Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa

Time & Date: Tuesday, November 1, 2016 @ 7:30 PM (Social hours and free beer for members at 6:30)

Directions: From Highway 101 at Santa Rosa go west on Highway 12 to Stony Point Road Exit. Go straight from the middle lane at the light onto Occidental Road. The Round Table Pizza is on the right just down the road.

Hans Florine is a big-wall climbing legend in his own time. He holds the speed record on the Nose route of El Capitan, a 3,000-foot granite cliff in Yosemite Valley that’s considered the Everest of the rock-climbing world. Ascending the Nose takes most climbers anywhere from 12 to 96 hours. Florine, along with climbing partner Alex Honnold, did it in an astounding 2.5 hours. But Florine’s story is not one of super-human athletic prowess; it’s one of persistence and dogged determination. In 30 years of climbing, Hans has ascended the Nose a mind-blowing 100 times, more than anyone else ever has, and most likely ever will.

In his new book, On The Nose, Florine describes the most dangerous, pivotal, and inspirational of those climbs, providing a rare look inside the adrenaline-charged world of competitive climbing in Yosemite Valley. Perhaps more interestingly, Florine attempts to answer the question why. Why would anyone undertake one of the greatest adventure epics on earth 100 times? His answers provide unique insights on how to live a satisfying life, how to achieve big goals, and how an otherwise ordinary guy can become a rock star.

In addition to his climbing accolades, Hans Florine is the co-author of Speed Climbing, has written articles for Rock and Ice, Climbing, and Master’s Athlete and has produced the multi-media series How to Climb the Nose. Hans served as executive director of the American Sport Climbers Federation from 1992 to 1996 and is currently an Ambassador for The Access Fund, as well as manager and shareholder at Touchstone Climbing & Fitness, the largest climbing gym chain in the country.

Hans is a professional motivational speaker, delivering keynotes at trade shows, conferences, and college auditoriums worldwide, from local rotary club meetings to Fortune 500 events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children. For more details about Hans’s new book see: http://onthenosebook.com.

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa

Time & Date: Tuesday, October 4, 2016 @ 7:30 PM (Social hours and free beer for members at 6:30)

Directions: From Highway 101 at Santa Rosa go west on Highway 12 to Stony Point Road Exit. Go straight from the middle lane at the light onto Occidental Road. The Round Table Pizza is on the right just down the road.

Allyson Gunsallus started climbing in 2005 and moved to California shortly thereafter to spend as much time as possible in Yosemite. Her appreciation of climbing and the mountains has been enriched over the last few years through a new passion for watercolor painting. Since the medium is so portable, Allyson has been able to bring along paints on most of her adventures. In 2015, through a Live Your Dream Grant from the American Alpine Club, she traveled to Argentine Patagonia, which has become the subject for a couple of her favorite paintings. Allyson’s website and art can be found at http://www.SaltEarthArt.com

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa

Time & Date: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 @ 7:30 PM (Social hours and free beer for members at 6:30)

Directions: From Highway 101 at Santa Rosa go west on Highway 12 to Stony Point Road Exit. Go straight from the middle lane at the light onto Occidental Road. The Round Table Pizza is on the right just down the road.

In 2009, Kaare Iverson walked away from a comfortable lifestyle as an ex-patriated TESL teacher in southern China. Equipped with a camera, a love of mountain culture and absolutely no business sense, he set out to remake himself as an adventure photographer. Seven years later he finds himself rooted in the culture of Northern California and finally realizing that dream. Currently based in Santa Rosa, Kaare is an adventure lifestyle photographer & director who works with Osprey Packs, Marmot, Black Diamond, Pebble and others. His images have been published with Climbing, Gripped, Rock & Ice, Yoga Journal and Outside. Kaare will speak to the Rock Ice & Mountain Club, sharing his personal journey and the adventures that have launched his success.
http://www.kaareiverson.com/

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa

Time & Date: Tuesday, August 2, 2016 @ 7:30 PM (Social hours and free beer for members at 6:30)

Directions: From Highway 101 at Santa Rosa go west on Highway 12 to Stony Point Road Exit. Go straight from the middle lane at the light onto Occidental Road. The Round Table Pizza is on the right just down the road.

