REWIND | Paul Piana on Mentorship, Partnership, and Big Dreams
Today we REWIND to this classic episode with living-legend and climbing pioneer Paul Piana, 35 years after he and Todd Skinner completed their historic first free ascent of El Cap’s Salathé Wall on June 15, 1988, helping to shape the dreams of many generations of climbers to come. Lynn Hill doing the Nose a few years later, Tommy Caldwell on the Dawn Wall, and the new generation of climbers like Connor Herson, Jordan Cannon, Brittany Goris and Amity Warme.
And most important, what this latest generation has pulled from Paul and his contemporaries, is that it’s important to do it all – bouldering, sport, big walls, both adventure and difficulty, and a reverence for history without letting the mythology hold you back.
Click HERE to hear Kris’s poem The Cowboy King, mentioned in the episode, which features over 100 classic route names from the Lander area.
We’ve still got a handful of signed copies of Paul’s 1997 book Big Walls: Breakthroughs on the Free-Climbing Frontier available. With every purchase, you’re donating to The Todd Skinner Legacy Fund, which aims to support the continuing mission of the late Todd Skinner by funding endeavors and programs in his spirit.
This episode originally aired on October 7, 2020; to see more click HERE.
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Paul Piana 00:00
And I'd see a picture of them and go wow, the way it looks is what I want to feel. And hopefully it would be mastery, not terror. But often it was terror.
Kris Hampton 00:37
What's up everybody? I'm your host Kris Hampton. Welcome to the Power Company Podcast, brought to you by powercompanyclimbing.com. Today is a rewind back to a conversation first published in October 2020. with climbing legend, Paul Piana. We chose this episode to air today because it was 35 years ago this month that Paul and Todd Skinner topped out on the first free ascent of El Cap via the Salathe Wall, nearly dying in the process, but helping to shape the dreams of many generations of climbers to come. Lynn Hill doing the nose a few years later, Tommy Caldwell on the Dawn Wall and the new generation of climbers like Connor Herson, Jordan Cannon, Brittany Goris, and Amity Warme. And most important, what this latest generation has pulled from Paul and his contemporaries is that it's important to do it all: bouldering, sport, big walls, both adventure and difficulty, and a reverence for history without letting the mythology hold you back. In this conversation, we talked about several things you can find links to at the blog post in your show notes. First, I mentioned the cowboy poem, and I recently put a full length recording of it online on the plug tone outdoors podcast channel. It's a two verse cowboy poem that tells the story of a gambler. And it uses the route names that Paul, Todd, Frank Dusl, Greg Collins, and more added to Lander area climbing, uses over 100 of those route names and you can hear it if you follow the links in your show notes. We also discuss his book, big walls: breakthroughs on the free climbing frontier. Many years ago, when Paul was having some financial trouble, Amy Skinner bought every copy of the book Paul had. Those sat in a garage for many years, until I asked Amy to pull them out, get Paul to sign them. And we could use the profits from that to help Amy and the Todd Skinner Legacy Fund. We still have a few of those signed copies. And you can pick those up right there at the link in your show notes. So now 35 years after he realized one of his own dreams, and jumpstarted the dreams of so many others, we're going to rewind to this conversation about mentorship, partnership, and dreaming big with climbing legend, Paul Piana. Let's get into it.
Kris Hampton 03:15
Now you can get down to the needles more, is that part of the plan. Are you going to get out climbing more?
Paul Piana 03:22
Yeah, I mean, not as much as I used to, Sure. And I'm not really looking to do things hard. I just, you know, because I'm in not very good shape. And I'm very arthritic. And all sorts of geezer infirmities.
Kris Hampton 03:41
You're climbing in the same area now that you learned to climb in essentially, right? You know, one of the things I want to talk to you about is, two of the things actually, big dreams and partnerships and how those two things kind of go hand in hand. And when you started you had these really, these mentors that made a big difference in your climbing life. Ren Fenton and Paul Mule. Is that his name?
Paul Piana 04:14
Well, he was later. But I had, there were some older climbers, older to me when I was 12 and 14. Yeah. There was a guy named Charlie Bear that was a local. And these guys would get together with, there was occasionally outing clubs at the School of Mines or Black Hills State. And there would be groups of people that Charlie and this guy named dark van Huglin who was ancient. He was probably in his late 50s Then but he they would gather these students and go out and climb and then you know, they were doing just easy climbs. Sure. Summit bagging, having fun. Yeah. And climbing harder than I was by a longshot. You know, because I didn't know what to do until Ren came. I found him and pestered him enough. Yeah. And then every August, this was later, but Bob Kamps and Mark Powell and Dave Rearick would come and Goldstone from the east. Right. And mostly, I just kind of watched and listened, because they kind of didn't come there to, to drag a little kid around, you know. But it was really neat to see what they did and how they did it. Do it, did it? It was pretty cool.
Kris Hampton 05:44
When when you were like first pestering Ren and, and him taking you under his wing. Was he at that time interested in difficulty? Was he trying to climb harder and harder things? Or was it purely, I just want to go out and have these adventures?
Paul Piana 06:04
I think at that point, he wasn't very old then. But he was already really a bad alcoholic. And he loved to climb. But he wasn't trying to do new routes or do harder climbs, right. He was enjoying doing some of the climbs he pioneered and then other ones and I think he would have preferred a better partner. Because I remember once he showed me, he showed me how to actually tie in with climbers knots, not just square knots and stuff, you know. But the things he taught me probably saved me a couple of times. Sure. No,
Kris Hampton 06:48
Yeah, I think that's one of the big values of mentorship, you know, we we tend to overlook now because there's so much information out there about here's how you do this safely. Here's, you know, you can Google it and find anything now. So that passed down knowledge doesn't happen in the same way that it used to.
Paul Piana 07:10
Yeah. And it was all pitons. They were all, and one day, Ren had ordered from REI, I think some and they came just those ancient nuts that you threaded. They didn't, you know, it was just like he could put five or 50 of them on a sling.
