Stronger Than Fiction: Largo’s career has traversed from the first free acscent of The Nose to writing. Photo: Keith Ladzinski
Nicknamed “Largo” becaue of his massive size, 55-year-old John Long, has spent almost a decade seeking that perfect suspended moment in time. Alongside the likes of Rick Harrison, Ricky Accomazzo and Jim Bridwell, Largo was one of the original Stonemasters, who pushed the envelope in the 70’s California climbing scene. In 1975, he, Bridwell and Billy Westbay made the first one-day ascent of El Cap’s The Nose. He then spent the 1980s exploring jungles and islands with Bridwell and later with Dwight Brooks. He rappelled off the world’s largest waterfall, and discovered the world’s largest river cave.
Long holds two post-graduate degrees, one in fine arts with an emphasis on lit and one in psychology. He says they were, “just on the side, fucking around, because I was interested in it at the time.” Largo’s always been a writer, whetting his craft with literary magazines and climbing mags in college, and progressing into adventure writing (both fiction and non-fiction), TV shows and the Hollywood movie script of Sylvester Stallone’s “Cliffhanger.” He’s authored 16 books, and 1,000 television shows, ranging from David Frost’s Nixon interviews, to comedy with Chris Rock. “I never had another job,” he says.
Today, he’s tirelessly publishing vignettes, primarily focusing on climbing coffee-table books, evoking the experience through his work in text and photos, with a firm emphasis on design. These books are like “mini movies” he says.
How did you start climbing?
I started lifting weights in high school in the ’60s. I just kept getting bigger and bigger. It was fun swinging 150-pound dumbbells. But it got to be too much, I was weighing like 225. I didn’t want the ghastly amount of drugs you had to do [to compete]. And it got in the way of climbing and ocean kayaking. I got started in climbing at 15, then it got pretty hot and heavy once I was a junior—I could drive. Then we went all the time.
Rick Harrison and Ricky Accomazzo were both in my town. Accomazzo was a spectacularly great climber at one time. Harrison pretty much did everything—from the Totem Pole, to multiple lines up El Cap, even [John] Gill boulder problems. He lived right up the street from me. At Rubidoux, near Riverside, we ran into Phil Haney. He used to climb with Gill. Up to that point we were pretty dangerous. He was super-athletic, and climbed like Gill, climbing V8 back in the early 70s. He was one of the first climbers to use chalk. So we got chalk bags and we were off. We were climbing in red PA’s, RD’s. Those were pre EB‘s. I also climbed in Robbin’s boots for a bit but I didn’t like ‘em.
What was one of your most memorable climbing experiences in the early days?
Pisano [Overhang], 12c/d in 1973 at Suicide [Rocks]. It was the first world-wide legitimate 5.12. The pro was terrible. The whole summit block was expanding. It’s a [roof] offwidth. Rich Harrison rapped off the lip and slammed a bong in so I had pro at the end. This flake [the pro was in] was really expanding. I arranged two weird pieces of pro underneath the thing and gunned it and made sure I didn’t come off. I couldn’t fall off of it because I would have broken my back.
How did go from climbing to exploration?
I went into jungle explorations in the ‘80s. I did a few trips with Bridwell. Then with Dwight Brooks. We spent six or seven years around the South Pacific, visiting islands. One of the cool ones was the world’s largest river cave in the Gulf province of Papua New Guinea that was only rumored to exist. But it did.
Any memorable experiences from those trips?
In 1988, I went to Venezuela for a Guinness Book of World Records TV show—they wanted to break the world rappelling record. I decided to do it on Angel Falls. I went down there with Jim Bridwell. That’s a big ass wall, 3,000 feet. We had all these 600-foot rappels. Sometimes, you’d be hanging way out from the wall. When you reached the end of the rope, you had to tie in the other. It was dangerous as shit. It was windy. We were finally able to swing into a shoulder after 2,000 feet and finally got down. We had machetes to clear the landing zone for the helicopter. It was foggy, stormy and night. Back then, it was all seat-of-the-pants stuff. No radar. The only way to see was to be close to the river. I held Bridwell out of the helicopter to see the trees. He’d yell to me and I’d yell directions to the pilot. The trees were chewing into the blades. That was pretty much a nightmare from the second we stepped out of the helicopter on top until we were outta there. It’s amazing we didn’t die.
Do you find writing to be a challenge?
You’re trying to bottle lighting, to grasp and channel that experience and put it onto the page. You’re trying to find that suspended moment with almost no intervening on the writer’s behalf, to get it straight down. People can interpret it however they want. I used to be really hard-fisted with it. Now, I write as simply and cleanly as I can.
What are you working on now?
My agent got me on narrative picture books, a hybrid of an art book and a novel. We’re doing a book on glam utopia. Bisexuals. Tattoos. I’m also doing one called Sand in My Hair on beach culture. Dean Peterson is the photographer.
And what about Stonemaster Press?
It’s just a sideline thing. We started a small book publishing company to do elite hardback climbing. Next is Seminal Yosemite, starting back at Astroman [first free ascent in 1975] up to Dean Potter soloing the Rostrum with a parachute and Honnold free soloing Half Dome. That should be a super good project with unbelievable photographs from over the years. We call it a mythos: word, narrative and design.
Chris Van Leuven is the co-author of Yosemite Big Walls and blogs for Elevation Outdoors.