Bill Bradley walks the talk. Bill undertakes the most challenging endurance sporting events in the world. The average age of an extreme endurance athlete is 35 years old. Bill, now 55, stands alone yet he continues to take on grueling events around the world. Some of Bill’s more notable endurance events include competing in the Triple Ironman (composed of a 7.2 mile swim, a 336 mile bike ride and a 78.6 mile run); the Race Across America Marathon, a 3,000-mile bike race from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, Maryland; the Furnace Creek 508 mile bike race through Death Valley; and the Susitna 100, a 100 mile run across the frozen Alaskan tundra while pulling a 40 pound sled filled with survival gear.

Other incredible challenges include running 199 miles with an added 1.2-mile swim under the Golden Gate Bridge, swimming 20 miles in the English Channel without a wetsuit or breaks and a recent attempt at summiting Mt. Denali. In 2010, Bill became the 24th person to run and complete the 292 mile Double Badwater Ultramarathon with a Mt. Whitney summit in record setting temperatures reaching 135 degrees, earning him the name Epic Bill Bradley.

Bill will give a motivational presentation on setting the world record running the Grand Canyon rim to rim seven times totaling 167.3 miles with over 42,000 feet of climbing elevation and temperatures reaching 114 Fahrenheit, which took just under 6 days to complete this monumental achievement.

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa

Time & Date: Tuesday, July 5, 2016 @ 7:30 PM (Social hours and free beer for members at 6:30)

Directions: From Highway 101 at Santa Rosa go west on Highway 12 to Stony Point Road Exit. Go straight from the middle lane at the light onto Occidental Road. The Round Table Pizza is on the right just down the road.

Come join us for an evening of vicarious adventure as climber David Harden presents a new slide show of his climbs and travels around the globe. He will share stories and pictures from his many journeys, vertical and otherwise, wandering about our lovely planet. From Australia to Alaska, New York to New Zealand, Harden will take us with him as he explores scenic mountainous regions around the world. The Dolomites, Kilimanjaro, and Cochamo are just a few of the place names with which you will become familiar as you watch his program which could be subtitled, “How I Wasted My Life Walking Uphill.”

Longtime Tuolumne County resident David Harden started wandering in the mountains as a teen in the 1960s. He began rock climbing soon after that and it has remained a lifelong passion. He has climbed throughout the western U.S. and around the world but the California High Sierra remains his favorite place. Harden retired from the fire service in 2005 after a thirty-two year career with CAL FIRE and lives in Sonora with his wife, Pamela Blair.

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa

Time & Date: Tuesday, June 7, 2016 @ 7:30 PM (Social hours and free beer for members at 6:30)

Directions: From Highway 101 at Santa Rosa go west on Highway 12 to Stony Point Road Exit. Go straight from the middle lane at the light onto Occidental Road. The Round Table Pizza is on the right just down the road.

Valley Walls and El Capitan

Glen Denny was born in Modesto, California in 1939 and grew up in the nearby town of Livingston, where his father taught mathematics and music at the high school. His first outdoor experiences came through fly-fishing trips into the Sierra with his father. When Glen moved to Yosemite in 1958 to learn to climb, the first ascent of El Capitan was under way. Inspired by this historic event, he was soon climbing the most challenging routes in Yosemite Valley, including some of the early ascents of El Capitan, with many of the big-wall pioneers of the late fifties and early sixties. He has also made first ascents in the Cordillera Huayhuash in Peru and the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan. Originally self-taught, Glen began photographing Yosemite climbs and climbers in the early sixties before studying photography and filmmaking at San Francisco State University, where he earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree. His climbing films have won awards at several film festivals; his photography has appeared in a number of publications, culminating in his 2007 book, Yosemite in the Sixties. Glen currently lives in San Francisco.

Glen will introduce and show his classic film El Capitan. He will also present his first-person perspective on the early history of climbing on El Cap and other important Yosemite Valley routes of the late 1950s and early 1960s, along with excerpts from his just-published book, Valley Walls: A Memoir of Climbing and Living in Yosemite. Glen will have his Valley Walls book for sale at the meeting.

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa

Time & Date: Tuesday, May 3, 2016 @ 7:30 PM (Social hours and free beer for members at 6:30)

Directions: From Highway 101 at Santa Rosa go west on Highway 12 to Stony Point Road Exit. Go straight from the middle lane at the light onto Occidental Road. The Round Table Pizza is on the right just down the road.

In 2009, Dierdre went to the climbing gym with her son, Alex Honnold, to see what he did all the time — and she’s been climbing ever since. In 2013, she was awarded a grant by the American Alpine Club to go to the northeast to work on her leading skills. Her birthday in September falls in peak Yosemite season, so each year, she arranges a special climb with Alex, something to take her completely out of her comfort zone and into the world of high elevation and exciting adventure.

