Hangdog Days

Conflict, Change, and the Race for 5.14

320 pages
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
ISBN: 978-1-68051-232-8
Published: Mar 1, 2019

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Description

2019 Banff Mountain Book Competition Category Finalist in Mountain Literature
2019 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature Finalist

"If you climbed during that era, you'll turn each page eagerly to find out what happens next (even though you know). If you didn't, you'll likely do the same.... In many ways, Hangdog Days reads as the great American climbing novel. Smoot accepts Todd [Skinner]'s call to join him, and brings us along." -Gripped

Fast-paced history-cum-memoir about rock climbing in the wild-and-wooly ’80s
Highlights ground-breaking achievements from the era

Hangdog Days vividly chronicles the era when rock climbing exploded in popularity, attracting a new generation of talented climbers eager to reach new heights via harder routes and faster ascents. This contentious, often entertaining period gave rise to sport climbing, climbing gyms, and competitive climbing--indelibly transforming the sport.

Jeff Smoot was one of those brash young climbers, and here he traces the development of traditional climbing “rules,” enforced first through peer pressure, then later through intimidation and sabotage. In the late ’70s, several climbers began introducing new tactics including “hangdogging,” hanging on gear to practice moves, that the old guard considered cheating. As more climbers broke ranks with traditional style, the new gymnastic approach pushed the limits of climbing from 5.12 to 5.13. When French climber Jean-Baptiste Tribout ascended To Bolt or Not to Be, 5.14a, at Smith Rock in 1986, he cracked a barrier many people had considered impenetrable.

In his lively, fast-paced history enriched with insightful firsthand experience, Smoot focuses on the climbing achievements of three of the era’s superstars: John Bachar, Todd Skinner, and Alan Watts, while not neglecting the likes of Ray Jardine, Lynn Hill, Mark Hudon, Tony Yaniro, and Peter Croft. He deftly brings to life the characters and events of this raucous, revolutionary time in rock climbing, exploring, as he says, “what happened and why it mattered, not only to me but to the people involved and those who have followed.”

Contributors

Details

320 pages
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
ISBN: 978-1-68051-232-8
Published: Mar 1, 2019

Reviews

Smoot does an incredible job of making the reader question their own climbing ethics and wonder what the future holds for our crags. If you're into reading on the history of specific climbs or nerding out about Yosemite/Joshua Tree/Smith Rock, this one's for you.
— monopkt.
An engaging account of the changes that took place in American rock climbing in the '70s and '80s told with great verve, through the stories of some fascinating characters from died-in-the-wool bottom-up traditionalists to top-down rap-bolters.
— 2019 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature shortlist
Impressively informative, exceptionally well written, thoroughly engaging in organization and presentation, Hangdog Days: Conflict, Change, and the Race for 5.14 is an extraordinary and unique sports history that is unreservedly recommended.
— Micah Andrew, Midwest Book Review
Hangdog Days by Washington-based climber Jeff Smoot details rock climbing’s often hilarious growing pains of the 1970s and 1980s. The parallels between then and now struck me, even as our sport has changed tremendously. Now it’s the same conflict, different issues; the same challenge, higher bar; the same stakes, different rules.
— Chris Weidner, The Daily Camera
It's awesome. Highly recommend it.
— Chris Kalous, The Enormocast
Smoot effortlessly weaves his own experiences through a wildly colorful historical record filled with fistfights, sabotaged routes, and even death threats.... Hangdog Days is at its heart a tribute to Skinner and the groundbreaking (and yes, sometimes controversial) ways he helped redefine the sport itself.
— Shawnté Salabert, Adventure Journal
If you climbed during that era, you'll turn each page eagerly to find out what happens next (even though you know). If you didn't, you'll likely do the same.... In many ways, Hangdog Days reads as the great American climbing novel. Smoot accepts Todd [Skinner]'s call to join him, and brings us along.
— Tom Valis, Gripped
This rollicking book is a welcome trip back to the 1980s, the decade of greatest change—and conflict—in America, when resting on the rope and rap bolting were taboo.... With engaging writing and research, Smoot's book is a pleasure, even as it details the uglier incidents (bolt wars, Yosemite rope-shitting, Index crack-greasing!) in American climbing. Without the 1980s, our sport would not be where it is today, a lesson Hangdog Days artfully conveys.
— Climbing
Smoot tracks the evolution of climbing, from the early hard free climbs of Yosemite to indoor climbing gyms, and introduces readers to climbing luminaries like John Bachar, Alan Watts, Lynn Hill, and Hugh Herr (a double amputee), and he delves into his relationship with a charismatic free climber, Todd Skinner, to whom the book is dedicated…this crisply written memoir provides solid information on a crucial historical period in a sport of increasing popularity.
— Brenda Barrera, Booklist
As a direct result of the people and climbing Smoot describes, we have sport climbing, gyms, comps, bouldering as we know it, and so many other things that were once unthinkable and that now form the bedrock of all serious climbing efforts. As such, I highly recommend this sensitive and fascinating account to anyone interested in how we got here.
— David Smart, Ontario Climbing
In his book Hangdog Days, Jeff Smoot chronicles the controversial method of “hangdogging” a climbing route and the debate that raged during the 1980s in climbing circles about this method.... Part history and part memoir, Smoot’s book uses his personal experiences as a climber and freelance rock-climbing magazine writer as the vehicle to narrate the sport’s rocky transition from the purview of a few grizzled climbers to a phenomenon that attracted younger and more eager climbers wanting to climb harder routes once thought impossible to scale. Smoot’s story incorporates the biggest names of the era—everyone from John Bachar to Todd Skinner to Lynn Hill. Each one adds to the debate about the ethics of hangdogging a route.
— Eric Patterson, Foreword Reviews
Well-researched and fun with flashes of neon—Smoot’s Hangdog Days captures all the wild color of climbing in the late ’70s through the ’80s.
— Lynn Hill
In Hangdog Days, Jeff Smoot offers an enlightening behind-the-scenes perspective on this fantastic era and its memorable characters. I was climbing in the areas he describes where and while these scenes were playing out. He captures them vividly.
— Hans Florine, climber and writer
Hangdog Days recalls the colorful personalities and ethical struggles that spurred a revolution in rock climbing. This fun trip back in time will motivate you to climb harder.
— Paul Piana, climber and writer
Powerful, moving, compelling, outrageous, fascinating—Hangdog Days captures eighties climbing perfectly. If you’re a climber and you can read, this book’s for you.
— Cam Burns, writer and editor
Full of Homeric characters, epic struggles, heroes and heartbreaks, all played out on an international stage—fans of adventure narratives can’t do much better than Hangdog Days.
— John Long, writer and climber