Your window into the stories, history, and ongoing work to preserve Yosemite’s climbing legacy.

A Note from the Editor

This week, we feature Southern award-winning filmmaker and photographer Andrew Kornylak and discuss his new book, Spare These Stones, which will be coming out on September 1. He says that his book, which required him two years to write and contains 30 years of his climbing images from the South, “is not just a celebration of all the hard routes in the South. It’s about geography. It’s about culture. It’s about the interplay of those two things. It’s almost just as much a book about Southern culture as it is about climbing.”

Regarding Yosemite news, an email from Yosemite Mariposa County Tourism Bureau came into my inbox yesterday (April 16) with the subject No News on Yosemite Vehicle Reservation System. It states:

Despite some media reports, Yosemite National Park has NOT announced a vehicle reservation system for summer 2025. On March 31st, an unofficial YNP press release was circulated and picked up by several media outlets, incorrectly reporting a vehicle reservation system for 2025 and creating confusion. While some outlets have since retracted their stories, we understand that many visitors are still uncertain.

During last Thursday’s Yosemite Gateway Partners meeting, NPS officials confirmed that there is currently no reservation system, and no new information was available to share. They also did not provide a timeline for when any updates might be expected.

Reservations are not currently required to drive into Yosemite National Park. To check for updates, please visit nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/reservations.

Chris Van Leuven

Editor, Yosemite Climbing Association News Brief

YosemiteClimbing.Org

Spare These Stones: A Journey Through Southern Climbing Culture

Due out this fall, Andrew Kornylak’s new book is packed with incredible imagery, climbing stories, and community

“After nearly two years of labor on work spanning three decades, my book about southern climbing, Spare These Stones, is finished,” award-winning cameraman Andrew Kornylak posted on Instagram earlier this month.

Andrew and I are friends and colleagues from our years working together in the Outdoor Retailer Daily newsroom, where he worked as a photographer and creative director, and we often shared climbing stories. Having lived in Boone, North Carolina, 25 years ago, that area remains one of my favorite climbing areas. The bouldering, sport, and trad routes are simply incredible, and the climbing scene blew me away. I’ve always appreciated Kornylak’s stunning images of Southern boulders, crags, climbers, and landscapes and wanted to learn more. I rang him up.

I got right to the point and asked him why someone interested in Yosemite and California climbing stories should buy Spare These Stones.

“When I go out West or any other part of the country, I’m always surprised at people’s perception of Southern climbing or the South in general,” he says. “There’s a lot of curiosity about the people, culture, and setting, yet the climbing is geographically hidden—under green trees and around corners—not obvious like a giant peak. I think it’s hard for people to wrap their heads around the fact that there can be amazing climbing in this place, mixed among cultures they perceive as quaint or bizarre.”

After our call, Andrew sent over a PDF of Spare These Stones: A Journey Through Southern Climbing Culture. Looking through it, I couldn’t help but think of Camp 4: Recollections of a Yosemite Rockclimber, Steve Roper’s award-winning book published by Mountaineers Books in 1994. I brought that book when I moved to Yosemite in ’95, and through it, I learned about the park’s legendary ’60s climbing era.

Mountaineers Books is also publishing Spare These Stones, which similarly captures the climbing community and culture and spans the past three decades. It documents cutting-edge climbs—bone-breaking highballs, runout trad, and hard sport—that continue to be established by the sport’s elite. Alongside essays with titles like “The Urban Climber’s Guide to Atlanta,” “Litz Problems,” “Dead Ends,” and “Bouldering Sonar,” the book contains dozens of full-color climbing images that are among the best I’ve seen. These shots capture climbers on challenging routes and stunning landscapes, forests, rocks, and even ordinary people whose presence feels perfectly placed.

“I began climbing in the South in the early 1990s, when a locals-only, word-of-mouth ethic still dominated. The scene was comfortably hermetic and fractured,” Kornylak writes in the introduction. “In those days, climbing knowledge was still mostly passed down through personal interactions in the outdoors. That mentoring was replaced by climbing gyms, with knowledge shared via guidebooks and the internet. Some knowledge was gained, while other knowledge and connections were lost.”

“There’s this intact dirtbag undercurrent culture in the South, and that’s the way it is in Yosemite, or that’s the way it’s been in Yosemite for years. And a place like Yosemite, dare I say, is in danger of probably losing that subculture just because of the sheer volume of visitors and people and pressures of the National Park.”

He continues, “There is something about the South—the culture is still intact. And to see that intact culture is like, ‘Oh, that’s the way Camp Four used to be 20 years ago.’ That’s still growing and thriving in some parts of the South, and that’s pretty cool. There’s that nostalgic part of it that will appeal to Yosemite climbers or California climbers.”

Mountaineers Books highlights that “Spare These Stones celebrates the resilient spirit of Southern climbers and their profound connection to the rugged, culturally-rich areas they call home. From its clandestine roots, when climbing was an underground pursuit shrouded in secrecy, to its rise in accessibility through grassroots efforts and land conservation, photographer and filmmaker Andrew Kornylak delves into the intricate threads of geography and culture.”

Andrew adds, “If you want to go out in the woods with no guidebook and quest with your friends for days to find new climbs, you can still do that. And no one’s going to tell you otherwise. But if you want to be involved in access, the community, trail building, and all the modern climbing stuff, that’s going like crazy here. It’s a great community. Many people benefit from both worlds. It’s a good scene. I hope that comes through in the book.”

Spare These Stones: A Journey Through Southern Climbing Culture is 208 pages long and costs $34.95. It is available for pre-order now and will be released on September 1 through Mountaineers Books and Amazon. Signed pre-order copies are available on his website, kornylakfineart.com.