As a hub for the counterculture movement, Berkeley has attracted many climbers over the decades since the movement began. Ryan Moon, a longtime Berkeley-based climber, calls Berkeley “a huge cultural melting pot for all sorts of climbing legends dating back to at least the 50s and likely longer.”² Alex Honnold, likely the most famous climber today for his free solo ascent of El Capitan and its accompanying Oscar-winning documentary, even attended Berkeley before dropping out to pursue climbing full-time (a fitting decision in relation to counterculture and climbing).³

One of the most influential California climbing films, titled “West Coast Pimp,” says that “the carefree nature of Berkeley bouldering has led to true vision.”⁴ This film highlights many of the most popular climbing destinations in California, with a section on Berkeley climbing and the Doe Traverse. It calls the Traverse “one of the raddest buildering problems ever.”

Another climber, Peter Haan, was raised in Berkeley and began climbing in 1963 at the age of fourteen.¹ He continued to become a significant influence in Yosemite and other climbing areas over the next several decades. On a climbing-based discussion forum in 2006, he recalled the history of building climbing on campus and some of its main players.

“Building climbing in Berkeley was this kind of secret science. It almost always had to be at night. […] And as for lore, there was tons of it. It had been going on since the fifties or earlier. [Steve] Roper was rumored to have tried to nail the entire Campanile. It had this granite veneer on it, with failure cracks that went up a ways, but certainly not all of the hundreds of feet it stood. Sacherer or Pratt was supposed to have first done the long expansion joint cracks on Memorial Stadium. And of course, Vandiver and I tried to get Royal [Robbins] to come with us, but he could not expose himself to the likely arrest.”⁵

Haan illustrates the culture of building climbing at Berkeley with these memories. Royal Robbins was perhaps one of the most notable figures in Yosemite climbing history, as the first ascensionist of the face of Half Dome and countless other Valley climbs. His refusal to climb buildings on campus was in line with his personality; he was known to be a rule-follower, perhaps making him stand out from other climbers of the time.

While climbers have always known that they are going against the rules when climbing buildings on campus, it is rarely done to spite authority. Instead, it is most often a personal endeavor for those who participate. Climbers find a freedom on the wall that they cannot achieve elsewhere, despite pushing some legal limits at times to do so. Peter Haan summarizes the ideology of building climbing in his 2006 discussion post:

“It did not matter that we owned nothing, practically ate nothing, and basically lived nowhere. It mattered what we were doing and all else was kept firmly and completely out of focus. What we found through movement and risk, left us with nothing else on the agenda, it seemed to be the big secret. […] It was nothing short of True Natural Religion. And in kinder moments, we almost pitied the rest of humankind for what we saw as its poverty of spirit. And of course could see all of this when building climbing.”⁵