Every film and interview over the last seven years has led Boulder’s Sender Films to “Valley Uprising,” its sweeping new documentary that tracks the 60-year evolution of culture-forging climbing on Yosemite National Park’s granite walls.
While Sender’s 9-year-old Reel Rock Tour is known for its high-energy presentations — collections of brief, athlete-driven stories built to rile climbers and stun those who respect gravity — “Valley Uprising,” a 90 minute, history-rich documentary, is a new tack for Sender filmmakers Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen.
“We are reaching out to a much broader audience,” Rosen said.
But climbing’s colorful characters remain the stars on Sender’s sharp end. The brilliance of the climbers who for half a century have flocked to California’s iconic Yosemite Valley — inventing and advancing big-wall climbing — radiates in the film.
“Valley Uprising” is the “Dogtown and Z-Boys” of climbing. But where “Dogtown” was homage to the godfathers of skateboarding, “Valley Uprising” ferries viewers into climbing’s modern era, where new-school athletes continue to push their sport into realms never imagined. The story is still unfolding in the Yosemite Valley, but the revelation of “Valley Uprising” is climbing’s unwavering disciples.
While the style and accomplishments of legendary climbers have changed from the days of pioneers like Royal Robbins and Warren Harding — with fearless adventurers like Dean Potter and Alex Honnold climbing without gear or leaping off peaks in wingsuits — the untamed spirit of exploration and the impassioned pursuit of the unfathomable remains as vibrant as ever.
“Valley Uprising,” while seemingly highlighting the evolution of climbing, actually reveals how little has changed among climbers whose lives revolve around Yosemite’s daunting granite walls.
Narrated by actor Peter Sarsgaard, “Valley Uprising” focuses on three generations of climbers. The golden age, from 1955 to 1970 saw Yosemite as a sort of Never Never Land for young athletes eager to break from the placid, risk-averse, postwar era. They laid siege to vertiginous stone, taking days and weeks to scale sheer walls. They laid the groundwork for style-over-success ethics that remain at the heart of rock climbing. Highlighting the divisive camps of Robbins — a purist — and Harding, a hard-drinking glutton who hauled brandy and wine on his climbs, “Valley Uprising” delineates a classical-versus-punk-rock rift in climbing that persists today.
The soundtrack with Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane and a host of current artists stirs the vintage yet modern vibe.
Particularly enthralling are the never-before-seen photos of the 1977 plane crash into a high-country lake in the park. Hordes of climbers descended on the Lower Merced Pass Lake, chainsawing through ice to reach several tons of fuel-soaked marijuana inside the plane.
“Early on we focused this as a counterculture film, or a film about a sport that has grown into a counterculture, starting with the origins of that alternative way of life,” said Rosen, who interviewed more than 50 Yosemite legends for the film. “We wanted to draw these parallels with what’s going on in America and what’s going on in Yosemite climbing.”
Central to “Valley Uprising” is the ongoing conflict between climbers and park rangers. Not surprisingly, the movie sides with climbers, portraying them as free spirits evading rangers who envied their rock-first lifestyles. But, as the movie notes, attendance at Yosemite National Park is nearing 4 million annual visitors today. Climbers are sure that new rules to accommodate these masses — like limiting a person’s yearly camping in the park to seven days — are aimed at eradicating dirtbag climbers who need weeks, months and years to hone the skills required for the valley’s monster walls.
“Guys in the modern area are really trying to carry the torch and celebrate this lifestyle while running up against new realities,” Rosen said.
The bacchanalian days of Yosemite climbing are likely over. But the philosophical fortitude that first spurred men and women to reach beyond just pondering the unthinkable remains climbing’s clarion call in the Yosemite Valley. Granite-pinching athletes who fall under the valley’s spell continue to conjure new impossibilities and then summarily prove them feasible.
And that’s the highlight of “Valley Uprising.” Even in the face of overwhelming change — in the park, in the rules, in the gear and in the athletes — Yosemite Valley climbing, and really rock climbing in general, remains the vibrant enclave of intrepid contrarians who inspire with their dedication, fearlessness and insurrection.
“People always talk about what Alex is doing, like ‘I can’t believe he’s doing that,’ ” said Rosen, who has filmed Honnold’s calm, unroped ascents up Yosemite’s 3,000-foot walls for years. “They said the same thing about Royal Robbins in the 1950s. These guys are just finding outlandish objectives and achieving them. They are always breaking new ground.”
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasonblevins
VALLEY UPRISING Climbing documentary. Sept. 11 and Sept. 12 at Chautauqua Auditorium, 900 Baseline Rd., Boulder, 303-440-7666, and Sept. 13 at the Oriental Theater, 4335 W. 44th Ave., 720-420-0030. reelrocktour.com for more information.
