Yvon Chouinard Tells Some Stories
The global brand Patagonia grew out of Yvon Chouinard’s first business: forging pitons—the steel blades climbers of the era would drive into cracks in the rock with a heavy hammer to anchor themselves to the wall. Chouinard writes, “My first blacksmith shop was a chicken coop in my folks’ backyard in Burbank…hammering out my first pitons in 1957.… I’d often climb for half a day at Stoney Point in Chatsworth, then go up to Rincon [to surf] the evening glass, [and] after I’d free-dive for lobsters and abalone on the coast between Zuma and the county line. I almost always got my limit of ten lobsters and five abalone.”
The Patagonia founder’s life is so packed with good stories that even, can’t hold them all. We are treated to a treasure chest of them, though—tales of his participation in the golden ages of seven sports. Most of us would be thrilled to encounter a single golden age in a lifetime. In his list, only spearfishing caught me by surprise. Oddly, it’s the one he doesn’t elaborate on.
