Climbers

Inventor of the Ewbank grading system which is used in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Royal Robbins:

Well, he was the greatest American alpinist of his day. Harlin had a genius for getting publicity, though, and he let a lot of misleading things develop. The idea that he cut his teeth on El Capitan - or that he was a Yosemite climber at all - is all nonsense. When we brought Yosemite techniques to the Alps, or in particular, when Gary Hemming did, Harlin took all the credit for it. But he had nothing to do with it, except that he jumped on the bandwagon. That sort of thing was what made us object to Harlin: he was so good, and yet he needed to do that. [1]

References

[1] Mountain 18 (1971), page 31 /library/9613/mountain-18

Don Whillans:

With the possible exception of Joe Brown, John Streetly was the best rock climber I ever climbed with. His technique was incredible: he could climb as delicately as a fly, but also overcome problems requiring sheer physical strength with ease. [2]

References

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/dec/18/guardianobituaries1

[2] Obituary by George Band Alpine Journal 2000 - In Memoriam

Author of many guidebooks to climbing in Scotland.

References

[1] https://www.stonecountrypress.co.uk/

Rick Sewards:

I have received the sad news that John Willson, the Wye Valley climber and guidebook author and editor, died peacefully in his sleep on Sunday 17th September at the age of 86. John made an absolutely enormous contribution to climbing in the Wye Valley and in particular to Wintours Leap, which in many ways could be re-named “John’s Cliff”, as it was a largely forgotten backwater (known as “The Heap”) before he dragged it into the limelight. He added many of the classic routes (e.g. The Angel's Girdle and all those with Germanic names on North Wall), often in partnership with ex-pupils who he introduced to climbing - John was a music and classics teacher. He was also responsible for a vast amount of cleaning and re-gearing (those cemented-in pegs were all his) and four decades of guidebook writing. John wrote the Wintour’s Leap sections of the ’77, ’87 and ’97 guides and part-authored and edited the current (2007) Lower Wye Valley guide – which is how I first got to know him. He was also responsible for negotiating the current access regime for Wintour’s Leap and many of the other Wye Valley crags, and I relied greatly on his knowledge after I took over from him as BMC Access Rep for the area. After John retired from teaching he lived in a cottage in Woodcroft above “his” crag, and many of you will have seen him over the years walking his dogs George and Scholar around the village and cliff.

Beyond the Wye Valley, John also put in a vast amount of time and effort in editing and page-setting many other Climbers’ Club guides. Others will know a lot more about his work on these publications, but I’m sure many other authors have benefitted from his red pen (or rather pens – there’s no way one biro would have enough ink for all the corrections to our scripts!). As befitting his former profession, you could always learn something from his writing and company – whether on the finer points of grammar or the Wagner ring cycle that provided the inspiration for all those Germanic route names. [1]

References

[1] Obituary by Rick Sewards, September 2023 https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/john_willson_rip-764070?v=1#x9829054

[2] Memorial thread on UKClimbing.com, September 2023 https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/john_willson_rip-764070

https://www.instagram.com/jonglassberg/