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The Nugget Climbing Podcast

​​EP 264: Tony Yaniro — The Grand Illusion, Tin Foil Training, & Leslie Gulch Chipping Drama

The Nugget Climbing Podcast

Steven Dimmitt

Power Company, Steven Dimmitt, Enormocast, Lattice Training, Steven Dimmit, Climbing Gold, Runout, Nugget, Yosemite, Bouldering, The, The Nugget Climbing, Talk, Training For Climbing, Climber, Wilderness, The Nugget, Project, Climbing History, Nugget Podcast, Health & Fitness, Fitness, The Struggle Climbing Show, American, Training, Training Beta, Careless, Smith Rock, Alpine Climbing, Climbing, Dirtbag State Of Mind, Climbing Podcast, Education, Climb, @Thenuggetclimbing, Dirtbag, Nugget Climbing, Lattice, Trad Climbing, Rock Climbing, Sharp End, The Struggle, Sport Climbing, For The Love Of Climbing, The American Climbing Project, The Climbing Nugget, Dirtbag Diaries, Struggle, Nugget Climbing Podcast, Climbing Training, The Nugget Climbing Podcast, Testpiece, Sports, Climbing Nugget, Alex Honnold, Self-improvement, Thenuggetclimbing, Gold, Nuggetclimbing

4.2 • 576 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 116 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tony Yaniro is a climbing legend and the first-ever person to redpoint a 5.13b with his ascent of The Grand Illusion in 1979. We talked about his early years, handmaking cams in his garage, developing The Needles, inventing the first campus board, training for 5.14 using tin foil, the controversy of chipping routes at Leslie Gulch, his legendary homewall on wheels, building a climbing gym, the importance of respecting your body, and much more.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, friends, and welcome to the Nugget Climbing Podcast.

0:04.5

This is your host, Stephen Dimit.

0:06.8

My guest today is Tony Yoniro.

0:09.2

If you do not recognize that name, you are in for a treat today.

0:13.8

Tony is a climbing legend.

0:16.0

Randy Levitt was kind enough to introduce me to Tony and connect us after my interview with Randy.

0:22.0

And I think Randy described Tony the best. I was already familiar with Tony a little bit.

0:27.0

I knew about some of his accomplishments, but Randy described him as being five steps ahead of

0:32.4

everybody else. And that really was the theme of this conversation. Tony was the first person in the world to Red Point a 513B route or 8A route with the Grand Illusion in 1979.

0:46.3

513B in 1979.

0:50.1

He was controversial for his tactics at the time.

0:52.8

He was controversial for training.

0:54.6

He basically invented modern training.

0:56.5

Something I learned for the first time in this conversation is that Tony actually invented the very first campus board.

1:02.8

It wasn't exactly the same as the campus board today, but he had a campus board in his backyard.

1:09.7

Wolfgang Gulick saw it in a movie,

1:12.3

and that inspired him to build a similar thing at the campus gym,

1:17.4

which is where the campus board name came from.

1:20.1

So there you go.

1:20.8

The episode hasn't even started yet,

1:22.2

and you already learned something new.

1:24.3

Anyway, I loved this one.

...

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