Episode 176: Jeff Smoot – The 80s Come Alive with Hangdog Days.

On Episode 176 of the Enormocast, I sit down in my kitchen with author and climber Jeff Smoot. Jeff had a wild climbing ride in the 80s as he shadowed two of the renegades inventing sport climbing in the USA: Todd Skinner and Alan Watts. In his book, Hangdog Days: Conflict, Change, and the Race for 5.14, Smoot tells some of the fundamental stories of the conflicts and visions surrounding the invention and mainstreaming of now tried and true techniques like rap bolting, hangdogging, previewing, and route specific training: all taboo in the 70s and early 80s. The stories in Hangdog Days are the stories of how most of us climb today, and though they never gets as much hype as the freewheeling, dope-filled 70s, the 80s had far more influence on modern climbing. Hangdog Days at Mountaineers Books