Kris Hampton 07:25
They're just like aluminum wedges with, Yeah, aluminum.
Paul Piana 07:29
I thought you gotta be kidding, you know, that's not going to hold. But I don't know that he or I ever fell on one. But I just want to hope this isn't gonna fail, you know. And now Geez, you never see pitons used very much in the needles you do if you're doing first ascents, but that's just because of the nature of the rock. Sure. Ridiculous. We used to go out and like, wow, look at that, there's a piton up there. And we'd climb the thing just to get the pitons. Yeah, you know.
Kris Hampton 08:07
Yeah, I was out hunting around an area we've been bouldering in for a few years now and came across this kind of steep wall, maybe 40 to 60 feet tall. And it's got all these big horizontal cracks running through it. And sure enough, there's a piton, couple of pitons really up on the wall. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, super interesting to see that, you know, climbers have been searching this stuff out. And you were just showing us photos on your phone of this limestone cliff that you found. And, you know, if you scroll through my phone, it looks exactly the same. There's just photos of random rocks that I come across. And I have to take a photo of you know, so there's just this, this innate love that we have for exploration and yeah.
Paul Piana 08:56
That was really, I was delighted, Deb could care less. Exactly. Yeah. We were just having a picnic with the puppies. And it was just a sunny cool day, you know, and but it was really pretty an inherent going, wow. Yeah. When did this come? You know, it's like you're expecting like a plant that comes out of the soil overnight, you know, is like, wow, this just grew here. Yeah. And then you look at that and you think this is this is just as good as Spearfish Canyon. So I've told a couple people about it, but I haven't told them where it is. Yes. Yeah. Secret. That's a good plan. Yeah, and I'm not fit enough frankly, to climb on that kind of rock here. It'd be devastating because I have no chip. But yeah, but geez. You still have to go out there and do a little reconning.
Kris Hampton 09:49
Yeah, you have to. So in your book, big walls, I read about you having a photo of Royal Robbins. And I think in your dorm room, and, you know, this, this ties into this whole, having these mentors, you know, watching these people have these adventures, you know, go on these, these big grand expeditions and that photo of of Royal that you had on your dorm room wall. It reminded me of something that Galen Rowell used to say about having phantom mentors, you know, people that, that were your mentors from afar that maybe you hadn't even met at that point, you know, and Galen Rowell was one of my phantom mentors. And I just loved everything he did, photography and adventure wise, and you and Todd were phantom mentors for me, you know, reading all these things in Ohio, and, you know, kind of, kind of hitching my dreams onto onto what you and Todd were doing and Galen was doing and until that picked up enough steam that my own dreams could start to develop on their own, you know, and I think it's so important to have those those people to hitch your, your thoughts and ideas and dreams onto you know, was was royal that way for you? Is that why that photo showed up? I think I think you said the photo was of him on Half Dome.
Paul Piana 11:36
Yeah, I had that kind of phantom mentors. Yeah. There were there were only climbers really in the Black Hills needles in August. Right. And then there'd be some college kids from Black Hills. But the thing that really got me was my dad had business often in Denver, and sometimes he'd take the family down. And there was a motel with a nice pool and good place for kids. Yeah. And I went down and I had already become a climber which means I probably haven't climbed anything even as 5.0, at that time, because I didn't even know what that meant. Anyway, I pestered him to take me to a mountain climbing store, right. And we went to boulder and went to Jerry mountain sports. And it was kind of like... They made down jackets, sleeping bags, and they also they even had carabiners made with their name on it and pitons and so I went down there and I had, probably had $15 or something and I went down and it was really difficult to, I didn't get any hard iron because it was too expensive. But I bought some you know 50 cent pitons of different shapes and a couple of carabiners Jerry Mountain Sports carabiners, but what really did it more important... and I didn't have a rope yet either. I used Ren's or literally just like the old timers said, a piece of rope. And it was about a three eighths inch rope,
Kris Hampton 13:34
whatever you could get your hands on.
Paul Piana 13:35
I took it through a pulley, I took the pulley apart to have the rope and it was about 35 feet. Anyway, what what really inspired me was I bought the first "Ascent", which was 1967 and a couple books. And one was, I still have it, it's called "Rock Climbers in Action in Snowdonia". And I got that and I think Christian Boddington's "I chose to climb" and then this Ascent magazine and those pictures and stories jacked me up beyond any climb I could have done for decades. Because they, you know, they'd do whatever they could when they were able to take that one day a week off to go climbing and they'd leave their wives and their family and everything and get to people on a motor scooter and go. And the climbs they did were pretty damn impressive. Yeah. And I, just the philosophy of that "I chose to climb" and those black and white pictures of these people way out, you know. And that wow, and the black and white photos reminded me of the needles because it's often quite black and white there you Yeah. And those guys were my real heroes. And Royal was kind of really not secondary, but those Brits, really those photos, you know, they were the rock climbers, I think really the first, they were really psyched because they had these little ratty cliffs. Yeah. And,
Kris Hampton 15:24
and they were very interested in difficulty, doing things harder, being the first to do something...
Paul Piana 15:30
and on wanting to like... and Royal fit in with one upmanship. You know, yeah, and even, you know, more. Well, I want to say that the other climbers I met later like Bob Kamps, and Mark Powell, and those guys, and they, they were more subtle in their criticism. But it was really fun. You know, it was just fun to hear that. And it was good times, but then they would go go home. I wouldn't see them until the next August.
Kris Hampton 16:05
Do you remember a moment or a time or some sort of linchpin that allowed you to start thinking, Oh, I can do the things that they do, that I'm I'm ready for that stuff?
Paul Piana 16:22
Well, Ren would take me climbing and I could always get up everything he led. And I learned that my Keds didn't work very well, which are like tennis shoes, right. But in seventh grade when wrestling started, you could get Keds brand...
Kris Hampton 16:54
Like wrestling shoes?
Paul Piana 16:55
Yes. That's what I'm trying to say. So and they were
Kris Hampton 16:58
pretty soft sole?
