CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 12/11/2013

Best of 2013: California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties

Bill Feuerer's 1957 photograph of Mark Powell, Jerry Gallwas, himself and Don Wilson atop the 429 foot 'Totem Pole' rock spire in Monument Valley, Arizona, after their first ascent, is reproduced from T Adler's must-have photography collection, California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties. In his introduction, Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard writes, "The fifties were the easy years in California. With full employment from the Korean War, we were enjoying all the fruits of the fossil fuel culture. Gas was a quarter a gallon, used cars could be bought for twenty-five dollars, campgrounds were free, and you could easily live off the excess fat of society. Those of us in the counter cultures of climbing and surfing were as climber Pete Sinclair said, 'the last free Americans.'"