A writer all her life, Dierdre has written essays about climbing in 7 states and 3 countries, for magazines in the US, the UK, Canada and others. She retired from college teaching in 2015 to climb and write. Although she’ll never lead anyone up El Cap or make headlines as a climber, she’s been steadily pushing her limits, with and without her son. Dierdre will talk about the climbs that stand out among her experiences climbing with the best.

Come listen to her talk about those adventures. Bring any questions you’ve always wanted to ask about Alex Honnold. Bring your copy of “Alone on the Wall” and get it signed…by the author of the author!

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa

Time & Date: Tuesday, April 5, 2016 @ 7:30 PM (Social hours and free beer for members at 6:30)

Directions: From Highway 101 at Santa Rosa go west on Highway 12 to Stony Point Road Exit. Go straight from the middle lane at the light onto Occidental Road. The Round Table Pizza is on the right just down the road.

The Rock Ice & Mountain Club will host an informative meeting and open discussion on the latest California State Park’s Fee Collection Project for the Sonoma Coast and Salt Point State Parks. We have been following this Fee Proposal for several months when the climbing community learned about a proposed fee kiosk on Goat Rock Road which would have eliminated essential parking and access to Sunset Rocks. In response to this Fee Proposal, the Rock Ice & Mountain Club, with support from the American Alpine Club, Access Fund, Bay Area Climber’s Coalition, Vertex Climbing Center and the B-Rad Foundation, started a petition which received over 1,670 signatures. A link to the on-line petition can be found here.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/994/314/983/stop-the-sonoma-coast-fee-proposal-keep-access-to-sunset-rocks./#sign”

Fortunately, State Parks revised their Fee Proposal once again, based in part to our collective opposition to the kiosk on Goat Rock Road, and removed the proposed kiosks at Goat Rock Road, at Bodega Head and at Willow Creek.

Although State Parks has reduced the locations that they propose to install these fee collection devices, they still want to charge the public to access our State Park beaches. State Parks is attempted to bypass Sonoma County’s denial of the project by going to the California Coastal Commission for approval, which will set a statewide precedent if approved. State Parks is also claiming that this project is except for California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review, which allows them to not perform the basic Initial Study research and assessment for this project.

A copy of the Day Use Parking Fee Collection Device Proposal to the California Coastal Commission is linked to this State Parks webpage.
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=28717

At the general meeting, we will provide the background information and latest developments about this Project, give a history of climbing at Sunset Rocks including the group trips provided by Vertex and B-Rad Foundation, and open the meeting to a discussion of the Project.

Location: Round Table Pizza, 2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa

Time & Date: Tuesday, March 1, 2016 @ 7:30 PM (Social hours and free beer for members at 6:30)

Directions: From Highway 101 at Santa Rosa go west on Highway 12 to Stony Point Road Exit. Go straight from the middle lane at the light onto Occidental Road. The Round Table Pizza is on the right just down the road.

Southern Yosemite, located in the Sierra National Forest, has always been overshadowed by Yosemite Valley. Twenty-five years ago, Doug Robinson brought Mike Arechiga to climb in the Southern Yosemite area and he has been hooked ever since. The history of Southern Yosemite is a bit cloudy at best as early climbing pioneers kept no records of climbs or climbing areas. In the early 1970’s, Fred Beckey was the first to climb on several of the prominent domes in the area. A couple years later, Royal Robbins brought his Rock Craft School to the area to climb many fine routes but they did not keep documents on any of the first ascents they did. Over the next four decades, many notable climbers arrived to the area and established many good and sometimes bold routes.

Southern Yosemite is still wild and entices climbers to search out places like Fresno Dome, Shuteye Ridge and The Balls. Mike, along with his family and friends, established a handful of routes in the 1990’s and then started to document routes and climbing areas to add to the climbs that were included Mark and Shirley Spencer’s Climber’s Guide to Southern Yosemite. In 2009, Mike made self-produced climbing guides to Shuteye Ridge and Fresno Dome. Even with Grahm Doe’s release of A Rock Climber’s Guide to California’s Shuteye Ridge in 2013, Southern Yosemite still feels remote and wild.

Mike Arechiga currently lives in Oakhurst, CA but has been an integral part of the San Francisco Bay Area climbing community at Castle Rock State Park and beyond. He has been involved with Planet Granite climbing gyms for the past 14 years as a route-setter, climbing instructor and construction builder. He is always willing to share climbing beta and loves to meet and climb with people who share the same passion in climbing.