Paul Piana 17:00
They look kinda like EB'S.
Kris Hampton 17:02
Not a whole lot of structure. Right?
Paul Piana 17:04
Yeah. But they work pretty well. Yeah. And I could follow whatever he was willing to lead at that time. And that was really fun. But I had no idea what a grade was like, 5.8, 5. a million. Right. And the Brits, you know, we called things severe and hard, severe, my buddies and I that we didn't even know what we were saying, because that's what you're reading. Yeah. And we just assumed that it was we, we could admit to climbing severe but not hard, severe, right. But we didn't know what it meant. Exactly. And I still have those books are pretty worn out. I had my dad, for some reason gave me a briefcase. So here I was in sixth and seventh grade carrying a briefcase with my climbing books.
Kris Hampton 17:54
Yeah, you knew it was gonna become a lifelong thing.
Paul Piana 17:59
Yeah. And it's still, it's just, it's still just thinking about doing certain things inspires me. And I think back on those old books, you know, I read about my adventures, that's what... and then I believe I was doing those climbs, you know, yeah.
Kris Hampton 18:21
That I think it's so important for people to document those adventures, and those big dreams, whether it's success or failure on those big adventures, it's so important to have that documentation and to allow someone to read that and then build their own adventures on top of it, you know, and, and that's something I think has gone the same way of mentorship, that sort of disappearing, you know, and it's so easy to just put out a video of your, your recent adventure and not really have to think deeply about it in order to write a story about it that you know, is going to convey that emotion, that feeling, that adventure, to the people reading it and you know, give them this, this bigger dream, you know, so, and I appreciate you taking all the time to write out your adventures, your dreams, you know, and in articles and books and because it allows other people to, to dream on top of that.
Paul Piana 19:40
Well, in fact, I've been looking forward to being retired because I thought there are a lot of stories I haven't told. And I'd like to tell those stories before my mind goes, I actually have a some kind of problem. I can't remember what it's called, but it's kind of like senility a little, coming on a little early. But it's kind of scary. So I'm if I'm halting that's because I can't find the word. Yeah. So but I would like to tell some of the stories, big and small. Before, you know, similar to that, shortened stories really. Except they are mostly true.
Kris Hampton 20:28
Mostly. And that's, and that's important that they're only mostly true, you know. And I'm, I'm glad you are thinking about putting those things out there. Because I think, like I said, those adventures, and those written stories means so much for the imagination for the, you know, the climber who's just starting to dream on their own and starting to understand, I've been reading about these mythical heroes, and maybe I can do the same things that they did, you know. When, when I was beginning to crack climb, and, you know, really digging into that world. It was you and Todd, it was Hudon and Jones, you know, Kauk and Bachar, you know, my partners and I would pretend that we were those people when we were out adventuring.
Paul Piana 21:22
I did the same thing. Yeah, even those, some of those people were younger than me, but I still pretended to be them. Because they were so damn good. Yeah, you know, and I see a picture, just a picture of them doing something. And go wow, that, that's.... the way it looks, that's what I want to feel, right. Yeah. And hopefully it would be mastery, not terror. Yeah. But often it was terror.
Kris Hampton 21:51
Yeah. With with a brief moment of mastery, and that's when the photo was taken.
Paul Piana 21:55
Yeah, yeah, you look at that. And then the next day you go out climbing and there's there's no mastery. Yeah. That'd be funny. Oh, yeah. But it was it was cool. And I still do that. I see these young guys like Chris Hirsch. Gee, they're so good. Yeah. You know, and it probably happens to every microgeneration Absolutely. And you're just going holy cow. And it... you know, why we couldn't climb harder early? I don't know. We didn't believe, I think.
Kris Hampton 22:31
yeah, well, you know, Chris Hirsch has all of these, you know, training grounds already created for him. You know, all these people have done these 5.11's, 5.12's, 5.13's. And, and he can build off of those into something bigger, you know, and that's the necessity of what, what you guys, what Kauk and Bachar what, you know, Hudon and Jones did. When you met Todd, you met him at UW, right? Did he have the same dreams? Or was he kind of just learning what what that was all about?
Paul Piana 23:16
Well, he had it... well, in a way I don't think he was thinking of becoming a great rock climber. It was, it was fun. Yeah. But his dad and his uncle Courtney were really influential. Courtney having gone to winter over the South Pole a number of times. Yeah. And they'd done climbing. And his dad was a survival instructor during World War II. And well, actually just I think, just right after that, but definitely the Korean War. And just all of those adventures, and they were in the mountains. And there was a guy I can't, Holly could tell you the name of this guy... I can't think of it now. But he was one of the very last true mountain men. You know, he wore skins and lived in the mountains always, right. And he had these little cabins built all over. And they were just lean to's essentially. And Clem, their granddad would give Bob to this trapper and say, well just take the boy for the season. And let him learn. Yeah, he didn't say teach him. He said "Let him learn." Right. And that's one way they became such good guides up there is because Bob knew all the and then Courtney and you know, and they taught survival, you know, in the military. And they just had you know... they weren't saying, oh gee, I wish we could be the first to climb The Nose. They weren't so interested in that. But they did do this, I want to say second or third ascent of ship rock.
Kris Hampton 25:11
Oh, wow. I didn't know that.
Paul Piana 25:13
Yeah. Partial new route. Yeah. That just, you know, really cool stuff.
Kris Hampton 25:20
Yeah. So Todd had the adventure already built in.
Paul Piana 25:24
Yeah. Yeah. And you can imagine having the whole Wind River range when you're a kid, right, you know, of course, they had to chop wood. And one of the jobs that Todd didn't like, it had, have you ever been to their camp?
Kris Hampton 25:40
I haven't.
