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Item #: BK4960-83912p
THE BEST CLIMBER IN THE WORLD: REMEMBERING TOBIN SORENSON'S MAGIC DECADE 1970-1980 1st edition New Hardcover SIGNED by Rick Accomazzo Multiple copies available
By Accomazzo, Rick, Author and Stonemaster
Price: $46.00


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TOBIN, THE STONEMASTERS AND ME, 1970-1980, REMEMBERING TOBIN SORENSON, THE BEST CLIMBER IN THE WORLD! HIS MAGIC DECADE 1980 TO 1990.
Our copies are SIGNED by Rick Accomazzo 

California, 2024, first  edition. 360 pages, 200+ color photos most never seen before. Large format hardcover 10'' x 8'' x 1.5'' thick, weight is 3.25 lbs (1.5Kg). Hardcover, Pictorial Covers, No Dust Jacket was issued, includes a heavy duty protective vinyl cover that protects the book like a Brodart does for a Dust Jacket. A lot of love and care went into the creation of this book, and it shows.

This is a large format book. Extra postage will be requested for Media Mail, Priority Mail and International Mail.

This book tells us the full story of Tobin Sorenson, perhaps the boldest climber of the famous and elite 1970s Yosemite Stonemasters. Sorenson was famous for establishing daring ascents at Tahquitz & Suicide, Yosemite's big walls, ice routes on the Eiger and rock routes on the Mont Blanc Aiguilles, hard rock climbs at Arapiles in Australia and snow & ice in the New Zealand Alps, and finally a new route in the Canadian Rockies where he died in a fall while soloing Mount Alberta. All this by age 25!

How did Tobin Sorenson, a teenager from the suburban sprawl of southern California become, at 25 years old, one of the best all-around climbers in the world? This is an improbable and heart-breaking chronicle of talent, persistence, ambition, religion, and love. 

Alex Honnold, in his book, Alone On The Wall, tells of the climbing heroes of his youth:''It was the self-described Stonemasters that I admired, John Long, Jim Bridwell, Billy Westbay, Tobin Sorenson and their buddies'

The book closes with a three page detailed list of Tobin's 100 most significant climbs in his magic decade from 1970 to 1980. It is reminiscent of the 1930-1940 magic decade of climbing by Eric Shipton and Bill Tilman (that is also immortalized in a book by Jim Perrin.)

ABOUT RICK ACCOMAZZO, Stonemaster and Author

Rick Accomazzo started climbing in Southern California at age 17 in 1972. He explains that if you wanted to become a Stonemaster, a term the teens coined themselves, ''You’d have to be able to lead the 3 pitch Valhalla, the first 5.11 climb at Suicide Rock.'' That was the upper limit for rock climbing in those days.

Besides the life and career of Tobin Sorenson, the book also describes the evolution of early high standard climbing in Yosemite and Southern California through the Stonemasters, as well as previously untold anecdotes of many of the individuals members. 

The initial group of Stonemasters included these iconic names:  Rick Accomazzo,  Bill Antel, John Bachar, Dale Bard, Jim Bridwell, Dean Fidelman, Richard Harrison, Lynn Hill, Mike Graham,  Ron Kauk, John Long, George Meyers, Robs Muir, Tobin Sorenson, etc.

Rick Accomazzo was a frequent partner of Sorenson, and they both climbed at the highest standards at that time. Somehow Rick also completed both College and Law School while pursuing a career in high standard climbing. Rick is now retired from the law, which has allowed him the time to write this book [ten years], and also to track down Sorenson's many partners and learn the mysteries of how he created routes of aesthetic beauty at the highest level of difficulty, and how he could do it day after day. 

Rick Accomazzo is also one of the founders of the Access Fund, and later served as President for a decade. I have known Rick for over thirty years through mutual friends here in Colorado, as well as through the The Access Fund and his legal expertise. 

The Access Fund is a not-for-profit rock climbing advocacy group in the US that was founded in 1991. Their goals are twofold. First, keeping climbing areas open and gaining access to currently closed climbing areas. Second, they promote an ethic of responsible climbing and conservation of the climbing environment. 

The Access Fund was originally the Access Committee of the American Alpine Club and was created as an independent group as the climbing community realized the need for a full time organization to represent climbing and climbers' rights in the US.



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