Remembering John Middendorf—a Legend On and Off the Wall

In the winter of 1986, John Middendorf, Steve Bosque, and the late Mike Corbett shivered, nearly hypothermic, on the South Face of Half Dome. It was the 25-year-old Middendorf’s 40th big Yosemite route. On their fourth day on the wall, light rain prompted the team to don their portaledge flies. Their radio promised clearing weather, but, as the day progressed, the rain and wind instead intensified. The tall, lanky Middendorf hucked the radio off the wall in frustration. By the next morning, they were being smashed against the wall by 50+ mph winds, and their portaledges had fallen apart. Their frozen ropes and the traversing nature of the route made retreat impossible.

The storm changed Middendorf’s life and the climbing world.

John William Middendorf IV, who passed in his sleep on June 21 while visiting his family in Rhode Island, was born in New York City on November 18, 1959, the son of John William Middendorf II, former Secretary of the Navy, and Isabelle Paine Middendorf. He grew up with his three older sisters, Fran, Martha, and Amy, and his younger brother, Roxy Paine, in Connecticut, the Netherlands, and Virginia.

Middendorf began climbing in Colorado, when, at age 14, his mother sent him to the summer camp at the Skyline Ranch Mountaineering School in Telluride Colorado. It was a decision that changed his life.

“I was lucky enough to be his instructor,” the renowned free soloist Henry Barber told Climbing. Barber climbed extensively with Middendorf and took him on his first ever first ascent: a 5.10 near Colorado’s San Animas River. “He approached his initial climbs the same way as he approached his big wall things, it was always a learning experience,” Barber said. “He was determined.”

Middendorf became an insatiable climber. In 1978, just after finishing high school, Middendorf traveled around the U.S., climbing in Boulder Canyon on Coffin Crack (5.10b) and Curving Crack (5.9+). Middendorf attended Dartmouth College for a year before transferring to Stanford University, where he eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 1983. (A lifelong learner, he later studied fabric architecture at the University of Sydney, and received masters degrees in Architectural Design from Harvard University and Teaching from the University of Tasmania.) 

When he moved to California, Middendorf met Bob Palais at a Grateful Dead show and joined a posse of climbers splitting time between shows and Yosemite. “He had a magical aspect to him,” Palais said of Middendorf’s humorous energy and his lively spirit. Middendorf would sing a parody of Country Joe & The Fish’s “Vietnam Song”:

It’s one, two, three,

What are we climbing for?

Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn.

Next stop El Capitan!

Shortly after graduating from Stanford Middendorf moved to Camp 4, where he worked from January 1984 to the fall 1986 as a Yosemite Search and Rescue Member. During his time in the Valley, fellow granite climber Grant Hiskes mangled Middendorf’s last name to Dusseldorf, which was shortened to “Deucey,” which stuck.

Deucey spent over 2,000 nights in Yosemite during his climbing career and made 30 ascents of El Capitan. Middendorf soloed The Prow (V 5.8 A4) on Washington’s Column for his first wall route, and his resume quickly expanded to El Capitan, including the 1985 first ascent of Atlantic Ocean Wall (VI 5.10 A4) with John Barbella, the 1990 first ascent of Cosmos (VI 5.9 A3+) with Jimmie Dunn, and the 1993 first ascent of Flight of the Albatross (VI 5.10 A4) with Will Oxx. In December of 1984, Middendorf and Dave Schultz set the speed record on the Nose (VI 5.9 A2) at 10 hours 45 minutes.

He also climbed elsewhere in Yosemite, making first ascents of The Kali Yuga (VI 5.10 A4) on the Northwest Face of Half Dome in 1989, Autobahn (5.11+ R/X) on the South Face of Half Dome with Charles Cole and Rusty Reno in 1985, and Aqua Vulva (VI 5.10 A4) with Eric Kohl on the Yosemite Falls Wall in 1989.