Paul Piana 25:41
Well, they had these, you know, an outhouse. But they had like four-holers. Yeah, you know, yep. Todd's job was to make sure they were stocked with necessities and that they were clean. And his job was to every day, take some slurry of lye around the room, wash the rings. Yeah. And then he forgot to get some fresh water to flush all that off. And he wasn't like 30 seconds. He went over here to get a bucket. And his uncle Monty who was really grouchy came in and sat there. And he took a while, you know, reading or something. And then it started to burn and blister you know... "Todd Skinner!" and then he said a lot of other different kinds of words. Oh, I think that that was one of my favorite stories. Yeah.
Kris Hampton 26:40
Just fitting, that it happened to the grouchy uncle.
Paul Piana 26:42
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, he's a really nice guy, but he just had a sour persona, you know, but he was he was a really good guy. It was just, if he was mad, he wasn't really good.
Kris Hampton 26:54
Yeah, you need to have those, especially in a family full of big personalities. You got to have the grouchy one. So Vedauwoo is what you guys had, which isn't exactly the winds, you know, there's nothing big in Vedauwoo. Is that where you and Todd really started, or you? You've met Todd there. But did the two of you really start focusing on difficulty at that point? Because, you know, Vedauwoo's, pretty small, even by one pitch standards. Yeah.
Paul Piana 27:29
Well, for me. It was new routes more than anything. And when I was at school, the first time I had probably, the hardest thing I climbed there was Fall wall. And I noticed Spider God, the direct start, essentially to fall wall. And I dreamed about that for four years. Yeah. And there's a friend of mine, Doug Cairns, he was a really good climber probably still is, I just haven't seen him forever. And he was doing some hard climbs there. And of course, the Coloradans were. Anyway, I thought about that for four years. And I remember coming back on leave and going climbing with Doug and I confided my dream of, to do this climb. And he said, Well, it'll be there for you, you know. And I came back and as soon as the weather got good, a climbing buddy from New Castle, Kelly Thorpe. He was he liked to climb, but it didn't matter if he actually did. He just loved to go out and hike and climb. He was a perfect belayer and so I went out and climbed Spider God. And that was, that was really a kind of a turning point. Because it was, it was pretty hard slab, you know. And I hadn't been climbing much. And so it was kind of an eye opener that well, gee, I can... why don't I just do more of this? Yeah. Because like Royal wrote that the prize is the first. And I took that to heart. Yeah. And I became an I still am greedy about this stuff. You know, there's these things that I haven't told Chris Hirsch yet. Yeah, you know, I've pointed him a lot at a lot of routes that I already had equipped, and I just had not finished them. And of course, he I had the gear in a lot of these things. I'm talking about the sport area at Rushmore. Yeah. And I'd point them out to him and he'd just climb and then Oh, that was a nice climb. That was really fun. And so I'd go to follow it now and I fall off the fourth move and I couldn't get through it anymore, you know? So but it was, you know, it's that kind of thing. It's I really thought that doing first ascents was really important because that's the books, the English books, Royal's books. Galen later on. And it just seemed like that was important. Yeah. Plus, I always loved coming up with odd, Most people think they're odd route names like Spider God. Right. And I don't I can't remember where I got that name. But it's a funny name. Yeah.
Kris Hampton 30:37
I think a lot of the names, you know, and you've heard me perform the cowboy poem multiple times and, and that, that's the inspiration for that, is all of the names you and Todd and Steve and, you know, the other first ascentionists around here in Lander had such a poetic sensibility to your names, that it just led me into this, wow, I have to use these these names to make a greater, you know, a comprehensive list of them that tells a story that is a poem. So to me the names mean, a lot, you know, so it's interesting that that was a, that was a reason for you to go out and do these firsts. So you can give them these these fun names. You know, and I love that you're taking those those first ascents, these relatively small things in Vedauwoo lead into these much bigger things for you. And I appreciate the way that in the book, big walls it you start with all these little first a sense, you know, you talk about Todd and Renegade, which is small in stature, but but much bigger in the grand scheme of things in use in Yosemite, you know, in this place where these big walls are surrounding you. But the small thing means a lot, and you tell the stories of Fourth of July crack and 11 Cent Moon in Vedauwoo. And just what they meant toward your progression into these bigger things. Where did the big dream to do the four walls that you talk about in big walls, which are El Cap, Proboscis, Mount Hooker, here in Wyoming, and Half Dome, where did the dream to do those big four walls originate?
Paul Piana 32:47
I think the photos because like the head wall looked like photos that people have climbed, right there, you know, 60 foot long on the ground type things. A lot of times, I was inspired by if you could see a crack system that was pretty neat, and also Vedauwoo was quite quite a neat playground to learn there. Especially the flares, I really got into liking the flares.
Kris Hampton 33:20
I think it's one of the best places to learn crack climbing anywhere.
Paul Piana 33:23
And there were some routes, some routes I did there that were almost as hard as say the the head wall, maybe even more technical. But it wasn't, you didn't have to worry about being scared so far off the ground. So you get used to that. And then if you think about it, you can fall a lot farther safely than you can in Vedauwoo.
Kris Hampton 33:48
oh, yeah, for sure.
Paul Piana 33:52
I lost the track of what we were talking about...
Kris Hampton 33:54
So, you know, did that did the dream of those big four walls originate? In Vedauwoo?
Paul Piana 34:00
Yeah, pretty much. We'd sit there and you know, again, watching, looking at photos and you see, well, gee, that looks like part of such and so, you know why...
Kris Hampton 34:11
You know, so if I can climb this 40 feet, why can't I do that? Over and over and over?
Paul Piana 34:18
Yeah. And we talked about going out there a lot. And then Todd, all of a sudden just started climbing full time, essentially, right? Making money during hunting season. And also, I was doing some slideshows not like we've morphed into doing that, but I did slideshows and sometimes, you know, I get to have somebody that gives me 40 bucks or something to come show slides. And Todd really took that to heart and especially watching Galen Rowell's show because he didn't have a dissolve unit, but he had two slide projectors, you'd push a button and this one would light up right and this one and they didn't dissolve. They just click click, click, click right. But it was pretty clever because you could have a stop action sequence of moves, too. And that was relevant, revelatory to me. Wow, that's really neat. Of course, then you had to get another slide projector.
