Chongo Chuck

Biography

Chongo Chuck, whose real name is Charles Victor Tucker II, was born in the 1950s on a military base in Japan. He is an iconic figure in Yosemite climbing.

Chongo began climbing as a self-taught teenager in California. He was born on a U.S. military base in Japan and, in his own words, still remembers the fear he felt at birth. His father was a civil engineer, and Chongo was the eldest of seven children. He graduated from high school in Los Angeles and then spent a year studying undergraduate mathematics at the University of Arizona. Chongo speaks fluent Spanish and lived in Mexico for eight years in one of the capital's most dangerous neighborhoods, which even many Mexicans avoid. Chongo sa...