Jim Bridwell

Jim Bridwell was born on Jul 29, 1944 in USA. Jim Bridwell's big-screen debut came with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier directed by William Shatner in 1989.

Jim Bridwell was one of the great innovators of the modern climbing era, bringing a tech-savvy meticulousness coupled with a go-for-it attitude to his many first ascents, 100 first-ascent free climbs plus A5 big wall routes on Half Dome and El Capitan-but also cutting-edge alpine routes from Alaska to Patagonia.Born July 29, 1944, in San Antonio, Texas, Bridwell was the son of Donald Bridwell, an airline pilot who was downed while serving in WWII. Bridwell's mother, Miriam, was a housewife. The two divorced and remarried-the same day that Jim and Peggy wed in 1974.Bridwell was a link to the Golden Age of climbing, having befriended the late Royal Robbins as a youth, before setting off for the next four decades on a first-ascent spree. "There was an article by I think Robbins about when he climbed the direct route on Sentinel, which we renamed the "Mozart Wall", because Robbins said he looked down and saw the wind blowing the grass in the valley and it was almost like listening to Mozart. Then [Layton] Kor did the second ascent and said it was almost as good as listening to Fats Domino [laughs]. He was one of my mentors also, Layton Kor; he was probably my favourite." Jim Bridwell.As for his nickname, "The Bird", Bridwell was a bird watcher and admired falcons. His first climbs in San Jose, California, were to help retrieve and replace eggs high up in trees.He was Top Dog in Yosemite Valley in the 1970s, taking aid climbing to the next level with first ascents on El Capitan. These included the hardest routes in the world at the time: first the Pacific Ocean Wall, and then later Sea of Dreams with its notorious A5 Hook or Book pitch-the first "if you fall, you die" rope length on the famed big wall. In 1975, he, John Long, and Billy Westbay became the first to climb the Nose in a day. Jim Bridwell explains to us that "The Nose" in a day was something that was not my idea. It was Frank Sacherer's idea. He did what he called camping on the bluffs [laughs]. He was into fast and efficient climbing. He used the smaller climbs to free climb some of the smaller test pieces like routes that hadn't been done free. They were mostly free but it seems that people's minds hadn't opened to the possibility. Sacherer was a true progressive. He moved forward. He was always pushing himself. His vision was that you could do a lot of things that other people couldn't do because they didn't think they could do it. So they were limiting themselves by there own thinking.""Bridwell was a bridge from the Golden Age climbers, and he could see where the sport was going," says Yosemite Climbing Association founder Ken Yager. "Early on, he took the speed-is-safety mentality from the mountains and put it on El Cap, which is why he did the first one-day ascent. He always stayed at the forefront and was always with Stonemasters teams that pushed the limits." Jim Bridwell in Lodown Magazine said : "Yeah they (Stonemasters) came in from the South, they were from Los Angeles, San Diego, and Southern California. It was a loose organisation; they had a Stonemaster language. It was pretty creative at the time. We'll call it progressive, in other words adapting. Those things that don't adapt become extinct. So when we say progressive, what we actually mean is they're adventuresome and productive. Unlike what we would call progressive today as far as political goes, which is anything but progressive. [Anyway] It wasn't that it was necessarily negative but it basically stigmatized them as being the leading edge. Stonemasters has a double meaning by the way. [Their] Leader, no I was an honorary member, a mentor."Jim Bridwell and Steve Brewer ticked the first complete ascent of the Compressor Route, making the third ascent of Cerro Torre, in 1979. During the descent, he broke his ribs when a sling he was anchoring with failed, causing a huge fall. Bridwell described the accident in the American Alpine Journal: "Suddenly the panic light in my head flashed red. The sling had ripped apart, but I didn't know it yet. I accelerated earthward at an alarming speed. Terminal velocity, no pun intended. 'This is it,' I thought, 'the last act.' Just like Toni Egger. My mind shifted into hyper-gear and became subtly disconnected, assuming the viewpoint of spectator. My thoughts were as clear and distinct as a computer read-out. What had happened? What was going to happen? Would I live to see my unborn child? Where is the end of the rope? Would I go all the way to the ground? I could hear myself screaming. 'Shut up,' I told myself. 'Screaming doesn't do any good.'"Two years later, he completed the FA of the East Face of the Moose's Tooth with the late Mugs Stump. During the descent-having traveled without a bolt kit-they had to rappel off a single small nut. Bridwell wrote of that committing moment: "After descending half the rope, I gave thanks to the merciful one. For, wonder of wonders, the ropes reached a snow-covered ramp. The chilling grip of death relaxed and a calming peace soothed my quaking soul."In an interview for the book SuperTopo: Yosemite Big Walls, Bridwell spoke of his early climbing days: "I did my first climb in Yosemite on my 18th birthday in 1962 with the late Galen Rowell on Higher Cathedral Spire. I had to borrow shoes from a busboy over at the [Yosemite] Lodge. I had these work boots. I was starting college just as the summer ended. I could only afford [college] for two years due to a scholarship for track [as a high jumper]. I took my test to be a pilot at the Alameda Naval Base. When I came through the gates, I heard that Lee Harvey Oswald was killed. I knew something was rotten in Denmark, so I became a draft dodger and moved to Yosemite."Bridwell had many adventures around the globe, and was known for this hard-driving, hard-partying approach, which, as he aged, perhaps contributed to his failing health. Layton Bridwell, Jim's son, wrote on a GoFundMe campaign in January 2018 that his father had complications from hepatitis C. "My mom suspects he could have contracted that from any number of his adventures, but more likely than not it came from the tattoo he received from headhunters during his cross-navigation of Borneo back in the '80s when I was a kid."His crossing of Borneo, four decades of cutting-edge ascents, plus hard living were not easy on the man known for huffing down unfiltered Camel cigarettes, drinking to excess, using hallucinogens, and receiving his share of hard knocks in the mountains.While climbing in the French Alps in the 1980s, he took a rock to the face-smashing out his front row of teeth. In 2008, a rappel accident put him in a freefall to the ground; the impact split the back of his head, requiring 60 stitches. "Jim said his climbing career ended when he rapped off the end of his rope at City of Rocks," longtime friend Todd Gordon says. "He said that was it for him. It was an omen.... A few knocks, but not really that many considering the stuff he did."Jim Bridwell favorite quote was Lionel Terray words : "To pick the flowers on the boarder of the impossible requires great moral strength.", "The Bird" spent his last few days surrounded by his wife Peggy, his son Layton and friends in Palm Desert, California , passing peacefully on February 16, 2018, at 10:53 a.m.