Kris Hampton 35:26
So you were thinking in terms of like, not only just I want to do these things, but also logistically, how can we make it happen? How can we fund it? You know, creating these slideshows, the whole, the whole package was kind of being planned together. Is that right?
Paul Piana 35:45
Yeah, you kind of had, they were hand in hand, if you wanted to try to make... you're not making money. You're just edging by for the most part. That's the way it was. But now I think you can get, if you do a good job, I would think you could maybe, not become wealthy, but yeah, good. And stay on the road more. Yeah, for sure. And, of course, sponsorship then was not very lucrative, really. I mean, you could buy gas and go here and there and live out of a van. But there were some people, you know, as soon as people like, Lynn Hill. I mean, I'm assuming she's monetarily better off than, yeah, you know. But I always thought it was great. Anytime a climber came with, or an adventurer. I just loved to see those slideshows. And it was so inspiring to me. And, and plus, it was a lot of fun to go to different places.
Kris Hampton 36:52
for sure, why these four walls? Why, why those four routes?
Paul Piana 36:58
Well, the Salathe was, had the pretty cracks and quite a history. And it seemed to me that Robbins and crew who did the second ascent of the nose, I think, picked their own out, you know? And well, Chouinard picked the path. Yeah. But it was a very clever linking of cracks. And it was just, it seemed they were so happy with that route. They didn't even have to place... It's what, like, half a dozen bolts is all? And that in those days, you know, that was the last resort. Yeah. And nowadays, it's just what you do. Yeah. And it was just seemed like a great adventure. And of course, it was a completely different climb. With regard to technique. You know, they weren't trying to free it. They just wanted to get up the thing. Right. But it was the same sort of adventure, even better for them. I mean, can you imagine being on El Cap before anybody else? Except maybe the nose, you know, just this giant sea of wow. And they didn't know if they could get back down, which to me in a way was kind of not true. I mean, if they had a dozen bolts still they could get down. You know, but it's made for a better story. Yeah. And it's also why they derided the bolts they put in, you know, they really thought it was a last resort. Or to rescue someone, I guess. But
Kris Hampton 38:40
Was Royal involved in all four of the walls in the book?
Paul Piana 38:45
Salathe was. Hooker....
Kris Hampton 38:48
Direct on Half Dome.
Paul Piana 38:49
Oh, yeah. That was his route.
Kris Hampton 38:51
And proboscis. Did he?
Paul Piana 38:54
Yes. All of those Royal Robbins. Okay, he picked out good routes. Yeah. The Hooker, I don't think they had any recons. You know, it's not a beautiful route line, right? No, but it's a neat Alpine wall. And then the others are amazing walls. And the route he chose on Proboscis was really a cool route. In fact, that's when Todd and I went up to climb, free climb Proboscis, it was the Royal's route we thought of.
Kris Hampton 39:34
Right. And that's the Great Canadian Knife.
Paul Piana 39:37
That what we chose was the great Canadian knife, which was a more modern thing, It took... There weren't cracks, right? A lot of places so we'd...
Kris Hampton 39:45
It's a big arete.
Paul Piana 39:46
Yeah, and we'd get up in any way. But they were picking up these cracks and it was to the right too and then while we were there I believe Yeah, some other climbers, European climbers came and, I think Spanish climbers. Yeah. And they freed a little bit of a variant on Royal's route. It was fun. It was interesting.
Kris Hampton 40:21
I hadn't thought of that, your route on proboscis was so much more of a modern thing. You know, and it's exactly what I was talking about in hitching your dreams onto someone else's until you kind of pick up enough speed to change the, grow into your own philosophies and your own ethos. And, you know, while royal likely never would have gone up to bolt this arete, on this big wall, it's still his dream and adventure that led you into the same wall, creating your own dream and adventure.
Paul Piana 41:03
I think so, you know, and Royal, and Galen was with us, of course. And he was very alarmed when we decided to not go on the Robbin's and take this essentially blank. And it wasn't blank. I mean, for the most part, there were just several sport ish parts of it.
Kris Hampton 41:24
blank in terms of cracks. And that's what most people do.
Paul Piana 41:27
And we, you know, we'd aid up something to get over to something. And so we did a lot of aid climbing to get to a good pitch. And it was it worked great.
Kris Hampton 41:42
Yeah, just the modern new ideas that come out of following someone else's adventure. It's what pushes us along.
Paul Piana 41:51
And I would think that people repeat that and think it's a pretty cool route. You know, I haven't heard of people doing that. But you know, it's, it's so striking. And of course, we did look at that. And we also looked at the dihedral to the left of it. And that is like climbing in a hothouse except in the Arctic it's really wet and never gets light and nobody would climb that, I don't think, unless, you know, 200 years from now, when the world is, all the water's gone and everything, you know, maybe. But that was a cool route.
Kris Hampton 42:34
One of the things I see often today is this constant switching of, of partners, you know, I see a lot of brands put together random teams of people to go climb a thing. And you and Todd had this 20 plus year partnership of climbing big important things together. Why did that? Why did the partnership with you and Todd work so well?
Paul Piana 43:14
Well, first of all, I always like to say, and it was kind of true for a short time, is he was a really good belay slave. Yeah, because he was still learning and he hadn't done a whole lot outside of his family's climbing. But I think he just saw Wow, this is first of all, it's really fun. You know, yeah, we could at Vedauwoo or the needles, or Fremont Canyon, or wherever we were, you could climb things that other people have done, and learn from that. Dare to try some new routes. Because sometimes you kind of have to dare yourself to do them. Because you you're looking around and climbers can be pretty biting, you know, like, you're not ready to do this. You know, which obviously well you're never not too young to do it. You know? So what if you screw up? You know, even Royal put bolts in on occasion. you know, but...
Kris Hampton 44:25
the partnership: you and Todd, why did it work?
