John Salathé
| John Salathé | |
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John Salathé at Camp 4 in Yosemite Valley in 1964.
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| Born |
June 14, 1899 Niederschöntal, Füllinsdorf municipality, Switzerland |
| Died | August 31, 1992 |
| Occupation | Blacksmith, rock climber |
John Salathé (June 14, 1899 – 1993) was an American pioneering rock climber, blacksmith, and the inventor of the modern piton.
Salathé was born in Switzerland and emigrated to the United States. He had been a blacksmith before an illness and a mid-life spiritual conversion led him to devote his life to ascetic meditation, vegetarianism and rock climbing.
When he began climbing in 1945, he found that traditional pitons used for climbing in the Alps were too soft to be driven into narrow cracks without buckling. In his San Mateo business, Peninsula Wrought Iron Works, Salathé used high-carbon chrome-vanadium steel, similar to that used to make Ford axles, to forge extremely strong pitons which could be hammered into the hard Yosemite granite without buckling, as well as removed without getting mangled, thus rendering them reusable. These thin pitons became known as Lost Arrows, and are still manufactured under that name by Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd.
In 1946, Salathé and Anton (Ax) Nelson climbed the southwest face of Half Dome. The two climbers spent the night on a small ledge, making it Yosemite's first climbing route to require a bivouac.
In September, 1947, Salathé and Nelson managed the first "ground-up" ascent of the Lost Arrow Spire in Yosemite, by the Lost Arrow Chimney route. The Lost Arrow piton was named after the spire. The ascent took five days and included four bivouacs. The first ascent of the spire summit was achieved in 1946 by Anton Nelson and friends, who threw a rope over the summit beforehand to aid in their climb.
In July, 1950, Allen Steck and Salathé made the first ascent of the 1,500 foot (500 m) north face of Sentinel Rock. This five-day ascent was considered the last of the great Yosemite problems of the day. Their route, the Steck-Salathé Route is now a classic rock climb.
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