Many of us, for example, have heard the story of Allen Steck and John Salathe's battle with thirst as they made the first ascent of the North Face of Sentinel Rock over a scorching July 4 weekend in 1950. What most of us didn't know, until now, was that a parched Salathe used his very last swig of water to soak his dentures. Then there was the unlikely collection of climbers assembled for a 1957 ABC Wide World of Sports segment about Yosemite climbing. Bob Swift, John Harlin and Jules Eichorn were recruited for the cameras. Watching all this, but not invited to participate, was Gaston Rebuffat.
Roper sets the record straight on some important points.
Many writers, including Roper and yours truly, have repeated the story of Salathe fashioning the first hard steel alloy pitons from the axle of a Model A. Alas, this is probably apocryphal. Roper points out that axles were extremely difficult to work with, and bars of the steel alloy would have been cheap and easy for Salathe to obtain. At times the book strives a little too hard to be the official record. It's hard to imagine, for example, that anyone except the participants care that Gary Colliver and Chris Jones made the eighth ascent of the Salathe Wall in 1969. Instead, I could have used a few more TM Herbert stories.