Yosemite Climbing Museum Reopening This Month with a Fresh Look

“As of two days ago, the construction is done, and the cases are in,” says Nikyra Calcagno, Yosemite Climbing Association’s Administrative Director. “Soon, we’ll be putting the artifact exhibits together and getting all the images on the walls, and then we’ll have a new narrative that goes up.”

“We have much better flow, and we made it more accessible for adaptive visitors,” says founder Ken Yager. “We’re going to add new features and climbers that haven’t received recognition.”

Continues Calcagno, “We’re expanding the exhibits to include women more fully, expanding the adaptive climbing exhibit, and bringing the exhibits forward because the previous ones ended with the 1970s.”

The Yosemite Climbing Association (YCA) has two museums: one in Yosemite Valley and one 45 minutes west in the gateway town of Mariposa. The Yosemite Climbing Museum in Mariposa opened in 2021, and the partner exhibit opened in 2022 in Yosemite Valley. While the Yosemite location remains open to the public, the Mariposa location was closed this past winter for a redesign.

The Yosemite Climbing Museum remodel was funded by  Sandy Krishnamurthy Gallwas with a matching donation from Board Chair, Jerry Gallwas. Les Chow and an anonymous donor also made personal donations to the remodel fund in Mariposa.

For the exhibit in Yosemite Valley, the Yosemite Conservancy and a private earmarked donation from Jerry and Sandy Gallwas made through the American Alpine Club, along with a donation from Yvon Chouinard on behalf of Jim McCarthy.

Self-guided, private tours and daily tours help support the museum. Tax deductible donations can be made here.

Calcagno, who works behind the scenes, came to Yosemite in 1986 with a climbing club from UC Santa Cruz and knew she wanted to call the park home one day. She returned a year later during a summer internship with interpretation and left 14 years later. Her deep-rooted connection to Yosemite and its climbing heritage extends over 35 years, from her days as an avid climber and backpacker to a decade-long tenure as an NPS Park Ranger and, later, a career in education. She joined the YCA in 2022.

“I have a very personal connection to it because I was married to Mike Corbett when he and co-founder Ken Yager first began collecting gear and had that passionate vision to preserve the history and to create a museum,” she says. Corbett and Yager called their exhibit the Yosemite Climbing Archives before renaming it the Yosemite Climbing Association in 2003, when it became a non-profit. Corbett passed away on May 7, two days after the unveiling of the exhibit in Yosemite Valley.

“The first time I walked through the Mariposa Museum, I cried because things in our home in the early nineties were on display. It was just so touching to see that the vision had come to fruition. I’m so grateful to Ken for sticking with it all those years and making it a reality,” Calcagno says.

History of YCA

In 1991, Corbett and Yager pooled their gear together, added pitons and hooks from the late John Salathé’s collection, and displayed the evolution of climbing gear in their first exhibit. In 2004, Yager started the annual Facelift® event, which removes thousands of pounds of trash from Yosemite with the help of park visitors, concession workers, and NPS staff. His efforts have resulted in more than one million pounds of waste being removed from Yosemite.

Facelift

“Facelift came from when I was tired of stepping over toilet paper as a climbing guide,” Yager says. “I also saw it as a good tool to make a permanent climbing museum in the park and change the perception of climbing. For the first Facelift, I went to Camp 4 with litter sticks, safety vests, and gloves, and 130 volunteers filled 40 truckloads with trash. We sorted it, and we threw it all in the dumpsters. The next year, we did a five-day cleanup, and we’ve done it that way ever since.”

Yager continues, “Facelift has helped the climbing community participate in park policy and climbing management. I think it’s essential to keep climbing open 50 years from now and 100 years from now when we’re long gone. The park will always get more crowded, and it will be harder and harder for climbers to stay there.”

The Future of YCA

Continues Calcagno, “Our goal is to tell those stories more fully of climbers who have come and what they’ve accomplished. That common element of innovation, problem-solving, and perseverance. I hope that someday we offer a curriculum for school kids who can do a tour and draw social and emotional parallels that can be transferred to any situation where you have a challenge and have to come up with solutions.”

Opening Day

Following a comprehensive renovation, YCA will unveil the grand reopening of the museum at 5180 CA-140, Mariposa, Calif., on Friday, April 26, for an Open House event from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, highlighted by a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. Refreshments will be served from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm.

The following day, April 27, the YCA is hosting the 2nd annual Mariposa Facelift® from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm at the Yosemite Climbing Museum, followed by an afterparty and fundraiser at The Grove House starting at 7:00 pm, where volunteers can enjoy an evening filled with music, raffle prizes, and much more.

To donate to the YCA museum, click here.