RETURN TO PREVIOUS INDEX
These are photos taken during a climbing trip to the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River Mountains in late July of 1974. The initial party consisted of Lou Metzger, Paul Ledoux, Bob Dangel, John Hollerbach, and myself, Craig Walker (I was known as Bob Walker at the time - my full name is Robert Craig Walker). After a few days, we were joined by Megan Ancker. We were all members of the MIT Outing Club.
The trip started at the Big Sandy Trailhead. I forget the exact dates but it was about three weeks before Nixon's resignation on Aug. 8 which happened while we were on Mt Ranier in the second half of the trip. We hiked in past Big Sandy Lake and over Jackass Pass to the Cirque of the Towers and Lonesome Lake where we established our base camp. The packs were heavy, probably 60to 80 pounds, thanks to 10 days of supplies, full rock climbing gear, ice axes and gear that wasn't as light as some that we have today. The next day, we did an easy climb on Camel's Hump. We had to sit out a rain storm on the way up. The following day, we started up a route on Mt. Mitchell, but got slammed by a thunderstorm. After waiting on some ledges, we decided to retreat. The rapel was very wet with the rapel gear squeeging the water out of the ropes onto our laps.
The next day or two, for me, was spent hiking out and driving to Salt Lake City to pick up Megan, then returning and hiking back in. I'm not remembering if that took two full days or if I used the afternoon of the Mitchell climb day.
The day after that, some of us climbed the classic East Ridge of Wolf's Head. For much of the climb, we moved roped up, but all moving together with protection placed occasionally. There were other parties on the route, but the nature of the climb along the ridge is such that any triggered rockfall goes off to the side, not down on a party below. The rapel from the top was a bit messy, and here there was a rockfall issue, causing us some rope damage.
The following day, Megan, Paul, and I climbed Bollinger from which we had a good view of other parties, including some from our group as I recall, on the Wolf's Head Ridge. During the next two days Megan and I along with at least one other did easy climbs on Pingora and Overhanging Tower. Finally on the day before the hike out, we did a hike downstream from Lonesome Lake and up to Bear Lake.
While we were in the Cirque of the Towers, there were many other climbers there. There actually were lines at the bottom of some of the most popular climbs like the Wolf's Head Ridge. Years later, my wife Joan and I returned on a backpack in nice summer weather. The only climber we saw was one who was free soloing, something that in the 1970's we couldn't imagine doing. By that time, climbing artificial walls, climbing competitions, and climbing in areas without long access had apparently taken over. The concept of hiking in with huge packs seemed to have gone out of style. Many years have now passed even since that trip and the crowds may have returned, especially with the fame of Pingora and the Wolf's Head Ridge.
The Wind River trip was the first half of a longer summer vacation. The slides from various climbs in the Cascades done later will be in another show.
My photos were taken with a Konica Autoreflex T3 using Kodachrome II. Some of the slides are duplicates of other people's photos, made on film soon after the trip for a slide show that we showed friends. The Konica is rather bulky and apparently I wasn't taking many photos during climbs. So most photos from the main climbs are duplicates of photos taken by others. I have tried to mark those that are duplicates but I'm afraid I don't know who took them. I still have the 140 slide carousels of the show and those are the slides that I have digitized.
I digitized the slides in January 2024 using my Pentax K5 DLSR with
100mm macro lens and the slide holder from an old slide duplicator,
all on a DIY mount. Note that the camera annotations that show with
the pictures are for the duplication process, not the original event -
film doesn't have EXIF data. The quality of the slides after 50 years
is testament to the quality of Kodachrome both for the original images
and for the stability over time.
