Can you identify this 1953 Wyoming climb formation?

Found this in my youtube stream:

1953 Rock Climbing in Wyoming | Street Clothes, Tennis Shoes & Serious Skill!

I think it's at Blacktail Butte. . .

This has also been cross-posted on the General Climbing Forum and a few of us have been responding there.

Gee, do you specifically recognize Blodgett--the formations or background? The western segment didn't seem to be Wyoming to me, and Montana seems about right, though since I've never been to Blodgett, I have no direct knowledge.

As I wrote over on the other forum, for several reasons I am guessing that this film was made by someone associated with the Yale Mountaineering Club. If anyone is interested in following up further I suggest contacting the current iteration of the YMC ( if there is one--college clubs can be quite come-and-go) and see if they have any information in their archives. However, this is not a good time of year to try to contact anyone at a college!!! Another option, especially if someone lives around Golden, is to utilize the AAC library and look for YMC journals from the early '50s (I am  aware that the Club did publish at least occasional journals during that time period). I assume that if Club members did make a climbing film, it ( and who was involved) would be mentioned in the journal.

Definitely not Blodgett.

Yeah, doesn't look like Blodgett to me either.  Or Kootenai.  Or even the Bitterroots.  Interesting skyline shot from the top of the crag though.  Someone should recognize the location from that.  17:45 in the video.

If the cabin shots are near where the climbing scenes were filmed...then I'm not sure the location is in Montana.  Some of the conifers near the cabin look like blue spruce.  Pretty uncommon in Montana (although we had one planted in the end of our driveway in Missoula...).

Wind River Canyon? Some climbing of note happened there with Walt Bailey and friends. 

Andrew Carsonwrote:

Wind River Canyon? Some climbing of note happened there with Walt Bailey and friends. 

Interesting.  I see in Walt Bailey's eulogy in the AAC in 1959:

Walt Bailey loved the mountains and delighted in having others share his enjoyment of them. Some years ago he organized the Wyoming Mountaineers, of Casper College. His many students became noted for their excellent technical climbing ability and high standards of mountaineering. His classes received national note when he instituted the climb of Devils Tower as their final examination. Walt climbed Devils Tower 27 times, including ascents of both the Durrance and Wiessner routes and a new tension-route established by him and some of his students in 1956. The latter is known as the Casper College Route. That same year, Walt was instrumental in bringing climbers from many sections of the country to climb the Tower during Mountaineering Week. This was a special feature of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the establishment of Devils Tower as the Nation’s first National Monument.

Makes me wonder if maybe a college club from back east (the Yale kids as mentioned above?) travelled to meet up in Wyoming for "Mountaineering Week".

Hmm.  Good sleuthing!

(The Walt Bailey Memorial route on Devil's Tower is the only route on the tower that I've climbed...)

Edit to add:

Walt Bailey papers archive U of W

Looks like there's three notebooks of Walt's from 1953 listed as climbing journals.  Anyone in Laramie have an interest in checking this out?  

The beginning of the film is the East coast like multiple people have nailed down to a crag in CT. The granite rock around 17min post the cabin/horses scene could be the Humbug spires in MT. Never climbed there, so most likely totally wrong. The mountains in the distance at 17:40 look like the Winds from a far. The flat plateaus occur in parts of the Winds and in the Beartooths for sure.  My guess is then that the second 1/2 of the film is the southern tip of the Winds, north of South Pass, west of Lander in the high country.  There are granite zones high above Sinks, they were just finding stuff and climbing it is my guess at the moment....

Interesting ideas, but don't think they 'work'. If those folks came west to climb on Devil's Tower, it seems highly likely that they would have shot some of the film there--it would have been a highlight!!!--yet clearly none of the footage in that film is of the Tower. I also don't think that any of the footage is from Wind River Canyon--I am quite sure that the rock in that canyon is limestone not granite.

While it is possible that the formations are in the upper part of Sinks Canyon or elsewhere on the fringes of the Wind Rivers, I disagree that the distant mountain panorama at 17:40 is of a portion of the Winds---the mountains look much too 'gentle' and rounded. As suggested though, could be sections of either the Bighorns or the Beartooths. Humbug Spires are definitely a possibility for the formation they climb--anyone on here familiar with that area?

Definitely NOT Blacktail Butte. Wrong type of stone, not even close.

Also, although the stone could be similar to Upper Sinks Canyon, the vegetation that I see doesn’t suggest that setting.

If I were to wager, I’d say most likely not anywhere in Wyoming.

Maybe upstate New York?

The final section of the film is definitely not "upstate New York" nor anywhere in the East.

Alan Rubinwrote:

Interesting ideas, but don't think they 'work'. If those folks came west to climb on Devil's Tower, it seems highly likely that they would have shot some of the film there--it would have been a highlight!!!--yet clearly none of the footage in that film is of the Tower. I also don't think that any of the footage is from Wind River Canyon--I am quite sure that the rock in that canyon is limestone not granite.

While it is possible that the formations are in the upper part of Sinks Canyon or elsewhere on the fringes if the Wind Rivers, I disagree that the distant mountain panorama at 17:40 is of a portion of the Winds---the mountains look much too 'gentle' and rounded. As suggested though, could be sections of either the Bighorns or the Beartooths. Humbug Spires are definitely a possibility for the formation they climb--anyone on here familiar with that area?

Maybe folks from the east came out to climb in Wyoming for "Mountaineering Week" and the objective wasn't Devil's Tower?  Maybe closer to Casper?  Dunno.  

