Ron Kauk

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ron Kauk (2011)
Ron Kauk climbs the Bachar-Yerian route (5.11c) at Medlicott Dome , Tuolumne Meadows .

Ron Kauk (born September 23, 1957 in Redwood City , California ) is an American climber. He is considered one of the fathers of modern sport climbing and was the first to climb several difficult climbing routes , especially in the Yosemite Valley in California.

Life

Ron Kauk started climbing in Yosemite in 1974. Just a year later, together with John Long and John Bachar , he managed the route Astroman, difficulty 5.11c (American scale) on the east face of the Washington Column, the most difficult long free climbing route in the valley and perhaps worldwide for five years.

His best-known first ascent followed in 1978 with the Route Separate Reality (5.11d). The route leads spectacularly through a horizontal rock roof and was named after a book by Carlos Castaneda . In the same year he succeeded in bouldering Midnight Lightning (V8) on the grounds of the Camp 4 campsite . Like the Astroman route, the boulder was named after a song by Jimi Hendrix .

Ron Kauk was in direct competition with John Bachar . When he first climbed a route he had planned without asking him, there was a fight at Camp 4. On July 3, 1979, he and Bill Forrest , John Roskelley and Kim Schmitz made the first ascent of the Uli Biaho Tower in the Karakoram . In 1990 he succeeded in Yosemite with Crossroads (5.13d) again, the toughest route in the valley. He increased this in 1997 with Magic Line (5.14b).

Ron Kauk was also present in the media, so he was filmed in 1989 by NBC Sportsworld in the Route Backbone (5.13a) in Smith Rocks . In 1992 he doubled together with the German climber Wolfgang Güllich Sylvester Stallone in the film Cliffhanger . In 1999, Ron Kauk trained actor Tom Cruise for the movie Mission: Impossible II . In 2000 he produced the video Yosemite: Ascending Rhythms about climbing in Yosemite. In 2003 he published the book Spirit of the Rock .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mark Kroese, Fifty Favorite Climbs: The Ultimate North American Tick List , The Mountaineers Books, 2002
  2. ^ Alan Watts, Climber's Guide to Smith Rock , Chockstone Press, 1992

Web links

Commons : Ron Kauk  - collection of images, videos and audio files