But the storm on Half Dome, in the winter of 1986, remained one of Middendorf’s seminal climbing moments. As he shivered on the wall with Corbett and Bosque, having thrown the radio off the wall, he wondered if he’d survive. Luckily, a few friends had hiked to Lost Lake to check on them and called out to see if they needed a rescue, which they confirmed. They continued shivering on the wall as snow mounted on their broken portaledges. On their sixth day on the wall, the sun briefly cut through the clouds. They could see another storm coming, so they chopped out their buried ice-covered ropes, planning to embark on a horrific descent attempt. Then they heard the thuds of a helicopter. The team was plucked off the wall, hypothermic and burdened by nightmares, but otherwise unscathed.

Middendorf was a lifelong innovator

After the storm Middendorf began to wonder what if he was wasting his mechanical engineering knowledge. “The technology wasn’t there in portaledges for a storm of that caliber at the time,” Middendorf said in a Common Climber interview. So he began A5 Adventures, a company based in Flagstaff, Arizona, that was dedicated to manufacturing cutting edge big wall climbing equipment. He redesigned portaledges and their flies, making significant advancements in both their day-to-day functionality and their storm tolerance. In 1991, he sold the company to the North Face, where he briefly worked as a designer. But it wasn’t long before he found himself disillusioned. “It was never about making money for John,” his climbing partner Simon Mentz said.

For a while after that, Middendorf stepped away from climbing equipment. He worked as a surveyor and had a GIS business in Colorado. He worked as a reporter for a newspaper in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. He guided river tours in the Grand Canyon. And, later, he taught high school mathematics, science, and robotics in Tasmania. But in 2016, he returned to big wall equipment, redesigning portaledges under the brand D4.

“He was always about speed, efficiency, and tactics,” said Bill Hatcher, a longtime friend who climbed with Middendorf and Brad Quinn on the first ascent of Tricks of the Trade (V 5.10d A2) in 1993. “My image of Middendorf is he has a pad of paper and a pencil and he’s figuring out the next great problem. That’s his approach to climbing.”

Middendorf also applied his big wall techniques in the alpine. In 1992, Middendorf used the tools he’d crafted at A5 Adventures to climb Great Trango Tower (20,500ft) in Pakistan’s Karakorum. Climbing in a capsule style, establishing a portaledge basecamp, and fixing lines up the mountain over 16 days, Middendorf and Xaver Bongard established Grand Voyage (VII 5.10+ A4+ WI 4), which still stands as an unrepeated testament to Middendorf’s climbing prowess. In December 1993, he took what he’d learned on Great Trango and climbed the Compressor Route on Cerro Torre with Conrad Anker in just 14 hours.

After moving to Tasmania in 2008, Middendorf continued to climb, exploring Mt Arapiles in Australia and testing his D4 portaledge with Simon Mentz on Mount Buffalo’s Ozymandias Direct (AUD 10 M4; 1,000ft) with Simon Mentz. He also climbed with his son Rowen on Mount Arapiles. But over time, his focus shifted toward education. “John was always an enthusiastic student himself,” said Mentz, and he wanted to pass on his knowledge.

Middendorf wrote extensively about his climbing, sharing both his exploits and his technical knowledge. His website bigwall.net was the first of many websites that Middendorf coded himself and was an important source of information in its time. In 1988, Middendorf wrote Big Wall Tech Manual, a 50-page big wall manual published by A5 Adventures. In 1994, John Long and Middendorf wrote How to Climb Big Walls. In 2023, he wrote and published Mechanical Advantage Volume 1: Tools for the Wild Vertical and Mechanical Advantage Volume 2: Tools for the Wild Vertical, both of which investigate climbing through the lens of climbing tools. Middendorf also planned on writing a history of Great Trango Tower.

If it wasn’t for Middendorf, Camp 4 might be a parking lot

On January 2, 1997, warm weather and heavy rainfall in the Sierra caused the Merced river to rage through the Valley floor, causing unprecedented destruction. When the water receded, the National Park Service proposed using the $178 million appropriated by Congress after the flood to expand the Yosemite Lodge north over Northside Drive to Swan Slab and the Columbia Boulder, replacing Camp 4 and its boulders with parking lots and buildings. In response, Middendorf joined forced with Greg Adair and Tom Frost to form The Friends of Yosemite Valley, which rallied the American Alpine Club, Access Fund, and various Yosemite climbers to sue the National Park Service and prevent the destruction of Camp 4 citing the National Environmental Policy Act. The lawsuit, combined with other pressure from climbers, helped get Camp 4 listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which guarantees its preservation. For Middendorf, saving Camp 4 was just the beginning of a globe-spanning conservation career—some of which involved putting his own body on the line.

