He was in a car driving to Yosemite for the weekend the night that they announced that Mount Everest had been climbed for the first time.

And, you know, that was kind of really outside of their purview, because as Tom Hornbein, an American,

early American Himalayan climber, told me Royal, like he had enough to climb in Yosemite.

Episode 173, in this revisited episode, Mason interviews David Smart about American climbing legend Royal Robbins.

You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast. We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.

Like I've told y' all, my love for adventure has evolved over the years to wanting to understand how the land and how the places that we have adventures come to be.

I've had life-changing experiences in places like Yosemite, which we're going to talk about today.

But how did Yosemite National Park come to be? Who are the people that make these places protected

and the places they become for all of us to enjoy? How does it happen? And what I've learned is it doesn't

just happen. There's a lot of dedicated people spending a lot of time, money and and energy to make sure these gyms of nature,

these crown jewels, stay intact and stay open for recreation and stay places that we can go and be

inspired. And so I have been deeply, deeply inspired by the place, Yosemite National Park, probably more than any place else in the world.

And today we're talking to David Smart, who recently authored a book on one of the people that helped to push that

push that idea through adventure sports, through the sport specifically of climbing and also whitewater

kayaking, Royal Robbins. You may have heard that name before, not really known what that

means. It's kind of a unique name, but it's definitely sticks out a little bit. Well,

Royal is a climber from the same era that Yvonne Shannard and Doug Tompkins, the founders of both Patagonia and the North Face,

around the time they were in Yosemite Valley climbing, the birth of the sport of big wall climbing and sport climbing.

Well, Royals right up there with them, and he's doing it in a unique way, and he's kind of on the forefront of that mindset of low-impact climbing,

like climbing without using tons of tools, tons of gear that you have to basically anchor into the rock,

drill into the rock to put anchors up.

Royals like, no, do it in a way that there's no, basically leave no trace climbing.

...