Walter Flint was a 28 year resident of Yosemite National Park, and thus has lived half of his life in, what is oft- referred to as; the “crown jewel” of all national parks in the United States. 

 

During his Yosemite years Walter was a Staff Photographer for the prestigious and world famouAnsel Adams Gallery in Yosemite Valley, and is also a former Yosemite Mountaineering School Climbing Guide, P.S.I.A certified Nordic Ski Instructor/Guide, and also served as the Mountaineering School Assistant Manager. He also climbed many of the grand granite monoliths in Yosemite Valley including the 3000 ft face of El Capitan along with dozens of mountain summits in Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada range; having hiked thousands of miles whilst visiting some of the most remote locations in the continental United States.

As an instructor, guide, photography teacher and lecturer he has spoken to and taught tens-of-thousands of Yosemite's world-wide visitors about photography, natural history, skiing, and climbing.

 

Walter's photography has been widely published and displayed and he holds an Associate of Applied Science degree in Professional Photography from Colorado

Mountain College. He's never free-climbed anything harder than 5.11c, and he barely managed that.

 

2nd Ascent "Via Sin Aqua" Yosemite Falls Wall 1990. Photo: E. Kohl
Hand-jam-o-rama on "Reeds Direct" 5.9.... Photo: C. Falkenstein

Me in 1985 explaining to a few of Yosemite's 2,831,952 visitors  how the local residents of the "Deep Grassy Valley". were fucked over.

I was born in Milwaukee. I was a city kid, and later, as a teenager, I was a suburbanite. I didn't grow up in the rural countryside; much less in the mountains, and didn't experience the high and wild places and the perfect designs of nature that reside therein.. Back in my youth I didn't ski, I didn't climb, and I certainly was not thinking about photography in any meaningful artistic way other than snapshots. But, I always loved the woods and would spend time in them whenever I could. I always loved camping out in the woods, and would do so whenever possible.

 

Perspective is Everything. Photo: B. Littell
Caught in the Act. Photo C. Falkenstein
In training for the 1965 Alcoholic Olympics
Guiding United States Army soldiers from Fort Ord, CA. Photo: R. Stockwell
Setting up to photograph on Lost Arrow Spire. Photo: D. Schultz

My first real full-bodied experience in the mountains came in the summer of 1981 when I completed a 790-mile solo hike of the Pacific Crest Trail from Yosemite Valley to the California – Oregon Border. I was hooked!

In the two years that followed I went about my city life but my thoughts and emotions always returned to the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada. I dreamed of the sheer granite peaks and monoliths. I yearned to breathe the air of the tall trees, high alpine lakes, lushly flowered meadows, and grand timberline vistas. Nature called me with her siren song and I was utterly powerless to resist her truth and beauty.

 

I had to make my pilgrimage and I knew in my heart I would be coming home to the Promised Land. In May of 1983, at the age of 21, I left behind my existence in Wisconsin, and moved to live and work in Yosemite Valley for the next 28 years of my life

 

Yosemite National Park has been the learning ground for some of the most pleasurable and intense experiences of my adult life. In the beautiful Range of Light I learned how to be a photographer. In the bountiful snow of the Sierra Nevada Mountains I learned how to ski. On the greatest, most aesthetic granite walls in the world, I learned how to rock climb and be a mountaineer. And, in the wilderness of the Yosemite backcountry I learned the value of the silence of the earth, and even though it is never completely quiet, it taught me be silent and listen to the rhythmic songs of nature.

 

 It was my love of wilderness travel that got me to dig deeper into my life to see in ways I never had before. And, this love of wilderness inspired me to create the landscape and nature photography that is the slide show of my life. For me, the beauty of the natural world is extraordinary in every sense of the word. 

 

Muleaineering in the Palisades in the Sierra Nevada. Photo: R. McMichael
Shagged, fagged, fashed, but obviously not famined, in Idaho.
Retired and living life with my beautiful, better half. 2023