Your window into the stories, history, and ongoing work to preserve Yosemite’s climbing legacy.

A Note from the Editor

Yosemite Facelift kicks off today in the park, with daily activities and evening programs. If you have not already signed up to join the annual cleanup event, you may register in person at the Yosemite Valley Exploration Center located at 9035 Village Dr., Yosemite National Park. View all the event details below.

When Robert Redford died at age 89 on Sept. 16, news reports flooded the internet showcasing his top films, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969; listed in the National Film Registry for being “Culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”), The Sting (1973; winning seven out of 10 Oscar nominations), and The Natural (1984; nominated for four Academy Awards). Dierdre Wolownick (Alex Honnold’s mom) even reached out to me and shared a photo of Alex and Redford from the Sundance Film Festival, snapped soon after the release of Free Solo (2018).

Alex Honnold and Robert Redford at the Sundance Film Festival after the release of Free Solo. Photo: Courtesy Dierdre Wolownick collection

I thought back to one of my favorite films, narrated by Redford, Free Climb: The Northwest Face of Half Dome (1978), which documents Jim Erickson and Art Higbee’s attempt to free the RNWF. I was curious about his connection to Yosemite, and this week (Sept. 17) Fortune published Dave Smith’s story*, writing, “Robert Redford said he worked at Yosemite National Park before making it in Hollywood, inspired by his first visit when he had 'a mild case of polio'.” Smith continues:

Redford said his mother drove him to Yosemite [from Los Angeles]—an over four-hour trip—in 1949, when the National Park Service was just 33 years old. The experience proved transformative for the future Oscar winner. “So she drove me to Yosemite. If you’re coming from Fresno, you go through a mile-long tunnel, and when we came out the other side, I was blown away,” Redford said. “We stopped to look at the view, and when I went to the edge—well, I said to myself, ‘I don’t want to look at this. I want to be in this.”

According to the Smithsonian, Redford returned to Yosemite years later and spent two summers working at Camp Curry, which is now called Curry Village, and Yosemite Valley Lodge—but he would nurture his love of nature throughout his career.

The connection between his childhood Yosemite experience and later work remained strong throughout his life. In 2016, to commemorate the National Park Service’s centennial, Redford narrated an IMAX film called “National Parks Adventure” [starring Redford, Conrad Anker, and Max Lowe]. The project allowed him to advocate for protecting America’s natural treasures for future generations.

[* For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.]

Also on Sept. 17, The San Francisco Chronicle echoed that statement in Aidin Vaziri’s story “Robert Redford’s first glimpse of Yosemite changed everything.” Vaziri continues:

Redford returned as a teenager to work as a waiter at Camp Curry and Yosemite Lodge.

“It gave me a chance to really be there every day — to hike up to Vernal Falls or Nevada Falls. It just took me really deep into it,” he said. “Yosemite claimed me.”

This week, we’re profiling Merced local and frequent Yosemite climber Maggie Sogin. For the past several years, Sogin, her husband Pat, and I have climbed many times throughout the park, from Arch Rock to Lower Yosemite Falls Amphitheater to Lower Cathedral Rock West. Despite her fear of exposure, we once climbed the Rostrum on a chilly winter day—we post-holed through the snow to get to the route, making for a memorable outing. Despite working full-time as an assistant professor of molecular cell biology at UC Merced and being a parent to their 15-month-old baby, they’re here nearly every weekend.

Chris Van Leuven

Editor, Yosemite Climbing Association News Brief

YosemiteClimbing.Org

YOSEMITE FACELIFT KICKS OFF TODAY!

Yosemite Facelift is the largest annual volunteer clean-up event in any national park. Hosted by the Yosemite Climbing Association (YCA) in partnership with the National Park Service, this five-day event invites people from all walks of life—climbers, park lovers, families, locals, and visitors—to help care for Yosemite after its busiest season.
During Facelift, volunteers collect trash, restore trails, and protect habitat across Yosemite Valley and beyond—while also coming together for educational programs, films, guest speakers, and community celebrations in the evenings. Since its start, the event has removed over **1 million pounds of trash** from Yosemite, leaving the park better than we found it—year after year.

**Pre-registration is now closed but you can still join the fun!** Register in person in front of the Yosemite Valley Exploration Center Wednesday - Saturday 8:00am - 3:00pm and Sunday 8:00am - 1:00pm.

Maggie on the N. Face of the Rostrum. Photo: Chris Van Leuven

Maggie Sogin: Climbing 5.10 after childbirth, mentoring gym climbers & traveling the globe

After becoming a mom, Sogin rebuilt her lead head, sent Mañana (5.10d) at Sentinel Creek, and continues to welcome new gym climbers into their first Yosemite trad days.

Leading trad—where she’s often well above small cams and nuts, bearing down on the rock and focusing on the next move—doesn’t come easy for Maggie, but she perseveres. That’s part of what makes climbing with her and her husband fun; to Maggie, success on her projects is more mental than physical. She can top-rope 5.10s and 11s with little or more effort, but once on the sharp end—even using a Micro Traxion on a fixed line—if she doesn’t have it, she’ll retreat and come back another day.

