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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 17, 2005 - 12:44pm PT
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The ST campers sometimes ruminate about the old days and usually it gets summed up in a few words and a story or two by a few. The generation of the 1950s and 60s are not around much and it seems like pre-history (hey, I’m history and they were before me!)
So I decided that some of these famous old guys would best be introduced in their own writings, published when they were dirt baggers (or not far removed) like everyone else—not yet successful business men or icons, but young guys with a passion and their lives ahead of them.
I have found four or five that I think are interesting and that sort of paint the times between the 1960s and the 1970s. If this is interesting I will post the others.
This article was published in Ascent Magazine in 1972 (?) and does not show up in the reprints. Chouinard and Frost had a fledgling business making equipment. Chouinard was not climbing much in the Valley, Harding was attacking the notion of ethics and style and younger climbers were re-arranging the decor and painting the walls with their own hues and listening to their own inner, strange voices.
Chouinard’s piece weaves bolts, piton scars, use of nuts, personable responsibility, population impacts, and lose of adventure in climbing the Captain into a huge rant. Some of the ideas seem obvious today while some seem mean-spirited towards the younger generation.
I am only guessing, but I think that the main driver for Yvon’s rage was Harding’s bolting of the SF of HD and the WEML—his main theme starts and ends with the idea that equipment takes the adventure out of the climbing. That does not seem to hold water for me, since the big faces in the Valley required the invention of new equipment and no adventure was lost. What he did not see—nor did anyone else in 1971—were the very high standards of free climbing that were just starting or the very hard aid on the Captain that was about to begin.
Chouinard also talks about the lose of fear of the unknown in climbing the Captain; a fear that is diminished once any Joe can get up it. I think that this is certainly true—I am proof enough of that—but he could just as easily said, “Boy, what a bunch of cry babies we were. We thought we were so out there doing the Captain. But when we actually got up the nerve and enough equipment to try it, we got up quite a few routes without any major mishaps. The only thing to fear is fear itself.”
Now, we all know that he didn’t say that and no one really believes it. For sure it is not the same adventure as a first ascent, but I don’t think the great adventure of climbing the Captain is diminished because someone else has mapped out its proportions.
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 17, 2005 - 12:47pm PT
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OPINION
Coonyard Mouths Off
“Today’s climber…carries his courage in his rucksack…Faith in equipment has replaced faith in oneself.” Reinhold Messner
Mountaineering is very much in vogue in America. What was once a way of life that only attracted the oddball individual is now a healthy, upstanding, recreational pastime enjoyed by thousands of average Joes. The climbing scene has become a fad and the common man is bringing the Art down to his own level of values and competence.
Living in California, I can see previews of coming attractions in America. I saw the Peace and Love movement turn to Violence and Hate even before it got to others parts of the country. Now there are bad vibrations in the over-populated surfing scene and even worse vibrations with the climbing craze. The same problems which prevented us from realizing the Great American Dream are now facing mountaineering. Just as man continues to disrupt the natural order of things, so mountaineering has become increasingly technical, decreasingly difficult, much too crowded and far less adventuresome. The purity, uncertainty, naturalness and soul of the sport are rapidly being changed.
Having been passionately committed to climbing for seventeen years, and with a business directly related to climbing and its problems, I feel a heavy responsibility to make known my apprehensions over what climbing is becoming.
Bolts. After the Wall of the Early Morning Light fiasco, there was a considerable increase in the sale of bolts in the climbing shops in Southern California. A kid buys a bolt kit before he even knows how to use a runner! Yet Reinhold Messner became one of the world’s greatest alpinist without ever having drilled a single hole.
It’s is no longer enough to say that only the expert climbers should be allowed to place bolts. We’ve said that all along and it’s not working! Even the Mad Bolter surely considers himself an expert.
On the big-wall climbs of the 1960’s, bolts had their place. They made it possible to ascend the great routes on El Capitan and Half Dome. This era is gone and yet bolts are being used in even greater numbers to force illogical routes up blank faces. This permits the average Joe to do climbs that are normally over his head and they allow the experts to do incredibly hard climbs without having to stick their necks out. Bolts are even used for no apparent reason, like the one I once say next to an eight-foot diameter ponderosa pine.
I believe we have reached the point where the only hope is to completely degrade bolting. We must refuse to recognize it as a legitimate means of climbing. If you are in sympathy, you must stop using bolts. Disparage others who do. Moreover, tell your local climbing shop that you are not buying anything from them until they stop selling bolts, or at the very least remove them form the front counter.
