Yosemite in the Fifties: The Iron Age

(Hardback)

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Description

Companion to the classic Yosemite in the Sixties, this book uses the words of the climbers of the time and artfully restored photographs to chronicle the historic first ascents of Yosemites mile-high granite walls, the legendary personalities who risked their lives to climb them, and how their endeavors initiated the birth of adventure sports.
Better than half a century after the first ascent of El Capitan, the deeds of Yosemites 1950s-era Iron Age are no longer viewed as climbs or mere adventures. Rather, they are assaults on the human barrier, pushing that much higher.
Yosemite in the Fifties gives the stage almost entirely over to the original source material, the first-person narratives, archive photos (artfully restored), and memorabilia particular to the seminal ascents of the era.
These words, images, and design, when cast from critical angles, all reach across generations to resurrect vanished worlds. Yosemite in The Fifties is fashioned not so much as a book but as a wormhole back to an enchanted time in the history of exploration, and a classic era of Americana now lost in time.

Reviews

This is, without a doubt, one of the most exquisitely put together rock-climbing masterpieces that I have been asked to review in a long time. Climbskibouldermagazine

Author Bio

Climber and photographer Dean Fidelman, with John Long, has published three books: The Stonemasters (Stonemaster Press/Patagonia Books, 2009), StoneNudes (Stonemaster Press, 2010), and The Valley Climbers (Stonemaster Press, 2011). He lives in Capitola, CA. John Long is a widely published author of both fiction and nonfiction. The Stonemasters won the Grand Prize at the Banff Film and Book Festival. He lives in Venice, CA.