EP 289: Christian Beckwith — The 10th Mountain Division, WW2 Guerrilla Warfare Stories, and the Birth of Modern Climbing Gear

Christian Beckwith is the former editor of The American Alpine Journal and Alpinist Magazine, and the creator of the award-winning podcast, Ninety-Pound Rucksack. We talked about the formation of the 10th Mountain Division in WW2, the breaking of Hitler’s Gothic Line, stories of mountain gorilla warfare, gear innovations that changed climbing forever, and much more. You can listen to Christian’s podcast at christianbeckwith.com

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Show Notes:  

thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/christian-beckwith

Nuggets:

(00:00:00) – Intro

(00:01:48) – Ninety-Pound Rucksack

(00:10:46) – Birth of the 10th Mountain Division

(00:22:00) – Ghosts in the trees

(00:35:23) – New ropes & belay techniques

(00:49:45) – Boots

(00:54:00) – New vs. old climbing gear

(00:57:49) – The Ninety-Pound Rucksack Challenge

(01:05:35) – Breaking Hitler’s Gothic Line

(01:19:18) – Coal to diamond

(01:25:05) – Writing the story of the 10th

(01:34:32) – Teaching GIs to climb

(01:41:45) – What’s next for this story

(01:47:30) – Wrap up