By MICHAEL BRICK of the New York Times
Published: July 8, 2009
John Bachar, a rock climber who inspired awe as
a daredevil, condescension as an anachronism and eventually respect as
a legend, fell to his death Sunday from a rock formation near his home
in California. He was 51.
Click photo to enlarge
Los Angeles Times
John Bachar free-climbing in the Yosemite Valley in 1984.
After years of climbing
without protection, sustaining his only major injuries in a car wreck,
Bachar was confirmed dead by the sheriff of Mono County, Calif., where
he lived in the town of Mammoth Lakes.
“He was an artist,” said Dean Fidelman, a contemporary who has climbed with him for decades. “He transcended the sport.”
Bachar left his mark across the Yosemite Valley, the worldwide focal
point of elite climbing in the 1970s, by making terrifying ascents of
spectacular rock formations like El Capitan.
To critics, Bachar
cut a stubborn, self-righteous figure, uncompromising on matters of
daring style and minimal gear. To admirers, he represented the
vanishing purity of a simpler age, a time when rocks and mountains were
to be ascended only from the ground up, without advance rigging. For
about half a decade at his prime, Bachar enjoyed a reputation
comparable only to that of Royal Robbins in the 1950s.
“Since
Bachar, I don’t think there was anybody you could say was the greatest,
most influential climber in the world in his time, ” said Pete
Mortimer, a well-known climber based in Boulder, Colo.
In the early 1970s, Bachar arrived in the Yosemite Valley with
a pair of boots, an alto saxophone and a stunning physique, joining a
group of brash young climbers known as the Stonemasters. The big-wall
climbing styles of the 1960s were making way for a style known as free
climbing, whose practitioners sought to minimize their gear, using
ropes only for protection. Bachar took that kind of self-reliance to
levels that could appear dangerous.
“If ever a Stonemaster
carried the name on his sleeve (and he scribbled it on his boots as
well), it was John Bachar, Grand Templar of the entire movement,” wrote
John Long, a founder of the group, in an online history.
Bachar once spent an entire season climbing without using a rope. He
offered $10,000 to anyone who could keep up with him for a day. He
found no takers.
His exploits soon gained notice in the American Alpine Journal,
where one diarist wrote that “his extraordinary free-climbing talent,
coupled with an awesome physique, polished by the mental discipline of
years of experience, place him at a level few attain.”
As the
sport splintered into ever narrower specializations in the 1980s,
Bachar fell from grace among some climbers. Some adapted his
unharnessed physical techniques to the safe confines of boulder
climbing, while others sought to scale more difficult pitches with
bolts and other gear that could sometimes permanently mark the rock
formations.
“John never really pushed his ethos on anyone, but
because he was so good and made no bones about it, he was often
attacked — simply because he represented something so different than
the changing mainstream,” said John Middendorf, a climber based in
Australia. “He was really quite Zen in this regard.”
Bachar’s
vision of purity found renewed interest in the 1990s, as a new
generation of climbers took issue with bolting and other practices they
perceived as unnatural, irresponsible or even cheating. He found work
designing climbing shoes, establishing himself as a mentor.
In 2006, while driving through Nevada at night, Bachar flipped his car; his business partner, Steve Karafa, died in the wreck.
“He
definitely felt, after that, that Steve’s death was on him,” said
Nathan Smith, a friend and climbing photographer. “He was the one
driving. I think he felt responsible for it.”
Bachar returned to climbing while still recovering from his own injuries in a neck brace.
Around
noon Sunday, he fell from a formation called Dike Wall, not far from
his home. He is survived by a son, Tyrus. He also leaves climbing
routes bearing his name across the Yosemite Valley.
