Jeff Smoot

Schurman Rock Jeff Smoot

Part history, part biography, part climbing guide, Schurman Rock: A History & Guide describes the design and construction of Schurman Rock, the world's first artificial climbing wall, built in 1938-39 at Camp Long in Seattle, Washington. The book includes a history of the creation of Camp Long by by William G. Long, a Superior Court judge, who seized the opportunity to turn an unused 68-acre tract of swampy forest land into a wilderness camp for youth, and a biography of Clark Schurman, a Scoutmaster and Chief Climbing Guide at Mount Rainier, who envisioned and then built his "dream rock" to provide a place to teach mountaineering skills to youth. Thousands of kids and adults, including Fred Beckey and Jim and Lou Whittaker, learned to climb on Schurman Rock over the past 80 years. In 1938, Schurman published an article describing 22 routes on the rock--"short bits" as he called them. This book expands on this with a guide to several boulder problems on the rock. Includes many historic photos and a foreword by Pacific Northwest climbing legend Jim Whittaker.