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Hangdog Days book
Local climbers at Smith Rock know Redpoint as the spot for Coffee, Bear, and Gear. ” Community” should be added to their tagline. With outdoor movie nights and special presentations, such as the one done by the author Jeff Smoot on his book “Hangdog Days: Conflict, Change, and the Race for 5.14,” Redpoint has broadened the confines of their “downtown” store location in Terrebonne. Next up? A climbing competition at Smith Rock State Park. But more to come on that.
The full title of the book says a lot. “Hangdog Days: Conflict, Change, and the Race for 5.14.” In it author Jeff Smoot weaves an intricate story around some of the characters he hung around during the period of arguments, fistfights, and even death threats that were part of the painful birth of modern sport climbing. At the center of the controversy, local Alan Watts, was one of the revolutionaries that pushed back against the climbing traditionalists of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s to use another approach to get American climbing routes up to the coveted 5.14 gade.
