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Ron Kauk's first experiences in rock go back to his fourteen years, he had traveled Yosemite with his backpack during a school trip. "The instructor had bet a milkshake that I wouldn't be able to climb a crack, I still remember today the feeling of happiness that I managed in the last meters before the exit." enrolls with his brother in a rock climbing course at Tuolumne Meadows. "In town, I was climbing the school walls, doing at least 100 finger pull-ups a day, and memorizing the Yosemite routes guide almost by heart." During the summer of 1973, Ron spent many weekends in the area, and felt provided by the "Stonemasters", a band of climbers who lodged at Camp 4 in tents and old buses. After spending the whole summer of 1974 in the valley, he ends up in high school. He stays there for a day and decides never to breathe the air of a classroom again. He then moved to Camp 4 to live with people such as Jim Bridwell, Dale Bard and John Bachar. "It was Jim Bridwell who set the tone, he began to tackle very short and very physical routes. The most important thing was to climb a route, if possible on sight and increasingly difficult". By 1974 Ron was able to onsight Nabisco Wall, at the time the toughest route in the valley. In 1975, he managed the first free sequence of Astroman and several openings like Tales of Power, Separate Reality and Midnight Lightening. At the age of seventeen, he struggled for five days in the 1000 vertical meters of the great wall of El Capitan. Then, still at El Capitan and in the company of Steve Sutten, he climbed the North American wall in winter under an icy storm. With Dale Bard, he completed Window Tears, a difficult Yosemite icefall. In 1978, he created Le Nez en tête and in one day. The same year, Ron and Chapman left for Canada, for Mount Kitchener, they managed the north face. In 1979, Ron took part with John Roskelly and Kim Schmitz in an expedition to Uli Biaho's tower in the Karakoram. On the way back, Ron felt like he had done the trick and his motivation waned, he settled on the eastern slope of the Sierra and earned his living sometimes as a logger, sometimes as a miner. Sometimes, after work, he would climb some rocks in Tuolumne.

In 1986, Ron won a bouldering competition in the USA, Yvon Chouinard then offered him a ticket so that he could come to France to take part in a meeting. "During these competitions, I had rediscovered the spirit of the 70s: European climbers excited my curiosity and motivated me." For several years, Ron will successfully participate in many international competitions. Then, in 1993, the difficult routes attracted him again. "I've always been open to growth in the sport. I also believed that the Spits bindings could breathe new life into the rather stagnant environment of Yosemite and breathe new life into free climbing." The purist camp refused to hear about it, until Ron opened Crossroads in 1993, considered at the time to be a revolutionary route. Thanks to systematic training, on his thirty-seventh birthday, Ron was the first American to climb an 8c route, Burn For You.

He now runs Sacred Rok, a non-profits association. The mission of Sacred Rok is to support youth incarcerated youth the focus and self-discipline represented by rock climbing, with the aim of helping them learn to apply that same focus and self-discipline when back out on the street.

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Ron Kauk

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