Ray Jardine

Ray Jardine (* 1944 ) is an American climber and mountain guide . He is considered to be one of the pioneers of modern big wall climbing and free climbing in Yosemite National Park .

Life

Ray Jardine studied aerospace at Northrop University in Inglewood , California until 1967 . He then worked as a systems analyst for the Denver space program .

He started climbing when he was 19. In 1969 he reached the summit of Nevado Huascarán in Peru. From the beginning of the 1970s, he increasingly climbed in the Yosemite Valley in California. In May 1970 he climbed his first big wall with the south face of the Washington Column (difficulty V, 5.8, A3 ). In October of the same year, the route The Nose (VI, 5.8, A3) on El Capitan followed . A year later he succeeded in the west face (VI, 5.9, A4) on the same mountain. From the mid-1970s, he increasingly turned to free climbing . In 1976 he achieved grade 5.12 twice with Crimson Cringe and Hangdog flyer . Both routes were among the most difficult in the world at the time. In 1977 the route Separate Reality (5.11c) was repeated . On May 20, 1977 he succeeded in the first ascent of Phoenix (5.13b) in Yosemite. At the time, this route was one of the hardest in the world.

During this time he began to develop and market the Friend, a mobile clamping device from the single-segment "Abalakov clamping wedge". The main purpose of this securing device is to secure the parallel cracks that are quite common in the Yosemite Valley without using rock hooks .

In 1979 he was able to freely walk the west face (VI, 5.11) on El Capitan for the first time. It was the first free climbing route on the 500 meter high west face.

From the beginning of the 1980s he began to turn away from extreme sport climbing. He went sailing, kayaking, and traveling the world. In the mid-1980s, he sailed around the world in three years.

Since then he has developed into an advocate of ultralight backpacking , a form of trekking that uncompromisingly relies on maximum weight reduction. Jardine wrote the books Beyond Backpacking and The Ray Way , in which he gives practical tips and building instructions for ultra-light hiking equipment and explains his rationale for this style of hiking. He also publishes many of the practical guides on his website.

This was followed by books with personal experience reports on well-known long-distance hiking trails and other outdoor destinations, each enriched with a variety of practical tips and recommendations.

Works (selection)

• The PCT hiker's handbook: innovative techniques and trail tested instruction for the long distance backpacker , Adventure Lore Press, 1992 (Second edition under the title: The Pacific Crest Trail hiker's handbook: innovative techniques and trail tested instruction for the long distance hiker , 1996)
• Beyond Backpacking , Adventure Lore Press, 2000
• The ray-way tarp: how to make a tarp and Net-tent, and use them in the wilds , Adventure Lore Press, 2003
• together with Jenny Jardine: Siku kayak: paddling the Coast of Arctic Alaska , Adventure Lore Press, 2005
• Trail life: Ray Jardine's lightweight backpacking: 25,000 miles of trail-tested know-how , Adventure Lore Press, 2009

Web links

• www.rayjardine.com