Climbing Packs, 1930s (part of Bigwall Bivouacs Chapter)

draft Tools for the Wild Vertical (end of Volume 2)

Buy the books here:

Volume 1: (mostly) European Tools and Techniques to the 1930s

Volume 2: (mostly) North American Climbing Tools and Techniques to the 1950s

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Climbing Packs (brief pictorial overview) 1920s-1950s

For climbing, a simple rucksack without outside pockets were preferred. These were generally a simple tapered sack, with a single top-point attachment for a shoulder harness.

Simple rucksacks in the 1920s—no external pockets (as preferred for climbing), single-point attachment for shoulder straps. (Photos: Der Mensch am Berg, 1935).

Semi-frame

For semi-frame packs in the 1920s, the state-of-the-art pack design was the Norwegian Bergans-Meis design, sold globally (imported into the USA by Abercrombie and Fitch). These were suitable for loads up to about 20kg.

1928 Sporthaus Jungborn catalog (machine-translated by Google). The stabilizing waist belt was a relatively new idea for production rucksacks.

Heavier loads

Bigwalls need a lot of gear brought to base camp, so for heavier loads, separate frames or harness systems were lashed to duffels and other carrying sacks. Lavender and Griffith record a harness system used in Colorado and on Denali by Parker and Browne. For the heaviest loads, framed backboards fit the bill. On the first American expedition to K2, the team had light aluminum pack-frames, to which all sorts of equipment was lashed for the porters in 23kg. loads—duffel bags, wood boxes (10” x 12” x 20”), sacks of food, etc. The aluminum frames used in 1938 were made by Camp and Sports, ‘Everest Model,” and only weighed 680g. (1.5lbs.).

Left: Fabric pack harness used to lash onto duffel bags to carry gear. Right: various rigid pack frames shown in the Handbook of American Mountaineering.

Various packs in the 1920s and 1930s (Don Munday on the left, Charlie Houston on the right).

On Mount Waddington, the East Coast team with different pack designs. Fritz Wiessner’s sack is of particular interest, as it looks custom-made and appears to be a large-capacity soft pack. From: Off the Beaten Track, by Elizabeth D. Woolsey (1984).

Left: Betty Woolsey and her pup in the 1930s. Right: pack systems for ski touring 1930s. From Off the Beaten Track, Elizabeth Woolsey, 1984.

Jump to the 1960s

Integrated framed packs were becoming popular in the 1950s, but even in the 1960s pack innovators like Gerry Cunningham still offered frames and sacks separately, as lashing one’s own sack onto a frame was a basic skill and still favored by many for versatility.

Gerry 1961 Catalog. The backpacking business really boomed in the 60s and 70s, and the evolution hence is a topic for another book. Kelty was one of the first major manufacturers to offer integrated frame/sack packs in the 1950s.

Back to the future. After a few decades of frame packs for larger volume loads, soft packs again became mainstream in the 1980s. Left: State-of-the-art Wild Things soft pack, 1990s. Right: author with my home on my back leading the initial pitches of Cerro Torre, 1993.

COOKING AND LIGHTING

to be continued—see the completed Volume 3 coming soon!