America was a paradoxical place in 1967. War, conscription, riots and oppression were pitted against wine, psychedelic drugs, rock and roll and free love-and free love was winning. By the height of summer, over 100,000 kids converged on Haight-Ashbury eager to explore the 'anti-community.' In climbing, Yosemite Valley was the axis mundi and Berkeley was the belly button lint. It seems appropriate that out of this fecund milieu, Ascent emerged.
Conceived by Allen Steck and Steve Roper—real-deal climbers, diamond tough—Ascent was the first climbing-only magazine with literary writing and high-quality photos. Ascent was, as Roper noted, a 'far-out idea.'
The magazine appeared in July 1967 at the zenith of the Summer of Love and reflected the zeitgeist sweeping the West Coast with its focus on art and story. Like many good things born in that summer, however, Ascent eventually faded away. Fourteen issues were sporadically published, the last in 1999.
At Rock and Ice is pleased to announce that Ascent is back, and packed full with the very best inspiration and stories climbers have to offer. Steve Roper kicks things off with his “Genesis,” a tale of coming of age in Yosemite when the sky was the limit. Tommy Caldwell shares his riveting tale of depression, persistence and ultimately salvation as he tries to free climb Harding’s Dawn Wall. Nial Grimes writes of a little almost-honest thievery in Kathmandu, while Geoff Childs tells of his experiences with luck in the mountains. The new coffee-table journal Ascent has 16 stories in all.
