climbing partner, Mike Corbett, ascended four El Cap routes including early ascents of Zodiac and Tangerine Trip, which, back then, were considered some of the hardest walls in the park. For decades, Yager kept up the fanatical pace, authoring
new routes in the park on the major walls including the South Face of Half Dome and the Southwest Face of Liberty Cap. He pushed standards as a free climber too, leaving his mark in history books with Karma with Dave Schultz, a still unrepeated 5.11R/X route on Half Dome that has rope-cut potential in a few spots. “The dikes on the route are so sharp that it was concerning. That’s why we did it with two ropes,” he said.
He left his mark on east side of the Sierra too, where he put up hundreds of climbs. He has over 300 first ascents in the surrounding Yosemite area, including the Buttermilks outside of Bishop, in the Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp in Tuolumne and the west side of the Sierra in Sonora. He’s also a prolific skier, with first ski descents to his name in the High Sierra. To make a living, Yager worked as a guide at the Yosemite Mountaineering School. As the years went on, his love for climbing history and overall appreciation for the sport continued to grow.
In 1992, John Salathé, the grandfather of big wall climbing in Yosemite, passed at age 93. Yager and Corbett put together a story about him for Climbing magazine with professional writer John Flynn. Fearing history would be forgotten if they didn’t do something after Salathé’s passing, Yager and Corbett began collecting historically significant climbing gear so their stories would live on.
“It woke me up with Salathé’s passing that no one talked about it for six months,” Yager told me. “I knew that history needed to be preserved and stories told. I knew all these climbers, now in their 80s, who shared their adventures with me. They carried on like teenagers. I knew their stories needed to be preserved and told, so they wouldn’t get lost.”
He and Corbett visited with Salathé’s friends and began collecting Yosemite climbing
artifacts, but the problem was they didn’t have anywhere to put them, so they crammed the stuff in boxes and filed it wherever Yager could: at a friend’s cabins, in garages, all over the place. The two men scored gear from the first ascent of The Nose, including a classic Stoveleg piton, hemp rope and various carabiners and haul bags. As their gear collection grew, their storage problems grew, too.
The years passed. Corbett and Yager’s partnership broke up, Yager took on the history project, and his gear-storage problems continued. Meanwhile, Yager raised his three kids just outside the park in El Portal, and his life began to shift. Nagging injuries in his neck – he’d later find out he broke his neck in a ski accident in 1980 – caused him to guide less and less, which was a relief, as taking teams up El Cap was “pretty burly, since I had to lead with three ropes and a full rack” he told me this morning. “As much as I loved it, it was taking a toll on me.”
His focus on the museum grew and he also started other projects in the park, most notably the annual cleanup Facelift, now in its sixteenth year, which indirectly helped his efforts with the museum. “Facelift helped change the perspective of climbers in the Park Service’s eyes. Before it there was a lot of animosity between the groups. I know it’s improved the relationship,” he said. Today, almost everyone who climbs in the park knows about the Facelift and Yager is credited with being responsible for the removal of one million pounds of trash from the park since its beginning.
As Facelift grew, he observed climbers, concession workers, and Park Service employees working side-by-side. There had been tension between the rangers and climbers since before Yager moved to Yosemite in the late ’70s. But Facelift helped change that. As relations between the groups became more friendly, he
noticed more doors opening.
Yager’s climbing gear collection didn’t just stay in boxes during this time. He had small displays in the Winter Club room and in the bar at Ahwahnee Hotel (now called the Majestic). Sometimes his displays would show up at the Yosemite Museum in the Village, but these were all short-lived. He also did exhibits at the Gene Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles and at the California Historical Society in San Francisco. Items on display included John Bachar’s chalk bag, experimental pitons from the Sierra Club from the early ’30s, a leather vest that Harding used to Dülfersitz rappel, a spike from the 1875 first ascent of Half Dome and John Salathé’s climbing gear.
“‘IT WOKE ME UP WITH SALATHÉ’S PASSING THAT NO ONE TALKED ABOUT IT FOR SIX MONTHS,’ YAGER TOLD ME. ‘I KNEW THAT HISTORY NEEDED TO BE PRESERVED AND STORIES TOLD.’”