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Ben Harland
Social climber
Baltimore, MD
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 22, 2011 - 06:51pm PT
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So the March issue of Climbing has an article on Devil's Lake. The article mentions a route called "Son of Great Chimney":
Pete Cleveland made the first ascent in 1968, and at 5.11c, it was one of the hardest routes in the country at the time
Hard 5.11 in 1968 caught my attention (especially since it was done onsight and with no in situ pins), so I looked around on the web and I see that some of the first 5.11's, Slack Centre, Swan Slab and Serenity got freed in 1967. (http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/yos/first511.txt)
So my question is, was this Pete Cleveland guy really that bad ass? Why haven't I heard of him? Are my armchair skills really this weak?
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Levy
Big Wall climber
So Cal
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Feb 22, 2011 - 06:55pm PT
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Pete Cleveland was climbing hard long ago. He also did a route at Lake called Bagatelle (sp?) that is rated 5.12c or d. In 1977 he did Phlogiston, now rated 5.13a/b, and his ascent of Super Pin 5.11X in the Needles of S.D. stands out as a bold achievement for 1967.
He was the shizzle & way ahead of his time.
http://www128.pair.com/r3d4k7/Cleveland.html
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 22, 2011 - 07:14pm PT
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We'd go up there from our SoIll sandstone and were always shocked by how snot-slick the rock was up there. We'd be pounding our knees into things as our feet slipped off just about everything. Then they'd come down to SoIll and all but crawl on their bellies looking for edges on sandstone you could stand no hands on. Pretty much a total sandbag going both ways.
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scuffy b
climber
Three feet higher
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Feb 22, 2011 - 07:14pm PT
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He didn't get much ink, because most of his climbing was at Devil's Lake
and the Needles, and he didn't do big newsmaking trips to places that
received more attention.
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Ben Harland
Social climber
Baltimore, MD
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 22, 2011 - 07:51pm PT
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Thanks for the Gill article^^ And thanks Scuffy for explaining why I hadn't heard about him - I see that it is mostly his fault.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Feb 22, 2011 - 07:53pm PT
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Yes he was that Bad ass! Details to follow.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 22, 2011 - 10:44pm PT
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cleveland was one of the legends of 1960s and '70s climbing. he wasn't obscure to my generation.
brad wertz did a good article in climbing years ago.
both ament and gill have written about cleveland.
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chez
Social climber
chicago ill
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Feb 22, 2011 - 11:39pm PT
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Always liked that scissors move on Acid Rock that Pete came up with.
Levy, how do you know about Pete?
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Feb 23, 2011 - 10:48am PT
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Though, as mentioned above, Cl;eveland did primarily climb at Devil's Lake and the Needles he did get around a bit as well. He'd done his undergraduate work in Boston, and for a number of years Cleveland's Climb was the hardest route in Quincy Quarries ( the route now, sadly, a part of the talus). More significantly, in 1966 he and fellow midwesterner Don Storjohn did a blitz of the Tetons--making early, usually second, ascents of most of the hardest routes in the range. This spree culminated in the first ascent of the North Face of Crooked Thumb, then the hardest climb in the Tetons--and still rarely repeated. This was a notorious route at the time, as several years before, during an earlier attempt, a young Yvon Chouinard had taken a monster (120' ???) fall and survived unscathed. He was tied in using a new-fangled creation--a swami belt (several wraps of nylon webbing tied around his waist) and credited this for his survival. As a result using a swami belt became standard practice for many years. This incident had given the Crooked Thumb climb a major reputation adding to the significance of Cleveland and Storjohn's climb.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Feb 23, 2011 - 11:02am PT
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5.11 wasn't exactly cutting edge in 68 (Greg Lowe was freeing 5.12s at City of Rocks in the mid 60s), but it was still very hard for the day and Cleveland was BADASS. As others noted, he did some very hard routes at the Lake that were cutting edge and that your avg modern climbers can't touch.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 23, 2011 - 02:03pm PT
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Yvon went for 165' if I recall correctly.
5.11X was state of the art well into the eighties...
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Feb 23, 2011 - 03:04pm PT
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From
http://www.stanford.edu/%7Eclint/yos/hard.htm
6c+ (5.11) - 1965 - Son of Great Chimney - Devil's Lake (WI) - Pete Cleveland
6c/7a (5.11d R) - 1967 - Superpin - Needles - Pete Cleveland
7c (5.12d, toprope) - 1969 - Bagatelle - Devil's Lake - Pete Cleveland
I don't know if Son of Great Chimney was done in 1965, 1967 or 1968; sources seem to vary.
I don't have the guidebook; I do have the Pete Cleveland bio in Climbing magazine from 1991, though, which says he onsighted it in 1965. But in that interview, Pete "struggled" to recall dates, so it could be wrong.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Feb 23, 2011 - 04:38pm PT
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Steve, Like most such stories I think the length of Yvon's Crooked Thumb fall inceases with the number of times the story is told!!!! Also, in considering the difficulty of Cleveland's Devil's Lake climbs, it is worth noting that the ratings at the Lake have historically been notably stiff, to understate things a bit. Given that at the time he climbed them these routes were usually rated under the Devil's Lake version of the NCCS system at F9 and F10, it is no wonder that their true difficulty wasn't recognized elsewhere. I don't know if the "modern" ratings quoted earlier in this thread also contain the required Devil's Lake quota of "sand".
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scuffy b
climber
Three feet higher
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Feb 23, 2011 - 07:08pm PT
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Alan, I have always had the idea that Chouinard's big fall was 165 ft.
I think it must have been in something old like Roper's green guide.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Feb 23, 2011 - 08:42pm PT
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I don't recall the exact length of Yvon's fall, but I talked to him and Kamps after they came down. Bob said that he hardly felt the fall in his belay position, and he said Yvon was in swan dive mode when he flew by.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 23, 2011 - 09:02pm PT
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"Huge roped falls have been taken. Yvon Chouinard's record 165-foot plunge in the Tetons has been surpassed at least twice in the Valley with non-fatal results and each year someone tries to smash the record." Roper's green guide 1971.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 23, 2011 - 09:10pm PT
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i heard about cleveland before i ever left the pnw.
super pin was legendary-- i can remember talking with todd about cleveland routes in the needles and at the lake back in the early 1980s.
brad wertz's article in climbing is quite good.
pat's section on cleveland in wizards should have brought him more attention.
i like gill's brief bit on cleveland, especially the part about how cleveland worked outlet boulder chimney style. has to be a candidate for hardest chimney problem anywhere if done that way.
hey john, was that how pete finally did it? back against that right wall? i spent a half-hour at that damn thing trying to chimney it and failing, never realizing that there was a more kinesthetic alternative.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 23, 2011 - 11:58pm PT
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The problem is that in the Climber's Guide to Devil's Lake by Widule & Swartling, ©1979 the rating was a bit hard to understand:
The NCCS rating of F10A corresponds to 5.10- and the top rating of F10C to 5.10+, so the fact that no one knew how badly off the rating system was contributed to the under appreciation of the effort.
In the ©1995 edition ISBN 0-299-14594-8 we see that the rating has changed... but the description looks familiar...
this edition also has photos...
I guess the joke is the use of sticky rubber at a place where friction doesn't exist.
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