When Rick Accomazzo and Tobin Sorenson emerged from the icy north face of Les Drus into the sunlight, the young men became the first to complete the elegant Dru Couloir Direct. This groundbreaking ascent in the Alps in 1977 would be the highlight of Accomazzo’s vast and varied climbing career.

Though they couldn’t have known it at the time, it would also be their last significant climb together.

The two met as teenagers in southern California, as part of a cadre of high school climbers who would gather on weekends to push themselves higher and harder on the rock. A dozen-odd talented and gritty kids steadily honed their skills, working toward the most difficult climb in their local guidebook: Valhalla, the only 5.11 at Suicide Rock. Anyone who climbed this slick, 300-foot granite slab without falling would be christened a “Stonemaster.”

What began as a fun challenge for the SoCal inner circle evolved into a veritable movement among the best climbers of that generation, especially once it spread to Yosemite. Today, the venerated Stonemasters remain a paragon of hard-climbing, freewheeling, anti-establishment youth, about whom stories are still told as if the 1970s were just yesterday.

Accomazzo — a lawyer, historian, Stonemaster and longtime Boulder climber — is one of their storytellers. He recently published an insightful biography of Sorenson and the Stonemasters called Tobin, the Stonemasters, and Me (1970-1980), that weaves Accomazzo’s first-hand experience throughout the narrative.

He proposes that, toward the end of the 1970s, Sorenson was the best all-around climber on Earth. “At first, I just wanted to tell Tobin’s story,” Accomazzo told me. “But when I realized the scope of his accomplishments, I had an interesting angle that I didn’t intend from the beginning. Only a few elite climbers really knew what Tobin had done.”

Sorenson grew up the oldest of four children, with a Nazarene pastor as a father. “Tobin was very religious,” said Accomazzo. “Unlike everybody else in our group, he didn’t smoke or drink beer or take drugs or anything.” With a confidence that stemmed from his experience and his faith, Sorenson climbed some of the world’s hardest alpine routes. He proved equally adept on the most difficult rock climbs — from single-pitch routes to Yosemite big walls.

Ten years ago, Accomazzo wanted to document Tobin’s unprecedented 1977 season in the Alps which, he believed, had never received the recognition it deserved. That year, Sorenson climbed four of the six famous “Great North Faces” by their most difficult routes — two of them (including the Dru Couloir Direct) by new routes, one (The Eiger Direct) as a first alpine-style ascent, and another (The Matterhorn) as a solo, winter ascent. “I contend it was the best season anyone has ever had in the Alps,” he said.

Accomazzo’s award-winning article was published in Alpinist magazine. Buoyed by the acclaim, he penned two more articles for Alpinist. All three became chapters in his book, which details the decade from 1970 to 1980. “That was Tobin’s climbing career,” said Accomazzo, “from being a beginner to becoming the best climber in the world. Ten years, tragically cut short.”

By 1980 Sorenson had become engaged to a young, equally devout woman. Sorenson told his brother, Tim, he was going to step away from hard alpine climbing. But there was one more route on his list: the imposing north face of Mt. Alberta — an alpine wall of ice and rock taller than El Capitan, tucked away in the Canadian Rockies backcountry.

He would climb it alone.

In early October 1980, Sorenson had climbed more than halfway up Mt. Alberta. Surrounded by loose rock and thin ice, he secured the best belay he could muster: a single piton in shattered limestone. A short way above, something went terribly wrong. He fell off, ripping the piton out of the rock. “Over the next 12 seconds, Tobin crashed and tumbled 2,000 feet to the base of the north face,” writes Accomazzo in his book.

Sorenson was just 25 years old.

“Some of the magic was irretrievably lost when Tobin died,” Accomazzo said, of the Stonemaster zeitgeist. “It was the end of a time when climbing, to us, meant nothing but fun, friendship, adventure, and accomplishment.”

“Tobin, The Stonemasters, and Me (1970 — 1980): Remembering Tobin Sorenson, the Best Climber in the World” is available in town at Neptune Mountaineering and the Boulder Book Store and online at stonemasterbooks.com.

Contact Chris Weidner at cweidner8@gmail.com. Follow him on Instagram @christopherweidner and X @cweidner8.