CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 7/5/2023

Epic 'California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties' is Back in Stock!

Once upon a time surfing and rock climbing were new, uncommodified and totally open frontiers. And well before the Summer of Love, surfers and climbers were part of the counter-culture, sharing mystical, physical thrills in uncrowded terrain. The gear was, by today’s standards, terrifyingly primitive—made by hand, and often improvised. Featured spreads are from California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties, the classic mid-century photography collection that’s just come back into stock from T. Adler Books. In color and black-and-white, it brings together candid shots of the earliest pioneers as they documented their “firsts”: the first pintail surfboards, created by Joe Quigca, ca. 1949; the first ascent of the Northwest face of Half Dome, by Jerry Gallwas, 1957; Hobie's, the first structure built to house a surfboard manufacture and retail shop, 1954; Yvon Chouinard’s first pitons, created in his first blacksmith shop, in a chicken coop in his parents’ back yard, ca. 1957… For lovers of either sport, the captions in this volume provide both a concise history lesson and a love letter to simpler times.