At seventy three years old, Yvon Chouinard is much more than your average senior citizen. He is the man who revolutionized modern climbing, the original dirtbag who spent quite a few years living out of his car on $0.50 for weeks, eating squirrels and porcupines while traveling the country following his passions of climbing and surfing. In addition to this, Chouinard created and owns the leading outdoor clothing company, Patagonia. Through Patagonia he became a major environmental advocate, updating his customers on current issues with essays in the catalogues.
Born in Maine in 1938, his family moved to California when he was eight years old. Growing up in California fostered his love for both climbing and surfing, starting his life of adventure and environmentalism.
In 1953, Chouinard started climbing at age 14, while ascending cliffs for his falconry club. Him and his friends got way into it, and pretty soon he learned how to blacksmith in order to make his own climbing gear. By 1961 he completed two major first ascents in the Canadian Rockies with famed climber Fred Beckey. Beckey wasn't the only famed climbers Chouinard adventured with- he also did the first ascent of the North America Wall route on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley in 1964 with Royal Robbins, Tom Frost, and Chuck Pratt. They were all part of the “Golden Age of Yosemite Climbing”, when the walls of Yosemite Valley in California began to be climbed for the first time. Chouinard also climbed in Patagonia, Pakistan and the European Alps.
Tom Frost, Royal Robbins, Chuck Pratt, and Chouinard on the summit of North America Wall, El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, California
As soon as Chouinard began climbing, he also began to develop climbing gear. In the late 1950s he began to make and sell pitons with Tom Frost, which became the first major climbing protection. They would drive around the country, climbing, surfing and making pitons out of the back of their car, which they sold to fellow dirtbags. This was the start of Chouinard Equipment, Ltd., which eventually turned into the major climbing company Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd.
By 1970 Chouinard and Frost began to realize the negative impacts pitons have on the rocks. In order to effectively use pitons, climbers had to hammer them in and out of the cracks, leaving behind big scars on the once pristine walls. Taking a big risk for their business, but an important environmentalist move, they stopped producing pitons and instead made aluminum chocks. Instead of being hammered into the wall, chocks simply get wedged into the cracks, and are designed to have an easy removal with wiggling them out leaving no scars on the rocks. Luckily climbers took to chocks, and Chouinard Equipment, Ltd. lived on.
After a climbing adventure in Scotland sometime in the 1970s, Chouinard brought back rugby shirts to climb in, and all of his climber buddies wanted them too. The fabric and collar were perfect for the wear and tear climbing has on clothes, so he ordered more from Scotland and began to sell them along with his climbing gear. The bright colored jerseys started a fashion craze in the U.S., and also was the start of Patagonia Outdoor Clothing Company.
In the 1980s Patagonia completely revolutionized outdoor clothing with the creation of polypropylene, then polyester, instead of cotton and wool. Chouinard knew that big clothing industries had a negative effect on the environment, and as global warming and deforestation became more prominent, he wanted to take steps to ensure that his company was as sustainable as possible. In 1988, Patagonia started 1% for the Planet, meaning they gave one percent of their annual profit to a grassroot, environmental organization. By 1996, Patagonia went 100 percent organic cotton, because 25% of the harmful pesticides used in agriculture were from cotton plantations.
Throughout his life, Chouinard worked his hardest to minimize his and others impacts on the planet, from starting "clean climbing" to creating a sustainable outdoor clothing company.
"I believe the accepted model of capitalism that demands endless growth deserves the blame for the destruction of nature, and it should be displaced. Failing that, I try to work with those companies and help them change the way the way they think about our resources."- Yvon Chouinard
Follow these links for interviews with Yvon Chouinard:
http://www.mensjournal.com/survival-skills-yvon-chouinard
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/12/opinion/la-oe-morrison-chouinard-031111
Follow these links for more general information on Yvon Chouinard:
http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=3351
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvon_Chouinard
