California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties

The story told by the photographs in C alifornia Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties takes place against the larger backdrop of postwar America. As Yvon Chouinard writes in his introduction, 'The fifties were the easy years in California. With full employment from the Korean War, we were enjoying all the fruits of the fossil fuel culture. Gas was a quarter a gallon, used cars could be bought for twentyfive dollars, campgrounds were free, and you could easily live off the excess fat of society. Those of us in the counter cultures of climbing and surfing were as climber Pete Sinclair said, 'the last free Americans.'' This freedom and ease of existence is evident in these collected photographs, which feature legendary climbers in the Yosemite Valley and surfers riding waves at Rincon, Malibu, South Bay, Laguna and San Onofre. Soaked in sun and surf, the photographs in C alifornia Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties depict the birth of an era and an exhilarating moment in Californian history.