John Bachar

Who was John Bachar?

John Bachar was an American rock climber noted for his skill at free soloing. A fitness fanatic, he was the creator of the climbing training device known as the Bachar ladder.

Bachar was born in 1957. He grew up in Los Angeles, California and started climbing at the bouldering hot spot of Stoney Point in the northern San Fernando Valley. After attending Westchester High School, graduating in 1974, he attended UCLA, where his father was a math professor, but dropped out to climb full-time. Obsessed with the sport, Bachar immersed himself in books on physical training and nutrition, and soon was able to outperform his fellow climbers. Fellow students at his high school remember him scaling the exterior high school gym walls on many occasions.

John Long, John 'Yabo' Yablonski, Ron Kauk, and Mike Graham, whom Bachar met in the early 1970s all free soloed with Bachar, starting with the classic Joshua Tree route Double Cross. Bachar also put up notorious bouldering problems in Joshua Tree such as Planet X and So High. The committing crux move of the latter problem is 25 feet off the ground.

Bachar was first noted for his climbs in Yosemite with his unroped ascents of New Dimensions and The Nabisco Wall, a three-pitch affair. Noted for his physical fitness, his campsite at Camp 4 was filled with exercise equipment, including the hanging ladders since associated with his name. At his peak Bachar was able to perform a two-finger pull-up with 12.5 pounds of weight in his other hand, and two-arm pull-up with over 100 pounds of weight strapped around his waist. While attempting the bouldering problem Midnight Lightning with Kauk and Yablonski in 1978, Bachar drew the iconic lightning bolt in chalk.