A Life of Peaks

Warren Harding, the American president, was disgraced by the Teapot Dome financial scandal in the 1920s. But there was a more interesting Warren Harding, a character and iconoclast of mountainous proportions. He was a scrawny, bandylegged visionary with wild black hair and a savage gleam in his eye and one of the nation’s pioneering rock climbers. In 1958, in an event that captured national attention, he completed the first climb up the 3,000-foot vertical and overhanging granite nose of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. The impossible had been done.

Harding has died at his Shasta County home at the age of 77, a remarkable longevity for a man who consumed untold quantities of rotgut red wine and drove fast cars with wild abandon.

The sheer northwest face of Half Dome was climbed in 1957 by Harding’s rival, Royal Robbins. But climbers stood at the foot of El Cap and gazed up in awe and fear. No one had dared attempt it. Harding’s efforts occurred over a two-year period with the help of a cast of partners, many of whom dropped out, worn and wasted trying to keep up with the relentless Harding, no kin to the 29th president. Now there are scores of climbing routes up El Cap, but the Nose remains a classic, and Harding’s name is indelibly linked to it. In all, Harding made 30 first ascents and, with Robbins and a handful of others, made the valley a mecca for the world’s best alpinists.

Traditionalists criticized Harding for using siege tactics on El Cap, establishing a series of camps linked to the ground, much like an Everest expedition, and using excessive numbers of expansion bolts to make progress in spaces devoid of cracks and handholds. Harding didn’t care. He called the purists “Valley Christians” and went his own way, often partnering with Galen Rowell, now a noted mountain photographer.

Climbing was an absurd pursuit to Harding. He titled his autobiography “Downward Bound” and founded the Lower Sierra Eating, Drinking and Farcing Society, covering a wide range of outrageous behavior. Others worked out and trained; Harding consumed his red wine and regaled followers with climbing, car-racing and girl-friend stories.

Harding made national news again in 1970 with his 27-day ascent of the Wall of the Early Morning Light on the southeast face of El Capitan with Dean Caldwell, surviving extremely cold weather and extreme climbing. When park rangers attempted to rescue the pair, Harding insisted that the climbers could finish on their own and threatened to fight the rescuers off with his piton hammer. Reaching the top, Harding was asked why he climbed it. “Because we’re insane,” he said.

Warren Harding was a great renegade with an ego to match El Capitan, the cliff that stands as his memorial.