I don't think the Humbug Spires but the rock there is pretty similar.  Although some of the rock in that area is much cleaner looking and lighter colored (Boulder batholith - Butte quartz monzonite).  Also looks similar to the Lolo Hot Springs crags.

Cover photo of the Butte Guide with the Wedge (my photo...RIP Dwight) in the Humbug Spires.  Seems like most of the rock in the area is lighter colored.  

I wonder if the film has been spliced with the different scenes in very different locations?  Or, if the cabin scene start and end of the film wasn't spliced together and if shot off the same roll sequentially in the camera would indicate a climbing location nearby to the cabin.  Maybe the film owner might know if there are splices.  Hmm.

Wind River Canyon is composed of quite a variety of rock, limestone being a small portion of same. 

Andrew Carsonwrote:

Wind River Canyon is composed of quite a variety of rock, limestone being a small portion of same. 

Thanks Andrew. I stand corrected. I haven't been through that canyon in years, but my memory is of it being lined with limestone cliff bands. Thread detour: I always wondered if there were any routes on those crags and, if not, why not? I recall rumors that no climbing was permitted because the rocks are on Native American lands, and they did not permit climbing. Is this accurate? Anyone have any further information.

That's about it, as I understand it. The Tribes don't allow climbing and maybe never did. People just took a crack at it as climbers will do. The bottom end of the canyon has some very attractive sections... ice also, of which there's quite a bit. 

The lady who introduces the film said that she bought the 8mm reel at an estate sale. So when she says that she “made” it, she means that she digitized it. I like the music that she chose for the soundtrack.

I agree that the first half was filmed in Connecticut. She says that the label says “Mt Carmel, Wyoming” was the location, although people have pointed out that these were two separate locations.  Mt Carmel, CT fits the first half.

I don’t think any of the Wyoming half was filmed in the Wind River Canyon. Although it has variety of cliff-forming rock types, and decades have passed since I’ve seen it, I think we should be looking into the Bighorn region for the first half of the second half, such as into the South Tongue River Crags.

At the end, the high crag with the distant view yodels “Bighorns!” to me. The Bighorns were suggested by two other posters in this thread. I think that the crag may be Dome Rock, which is also on the northeast side of the Bighorns. Or it may be Big Mountain or Little Mountain, which are in the backcountry, above the junction of Wolf and Quartz creeks. I think the film cut from the horse-riding scene to the last climbing scenes, so those aren’t necessarily geographically related.

Btw if you’ve ever edited real reel film, you can cut and splice many times within a few feet of footage. The absence of splices would prove only that it was shot without changing film in the camera. A year could go by without shooting the remainder of a reel inside the camera. Therefore, the horse-riding scene cannot be proven to be in the same area as the climbing scene at the end. 

Very end after the final climbing scene/area is back at the cabin.  Be interesting if it was spliced or not.

The cabin/horse area seems different enough.  

I still have my dad's 8mm camera.  Yeah...film could stay in the camera season to season.  I digitized a bunch of it and was pretty funny to account for long passages of times and places in a single reel.

I thought Dome Rock might be an option but the longer views didn't quite seem to work.

Good stuff!

You can just see a glimpse of a couple crags in the trees when they are riding horses near the cabin.

14:49 - 14:55.  

Notes in the aac journal from those years from the Yale mountain club mention trips to grand teton and Colorado. The distant peaks look somewhat like a few mountains in the Yellowstone Mountains.

 Steve William's guess at blacktail butte sounds possible to me

Also, was Dick Cheney's big brother the president of YMC in the mid 50's?

Some very interesting thoughts on this overnight. Being technologically incompetent, I have not been able to 'pull up' either the very beginning of the film nor any of the related commentary, so that is new information for me. Does the commentary provide any information as to where the Estate Sale was located or, potentially even more informative, who's estate it was? While neither would necessarily be determinative, as such things often do seem to 'move around' and not stay within a family, they still could provide important clues.

Related to the above; MattB's mention of old AAC journals and ( possibly) " Dick Cheney's big brother" being YMC president in that time period is very interesting---since the Cheneys were a Wyoming family ( at least Dick has been in his adulthood). This could 'explain' having access to a cabin in the area as well as the familiarity of those filmed with Western-style riding--not something easily picked up.

Along with others, I am quite sure that the rock being climbed in the second half is not Blacktail Butte. The rock filmed very much appears to be granitic, while Blacktail is limestone, it doesn't look at all like Blacktail, and, it is hard to think that anyone would film climbing at Blacktail without including a Teton panorama in the background instead of a distant view of a  not particularly impressive-looking mountain range.

I enjoy trying to solve such 'puzzles'. Hope we collectively keep at this one until we do!!!

Edit to add: Just did some checking on the Cheneys. No mention of an older brother ( just a younger one). Dick Cheney himself attended Yale for 4 semesters ( in the '60s not early '50s) and reading between the lines it seems clear that he was the first in his family to do so. So the possible Cheney connection to the film seems to be a dead end.

Was just about to make the same post. Definitely Woolsey and Blacktooth in the background.

Alan —After tapping the OP’s link, the video appears. After getting rid of or getting through the first ad, tap on the middle of the screen. At the bottom of the screen will be a horizontal red line. With your fingertip, move the little red circle all the way to the left. That will put you at the actual beginning of the video.

Jabroni  — Good work identifying the peaks!