NC514

NC514 presents archival and era-defining climbing films that document how a generation climbed and made films. The selections here capture two different angles of that archive: a roster-driven compilation of early-2000s American soloists and a didactic-era piece advocating clean desert big-wall technique.

Masters of Stone 5 (2000) functions as a period record: the edit assembles Dean Potter, Steph Davis and Dan Osman in a mix of crack climbing, highlining and soloing that shows an emergent American soloing scene and the variety of practices its members pursued. For contemporary viewers the value lies in watching techniques and attitudes as they appeared at the time, and in seeing climbers who were already moving between rope work, highline and free-solo disciplines. Jeff Lowe's Clean Wall: Touchstone Wall (part of Lowe’s DVD catalogue) concentrates on clean aid technique on the sandstone touchstone wall in Zion and argues—through footage and instruction—that walls can be climbed without hammer scars; it serves as an instructional-era document of where desert big-wall ethics and clean-aid practice came from.

Together the two films show NC514’s preservationist impulse: to keep accessible records of past practices, important personalities and the instructional frameworks that shaped climbing in earlier decades.