Camp 4: Recollections of a Yosemite Rockclimber

Rating:
Summary: very informative
Review: As an avid climber I also find my interest in the past has always been sparked.If you want an insiders view of the "golden age"of Yosemite climbing then this is a great read!!!As Steve Roper was there.Ive been a climber since 72 and early on Yosemite "rules" were what everyone went by.Roper brings you right into the minds and personalitys of the true stars and heros of this great sport.

Rating:
Summary: Enthralling and Exact
Review: I was a Yosemite climber in the 1970's and met a number of the major characters (Frost, Chouinard, Robbins, Harding). Steve Roper has done an incredible job of capturing the ephemeral facts and essential spirit of the climbers and times. He is frank about their weaknesses: "We were thoughtless and immature"(pg 154) and "...we were puerile youths. We had been taught the correct values at home, yet we rebelled against everything," (pg 155-6), referring to the troubles they caused in the Vally. He is honest about his own failures, both in his own character and on climbs he could not do. He is enthusiastic about the successes of the pioneers and freely gives credit to those who deserve it. Steve not only gives you facts, he gives you feelings and insights. You can't get better history than this.

The only criticism I have is that the book ends. I could have kept reading for many more days. If you want to FEEL what it was like, buy this book. I will bet you can't read it only once.

Rating:
Summary: How It All Began
Review: Steve Roper is meticulous. This is an excellent history, and I feel positive and secure that Mr. Roper's records are as accurate and precise as they can possibly be of that rowdy and rambunctious world. I enjoyed reading about the historical climbers and the more social rock climbers of the '30s. Those were the days when families came, climbed a little, picnicked a lot, and a good time was had by all.

The Golden Age of the '60s, of which Steve was a part, was a time of great improvements in equipment and methods, and also a first crack at some of the awesome spires that were heretofore thought "impossible." It was wild, giddy and reckless, adjectives I would never apply to Steve Roper. Mr. Roper is austere in his beliefs of the "purity" of the climb and who is worthy. Though he recounts a few wild escapades, I had the feeling he did not approve. His callousness toward the first Camp 4 fatality made me back up and reread. Yep, I read it right, though I'm sure he was trying to keep up the "Right Stuff" façade in the face of what must have been a great shock to an 18-year old boy. That is the problem; there are so few that Roper considers to have the Right Stuff. If they were women, they were mere appendages. If male and had the misfortune to be born after 1955, they were not pure enough.

John Long's "Rock Jocks, Wall Rats and Hang Dogs" is devoted to Camp 4 in the '70s. John is Steve's polar opposite except in their mutual love for and expertise in rock climbing. John is wildly funny and sometimes just wild, but I had more a feeling of place when reading his book.

As another reviewer said, "Camp 4" is a must-have for West Coast rock enthusiasts. It is considered the Bible of the Golden Age.
-sweetmolly-Amazon.com Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: How It All Began
Review: Steve Roper is meticulous. This is an excellent history, and I feel positive and secure that Mr. Roper's records are as accurate and precise as they can possibly be of that rowdy and rambunctious world. I enjoyed reading about the historical climbers and the more social rock climbers of the '30s. Those were the days when families came, climbed a little, picnicked a lot, and a good time was had by all.

The Golden Age of the '60s, of which Steve was a part, was a time of great improvements in equipment and methods, and also a first crack at some of the awesome spires that were heretofore thought "impossible." It was wild, giddy and reckless, adjectives I would never apply to Steve Roper. Mr. Roper is austere in his beliefs of the "purity" of the climb and who is worthy. Though he recounts a few wild escapades, I had the feeling he did not approve. His callousness toward the first Camp 4 fatality made me back up and reread. Yep, I read it right, though I'm sure he was trying to keep up the "Right Stuff" façade in the face of what must have been a great shock to an 18-year old boy. That is the problem; there are so few that Roper considers to have the Right Stuff. If they were women, they were mere appendages. If male and had the misfortune to be born after 1955, they were not pure enough.

John Long's "Rock Jocks, Wall Rats and Hang Dogs" is devoted to Camp 4 in the '70s. John is Steve's polar opposite except in their mutual love for and expertise in rock climbing. John is wildly funny and sometimes just wild, but I had more a feeling of place when reading his book.

As another reviewer said, "Camp 4" is a must-have for West Coast rock enthusiasts. It is considered the Bible of the Golden Age.
-sweetmolly-Amazon.com Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Camp 4
Review: This book has been very popular among enthusiasts of climbing history, and is certainly worth looking at for the rare snapshots which it contains. It's particularly timely now with the recent fight to preserve Camp 4.

However, I found Roper's moralism, his unremitting attempts to make climbing Meaningful and to extol those climbers whom he feels are somehow Pure, tiresome. There are both gods and devils in Roper's version of the Valley, and he gets pretty bitchy when he talks about the devils.

It's the canonical Valley history, though, so read it anyway.

Rating:
Summary: The Golden Era!!!
Review: This is probably the best account of the Golden Age of Yosemite climbing that has come off the presses. Very honest portrayal of the figures and players by someone who has there to see it all. Very moving, and also very humurous at times. Roper has truly captured the spirit of a long gone era for the younger generation to enjoy and look up to. Thanks.

Rating:
Summary: The Golden Era!!!
Review: While I doubt anybody could do complete justice to the history of rock climbing in Yosemite, Roper's focus provides a wonderful personal perspective on the most important twenty years of the development of this activity in Yosemite.

Since he knew, and climbed with, many of the pioneers of modern free and aid climbing, this book is often more valuable as a source of anecdote than as a more detached "history". Taken as such, though, it is well-written and entertaining.