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Show 133, c the inaccessibility of the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, uir's tremendous resolve when he suffered to attain the summit f Mount Whitney in the fall of 1873 can probably be attributed o his competitive drive. Even late in life he could not avoid measuring his own bilities against those possessed by Galen Clark. Clark was tetter in chaparral, but Muir excelled in the talus. Galen's iot of oatmeal boiled first, and Muir admired his ability to sleep anywhere. And it is interesting to note that Muir's early employer in Yosemite, James Hutchings, always seemed to accomplish )ne of Muir's feats right after Muir did. He traversed the ;anyon of the Tuolumne, climbed Lyell, and Whitney, right after Mix. Hutchings also suspected that when his wife departed from ifosemite in 1873, Muir was responsible. What does all this mean? Was mountaineering merely a contest of strength and endurance between men? Is it still? Certainly there have been stories in Yosemite, for as long as I can remember, about the link between climbing ability, valor, and the sexual prowess of men. And after years of dominance by men, where women often measured their attractiveness by how many "Yosemite Hard Men" they had slept with, the trend is reversing. Now female rockclimbers begin to collect a group of men who compete for their attentions. The Women's Annapurna Expedition sold T-shirts which said, "A Woman's Place is on Top." is mountaineering just sublimated sexual activity? Or worse, is it rape? Is the myth of mountaineering as conquest a social tool which glamorizes the distasteful side |
