Get this book. From an old WSJ review:
In 1959, Glen Denny, a relatively inexperienced mountain climber who was working as a busboy at the Yosemite Lodge in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, was invited to assist the renowned climber Warren Harding as he attempted the first ascent of an improbably steep granite prow called Washington Column. In the climbing world, Mr. Denny’s opportunity was akin to a housepainter’s being asked if he’d like to hand brushes to Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. The experience brought him into the fold of a tight-knit group of climbers who would shortly begin making history in the Yosemite Valley, inventing equipment and techniques that would revolutionize the sport around the world. Mr. Denny spent the better part of a decade participating in many of those precedent-setting climbs, as well as recording the era in gorgeous black-and-white photographs, now collected in “Yosemite in the Sixties.”