Hard Rock Mining. The Lost Arrow Tip is as dead as the Hudson River. It is no longer a climb. The Nose of El Cap up to Sickle Ledge is a disgusting experience. You now use 1 ½ -inch angles where the pioneers used rurps. Bashies have been welded into piton holes, leaving rock once again smooth and flush, except for the rotten sling sticking out. Cracks are deteriorating, flakes are broken off, trees are being girdled by rappel ropes. Even the quartz-hard Shawangunks in New York are suffering form the onslaught of too many climbers. It can’t go on like this. And it won’t. The Park Service has already closed three climbs in Yosemite because of deterioration of the rock.
We once thought that America had the highest standard of rockclimbing in the world because we removed our pitons and left the climbs “clean.” This policy worked fine when there were just a handful of us and it’s still a good way to climb a big virgin Alaskan wall. But in the Valley or the Gunks, it is now selfish, destructive ethic.
I’d like to offer a few immediate solutions. Stay off climbs which you don’t intend to finish. Don’t climb to Sickle Ledge unless you plan to do the entire Nose route. Stay off climbs that are obviously over your head—otherwise you will just be placing more pitons than necessary for protection. Don’t use artificial aid on free routes. These actions would certainly help solve the problem, but the final answer is to leave the necessary pitons in place on all climbs, artificial and free.
The fixed-piton idea would appear at first to be a degeneration of artificial climbing standards, and it will probably end up being so. However, we could start playing the chock-and natural-protection-game instead of the piton game and thus perhaps even raise the existing standards. For instance, I believe that it’s possible to climb El Cap using only chocks and a few thin pitons (these could be fixed).
The chock solution is dependent on everyone using nuts, not just carrying them around for looks, but really trusting them. Nuts and runners can be used in place of pitons on free climbs 95% of the time in Yosemite. I spent five days there last spring, climbing every day, and never placed a piton. I don’t even carry a hammer in the Tetons anymore. This system of necessary fixed pitons and using natural protection will only work if the guidebook writers cooperate. The ‘all-clean’ (no pitons necessary) routes should be mentioned to avoid extra piton placement and removal. The new Shawangunk guide will contain this information, plus the names of the party doing the first clean ascent.
Responsibility. I prefer to climb without wearing a hard hat. I won’t argue the safety issue pro or con—it’s just that my head feels freer and more receptive to the good things happening all around when I climb. I believe that the wearing of a crash helmet should be a matter of personal choice. However, in some climbing areas, like Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, it has become governmental policy. The same think is true with solo climbing in some National Parks. We have no one other than ourselves to blame for these restrictive policies. We have allowed the overstressing of the safety aspects of crash helmets in the American Alpine Club Accident Reports, which insurance companies read. It won’t be long before you life insurance will cover you only when wearing a crash helmet. It already applies to motorcycles, to gardeners working along freeways, and to students in climbing schools.
We have allowed the Park Service to feel directly responsible for climbing rescues to the extent that either rangers are on the rescue teams for the Park Service pays your friends to rescue you! Since Big Uncle has become responsible for our safety, he feels the obligation to legislate on matters that should only be a personal choice.
The responsibility for rescues should be with the climbers themselves, and should be handled on a voluntary, non-paying, non-charge basis. Helicopter costs could be paid for by an Alpine Club insurance policy as in France, or by a rescue-fund kitty, as in Britain.
The increasing frequency of rescues on big climbs goes to show that many climbers are showing an irresponsible attitude by attempting big walls before they are really equal to the problems involved. During the spring of 1971, there were over thirty attempts on El Capitan, with only four successful climbs! One of the failures involved climbers who had merely gotten wet, sat down and waited for a rescue with another party (on another route) continued on.
Population. One day last summer sixty-five people stood on the summit of the Grand Teton. These people had camped either on the Lower Saddle of in Garnet Canyon. This means that there were probably one hundred persons camping in the area, a timberline environment which is not capable of supporting more than ten groups without suffering severe damage to the fragile meadows, trees and wildflowers.
Already, the State of California is requiring reservations and is limiting the number of people allowed to go into the wilderness area. This will also happen in the Tetons and the climber will be the one to suffer.
The Alps are able to support far greater numbers of climbers than we are because of their hut systems. I agree that huts encourage even more people to go into the mountains, by the huts need not be as elaborate as those in the Alps. In any case, a hut on the Lower Saddle and another in the meadows of Garnet Canyon, plus a ban on open fires and tent camping, is the only way we can preserve the environment and still allow more than a few parties a day to climb in these areas.
