 OFF THE WALL: Stanford wakes to find footprints descending the Hoover Tower in May 1950. |
Lehman's hands burned as rope slowly slipped through his grip. He could hear the men joking and chatting, unaware of the soon-to-be-legendary prank in progress above them. Although his arm and back muscles throbbed, Lehman forced himself to keep still. Then, as quickly as they had arrived, the crew jumped in the truck and clanked off into the dawn. Lehman finished taping the black paper cutout and rappeled down. Jim Moore, '51, following closely behind, attached the final foot and dropped skillfully to the lower roof of Hoover. With the operation complete Moore and Sherman retreated with Bud Gates, '51, the third team member, into the dank, welcoming darkness of Stanford's steam tunnels.
An hour or so later, the light of dawn revealed the full artistry of their escapade: five giant black footprints descending the famous tower. It was a bookend to the stunt completed almost a year earlier, when Gates, Sherman and Walt Kane, '49, fixed four black prints going up the wall. Both incidents were instant classics, taking a place in Stanford's pantheon of great pranks and providing fodder for the sophomoric tale of the Tower Monster.
In the decades that followed, campus climbers would scale the walls of the Quad and other campus buildings (see sidebar). The University's rough-hewn sandstone blocks, providing hand and footholds and challenging vertical climbs, offered a convenient place to hone techniques and develop finger, hand and arm muscles. But it was that first postwar generation of students who forged the way, illicitly exploring routes that would become part of campus folklore.
 OFF THE WALL: Larry Taylor (front left) with a group of fraternity brothers before setting out on a winter climb in 1946; Taylor fell in love with mountaineering while serving in the Bavarian Alps at the end of World War II. |
The three climbers discovered they weren't the only mountaineers on campus. A hiking club for both men and women had been started in 1945. One of its founders, Freddy Hubbard, '49, had been a member of the Colorado Mountain Club back home and had been interested in creating a similar climbing group at the University. So when the Stanford Alpine Club was formed in the fall of 1946, eight women enthusiastically joined with 36 men.
Stanford now had climbers, and the climbers had a club. But what would they climb? The challenge of Cathedral Spires and Royal Arches in Yosemite Valley were hours away. Club members needed regular practice -- so they climbed roofs, rappeled from towers and traversed walls. In the process, they essentially invented building-climbing or "buildering" at Stanford.
But buildering in the '40s and '50s (and more recently, too) was never an openly acknowledged pastime of club members. In fact, many climbers disapproved of buildering -- either because those who did it exposed themselves to punishment and even expulsion, or because of the risk of injury in a frivolous activity.
The Night Climbers of Cambridge (1937), an anonymous tract that became the bible of Stanford's building climbers, alludes to the sport's somewhat notorious history, and offers all such adventurers a somber warning: "For outlaw he is, and unless he take the common precautions of outlawry, there will be trouble." And many Stanford builderers, also afficionados of steam-tunneling and attic-crawling, found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Geology students Rowland Tabor, '54, and George Mowat, '53, MS '54, were attempting a midnight crawl through the Geology Corner attic in the winter of 1951 when an armed Stanford police officer crawled up into the attic with a flashlight and confronted them. They were carted off to the station, where Chief of Police Gordon Davis told them they were lucky they weren't shot or bitten by black widow spiders. "The Chief said he would give our names to the dean," recalls Tabor, now a geologist emeritus with the U.S. Geological Survey, "but we never heard any more of it."
At 285 feet, Hoover Tower was the highest peak in the range and the most cherished campus objective. The Hoover escapades of 1949 and 1950 were the apex of campus climbing capers.
 OFF THE WALL: Freddy Hubbard takes a breather during a climbing expedition to Yosemite in 1947. |
The group carried 600 feet of rope for rappeling, four large feet cut from black paper and rolls of 1-inch adhesive tape for attaching the feet. Kane was first to fall back into the foggy depths, checking the equipment and looking for obstacles. Gates rappeled down next and attached the first two footprints near the top of the building. Then Lehman pushed himself off, with two big feet rolled up and stuck in his pockets along with adhesive tape.
Kane jerked on Lehman's rope a few times to indicate where to place the third footprint. "It was hard trying to find the end of the roll in the dark," says Sherman. "Actually, I was dangling about 8 inches from the wall because it is recessed." After the footprint was neatly secured, Sherman started down to place the fourth. But by now, he was in a lot of pain. The braided manila rope ran between his legs, and, when the hat he was using for padding slid off, the rope began badly chafing what Lehman later described as "delicate body parts." He placed the fourth footprint according to Kane's signals and completed his painful rappel to the lower roof. Everyone then retraced their route to the ground floor, where the exuberant party exited the building by a side door.
