New Climbing Film "Luxury Liner: The First Ascent of Supercrack"

One of the chapters in Life on the Edge, a book of climbing stories I’m currently writing, details the first ascent of Supercrack in Indian Creek Canyon, Utah, in early November 1976. The chapter begins:

“The second week of November, 1976. Earl Wiggins slung a rack of clunky six-sided Hexentric nuts over his shoulder, nodded at Bryan Becker, who held a rope threaded through a Sticht belay plate that would act as a brake if he fell, standing on the ledge beside him and launched up Supercrack.”

Later in the intro I write: “The first ascent of Supercrack was a tangible manifestation of the possibilities of rock climbing. Before its ascent, it was a great unknown if Supercrack and the many other splitter cracks that lined the cliffs in Indian Creek Canyon as well as elsewhere in the canyon country could be safely protected and climbed. The uncertainty was if any gear would actually wedge against the smooth walls inside the soft sandstone’s parallel-sided crack and keep a falling climber from crashing into the ground.”

The Supercrack is a stunning and beautiful crack that splits a varnished sandstone face. Jim Dunn, Billy Westbay, and I discovered and named it in 1971 at a time when the crack couldn’t be protected and a fall from it would mean certain death. Five years later though, it was climbed and I was there, photographing, filming, and making an audio recording of its historic first ascent by my friends. I held onto that historic film footage for the next 30 years before turning it over to Chris Alstrin with Alstrin Films after seeing his superb film “On Higher Ground.” Under Chris’s able editing and appreciation for climbing history, he is coupling my original Super 8 film footage and audio with modern interviews of the principal climbers and film of Supercrack and Indian Creek into a new documentary climbing film called Luxury Liner: The First Ascent of Supercrack.

The film, sponsored by Black Diamond, Patagonia, and Beal Ropes, will be released sometime next year, probably premiering at a mountain film festival somewhere. Stay tuned here for all the details. In the meantime, check out the 5:34-minute trailer of the film at the Alstrin Films website. This is simply going to be one of the best American climbing films ever made and remember, you heard it here first!

Photo above: Earl Wiggins belays Ed Webster on the 1st ascent of Supercrack in 1976.
Photograph © Stewart M. Green