Voices of Pueblo Podcast

“It’s dangerous, you could die, you spend all your money and you don’t work as hard as you should. But for me it was full tilt.” Climbing legend Jimmie Dunn has done it all, from climbing the Black Canyon in Gunnison, to accomplishing history on the cliff face of El Capitan at Yosemite National Park. Now Dunn lives in Pueblo West, chronicling his many accomplishments.

Dunn has been climbing since he was 17; the now 74-year-old is still climbing and is active in the southern Colorado climbing community.

“In the Pueblo area there is some great rock climbing,” Dunn said. “I did a little bit of it 30 years ago but now I’m getting reintroduced to it. I’ve been jumping on the bandwagon lately and getting my butt kicked.”

When he first started, “climbing was life” for Dunn. He learned from a friend and progressed into tougher and tougher climbs.

Dunn said: “One of my friends in college was into minerals and he sold his car to buy a rock. All of his friends asked him how he could sell his car for this rock? His answer was; ‘there’s a lot of cars to buy and only a few great rocks to buy.’ There were a ton of cars then, and I could buy a car for $50 and have more money to climb up at Yosemite. That was my attitude.”

23-year-old Dunn and his group of friends made numerous trips around the country to find new climbs. In 1972, on spring break from college in Colorado Springs, Dunn made his way to Yosemite Valley with plans to attempt a new line on El Capitan.

El Capitan is a vertical rock formation that rises about 3,000 feet from it’s base to the summit. The cliff face was first climbed by a group in 1958 in 47 days. They climbed “The Nose” route, which Dunn was able to climb in 1970 with a partner. He climbed two other routes in 1971.

By 1972 there were about seven lines established on the cliff face according to Dunn. “I was in college and I remember in class looking at maps of El Capitan and planning my route.” There was talk of the new route, but no one had completed it yet.

Dunn’s partner he originally planned to climb it with fell at Rocky Mountain National Park weeks earlier and broke his leg. Dunn planned to do the climb with his friend, Billy Westbay.

As they began the ascent they heard yelling from the base. Dunn said, “There were maybe eight, 10, 12 climbers telling us; ‘you better get down, you’re going to die up there.”

The group had plans to be the first to finish the climb, and threatened to throw Dunn and Westbay from the top of El Capitan if they succeeded. Dunn wanted to continue, but his companion wanted out of the climb, so they returned to the bottom.

Jim Bridwell, who Dunn called ‘The King of Yosemite’ threatened to break whoever first climbed the new route’s arms and legs, because he wanted to do it first.

Dunn still wanted to do the climb and looked for a new partner. He tried another friend, but he took a bad fall getting started on the ascent and broke three fingers. Dunn said, “he had tears running down his face because he knew he was finished.” After trying one more partner unsuccessfully, Dunn faced a choice.

“That’s when I decided to solo it,” Dunn said. “I have an old $115 car, I don’t have any money, I quit school and didn’t have a job. I decided I’m not leaving.”

Solo climbs on El Capitan were extremely rare, and no one had solo climbed a new line on the cliff face.

Solo climbing meant Dunn didn’t have a partner with him, which meant he was using pitons, cliff hangers and occasionally used stirrups. It can be slow going since there isn’t much margin for error. One day Dunn took 18 hours to go up 100 feet.

It was a cold climb, with occasional rain. Dunn did the whole climb with his warm winter jacket on.
On the first day of the climb, Dunn dropped his sleeping bag; on the second day he took a long fall; on the third, his hammock tore.

“I have never spent that much time alone in my life,” Dunn said, “I started to talk to the rock like it was completely normal. I was apologizing for thinking I could get up it. It was much harder than I thought.”

Dunn described thinking about all the great climbers who had done this route and decided to turn around. Dunn said at one point he told himself, “I will die before I come down.”

As the days passed and Dunn made progress up the face, a crowd gathered to watch him climb.

Dunn said, “There were several hundred people who wanted to see if it was true I was up there. There was a lot of jealousy, envy and pissed off people that I was doing it, but also admiration.”

Dunn was forced to sleep standing up at night as he continued the climb. One time later in the climb he fell again, but caught himself on his rope. He cut his hand open, making the last stretch of the climb even harder.

“I started talking to the rock,” Dunn said. “I started talking to my haul bag like it was a person. You don’t think at the time that it’s weird. I was talking to insects, asking how they were doing.

After nine days and almost 3,000 feet of climbing, Dunn summited El Capitan, making history. He couldn’t close his hands at that point and was so exhausted he left his pack at the top of the mountain.

“The first thing I saw at the top was a peregrine falcon,” Dunn said, “then it hit me that I just soloed a first ascent on El Cap.”

Jim Bridwell was the first person Dunn saw after the climb. Bridwell had threatened climbers of the new route. Dunn was worried he’d be angry, “He came up and shook my hand and said, ‘I’m impressed, let me cook you supper.”

Dunn let Bridwell name the new route, he chose ‘Cosmos.’ Cosmos is now one of over 150 known routes on El Capitan. It’s located on one of the steeper sections of the southwest face. It’s described by the topo (climb description) as being harder than the Shield route. In 2023 the average climb takes seven days on Cosmos.

Dunn would go on to conquer many classic routes in Utah and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison with his friends. And perhaps more striking than the individual achievements, is the longevity of Dunn’s career, which spans more than 50 years.

“Nowadays everyone it so in shape, it’s like an army of samurai warriors,” Dunn joked. “My son’s just gotten into climbing and he’s already two or three grades better than me.”

Dunn and his wife Hellen had been living a life constantly on the road. Dunn said, “We spent ten years living in a van going climbing all over the country. Things changed and she got into teaching. The best thing I can do is support her because she supported me going around the country living like dirtbags.”

Hellen has a passion for art. She does performance art, pottery and sculpting large rocks.

Dunn said, “She wanted to build an art studio in Colorado Springs, it was just a hassle. She was talking coming back and said, ‘wait a minute something came up on my phone, let me pull over. There’s this really cool place in Pueblo.”

They looked at the house in Pueblo West and fell in love. Dunn said, “I looked at it and said, ‘Hellen, let’s buy this tomorrow. Whatever it takes, let’s buy this tomorrow.’”

As Hellen pursues her art with a home with a studio space, Jimmie is working to write down details from his adventures.

Dunn said, “If I don’t do that, details get forgotten. Things like being in a 1972 yellow Volkswagen Bug, AM radio no FM, it’s drizzling out, things like that. Every midwest station called for 100 percent chance of rain, I said we’re doing it 100 percent no matter what.”

Dunn is full of great stories of adventure, “I remember one time I was in a sleeping back driving and my friend was using our camping stove to defrost the window, and he fell asleep and caught his sleeping bag on fire. It’s not normal, is it?”

“I’m hoping to do a book,” Dunn said. “If I don’t then all the individual details aren’t written. A lot of times I go places and people ask me about the things I’ve done. My pictures are more important than money to me.

Dunn joked he has a better memory for handholds and footholds than he does for addresses and bank accounts.

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