Sending Mañana

That’s why I was so excited to hear this week that she sent Mañana at Sentinel Creek. The 120-foot 10d jam-fest with ring locks and multiple cruxes, culminating in a final heartbreaker balance move just before the chains, is called “a must-do for the .10d enthusiast” on Mountain Project.

She’d decided “a couple of weeks” before she started trying hard again and top-roped Mañana clean, which motivated her to lead it. She’d done it several times on TR before her pregnancy and tried it on lead multiple times; when she returned, the movement came back quickly. After practicing it recently—and once mock-leading it with gear in place so she could memorize how to jam around the pieces—she got on the sharp end. Things went smoothly until the top, where she nearly fell at the final crux mid-clip, but she slowed down and kept it together. “I tried to calm down, breathe, and remember the movement… clipping the top felt pretty good,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting to send it as quickly as that.”

Mileage, weekends, goals

As a climber of 10 years, Maggie dedicates herself to Alpine Climbing Adventures in Ripon (Central Valley) once or twice a week, plus making one—if not two—trips to the Valley on weekends. She and Pat climb together or partner with friends, and generally meet up for at least one day each weekend. Last Sunday at Lower Cathedral Rock, she told me she’d already spent Saturday on the multipitch Super Slide (5.9, five pitches). Though tired from the previous day’s effort, she attempted 5.11s and made quick work of 5.10 TRs. She has her eyes on a 5.11a trad lead but hasn’t found the right route that fits her style yet.

“At first, everything was new and pretty scary, so it was hard to push myself to my limit,” she says about her early days in Yosemite. “Now I understand climbing more, and I’ve found routes that are fun to try and that I feel comfortable pushing on. Yosemite has so many crack systems that take gear all the way so that you can try hard—if you get scared, you just plug in more gear.”

Mentoring new leaders

When we climbed together the previous weekend at the Lower Yosemite Falls Amphitheater, the crags were a busy scene with parents and young kids, all friends of Maggie and Pat. There were about 15 of us and one climber made his first trad lead, Ranger Crack, a 5.8 hand splitter with a tricky finish. The lead “was totally fine,” she says, complimenting Andrew’s lead.

Regarding her friend on Ranger Crack: “Andrew told us he’s been climbing for about a year consistently at the gym, and his first lead in Yosemite was the previous day, where he led a 5.10a bolted route at Mecca. He’s a strong climber but had never led trad. He put in a bunch of gear on that hand crack and took his time.” She was there, belaying and supporting the group, including Andrew, while she and Pat took turns watching their baby. Tourists wandered over with questions, and the group was generous in welcoming them and sharing info about climbing in the Park.

“That was one of the things Pat really liked about his 40 for 40 (featured in a previous newsletter—40 climbs for his 40th birthday): he got everybody to come out, including people who had never been to Yosemite, and had them climb on multiple cliffs,” she says.

Her reasons for bringing new climbers and parents to Yosemite are two-fold. Partly it’s the social, inclusive vibe—and it also helps to have an extra person to keep an eye on the baby. “We’re meeting folks who are really just getting started climbing outside in the last couple of years and inviting them along,” she says, adding it’s “cool to see people experience Yosemite for the first time, learn to place gear, and do their first leads/multipitch.”

As for budding trad leaders: “First trad leads in Yosemite feel special—the gear is much better than Joshua Tree,” which she found scary when she started. “If you get frightened, you can plug more gear.” She says about Yosemite—versus Joshua Tree, where “you might suddenly have no gear for a while… and the climbs are shorter, so the ground feels closer—beautiful setting, but I like being able to get a little higher off the deck.”

Two weeks in Fontainebleau

Maggie and Pat don’t just climb in Yosemite. Earlier this year, they took a two-week vacation from their careers and flew to Fontainebleau, France, to sample sandstone boulders in the pine-oak forest. As the birthplace of modern bouldering, it has color-coded circuits for all levels—from yellow (less difficult) to orange, blue, red, black, and finally white. On that trip, they left their computers at home and fully unplugged.

“With any kid age, I think it’d be an amazing place to visit… there are so many different boulders and levels—you can make it whatever level you want,” she says. “They have circuits and kids’ circuits, and the landings are flat. In some places, you can even push a stroller.” It worked well for being “just the two of us and her,” which has been hard elsewhere. By contrast, “the bouldering in Yosemite is just really hard.”

Why she keeps coming back to Yosemite

What brings Maggie back to Yosemite—especially now that summer heat has abated and cooler temps are ahead? Living close means “you can come back another day… the rock’s not going anywhere.” As for Mañana, after taking a mental and physical break during the late months of pregnancy and allowing her body to regain strength, she’s “ready to start trying hard again,” giving her a reason to return and take on harder challenges.