Herb Laeger

For years every week you could see Herb’s white Riviera cruising the monument or parked somewhere as he was out doing new routes. Herb put up his routes on lead from stances. Imagine doing Solid Gold while drilling bolts on the lead. Supposedly, a few nice falls were taken during the first ascent while he drilled the bolt holes deep enough to hang off the hand drill to rest or adjust his feet.

Herb had a very unfortunate accident on one of his own routes. He fell before he had placed any protection and sustained some serious injuries. After this accident he swore off climbing, but that didn’t last very long. He was back climbing and doing more first ascents.

Herb, Bob Camps and others were strong advocates against the use of power drills in the 1980’s and their stand against power drills lead in part to the van of their use in JTree and elsewhere.

Herb has supposedly done over 1000 first ascents on both the west and east coasts, notably at Seneca Rocks in West Virginia. His name is attached to many in Joshua Tree.

On top of Herb and Eve’s very impressive first ascent list are many Sierra high peaks and have a very extensive history of cave exploration in Mexico and Central America. The Laeger’s are true adventurers, and continue exploring to this day. Their influence on climbing at JTree has been significant.

Try some Laeger classics: FFA Rubicon 5.10d (1978), Solid Gold 5.10a (19770), Middle Age Crazy 5.11c/d (1980), Highway Man 5.11 b/c (1979), Run for Your Life 5.10 b/c (197888), Head over Heals 5.10a (1979).