Wall of Early Morning Light
In 1971, Robbins completed the second ascent, with Don Lauria, of the Wall of Early Morning Light on El Capitan, with the (controversial) intention of erasing the route as they climbed it.
Their ascent closely followed the 1970 first ascent by Warren Harding and Dean Caldwell, completed with a heavy-handed reliance on bolts - a method that offended Robbins and other clean climbing advocates. Harding had left all his bolts in the rock; Robbins and Lauria used the bolts to repeat the climb; and Robbins then chopped the heads off the bolts behind them. After two pitches, Robbins stopped chopping the bolts because (according to Lauria) "the quality of the aid climbing was much higher than he had ever expected of Harding or Caldwell and, of course, it was also taking us an awful long time to chop all those goddam bolts."
Read more about this topic: Royal Robbins
Famous quotes containing the words wall of, wall, early, morning and/or light:
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Cuts through the wall like a knife,
Then blind, drying, and small
And driven to cold water,
Dies of the water of life....”
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“True Bramin, in the morning meadows wet,
Expound the Vedas of the violet.”
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Not present on the year
At any other period.”
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