Paul Piana 44:28
Well, we both had a lot of fun and we thought a lot of things were funny. Yeah. And...
Kris Hampton 44:36
was there competition there at all?
Paul Piana 44:38
Between us?
Kris Hampton 44:38
in the later years?
Paul Piana 44:41
I'm always kind of competitive even if it's the best person in the world. I was you know, even if... I'm not going to go up there and say "get down from there, I have to be the first one," you know, but I was always jealous -still am - of people. Like right now, I'm jealous of people that can lead 5.10. Although maybe I did one the other day, but it was one move, doesn't count. But it climbing is competitive. And it can be viciously so. But I think we just had, We laughed a lot, you know, love to go different places, seeing new things. Or Todd was even more interested in repeating hard things too, right. And he was traveling quite a bit. And you know, I Cairn was just a little kid then. So I couldn't really go a lot, you know, but that's a good thing to do is to, you know, see what other people are doing.
Kris Hampton 45:50
Yeah. And, and there's a lot of competitiveness...
Paul Piana 45:54
Oh, wow, yes.
Kris Hampton 45:55
...in that.
Paul Piana 45:56
Yeah. Look at the stigma. Yeah. You know, oh, my god. Talk about international bickering, you know, and people have improved on it. That's what climbers are supposed to do. Yeah. I mean, you could say, oh, well, Royal Robbins and crew's Salathe doesn't count anymore, which is absurd. That was the coolest ascent it'll ever have. If they bolted the whole, every six inches, it's still the coolest to do it first. You know?
Kris Hampton 46:25
right. I think there are a lot of people who would say what you and Todd did on it was the coolest. And what, you know, Hudon and Jones did on it, followed by you and Todd, was the coolest. And it all just sort of depends on what it is we've decided we love about it. And that's, those are things built on the accomplishments of the people who came before, you know, we can only see so far into the future, and what the, what the next iteration of this thing looks like. We can only see so far, you know, no one in 1970 was thinking about 5.15d, which Alex Megos just did the second 5.15d in the world. Nobody thought about that back then, because that was so far ahead. But they were thinking, you know, 13c, 13d, 14a, those those things were starting to materialize a little bit. And it's, you know, we think whatever that slightly earlier generation was, is the coolest. You think Royal's ascent was the coolest. And some people think your ascent was the coolest. And...
Paul Piana 47:45
well, you know, I would read these guide books or listen to stories or a magazine. And I remember, I can't remember the... You know, Greg Lowe was an amazing climber. And he did a lot of things that are way ahead of the standards. And I don't know if he sought them out it more than he would any other line, like, Oh, that looks really cool. And there's a thing he did. I might be way off on this name. But there's a route kind of over where T2 starts in Colorado. And it might be called clever lever. And I think they call it 5.12. And he just climbed it, right, you know, and people say, well, that's not so hard. Well, that was 35 years ago or something or maybe more. Right. And I think Bachar was the first one to repeat it. And, you know, people have that talent. It's just really cool and inspiring. Well, it can't be that hard. But I think he called it 5.10. Sure, you know, yep. So, man, nevermind Jeff, but Greg, Geez, he's kind of overlooked. But boy, he did some hard stuff, which was really inspiring. Everywhere he went.
Kris Hampton 49:11
And I think we all bring these interesting, different talents to it. You know, you you write in the book, that up on the Salathe, you were kind of the choreographer and Todd was the dancer. Like, you could come up with these clever sequences that that Todd didn't see. And then Todd was able to master them a little faster and repeat them faster than you were. And I think partnerships like that need that sort of, you know, different talents. You know, you you bring the, initially you brought the mentorship to it, and Todd brought the he's a good belay slave, you know, and then years down the road, you're up on the Salathe and you're able to see the sequences that that Todd's then able to execute. I think good partnerships have to have those radically different talents in order to to work.
Paul Piana 50:22
Yeah, it did work. I mean, it was, you know, like the first pitch of the, the headwall. Oh, yeah, that first little pitch. Yeah. At that time, there was there wasn't a bolt there. There was a piton down low. And you had to do the crux to get - and it's kind of scary there - to get into the first pro. Yeah, and the first actual crack, because there was a flare that kind of went over here. And then a little swooping crack over here. And it was just a couple little crimpy things. So that was hard. But if you fell, you'd land on your belayer. Right, and fall past him. Right, you know, and it was supposed to be my turn. And we top roped it before. And i just, i say, Jesus, I can't I'm too chicken to do it right now. You know, so Todd just danced across it. It was like such a relief. Yeah. The other one was fine, you know, that there's really good pro on that. And maybe people laugh about that now, because you wouldn't get hurt. You might land on the belayer. But it wouldn't probably even hurt. But I thought it was just terrifying. And in that spot, you know, yeah, that's one point where I really was glad he... it might have been scary, but he you know,
Kris Hampton 52:00
and having that partner to a to be able to admit, I'm too scared to try this right now. I think that takes a certain level of comfort that you build over 15-20 years of partnership. There's, like you said it's, it can be fiercely competitive. So if it's a new climber, someone you're not used to being on these big dream projects with, it's a little harder to admit, I'm scared to do this right now.
Paul Piana 52:27
Yeah. And later you might be because that was that was the case. You know, there were times when I I did a pretty good job of route finding, yeah, move figuring-outing. But a couple of them, they just fell, fell to him, which was terrific. But I will never forget that first part of the Salathe, it just spooked the hell out of me that morning. And I was delighted when I got to top rope. And I didn't fall or anything. I had before, you know, on a top rope. But that was fun. And then away we went, you know?
Kris Hampton 53:10
Can we... so one of the things I love about big walls, the book is that it starts out by telling the stories of these, the smaller climbs that could be viewed if you you were just looking at the big things as insignificant, and then it builds into these bigger things and ultimately into into you not completely seeing the whole dream through on Half Dome, when Todd is laser focused in on this, this route that that you've both really wanted to do. You know that, and that may have been your dream initially.
