This is about the change in climbers and the change in American society that occurred in the early 1980s.

I was fortunate to cut my big wall teeth in Yosemite Valley in the 1970s. We were homeless Camp 4 bums, living in Yosemite Valley for months at a time. We ate out of dumpsters, scarfed abandoned food in the cafeteria, collected bottles and cans for the nickel deposit, and hitch-hiked everywhere.

Life in Camp 4 was great. On rest days, we left our climbing rack and rope hanging from a tree branch, and went out to the Merced River or the spray at Lower Yosemite Falls. We never worried that anything would ever get stolen, and nothing was ever stolen. Climbers - and people in general - were honorable people.

Then something changed around 1980 or a bit later. Climbers started stealing from climbers. Camp 4 bums started breaking into cars. Hitch-hikers started to get murdered at alarming rates. By the mid-1980s it was nearly impossible to hitch hike anymore. Climbers even started jugging fixed lines on El Cap and stealing all the gear. If anyone remembers the names of these criminals, post them here.

WTF happened to climbers and people?

1972 - We had a bag of food stolen at the base of Half Dome. My dad was pissed. Yosemite was filled with hippies at that time. Many were thieves.

Yosemite got really crowded in the spring-summer-fall months in the 1980s when there were no day-use limits. You couldn't see the forest through the trees through the fields of people. More people coming into the valley to site-see, and a lot coming to the base of El Capitan by walking through the climber's camps. And with all those people you know there were a few with 'sticky fingers', so I'm not surprised at all that some theft started to happen. I stopped going to Yosemite Valley during high season about 1990, and have only been there in the winter 2-3 times since then. To me its lost its magic, its shine, its mystery.

phydeux wrote:To me its lost its magic, its shine, its mystery.

Not only Yosemite changed! Sadly several mythical mountain places in the world have lost their shine due to overcrowding. The world unfortunately is enormously overpopulated, and not from today, but today people also overrun the mountains.

There seems to be a worldwide pandemic of mental illness. The terrible things people do to each other aren't limited to simple theft, and they aren't done exclusively by strangers. The news is filled with horrific things that family members and friends do to each other; assault, murder, rape. It's so common that we've become numb to it.

You know there is something truly and seriously wrong with people's mental health when a third of the people in the US can no longer distinguish between reality and fantasy. The popularity of QAnon is clear evidence of this.

Am I not understanding SLR's post?, is he asking for people to call out names of people that stole shit from camp 4 from 40+ years ago?

Marmaduke wrote:Am I not understanding SLR's post?, is he asking for people to call out names of people that stole shit from camp 4 from 40+ years ago?

That's how I understand it. Except it's not really an ask, but more a demand. At the very least, he could post his own name.

He also seems miffed on how a large homeless camp, with such an excellent quality of life that members are eating out of dumpsters, is not compatible long-term with the goals of a National Park.

I think with enough time, we imagine much of our past to be better than it was. People being sucky has been going since, well, forever.

marmaduke, no you're wrong
go crawl back into your cold, dark hole

Don't be an ass SLR, you did, you edited your post. Another person here said the same....... guess one too many that night?

Sierra Ledge Rat wrote:marmaduke, no you're wrong
go crawl back into your cold, dark hole

I had my truck broken into parked on the side of the road while climbing Manure Pile Buttress back in the late '70's / early '80's. They stole a ton of climbing gear. You have to get a long way from the road before you can trust folks. Dirtbags are too lazy to walk a long ways.