You can read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2024 here.

Mark Chapman, 70, November 25

Mark “Chappy” Chapman passed away on November 25, after a hard-fought battle with an aggressive brain tumor (glioblastoma). Chapman was a key figure in the Stonemaster era of Yosemite rock climbing, and a close friend of pioneers like Ron Kauk and John Long. He participated in several dozen high-quality rock first ascents in the 1970s and 1980s, and perhaps most famously, the first ascent of ice line The Widow’s Tears (WI5) with Kevin Worrall in 1975. The 1,000-foot line rarely forms, but is the longest continuous ice route in the Lower 48, and took Worrall and Chapman three days. He called it “the best adventure I ever had in the Valley.”

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Chapman first arrived in Yosemite Valley in the summer of 1971, aged 16. “My mom took me to the grocery store, bought me a bunch of peanut butter and other staples and put me on the bus to the valley,” he wrote on SuperTopo, recalling his first days in Yosemite. “I remember arriving at Yosemite Lodge being somewhat overwhelmed and lost but making my way to Camp 4.” Chapman learned the ropes under visionaries like Jim Bridwell, Mark Klemens, and Jim Donini, and quickly became a part of the Camp 4 cadre on the cutting-edge of big wall free climbing.

Among other rock ascents, Chapman was a member of the teams on Grade VI lines Mother Earth (5.11c A4) in 1975, Eagle’s Way (5.8 A3) in 1976, and Never Never Land (5.9 A4) in 1978. Chapman also made the first free ascents of Yvon Chouinard and TM Herbert’s La Escuela (5.11b) in 1973, and Royal Robbins and Jack Turner’s Slab Happy Pinnacle (5.10d) in 1974. At just 19 years old, Chapman soloed the first pitch of legendary crack Outer Limits (5.10c), at the time one of the hardest solos in the Valley. “I weighed 153 pounds no matter what I ate, and could do stacks of one arm pull ups,” Chapman recalled (clearly fondly) of these early years.

He also made the first ascent of lines like Anticipation (5.11b) and Leaning Meanie (5.11b) with Jim Donini (the latter also with Rab Carrington), and Windjammer (5.10c) and The Thief (5.10d) with frequent rope mate Worrall. Worrall and Chapman, with Jim Orey, also pioneered Yosemite’s first ice climb, Upper Sentinel Falls, in the winter of 1974. “My climbing attire was a bit lacking,” Chapman recalled, noting that he was “clad in corduroy bell bottom jeans with no gaiters. It was the ‘70s, after all!”

Outside of climbing, Chapman was a savvy real estate investor and a keen photographer, and from the 1990s dove into a lucrative career in rigging and camerawork, both for Hollywood films and sporting events, often partnering with leading free climber and soloist Earl Wiggins, who died by suicide in 2002.

Chapman’s innovation in the cable camera space won him two Academy Awards, one for technical achievement (2006) and another for scientific and engineering achievement (2011), revolving around his invention of a volumetric suspended cable camera. “Mark was a genius,” close friend and longtime climbing partner Jimmie Dunn recalled. “I mean, he drew a diagram of what this would look like, these cameras suspended on cables, on a pizza parlor napkin… and he won Academy Awards for it!”

Dunn, who met Mark in the early 1970s, when he was a teenager in Yosemite, recalled his late friend as
“a seriously awesome climber,” and someone who was universally liked, save for, perhaps, by the National Park rangers. “Me and Mark, we’d camp illegally out there in the boulders behind Camp 4,”
Dunn said, “We’d walk backwards in the snow to get out there so the rangers, if they saw our tracks, would think we were walking out.”

The antics of their early years notwithstanding, Dunn said Chapman was a seriously hard worker, and gifted with a diverse skill set. “When I met Mark we were just camping out, we had nothing,” he recalled. “But he worked hard. He built a house in Yosemite, leased it out, at the end [of his life] he owned a whole bunch of houses. He was super smart. Figuring out how to borrow money from one house, build another, figuring out all this technology with these cameras, figuring out how to make these high-quality first ascents… I mean, Mark Chapman was something else.”

Chapman remained a cornerstone of Yosemite Valley even later in life, supporting, for example, Alex Huber when he freed the Salathé Wall in 1995. “He was the best friend I had then,” Huber said. “He was the ambassador of Yosemite Valley. I was hanging out in Camp 4, absolutely alone, and Mark came by, asked me who I was, what I was doing. He saw I had no one, and he immediately asked me to stay at his house. He took me with him to Joshua Tree. He introduced me to crack climbing. Mark showed me it all.”

Jimmie Dunn last spoke with Chapman on November 7, just a few weeks before his death, and said it’s still hard to believe his friend is no longer around. “He sounded great,” Dunn recalled. “Very strong. I thought he could live for a few more years, but by the end of the month he was gone.”

“He was a very special person,” Dunn added. “I don’t want him to ever be forgotten. Everybody should know about Mark Chapman.”

You can read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2024 here.