Tom Frost

Tom Frost was one of the pioneering climbers and photographers during the Golden Age of Yosemite climbing. Born in 1937 in Hollywood, Frost graduated from Stanford University in 1958, the same year he first visited Yosemite Valley; the huge unclimbed granite big walls would prove formative to Frost's personal evolution as he, along with the likes of Royal Robbins, Chuck Pratt and Yvon Chouinard, soon came to embody the golden age of Yosemite climbing. The impeccable style of ascent of the El Capitain Salathé Wall signaled the end to the era of siege climbing and is rightly considered one of Frost's masterpieces and an all-time monument to free climbing. Setting the standard for future generations, Frost, Chuck Pratt and Royal Robbins forged El Capitan's second route over nine and a half days, with ropes fixed on only the lower third before launching into the huge unknown. Notably, the trio placed a mere 13 expansion bolts, in response to the 125 used during the 47-day first ascent. Frost's advocacy for clean ethics and style has been even more influential and far-reaching. Frost's images from these ascents, shot with his Leica camera, are some of the most important and recognizable in American climbing history. Frost partnered his engineering skills with those of Yvon Chouinard to help invent fundamental new climbing gear such as RURPS and Hexentrics. During the 1960s and '70s Frost applied his engineering and design skills with Chouinard at Great Pacific Ironworks, the precursor to Patagonia. He invented the postage stamp sized piton called a RURP, and he designed the stoppers and hexes that came out in the groundbreaking 1972 Chouinard Cataloge. In 1980, he and his then-wife Dorene became founders of Chimera, which made cutting-edge lighting fixtures for the film and photography industry. The two famed American climbers, alpinist Jeff Lowe and Yosemite National Park stalwart Tom Frost, died on the same day, August 24 2018. Lowe and Frost made climbs together as part of expeditions to the Himalayas.