John Salathe

John Salathe (1900-1993) was a pioneering rock climber and the inventor of the modern piton.

Salathe was born in Switzerland and emigrated to the United States. He had been a blacksmith before a mid-life spiritual conversion led him to devote his life to ascetic meditation and rock climbing. When he began climbing in 1945, he found that traditional pitons used for climbing in the Alps were too soft to be driven into narrow cracks without buckling. In his San Mateo Peninsula Ornamental Iron Works, Salathe used high-carbon chrome-vanadium Model T axles to forge extremely strong pitons which could be hammered into the hard Yosemite granite without buckling, as well as removed without getting mangled, thus rendering them reusable. These thin pitons became known as "Lost Arrows", and are still manufactured under that name by Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd.

In 1946, Salathe and Anton (Ax) Nelson climbed the southwest face of Half Dome. The two climbers spent the night on a small ledge, making it Yosemite's first climbing route to require a bivouac.cite book
last = Jones | first = Chris | title = Climbing in North America
publisher = American Alpine Club / Univ of California Press
date = 1976 | location = Berkeley, California, USA
pages = p's 185-194 | id = ISBN 0520029763 ]

In September, 1947, Salathe and Nelson managed the first "ground-up" ascent of the Lost Arrow Spire in Yosemite, by the "Lost Arrow Chimney" route. The Lost Arrow piton was named after the spire. The ascent took five days and included four bivouacs. The first ascent of the spire summit was achieved earlier in the year by Anton Nelson and friends, who threw a rope over the summit beforehand to aid in their climb.

In July, 1950, Allen Steck and Salathe made the first ascent of the 1,500 foot (500 m) north face of Sentinel Rock. This five-day ascent was considered the last of the great Yosemite problems of the day. Their route, the "Steck-Salathe" is now a classic rock climb.

The "Salathe Wall" on El Capitan was named to honor Salathe (although he did not climb it) in 1961 by Yvon Chouinard.Fact|date=February 2007

Quotations

"I find that rock climbing is the finest, most healthiest sport in the whole world. It is much healthier than most; look at baseball, where 10,000 sit on their ass to watch a handful of players" - John Salathe, 1974

"Foops, no more rope!" - Salathe after rappelling part way down the face of a cliff in Yosemite. He proceeded to cut the ends off his rope and prusiked back up to the top. (source: Gunks Guide/Todd Swain)

References