Yvon Chouinard

 

Avert Your Eyes And Bow Down Before Him

 

 

The man, the legend

In the off chance you've never known a world without climbing gyms or sport routes, we're going to fill a gaping void in that big dopey head of yours with some history of what you no doubt call a sport, but many of us out here still reverently cling to as a holy lifestyle.

Yvon Chouinard is a climbing god and general badass with big brass balls the size of church bell clappers. In 1973 Chouinard wrote the seminal treatise on the use of clean rock pro; he followed that by revolutionizing ice climbing by dragging it out from under the putrid Scottish peat bog where it had been festering, and kicking its ass into the Twentieth Century.

In addition to being a rock and ice hardman, he  is a surfer, a fly fisherman, and the king of a climbing equipment dynasty so bitchin' that dirtbag climbers would eagerly have cut their mothers' throats for the chance to work there.

Oh, yeah ... he also made the best damn hand forged pitons this side of the galaxy. Core.

 

March of the morons

Then one bright, sunny day, this moron decided to launch up a climb with a couple of Chouinard toy carabiners, the kind commonly used as key fobs, to clip his pro ('cause you know ... they're so light!). Well, he whistled off the stone, one of the 'biners snapped (duh!), and he became a quadriplegic.

The rest of the story goes something like: Bloodsucking personal injury lawyer convinces bleeding heart jury Chouinard Equipment didn't properly warn his poor crippled up client of the dangers inherent to climbing, bleeding heart jury overlooks fact the now crippled plaintiff needed culling from the gene pool anyway, said same bleeding heart jury awards multimillion dollar settlement, forces Chouinard Equipment to declare chapter 11 bankruptcy.