Film Beta
Join the crew! We will be there on Saturday showing a short preview of the film before the Dawn Wall screening. Come out and let us know what you think!The Yosemite Facelift 2018 schedule is here! And join us Thursday, September 27th at 3PM for a panel discussion: Beyond Gym to Crag (more info here: www.yosemiteclimbing.org/facelift-2018/)
Also, please bring your worn item for repair by Worn Wear Patagonia who will be working at registration Thursday, September 27th and Friday, September 28th. We’re lucky to have them! And make sure to check out our other partners: TNF's Bottle Source and Clothes the Loop; CLIF; Deuter's Dirtbags (Wednesday, 9/26); Terracycle; Leave No Trace; Access Fund; American Alpine Club; Carabiner Coffee; Tioga-Sequoia Brewery; Subaru, Co-presenter and the Official Vehicle of Facelift, and many more!
Please share with your friends, and we look forward to seeing you in the park! Thank you, Binta Wold, for the beautiful artwork!
Well deserved Ken! See you in a few weeks!
The North Face
The man behind Yosemite Facelift, Ken Yager, found his life in climbing at a young age. His journey from then on led him to deduce that walls aren’t just about vertical feats—they’re a source for community where people come together to make the places we play better off.
Walls are meant for climbing. More stories at bit.ly/Walls2018 #ClimbWalls
"In this light, Frost and Lowe were undoubtedly two of the best climbers who have ever lived"
🎂Happy Birthday to the guy in the #birthdaysuit - our dear friend, Doug Robinson. @drclimbs 🎉
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“Google ‘Doug Robinson,’” said Eva, “and you’ll find lots of photos of him naked. I don’t know if he ever climbed with his clothes on.” (From this Rock and Ice article rockandice.com/tuesday-night-bouldering/tnb-moving-over-stone-with-doug-robinson/) @rockandicemag .
Photo Credit @galenrowell
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#rockclimbingnaked #climbing #tomfrost #dougrobinson #galenrowell #happybirthday
Aurora Photos
With the passing of Tom Frost last week, the climbing world, photography world, and adventure world lost a legend and a friend. In this week's Minute of Photos we honor Tom's photography and the role he played with the climbing pioneers of the Yosemite Valley. Aurora photographer Corey Rich Director/ Photographer also paid tribute to Tom this week with this remembrance on our blog.
#YMOP #TomFrost #Camp4 #ElCapitan
Patagonia mourns the loss of Tom Frost, Yvon Chouinard’s former climbing and business partner, who passed away Friday morning.
Tom, with Yvon, Chuck Pratt and Royal Robbins, made the first ascent of the North America Wall of El Capitan in 1964. He made other notable first ascents with Valley pioneers and others in Yosemite, the Tetons, the Northwest Territories, the Andes and the Himalaya. Along with Yvon and Royal, Tom was a passionate early advocate of clean climbing. And he was also a remarkable alpine photographer, whose un-staged shots captured the unexpected moments and the raw spirit of American climbing’s golden age.
From 1965 to 1975, Tom brought his engineering skills and Stanford University training to Chouinard Equipment, working in tandem with Yvon to redesign and improve every major tool then in use by climbers. Their most notable innovations included the RURP, Hexentrics and the Chouinard-Frost Piolet. After leaving the partnership, Tom, along with Gary Regester, joined Chimera Photographic Lighting, another company known for excellence and design innovation.
One of Tom’s greatest achievements, though, was his campaign in 1997 to preserve Camp 4, the historic base camp for climbers in Yosemite Valley, from closure by the National Park Service. His passion ignited support from his old friends Yvon and Royal and The American Alpine Club. The successful effort led to the listing of Camp 4 on the National Register of Historic Places.
Those wishing to remember Tom, or learn more about him, can look forward to a book on his life, expected at the end of this year from climbing historian Steve Grossman; and a feature-length movie about Tom, seven years in the making, from Flatlander Films. The crowd-sourced documentary draws on scores of interviews from three generations of climbers. Grossman says Tom will be honored at an already planned memorial for Royal Robbins on Friday, October 12, 2018, at the Oakdale Climbers Festival.
For all he did, Tom was noted for his humility, a low-key style and egalitarian presence in the workplace. He will be deeply missed by those who had the pleasure to work with him. His legacy lives on in everyone who climbs.
—Patagonia
Tom Frost, Off Belay: pat.ag/dadtq
Thank you, community. You're love of Tom is a constant source of strength.
For those of you who are curious, our goal is to complete our film by the end of February, 2019
Wow! 🙏Tom Frost - what an inspiration. Visionary climber and photographer (and gear tinkerer), but more importantly a genuine, kind, and positive man.
He came up to the Valley for moral support when @hansflorine and I set the speed record on the Nose in 2012. He joked that while us shaving 9 minutes or so off the record was impressive, it paled in comparison to the 40 odd days that he shaved off the record on the second ascent.
One of the highlights of last fall was doing an interview with Tom in El Cap Meadow for an upcoming documentary about his life from Flatlander Films. To hear his account of the first ascent of the Salathe while looking up at the wall was truly inspiring. Thanks, Tom.
Descriptions like pioneer, legend, hero, giant, and polymath are pretty bold descriptions that often get tossed around. Tom Frost truly lived up to each of those descriptions.
On August 24, Tom lost his battle with cancer at a hospice near his home in Oakdale, California.
Tom was a friend, mentor, and giant in both the climbing and photography worlds. He was a pioneer during Yosemite’s Golden Age of climbing.
He began climbing in Yosemite with the Stanford Alpine Club, and graduated from the prestigious university in 1958. That same year, Warren Harding had just completed the first ascent of El Capitan via the Nose. In 1960, Frost became part of the team that made the second ascent of the Nose.
Frost went on to complete two more noteworthy ascents of El Capitan. In 1961, he joined up with Royal Robbins and Chuck Pratt and achieved the first ascent of the Salathé Wall, El Cap’s second route. In 1964, this same trio as well as Yvon Chouinard completed the first ascent of the North America Wall over nine days. This was considered El Capitan’s most difficult climb to date.
His photography documented this era and these remarkable ascents with a preternatural ability for photographic storytelling unlike any I’ve ever seen in any photographer before or since. In my opinion, he was the most gifted adventure photographer in the world.
Frost also had a background as an inventor, engineer, and businessman. In 1972 when he and Chouinard founded Great Pacific Ironworks and started to manufacture climbing gear. This company would ultimately give birth to both Patagonia and Black Diamond Equipment, the successful apparel and climbing-gear companies that we now know today. Later, he co-founded Chimera Lighting, based in Boulder, Colorado
What made Tom so remarkable, however, was undoubtedly his humility. He was an absolutely incredible human, as humble as they come, as caring and as genuine a person as I've ever met. Tom had a huge effect on me as a person. Calling Tom both a friend and a mentor has been one of the great honors of my life. He'll be missed by me and by many, many more.
We'll miss you Tom.
