A.A.C., Southern California Section

Publication Year: 1978.

A.A.C., Southern California Section. Two meetings and a program for the public were held by this Section in the first half of 1977. On January 27, Bob Kamps presented a program of his climbs during the past twenty years, including hundreds of new routes from Stoney Point and Yosemite in California to the Black Hills in South Dakota. Kamps is the author of A Climber’s Guide to the Needles in the Black Hills of South Dakota, an American Alpine Club publication.

The Section’s most ambitious project, and one which produced a profit, was the sponsorship of a double showing in downtown Los Angeles of the film Everest—The Hardest Way Up. A.A.C. Secretary Ted Vaill made most of the arrangements, assisted by Section officers Pete White and Mike Sherrick and by other local members. Shortly before the show, news was received that the speaker Dougal Haston had been killed in Switzerland. Vaill made the necessary arrangements with immigration officials to permit the last-minute substitution of Martin Boysen as speaker.

On May 14 the Section met in honor of the directors, who had held their spring meeting at the Idyllwild Town Hall that day. President James F. Henriot spoke to those present. Chuck Wilts, author of A Climber’s Guide to Tahquitz and Suicide Rocks, published by the A.A.C., showed slides and told stories about the olden days of climbing at Tahquitz, going back to the mid-1930’s when the first routes were pioneered. On the following day, several Board members, undeterred by the late snowfall, sampled Tahquitz granite.

After this spurt of activity, the Section itself returned to a state of dormancy for the rest of 1977—but many of its members climbed in numerous and far-flung mountain ranges.

Ruth Dyar Mendenhall