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Our guest today is a genuine legend and one of the pioneers of big-wall climbing. John Middendorf is a mechanical engineer, gear designer, researcher, writer, and teacher based in Tasmania. His climbing accomplishments pushed the limits of big-walls, adventure, and exploration throughout the 1980s and ‘90s. Most notably, he’s responsible for the first ascent of the East Face of Great Trango Tower, widely considered the largest and steepest continuous wall in the world at 4,400 feet, which he achieved with Xaver Bongard in 1992. The team used portaledges designed by Middendorf himself from his company A5 Adventures. Over the years, Middendorf has continued to refine his portaledge designs, with the D4 Designs which you can find on his website bigwalls.net, one of the first climbing websites in the world. Today, Middendorf has been engaged in an academic review of esoteric climbing journals of old to learn how the developments and advancements of gear have preceded leaps in progress thanks to the “influencers” of the day.
But first, yer friendly podcasting hosts are back on their usual bullshit after a few weeks of summer vacation.
Our final bit is some buddy spray from RunOut listener Andres Santiago. For spraying about his buddy, Andres is receiving a Yeti Yonder water bottle. If you’d like to submit spray, join us on Patreon.com/runoutpodcast to do so.
Show Notes
Links to Mechanical Advantages, Vol 1 & 2: Note, these are 500mb PDFs. Download as files
Yosemite Climbing in the ’80s by CVL
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One response to “RunOut #109: John Middendorf on How Climbing Gear Precedes Progress”
I always wondered why JM located his company in Tasmania. It was because his wife wanted to live there. I wondered if Tasmania had a secret bigwall area that only the real insiders knew about, but the answer turns out to have been so simple. This is why Sherlock Homes books are pure BS, by the way. The world is too complex and unpredictable. I do own an A5 double ledge and plan to set it up in my condo, and use it as my bed. The truth is, I am getting older and not sure my body could tolerate wall climbing damage, but need to get mentally adjusted and begin visualizing the goal. Sleeping in a portaledge all the time, even in my bedroom, seems like a step in the right direction.