Ron Kauk

Biography: Ron Kauk, born September 23, 1957, in Redwood City, California, is an American professional climber. He is a pioneer of rock climbing and a resident of Camp 4 in Yosemite National Park. Ron Kauk's first experiences with rock climbing date back to when he was fourteen, when he hiked through Yosemite on a school backpacking trip. That same summer, he and his brother enrolled in a climbing course in Tuolumne Meadows. "In town, I climbed the school walls, did at least 100 pull-ups a day, and practically memorized the Yosemite route guidebook." During the summer of 1973, Ron spent his weekends in Yosemite and was drawn to the "Stonemasters," a group of climbers who stayed at Camp 4 in tents and old buses. After spending the entire summer of 1974 in the valley, he returned to high school but only stayed for one day, declaring he never wanted to breathe the air of a classroom again. He then moved to Camp 4 to live among climbers including Jim Bridwell, Dale Bard, and John Bachar. "It was Jim Bridwell who set the tone; he started tackling very short and very physical routes. The most important thing was to climb a route, if possible onsight, and increasingly difficult ones." By 1974, Ron was able to onsight Nabisco Wall, at the time the hardest route in the valley. In 1975, he achieved the first free ascent of Astroman and several other first ascents, such as Tales of Power, Separate Reality, and Midnight Lightning. At the age of seventeen, he battled for five days on the 1,000-meter vertical drop of El Capitan's Great Wall. Then, still on El Capitan and with Steve Sutten, he climbed the North American Wall in winter during a freezing storm. With Dale Bard, he successfully climbed Window Tears, a difficult icefall in Yosemite. In 1978, he led the Nose in a single day. That same year, Ron and Chapman went to Canada to climb Mount Kitchener and successfully ascended the north face. In 1979, Ron participated with John Roskelly and Kim Schmitz in an expedition to Uli Biaho Tower in the Karakoram. Upon his return, Ron felt he had accomplished everything he could and his motivation waned. He settled on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada and earned a living sometimes as a lumberjack, sometimes as a miner, occasionally climbing in Tuolumne. In 1986, Ron Kauk won a bouldering competition in the USA, and Yvon Chouinard offered him a ticket to come to France to participate in a competition. "During these competitions, I rediscovered the spirit of the 70s: the European climbers piqued my curiosity and motivated me." For several years, Ron successfully participated in numerous international competitions. Then, in 1993, difficult routes attracted him again. "I've always been open to evolution in the sport. I also believed that Spits bindings could give new impetus to the rather stagnant climbing scene in Yosemite and revive free climbing." The purists refused to even consider it, until Ron established Crossroads in 1993, considered at the time to be a revolutionary route. Thanks to systematic training, on his thirty-seventh birthday, Ron became the first American to climb an 8c route, Burn For You.