California and the West : Rock Climbers Seek Historic Status for Base Camp : Preservation: Park Service is seeking new locations for employee housing. But activists hope to protect what has been the launch site for many famous ascents of Yosemite’s cliffs.

Tucked up against the towering granite walls of Yosemite Valley is a scruffy collection of tents and picnic tables known as Camp 4. It might not look like much, but to big wall rock climbers from around the globe, Camp 4 is the mecca, the place where it all started.

This innocuous little spot was the launch pad for a revolution that propelled America, and the collection of free spirits drawn to Yosemite’s sheer cliffs beginning in the 1950s, to the forefront of international climbing. For these pioneers and the brave souls who followed, Camp 4 is as rich with history as Gettysburg.

Now they fear this birthplace of modern mountaineering faces a threat.

The National Park Service, which is moving forward with a broad planning blueprint to refigure man’s imprint on Yosemite Valley, is considering building lodging for visitors and park employees near the edge of Camp 4.

To many in the climbing community, this is a blasphemous proposition, the equivalent of building hotels at the steps of Stonehenge.

“You wouldn’t be in Yosemite Valley,” said Tom Frost, a climbing pioneer leading the fight against development near Camp 4. “You’d be in a city.”

Frost and a cadre of climbers have joined with the Sierra Club and other preservationists in hopes of blocking any development.

So far, they have met with some success, obtaining a court order last year to hold off development until further planning reviews are performed. They also are on the cusp of getting Camp 4 named to the National Historic Register, a status that would heighten the stakes if the Park Service goes forward with building plans.

Initially at least, park officials did not see the historical merits of the camp--certainly not enough to justify putting off building lodging meant to replace the scores of units destroyed by floods that swept the valley in 1997. Camp 4, said Russell Galipeau, Yosemite’s chief of natural and cultural resources, is not a typical historical site. “It’s not like Kill Devil Hill, where you can follow the path of the Wright brothers’ plane as it was launched and landed.”

But climbers say the place has a rich history.

It was here, they note, that Warren Harding set off for the historic first ascent up El Capitan in 1957. Camp 4 was where Yvon Chouinard, who later would establish the Patagonia clothing firm, used an old anvil to hammer out early versions of climbing hardware that revolutionized the sport. Up on the mammoth Columbia Boulder--one of the many practice slabs bigger than a Mack truck--aerial artists such as Royal Robbins perfected their craft at Camp 4.

“It’s a mecca, but it’s also a dirty little groveling camping place,” said Robbins, who blazed countless routes up the walls of Yosemite from 1955 to 1975. “It’s got the history, but it’s not by itself a work of beauty.”

At Camp 4, climbers from around the world found a spot to pitch a tent and bask in a community of climbing peers. Then, as now, it was the only place in the overbooked Yosemite Valley that did not require a reservation. Although it was renamed the Sunnyside Campground in 1971, it remains fixed in the lexicon of the climbing world as Camp 4.

“You say Camp 4 and you need say no other word to a climber worldwide,” said Steve Roper, author of a book on the early years of Yosemite rock climbing. “Anyone who knows anything about rock climbing knows Camp 4, like they know Chamonix or Mt. Everest.”

Harding, Robbins and scores of other climbing pioneers are scheduled to attend a Sept. 25 event celebrating 50 years of climbing achievements at Yosemite. The event, hosted by the American Alpine Club, will also aid the push to keep out development.

Yosemite officials are silent on what is in store for Camp 4, saying only that a draft of the planning document for the entire valley is not expected to be unveiled until next year.

But park officials are in a squeeze as they search for a safe harbor to relocate scores of cabins and campsites destroyed by flood waters two years ago.

One acceptable spot is right next to Camp 4. After the floods, park officials made a push to quickly put up replacement housing that would have included three-story dorms for 336 employees and enough four-plex units to house 148 daily visitors.

Despite resistance from Yosemite climbers, park officials were determined to move forward with the project. But then Tom Frost arrived.

Frost, who carved his name in Yosemite climbing lore in the early 1960s, had returned to the park in 1997 with his son to assault the ferocious face of El Capitan for the first time in 37 years.

Aside from litigation, Frost came up with the plan to get Camp 4 on the historic registry. Although initially unconvinced, parks officials now are amenable to having Camp 4 named a historic property.

But that does not mean buildings will not pop up one day at its edge.

Galipeau said park planners figuring the valley’s future will balance the historical integrity of sites like Camp 4 against the pressure for visitor lodging and other needs. A historical designation for the camp, like any other site, “isn’t intended to freeze it in time,” he said, but will help guide planners.

Frost remains optimistic. “I think the parks department is now in a position to look at this in a fresh and open way,” he said. “But until the dust settles, the threat is still there.