"Next day people stared in amazement," Lehman proudly wrote in his diary. Four footprints plodded their way up the tower, evenly spaced between 70 and 120 feet from the ground. Former president Ray Lyman Wilbur, who had an office in the tower, was amused: "Those boys will be bringing cows up next." The Palo Alto Times reported that Davis, the police chief, thought "the mystery was probably an inside job" and that a group had lowered one of their own in a bosun's chair. Lehman's still-raw "delicate bodily parts" only wished it were so.
Nearly one year later, Sherman Lehman's dizzying sequel produced the new set of five footprints. The Daily reported: "A legend formed among students that a Monster had made his way up the side of the building…. Then yesterday morning the earthward prints appeared…. Last year there were four very large prints evenly spaced. This year there were five smaller prints, unevenly spaced. Conclusion: The Monster was well and healthy when he climbed the tower and after a year had become so emaciated that he had shrunk, and stumbled on his way down."
Not everyone appreciated the derring-do. Hoover Institution spokesperson Inez Richardson later told the Daily that the Hoover Institution was a "world famous center housing material of international value" and that students should show more respect. She added, "All we have to have is one slip, and these people will be laughing out of the other sides of their mouths."
The Hoover Monster may have gone "to take cheaper lodgings in a lower-class tower across the bay," as the Daily put it, but students continued climbing. In the early 1960s, Alpine Clubbers took to the campus sandstone walls with a renewed enthusiasm. "New routes, undreamed of only a few years before, have now been opened up," wrote Lucy Ames in a 1964 guidebook, Mountaineering, Freedom of the Quad.
In the late 1970s, a new type of builderer appeared when Jim Collins, '80, arrived on campus. Collins, today widely known as co-author of the best-selling book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, integrated buildering into rigorous rock-climbing training regimes. This winter, the sport has been brought indoors with the opening of the climbing wall near DeGuerre pool, where a mere Stanford ID will get you onto the rock face. It's a long way from Hoover forays, steam tunnels and the "outlawry" of midnight buildering. Those early Alpine Club veterans left some monster-sized footsteps to fill.
John Rawlings is a librarian at Stanford University Libraries. He has previously written for Sandstone & Tile.
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The Thrill Goes On Decades have passed since anyone mounted a serious assault on Hoover Tower, but other buildings on campus continue to lure thrill-seeking night climbers. Today's hot spots go by names like Cool Fingers (in the outer Quad), Genocide (near Memorial Church), Torture Chamber (Encina Hall) and, yes, President's Wall (Building 10). The University outlawed climbing on most of its buildings in 1986, but an estimated 75 campus stalwarts routinely risk trespassing citations for the sake of their sport, usually after dark. Hard-core builderers have mapped, rated and described favorite Stanford sites in several closely guarded manuals, which fellow climbers have clandestinely photocopied and passed along through the years. Climbers today rarely undertake the daring stunts of yesteryear, and most consider Hoover Tower and Memorial Church off-limits, says Trevor Bezdek, '99, president of the Climbing Wall Club, one of three climbing organizations at Stanford. Builderers typically stay lower to the ground, with the goal of moving sideways rather than up. Many avoid using the standard white chalk to absorb sweat and improve grip because it leaves a telltale trail. "It's important to be discreet," says Dennis Bird, an associate professor of geological and environmental sciences who admits to buildering about once a month, when his students drag him out. Rated three stars (out of four) as a buildering site by the national climbing guide Rock 'N Road, Stanford's sandstone-block architecture serves as a prime training ground for hard-core rock climbers. Aficionados say the small, uneven handholds offered by the textured blocks help them develop finger strength. Training on sandstone buildings can keep a climber in shape for scaling natural formations such as those at Castle Rock State Park, 40 minutes south of campus. Starting this winter, campus climbers will have a legal alternative to buildering: a four-walled, indoor climbing site built in an old racquetball court near De Guerre Pool. The University installed the new facility with the support of student fees after nearly two years of campaigning by enthusiasts. Constructed of plywood on a metal frame, the structure is lined with a resin composite. Handholds resembling those of real boulders dot its four climbing faces, which "cave" inward near the ceiling to form challenging overhangs. Forty-nine-year-old Bird, who teaches rock climbing as part of his department's Outdoor Education Program, says he's been looking forward to training on a proper climbing wall ever since 1989, when he was caught 15 feet up the side of Memorial Church during the Loma Prieta earthquake. And Andrew Davis, '01, co-chair of the Redwood Climbing Club, vows, "For me, there would be no point to continue buildering once there's a climbing wall." Perhaps the indoor wall will cut down on after-hours vertical traffic in the Quad. Or perhaps not. For adventure seekers, the thrill of buildering past President Casper's office in the dead of night may be irresistible. -- Tracy Jan, '98 |