Paul Piana 53:53
I campaigned that before El Cap. Yeah. But it's a good thing we didn't, because it would, there are a lot more decisions to make there. And that's why I bailed is there were people watching us all the time. Right. And it was just because they knew we were going up on that and, you know, Royal was criticized for using so many bolts on that, which was nothing compared to well, Galen pointed out there were more bolts in that than on the Nose or the Dawn Wall or something. Right. But you know, every climb is different. And but anyway, I just finally... and I had I had pressures at home.
Kris Hampton 54:39
Yeah, you had just gotten married.
Paul Piana 54:41
Stuff like that. And it was, I just became overwhelmed. and I still feel bad about it. You know, it's kind of a long time ago.
Kris Hampton 54:54
Why do you feel bad about it now?
Paul Piana 54:55
Well, because I felt, I still feel I abandoned him there to take... the climbing would eventually go. Yeah, but the acrimony and, you know, people hiking all the way up there to yell at you. And the way they did that on the Salathe, too. Sure. "Hang dogs!" John Sherman. He was the funniest one. He was down on the street. If it was, the wind was right, you could hear "haaaaang doooogs."
Kris Hampton 55:28
That doesn't surprise me at all from Sherman.
Paul Piana 55:31
Well, you know, he was really the one that got Todd interested in it not so much as me. I went off on the photos that I'd seen of that. Oh, that does look so cool. But John had climbed the Salathe. And he said to Todd, when Todd was working on the stigma, he said, Well, geez, if you can climb that you should go on the Salathe. Right. And he's probably sorry he said that because he, you know, ragged Todd and I anyway, you know. I always liked John, I had a big blow up with John one time, I was really mad at him one day. And I'm not mad about it anymore. I mean, it's just, you know, and I don't know if he's still mad. I talked to him a little while ago, actually. Take an aside: Here I live in my hometown, moved back. Little bitty town. Yeah. I don't know if there are any active climbers there anymore. And I get a phone call from this lady. And they just bought this decrepit hotel, they're remodeling. And she said, we have some mountain climbing pictures we found in the basement, they're slides. And I don't know what to do with them. Would you like to have them? And I said, Well, okay. So I got this, like, three ring binder, you know, chock full of slides. Yeah. And you're gonna have to help me here. But it was a climb of the Trango Tower.
Kris Hampton 57:06
Oh, really?
Paul Piana 57:08
And Rob Slater? He died on K2?
Kris Hampton 57:13
Right.
Paul Piana 57:14
All right. My mind is going so...
Kris Hampton 57:16
He was partnered with Randy Leavitt. Often back then. Yeah.
Paul Piana 57:20
And a good friend with John Sherman. Anyway, hear are all these slides, it was a book, it on the cover said something about this was the number third or second or first? Wow, he had 1000s of slides of this and and here is just this one? Well, apparently his brother had this girl that sold the building. They were a couple. And then they broke up. And somehow he forgot these. And I said geeze, as Rob Slater's. You know, some of this. I gotta, I didn't know who to give it to. So I called Randy Leavitt, and also John Sherman, and just left messages. Yeah. And I got responses to that from them, and told me where to send slides for his brother. So I did. And I know he got it. He didn't reply. But John said, Yeah, he got it. That's good. And he was happy to have them. So that's kind of cool. But in Newcastle, like we know you're the mountain climber. We have some pictures you might like to have, you know, and if it had been somebody else, they might have said, Oh, God...
Kris Hampton 58:36
yeah. What's the point of these? Yeah, pitch them. Yeah, I've bumped into John in Hueco several times over the last few years and had some really fun, entertaining conversations with that guy.
Paul Piana 58:49
Oh, he's fun. He's very sharp. Yeah. And he's really good climber. And I had a couple run ins with him. But I've always liked John. You know, he might not know that, but I really admire him. And I the the coolest, I always thought when he first came up with the V grade, with no limit. Yep. That it should be that way for everything. Well, now it is. 5.15. Right.
Kris Hampton 59:16
Whatever. Yeah, there used to be closed ended scales.
Paul Piana 59:19
You know, when you get it. People even really got upset when they came up with 5.10. Because 5.10 is numerically the same as 5.1 right? But I can't even add so it doesn't make any difference to me. You know?
Kris Hampton 59:34
Oh, God.
Paul Piana 59:35
I've never balanced a checkbook. I've tried.
Kris Hampton 59:40
Oh, I'm just really bad at numbers. I'm not built for numbers.
Paul Piana 59:44
Me neither. Yeah, golly. But anyway,
Kris Hampton 59:47
wherever we were. I think we're on Half Dome and you're still feeling bad about it. And you know something, I thought about it When I was looking through the book again last night, it occurred to me that had you not left, then Nancy would have never gotten to be part of the story, Steve Bechtel wouldn't wouldn't have gotten to be part of the story. And so I think you you growing a different direction and, and feeling like, Okay, I need to I need to go handle these things I need to take care of these things. Those are more important to me right now, gave Steve Bechtel the chance to go and have this adventure with Todd. You know, and now, with hindsight being 20/20, we can look back and see the, you know, the major importance of being able to have those adventures now that Todd is gone, you know, that's a, that's something Steve gets to hang on to forever. And essentially, that was a gift from you, because you could have stayed up there and hogged it to yourself.
Paul Piana 1:01:09
Talk to Steve about this. Yeah.
Kris Hampton 1:01:11
Steve's gonna owe you something for this.
Paul Piana 1:01:15
Yeah, well, I didn't think about it at the time. I was just very relieved that other people stepped in. Yeah. Because I thought that wouldn't be as hard as it was. And then I had personal pressures that really slayed me. Sure. And that with the hollering, you know, just a bunch of, and I just, I never could understand that anyway.
Kris Hampton 1:01:48
Was Todd just better at putting his head down and forging ahead no matter what?
