MountaineeringObituaryJim Bridwell obituary
Maverick American climber dedicated to the big walls of Yosemite National Park in CaliforniaEarly in January 1979, the US climber Jim Bridwell, who has died aged 73, was high on the Patagonian mountain of Cerro Torre, a vertical blade of granite 10,000ft high. After a miserable bivouac exposed to bitter wind and snowfall, Bridwell and his climbing partner Steve Brewer were negotiating a difficult section on their descent from the summit. Without warning, the sling Bridwell was using to hang from the wall came apart and he fell into the void.
Accelerating towards terminal velocity, Bridwell had sufficient time to contemplate what had just happened, what might happen next and whether his rope would stop him. “I could hear myself screaming. ‘Shut up,’ I told myself. ‘Screaming doesn’t do any good.’” Then, after he had fallen 40 metres, the rope came tight and he sprang back into the air on its bounce. Bridwell had broken ribs, chipped the bone in an elbow and was severely bruised. “I’m OK,” he shouted up to a bemused Brewer. “Just slipped a bit.”
This sort of yarn endeared Bridwell to generations of climbers, especially those in his favourite stomping ground, the big walls of Yosemite National Park, in California, where he climbed more than 100 new routes. He epitomised the countercultural ethos of the Yosemite scene in the late 1960s and early 70s, and was famous for his prodigious appetite for stimulants, including hallucinogens, but more often for the natural chemicals his brain produced while poised on a vertical wall thousands of feet above the ground in fear of his life.
In those days, Yosemite’s famous Camp 4 was full of outlaws resisting the bureaucratic march of the National Park Service. Bridwell camped there for months at a time in his Arabian-style tent, pilfering electricity from the campsite, with Hendrix and Dylan blasting out, and the party in near-constant motion. He had started the local mountain rescue service in 1970, so the powers that be tolerated his behaviour, at least for a while. It was testament to Bridwell’s constitution that he remained as strong as an ox and capable of moving at great speed in the mountains, a hallmark of his climbing. Speed for Bridwell was safety.
Bridwell’s reputation for hard living and wildness, regarded more equivocally as the years passed, drew attention away from his influence as a climber, which was exceptional. He was a pivotal figure in Yosemite, which in Bridwell’s era set the agenda for the rest of the world. His career began in the early 60s among the big-wall climbers of Yosemite’s golden age, men such as Royal Robbins and Chuck Pratt, and culminated with the free-climbing scene of the mid-70s onwards, centred on the Stonemasters, a group dubbed with affectionate mockery the “stoned masters” by the brilliant free climber Lynn Hill.
Even so, Bridwell thought hard about what he was doing and how changing the rules of the game affected the quality and satisfaction of the experience. He thought deeply too about the risks he was taking, despite appearances. He didn’t care much for climbing solo. “I don’t need to,” he said. “I got friends.”
Bridwell was born in San Antonio, Texas, son of Donald and Miriam. His father was a wartime air force pilot who later flew for Pan Am, and, moving from posting to posting, Jim recalled he was “always the new kid on the block”. As a boy he had fallen in love with high places through his interest in raptors, hence his nickname, Bird. He was also a capable athlete, choosing college in San Jose for its track and field programme with a view to following in his father’s footsteps as a pilot. The call of Yosemite and an anti-establishment instinct for the esoteric soon diverted him.
He climbed with the greats, including Pratt and Layton Kor, after whom he named his son. Then he teamed up with a brilliant young physicist called Frank Sacherer whose fiercely competitive and at times reckless style turned his head for a while. A friend leaving Yosemite for Europe told him: “You’ll probably be dead when I get back.”
In 1964, not yet 20, he followed Sacherer on a reconnaissance of the classic Nose route on El Capitan, with the aim of climbing it in a day. Even Robbins had needed seven. The idea stuck, and in 1975 Bridwell, now a grizzled veteran with the face to match, teamed up with two young apprentices, John Long and Billy Westbay, to realise that dream.
Normally climbers carried vast bags hauled up behind them. Bridwell had a small rucksack with a bottle of water and five packs of cigarettes to share between them. The shock of disbelief on the faces of the first climbers they passed showed how bold their plan was. Their dress code of paisley shirts and bandanas was self-ironic but it made for an iconic photo as the three men posed victorious beneath the wall.
Bridwell was at the forefront of a dramatic rise in free-climbing standards in Yosemite, and when the new generation came along to take his place, he found a new niche with extreme aid climbing, a game that suited his appetite for nervous tension. The route Sea of Dreams was especially notorious. He was influenced too by an earlier pioneer, Yvon Chouinard, founder of the outdoor brand Patagonia. Chouinard argued that skills honed in Yosemite could be transferred to the big walls of Patagonia, Alaska and the Himalayas. Bridwell rose to the challenge, with some aplomb.
On Cerro Torre, he made the first complete ascent of the south-east ridge. In 1981, with Mugs Stump, he made the first ascent of the east face of Moose’s Tooth in Alaska. They called their route the Dance of the Wu Li Masters, a nod to Gary Zukav’s bestselling book on the frontiers of physics.
Bridwell had less success in the Himalayas, where he attempted Everest twice, each time via a new route, the second time as leader. The scale and nature of a big team did not suit him; the effort ended sourly.
His reputation dipped in Ronald Reagan’s US; a profile in Rolling Stone dwelt on the ropier aspects of his life, such as how much he did, or more often did not, earn. But he never lost his passion for the wilder corners of the human experience.
He died of liver failure caused by the hepatitis C virus, most likely acquired from a traditional tattoo he was given by a village headman during a walk across Borneo in 1980.
He is survived by his wife, Peggy, whom he married in 1974, and son, Layton.
Jim Bridwell, climber, born 29 July 1944; died 16 February 2018
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