On the Rocks

LONNIE KAUK AND THE NEW ERA OF SPORTSMANSHIP

By Dana Nichols

Lonnie going huge at Snowboarder Magazine’s Men’s Superpark 13 at Mammoth Mountain. PHOTO: PETER MORNING

LONNIE KAUK KNOWS HOW TO MAKE the people on the ground below him smile. It’s late afternoon and he’s lowering off a climb, kicking off the granite wall tossing snowboard grabs in the air. The snowboarder climbs. Or, the climber snowboards…

Eh, labels don’t matter, especially for Lonnie, who feels a new era of sportsmanship coming on: one in which athletes don’t need to do what’s expected of them. One in which the essence of exploring is everything the audience needs to know; in which a season’s success depends on whether, in Lonnie’s case, he can “keep following my heart…”

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PEAK BAGGING IS BY NATURE A LOFTY PURSUIT—though the loft typically involves elevated altitude rather than soaring intellect. But 2009 is a landmark year to celebrate the relationship of science and mountain sports atop some of the Sierra’s most beguiling peaks, named after (r)evolutionary nineteenth century thinkers.

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By Marty Lewis

WHILE BOULDERING IS NOW A SPORT IN ITS OWN RIGHT and the Buttermilks a destination, a generation ago both were practice for bigger climbing pursuits. Back in the early 1980s, I desperately wanted to become a rock climber. I soon got in with a group of Yosemite transplants who were wintering on the Eastside. With these mentors, I spent sun-drenched winter days on the coarse granite of the Buttermilk Boulders. We would scramble the labyrinths between the grainy towers on the hill above the main boulders until dark. Around evening campfires I’d hear stories of the old timers who climbed the mysterious routes on those foreboding towers. Most notable of these was Smoke Blanchard and his rock course.

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CLIMB STRONGER WITH A NEW WAY TO TRAIN
WINTER IN THE EASTERN SIERRA is considered by many to be the best season to be on the rocks. With so many different places to climb, scramble and hike, the winter offers great, albeit cooler and occasionally snow-covered, opportunities for those who find joy in physically exploring the local geology. For some, the winter is a time to pursue technical, gymnastic climbing, such as bouldering and sport climbing.

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THE V-SCALE'S CREATION AND THE BOULDERING BOOM

By Andrea Tetrick

WHAT DOES HIGH SCHOOL BIOLOGY HAVE TO DO with bouldering’s predominant difficulty rating system? Without the first, we would not have the namesake of the second—the V-scale, widely accepted as the universal rating standard in bouldering today.

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