Ansel Adams Quote?

[Heroique]

The Sierra Club has its version of conservation history, too, just like everyone else:

“Adams lobbied Congress for a Kings Canyon National Park, the [Sierra] Club’s priority issue in the 1930’s, and created an impressive, limited-edition book, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail, which influenced both Interior Secretary Harold Ickes and President Franklin Roosevelt to embrace the Kings Canyon Park idea. The park was created in 1940.”

Moreover, the article reminds us that AA was elected in 1934 to the Sierra Club’s Board of Directors, a position he held for 37 years.

(Source: The Sierra Club’s History Page about AA.)

Below AA cooks-up something delicious, probably a serving of 8x10 film.

[Darin Boville]

That's based on Ansel's autobiography. Ansel went to DC for a few days and showed his prints around and where he met Ikes. . Then the guy commissioned John Muir Trail book to honor his dead son. Ansel mails a copy of the book to Ikes who responds with a perfunctory three sentence sort of "thank you"--Ikes also mentions that he hopes to pass the Kings bill *that session.* But later Ikes shows the president the book and when Ansel hears about it he send one to the White House, too.

AA's Letters book has the Ikes letter and the ones from Ansel talking about his lobbying.

It sure doesn't sound like Adams was a dominant influence. Read the park historian book, chapter seven...

--Darin

The Sierra Club has its version of conservation history, too, just like everyone else:

“Adams lobbied Congress for a Kings Canyon National Park, the [Sierra] Club’s priority issue in the 1930’s, and created an impressive, limited-edition book, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail, which influenced both Interior Secretary Harold Ickes and President Franklin Roosevelt to embrace the Kings Canyon Park idea. The park was created in 1940.”

Moreover, the article reminds us that AA was elected in 1934 to the Sierra Club’s Board of Directors, a position he held for 37 years.

(Source: The Sierra Club’s History Page about AA.)

Below AA cooks-up something delicious, probably a serving of 8x10 film.

[Drew Wiley]

Keep in mind that hardly anyone involved knew what Kings Canyon country looked like. This
wasn't like Yellowstone or Yosemite, and even today is 99% wilderness, much of it without
any trails whatsoever. And there was a fair amt of opposition to new parks then, just as now. Just how do you think people in power had any clue what they were considering.
The pictures were influential. And there were some classic images, like that of Mt Winchell.
This success helped set the trend for picture books as propaganda for these kinds of causes. Ironically, it was the cost of these books in color that was one factor in the eventual rift between AA and Brower. I've always wondered if AA was a bit jealous of the
dominance Eliot Porter's own work was obtaining during this era.

[Drew Wiley]

Yes I remember those bat bags hanging from the wall, and how when the ordeal was over,
the first thing Warren's climbing partner said to him at the top was that he smelled like a
dead rhinoceros. ... But back to AA's images ... they weren't just put in a book. Ickes ordered up a bunch of mural-sized ones for decor in the Interior Dept (different scenes,
and not necessarily Kings Can material). Some of the locals had ridden back into Evolution
Valley for decades, and the Muir Trail was getting pretty well known, but the idea of a
Park of sheer wilderness without concession or facilities or road or rail acess - well that was pretty gutsy and revolutionary thinking. And it's why Kings Can is perhaps my favorite
of all the Natl Parks. But there were lots of places in there I'm certain AA never got to.
I remember climbing Goddard Divide three times just to get the lighting right with my Sinar.
The sucessful time I spent the night on a tiny ledge, with just enough room for the
tripod itself to be set up.

[Drew Wiley]

Back to Darin - just look up the Natl Archive for the AA Kings pictures. These things were
classics. It was a well targeted effort. Of course, the whole point of lobbying is to make
the big shots at the top look good, so they get political and PR Brownie points out of it. And then afterwards, you can toot your own horn, which the Sierra Club did plenty of. But that's the way the system works. Backcountry prints were also among those which got Stieglitz's attention in the first place, when AA was just a whippersnapper himself.

[Preston]

Just a side note, here...

Warren Harding's BAT was an acronym for Basically Absurd Technology. The BAT tent was pretty extreme for it's day, and was a model for single point suspension big wall bivvy gear.

It's true that Royal Robbins and Don Lauria went up to erase the Dawn Wall, and they finally quit chopping bolts. They both realized that the route was ahead of its time, but the whole episode brought the bolting controversy to a head.

Further aside: I heard the whole story of the Dawn Wall climb from Dean Caldwell himself while the two of us were waiting out bad ice conditions and howling winds on the glacier below the West Face of Nevado Yerupaja in 1975. Dean remarked how great a visionary Harding really was, and also that Harding did things that someone paralyzed by fear could scarcely imagine. I never met Warren, as he had left Yosemite when I was climbing there later into the seventies.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

--P

[Drew Wiley]

Thanks Preston. But I surrender and am going to play by Darin's own rules. I looked up the
limited selection of famous matted reproductions avail at the AA gallery, and there were
actually quite a few backcountry shots included, with several from Kings-to-be. I don't
know how he drove a car to those places. And I apologize for inviting Darin to lug beer up
Taboose Pass. It was actually from Sawmill Pass that AA took one of his influential park
shots (allegedly a worse hike up than even Taboose, though AA no doubt took a horse). His friend Cedric Wright also seems to have accompanied a number of these ventures.

[rdenney]

Below AA cooks-up something delicious, probably a serving of 8x10 film.

Is that his car that his camera is within 10 feet of?

Rick "suspecting some folks--maybe even AA in his younger years--are confusing the hobby of backcountry hiking and the pursuit of photography, even though both can certainly be enjoyed together" Denney

[Vaughn]

Is that his car that his camera is within 10 feet of?

Rick "suspecting some folks--maybe even AA in his younger years--are confusing the hobby of backcountry hiking and the pursuit of photography, even though both can certainly be enjoyed together" Denney

Silly people...

And in their older years, I bet they even confused the act of living with their pursuit of photography -- and Weston confusing his love of the ladies with his pursuit of photography (much to our pleasure!)

[Drew Wiley]

Dear Rick ... (Drew being ornery again just for the sheer fun of silly threads like this one)...
You East Coast types just don't get it. Photography and mountaineering are the same
avocation. I was in your state once and drove around. My sister moved back there when
he husband got a job in the State Dept in DC. The first weekend the neighbors asked if they wanted to drive to the mountains that weekend... She looked all around and asked,
What mountains? I've driven up along the Appalachians there in the fall, and admit it is was
pretty, but where we come from, them things is called gopher mounds!