Paul Piana and Todd Skinner Free The Finest Rock Climb On Earth (Part 2)
Todd Skinner and Paul Piana team up for the Salathe.
This is Part 2 of this story. If you haven’t checked out Part 1, you should go do that now.
By the middle of the 1980s, the shift to sport climbing was in full swing. Two The popular telling of the story is that in 1986 when Todd Skinner freeclimbed The Stigma, renamed it The Renegade, and claimed it as the hardest route in the garden of the Valley Demi-gods, he was quickly run out of Yosemite.
But that’s not what happened. Sure, it was probably a little unexpected that the same mavericks who had challenged the norms of climbing and pushed it further were now so stuck in their own ethical quicksand that they could no longer see the path forward. And yes, they definitely hassled him. John Bachar gave him a fatherly lecture about ethics and right and wrong. But like any rebellious kid would do, Todd just used Bachar’s dusty disappointment as fuel.
Respect your elders, but recognize that they might be wrong.
So Todd Skinner didn’t leave the valley. Instead, he went in search of the next step in the progression of the endangered game that Yosemite was famous for. He went up their most revered formation, El Capitan, in search of free climbing potential.