Late one night in 2018, when logging companies in Tasmania were intent on plowing down hectares of takayna (the Tasmanian rainforest), Middendorf and Erik Hayward snuck into the forest south of the Arthur River carrying a haul bag filled with water, food, ropes, and a portaledge. When they reached a 14-meter myrtle that he’d previously climbed with his son Rowen and daughter Remi, Middendorf ascended the tree and anchored his portaledge to the myrtle. “This was an eviction and he was holding space,” Hayward said of Middendorf’s activism.

Middendorf also worked hard to advance the technology that made these protests possible. In 2010, he joined Bill Hatcher, who was documenting an aerial blockade in the Upper Florentine that aimed to save Tasmania’s old growth forest. Wayward and other activists from the Bob Brown Foundation had hiked heavy plywood bed frames into the forest, climbed the eucalyptus trees at night, and anchored their ledges to the logging equipment to stop the loggers from destroying the forest. Seeing the beauty of the forest and wanting to contribute, Middendorf donated portaledges to the cause. His portaledges were lightweight, which meant that activists could hike farther into the forest, easily bypass loggers, and set up tree camps quickly, allowing them to get ahead of and stop the destruction.

After his experience at The North Face, Middendorf wanted his portaledge innovations to be open source—something that climbers and forest activists could replicate if they didn’t have the resources to purchase one. “He was always willing to share about the things he could help with. He was a real innovator,” Hayward said. Outside of the Bob Brown Foundation’s campaign center in Hobart, Middendorf and Hayward set up “Deucey’s Sew Table of Dreams,” a place where Middendorf showed activists how to create throw bags to better catch trees and how to cheaply make portaledges to replace the ones confiscated by the authorities. “John’s principal idea was that we need to make it easier for anyone [with access to] a home sewing machine to create the means to defend earth,” said Wayward.

Middendorf also sewed extensively for his friend Paul Pritchard, who kayaked with Middendorf often. Pritchard only has use of one arm after a nearly fatal fall on Tasmania’s Totem Pole, and Middendorf engineered and adapted gear for Pritchard so the two could adventure together. “He was always a hero to me,” Pritchard said.

John Middendorf: family man

While river guiding in the Grand Canyon, John met his wife, Jeni, who was also guiding at the time. They married in 2006 in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, had their son Rowen, in 2007, moved to Hobart, Tasmania, in 2008, and had their daughter Remi in 2012. “He was a hands-on dad who loved sharing experiences and adventures with his children,” said Jeni.

In 2020, Bill Hatcher, Middendorf, and Rowen went on a road trip to Rowen’s first sculling race. As a school kid, Middendorf had been on a rowing team, and he wanted to share that experience with his son.

“He was the perfect mentor any child would want,” Hatcher said, describing how Remi would shadow her father around his shop, answer all her questions, and indulge her curiosities.

Middendorf took both of his children climbing at Mount Arapiles and across the world. With Rowen, Middendorf climbed Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, hiked around Tasmania, and skied at Hakuba in Japan. Middendorf had two hip replacements but still charged. “To be 64 and to keep up with me at 17 is pretty impressive,” Rowen said.

At night, he read Archie comics with Remi. He also took her to Bali. Recently, the family took a 20 day trip down the Grand Canyon, further cementing themselves as an outdoor family. “I couldn’t imagine having a better dad,” Rowen said.

“John gained many accolades throughout his life, and he touched many lives with his brilliant mind, his generosity, innovations, knowledge, creativity, wisdom, and care for the environment,” said Jeni. “But his biggest success was his dedication to his family whom he loved more than anything. He was truly an extraordinary and beautiful human being.”

Related:

• Was This Yosemite’s Most Miserable Shiver Bivy? by John Middendorf
• “I Tried to door More With Less”: An Interview with Henry Barber
• A Climber We Lost: Mike Corbett

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