Warren Harding (climber) - The Nose

The Nose

Within the year, Harding was teaming up with Mark Powell, one of the premier Yosemite climbers of the 1950s. After Harding had been part of a group which failed to climb the magnificent and vertical Northwest face of Half Dome, he and Powell found themselves in the Valley, too late by a couple of days to make the first ascent of that feature as another group, led by Harding's southern Californian rival, Royal Robbins, had just completed it.

Harding met the group at the top. "My congratulations," he recounted, "were hearty and sincere, but inside, the ambitious dreamer in me was troubled." He, Powell, and equipment inventor Bill 'Dolt' Feuerer later conspired. "In the fit of egotistical picque, we grumbled around the Valley for a couple of days, trying to figure out what to do. The solution was simple; any climb less than Half Dome was beneath us; only a great climb would do." At this point, as big wall historian Doug Scott notes, Harding was truly exceptional. The 3,000 foot face of El Capitan was so 'appallingly higher' than the other features in Yosemite, it was 'ignored by the majority of climbers.'

Harding, Powell and Feuerer began in July 1957. Unlike the single-push 'alpine' style used on Half Dome, they chose to fix lines between 'camps' in the style used in the Himalaya. Attempting to get half way on the first push, they were foiled by the long hand sized and larger cracks. Frank Tarver cut the legs off of several wood stoves, and gave the team these "proto-type bong pitons. This crack systems later became world famous as the "Stove Legs Cracks".

Compelled by the National Park Service to stop until after Labor Day due to the crowds forming in El Capitan meadows, the team had a major setback when Powell suffered a compound leg fracture on another climbing trip. Powell dropped out, and Feuerer became disillusioned. Harding, true to his legendary endurance and willingness to find new partners, 'continued', as he later put it, 'with whatever "qualified" climbers I could con into this rather unpromising venture.' Feuerer stayed on as technical advisor, even constructing a bicycle wheeled 'cart' which could be hauled up to the half-way ledge which bears his name today, 'Dolt Tower'; but Wayne Merry, George Whitmore, and Rich Calderwood now became the main team, with Merry sharing lead chores with Harding.

In the Fall, two more pushes got them to the 2,000 foot level. Finally, a fourth push starting in the late Fall would likely be the last. The team had originally fixed their route with 1/2 inch manilla lines (use of which sends shivers through the thoughts of later climbers used to nylon); and their in situ lines would have weakened more over the Winter. In the cooling November environment, they worked their way slowly upward, with the seven days it took to push to within the last 300 feet blurring into a 'monotonous grind' if, Harding adds, 'living and working 2500 feet above the ground on a granite face' could be considered 'monotonous.' After sitting out a storm for three days at this level, they hammered their way up the final portion. Harding struggled fifteen hours and placed 28 expansion bolts by hand through the night up an overhanging headwall, topping out at 6 AM. The whole thing had taken 45 days, with more than 3400 feet of climbing including huge 'pendulum' swings across the face; and uncounted 'mileage' of laboriously hauling bags with prusik knots up ropes and sliding by 'rappeling' back down.

The team had finished what is by any standard one of the 'great classics' of modern rock climbing. The Nose Route is often called the most famous rock climbing route in North America, and in good Fall weather can have anywhere between three and ten different parties strung out along its thirty rope lengths to the top. On the 50th anniversary of the ascent, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring the achievement of the original party.