Paul Piana 1:01:54
yeah. And I think he kind of, you know, in a way, masochistic way, kind of enjoyed it, you know, it's like, well, we're gonna do this anyway. You know, why not just try to ignore it. Sure, you know, but it was a it was a good deal. It wasn't I don't think it would be the most enjoyable route compared to others. Just razor shaped stuff but and that's that was, you know, the Warren Harding stick to it, Todd Skinner stick to it. Yeah, on so many other projects, you know, and before the renegade man, it took a long time. And it's funny, if you're trying to climb hard, it often works out that say, It's 5.10 you know, 5.8's the hardest you've ever done, you're going to try to climb a technically difficult 5.10 And you just work at it, and work at it, work at it like people did, with clunky hiking shoes, you know, all these things make a difference. But anyway, they finally climb it and they find that I've got, I can do another one. And then pretty soon, that wouldn't have, you would look back at it and you say, Well, gee, that wasn't that hard, because a lot of it's between your ears. You know, you're strong enough physically, you just not believing it enough. Even if you think you do, I know I'm gonna get this, Well, then why didn't you do it two weeks ago? it's not any easier. You know? And I think most people that are trying to do hard things find that, you know, you'll fall off, hang there. You know, do it. tack on it, come down, pull the rope go again. fall off. Pull back up. Easy, you know, it's it's so mental. Yeah. And I think it's still that way. It's, it's going to be that way forever.
Kris Hampton 1:04:02
Definitely is. Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest parts of improving as a climber is learning how to how to sit within that, that mental space and understand it and grow into it.
Paul Piana 1:04:16
And there are some things you know, you just climb them and it was so fun and so nice. And then you're doing the first ascent and you climb it, it was so nice. And then there are those, those ones that just keep slapping you and... Why? You know, it's just, it's just crazy, you know, and then all of a sudden you do it.
Kris Hampton 1:04:35
well, you know, one of the one of your routes actually was that for me, for for a lot of summers before I lived here, I would come and I would try atomic Stetson. And, and it was always it was a different move every year that slapped me down over and over and over. And I just had the hardest time mentally connecting it all together. There, you know, it never felt possible because there was always one move. Like I said, different moves, that felt impossible to me that year. And then last summer, I thought, I'll just try it again. And all of a sudden, I could just do it. You know, I was just, I was just ready. I wasn't physically stronger than I had been in the years past. I was just ready for it.
Paul Piana 1:05:23
It was kind of same with me on that, you know, I could climb everything easily. But there was about two thirds of the way up or something, I would just fail. Yeah, you know, it wasn't any harder. It was just up in here between my ears. And one day I was up there. And there was a young couple climbing Baba Louie. And they, they were asking me questions. So how would you climb that? So, Well, maybe I can, I, you know, would you belay me? And I went and climbed it and came down. And for some reason, it just thought, well, that didn't look very hard, right. But I've done it 1000 times. And so they went up and just one or the other climbed it, and they went, wow, you know, maybe it inspired him a little bit. And then I thought, well, heck, I'm here. I might as well give this thing a whirl again. And I just climbed it. And it was kind of a letdown. And it was also disappointing because it took 39 years to do it.
Kris Hampton 1:06:35
Yeah.
Paul Piana 1:06:36
But it's funny how those things work. It is, you know, if you look up at cerebrus, or - this climb in the needles has so many names.
Kris Hampton 1:06:47
And you tell the story of it in the book as well.
Paul Piana 1:06:50
Yeah. And that meant so much to me. And it still does. I still climb that and I just think it's, I do think it's a wonderful climb, but being able to just climb that was the probably the coolest thing I've ever done. And it's 5.8.
Kris Hampton 1:07:09
Yeah.
Paul Piana 1:07:10
I could climb that every day.
Kris Hampton 1:07:11
and like forty feet tall or something.
Paul Piana 1:07:13
Yeah, yeah. It was just, I just climbed it with James like three or four days ago. So it was cool. It was really neat. That's the one where His shoes were, his big toes were literally sticking out. He says I'm just gonna wear my shoes from now. His hiking shoes. Oh, that's funny.
Kris Hampton 1:07:38
Well, Paul i i appreciate and always have, your your poetic sensibility in you know, in writing about your adventures and, and your dreams and your successes and failures. And and that's something I really appreciate about big walls, the book and and the people out there who are listening who haven't seen the book or haven't read the book should definitely pick it up. It's it's filled with these poetic stories and musings and lessons, you know, that you've learned from routes, both big and small, easy and hard. And I think that, you know, the idea that there's something to learn from all of it. And that something 40 feet tall and 5.8 can be the coolest thing you've done when, when your resume includes the first free ascent of the Salathe, or of Mount hooker or proboscis, the great Canadian knife, you know, among hundreds and 1000s of other things. It's just such an important lesson to keep in mind. So I appreciate you putting your words out there. I I'm glad you're gonna continue to put those stories out, get those stories down so that we have them. And I appreciate you sitting down and taking the time.
Paul Piana 1:09:06
I'm happy to do it.
Kris Hampton 1:09:12
I am incredibly lucky to get to call Paul a friend and to get to have these kinds of conversations with him. And I'm lucky that he was there as a phantom mentor when I started climbing, with his writing, photos, and with his adventures. At the blog post for this episode, you'll find more about Paul, the cowboy poem, and how you can pick up a first edition signed copy of Paul's book, big walls: breakthroughs on the free climbing frontier. You'll also find 1000s of articles, training plans, courses, and products that can help you become a better climber. We recently overhauled the website to make it easier to navigate all of that advice. You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at Power Company Climbing. But you won't find us on Twitter, because we don't tweet. We scream like eagles.
Paul Piana 1:10:36
You know, you just said "well I'm 34" and a lot of people your age, you said that like "I'm only 34." But a lot of people say "well I can't do that because I'm 34." Yeah, yeah. And that happened on the Salathe, these guys were climbing, I think we came through them. And then we sat on the block, which is about three fourths of the way up I think. And they were saying just one guy goes "well, yeah, you young guys." Well, I was six years older than he was. So I always think that kind of thing is funny.