Should a hut system be adopted, I only hope that the builders will have more esthetic sense than to build a wooden A-frame at Boulder Camp in the Bugaboos (as the Canadians intend to do). To build anything but a rock hut there is like putting a Spanish Adobe on the coast of Maine.
Get Back, Jo, Jo. A party now starts up El Capitan with the confidence of knowing that if anything happens they can be rescued within a day of so from any point on the wall. The fear of the unknown, the fear of being unequal to the wall, of flaming our 1,500 feet form nowhere can still be a real fear, but the outcome in now a certainty.
We have our topo to make sure we won’t come up against any unforeseen difficulties. Let’s take our jumars so that we’ll only have to climb every other pitch and thus save our strength for leading because that’s where it’s at. Don’t forget the chalk for the 5.9 friction and the a few bolts, mashies, bashies, and a space blanket for security. And a hundred Moms and Dads down in the meadow ready to get that rescue going just as soon as you yell of it—maybe even before! When you come up to the A5 rurp traverse, just smash in a few tied-off 1 1/2-inch angles, plug up that hole with a mashie and you’re up. In the bar remember to tell your friends that El Cap is a piece of cake—nothing over A3 and 5.8. Then go back to Iowa and quit climbing because you’ve done the ultimate.
I’m trying to say that maybe Yosemite and El Capitan are not the Ultimates. It was a spaced-our adventure once, when the odds were more stacked against you, but it’s not such a big deal anymore. George Lowe thought that his winter ascent of the north face of the Grand Teton was a far more difficult climb than the Salathe Wall. If you want to experience the same adventures and the same difficulties that the El Cap pioneers had, then you’ve got to go some where else, where there are virgin walls, where you are going to feel the same loneliness of being five days from the bottom and five days from the top.
The Bavarian climber Willo Welzenbach was the greatest climber of the post-World War I period. HE was a complete alpinist, equally adept on rock and ice. In 1925 he put up over 20 new routes in the Alps. He made the first ascents of six of the greatest north walls of the Bernese Oberland. His routes were characterized by their logic, audacity and beauty. Objective dangers, foul weather, bad conditions and rotten rock—these were not absolute obstacles for him. Caught on a wall many times by bad weather, he would wait out the storm, then continue to the summit.
All of his climbs were done in impeccable style, without fixed ropes, bolts, crash helmets, topos, radios or even down gear! These were climbs encompassing all the techniques and difficulties of Grand Alpinism: steep ice, hard free-climbing, avalanches, rockfalls, storms…and most of all, fear of the unknown.
This was the golden age of climbing; this was the pinnacle of the art, perhaps never to be equaled again. Since Welzenbach, Gervasutti and Salathe, more difficult climbs have been made, but generally as a direct result of better equipment and consequent use of that equipment.
We are entering a new era of climbing, an era that may well be characterized by incredible advances in equipment, by the overcoming of great difficulties, with even greater technological wizardry, and by the rendering of the mountains to a low though democratic, mean.
Or it could be the start of more spiritual climbing, where we assault the mountains with less equipment and with more awareness, more experience and more courage.
Yvon Chouinard
Ascent 1972
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Jan 17, 2005 - 01:29pm PT
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This article was published in Ascent Magazine in 1972 (?) and does not show up in the reprints.
I think it shows up again in the Best of Ascent. Also in Wilson's Games Climbers Play.
Bolts are even used for no apparent reason, like the one I once say next to an eight-foot diameter ponderosa pine.
Didn't Harding retort that he'd never seen an eight foot diameter pine in Yosemite?!
Also interesing is Coonyard Mouths Off, Part II (title?). Good read that updates that classic essay. In the Banff book Voices from the Summit?
Good stuff...
Brian in SLC
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Melissa
Big Wall climber
oakland, ca
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Jan 17, 2005 - 03:44pm PT
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"We are entering a new era of climbing, an era that may well be characterized by incredible advances in equipment, by the overcoming of great difficulties, with even greater technological wizardry, and by the rendering of the mountains to a low though democratic, mean.
Or it could be the start of more spiritual climbing, where we assault the mountains with less equipment and with more awareness, more experience and more courage.
Yvon Chouinard
Ascent 1972"
I find great irony in these statements.
What is the net worth of Patagonia/BD these days?
Thanks for the post, Roger.
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Pappy
Trad climber
Atlanta
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Jan 17, 2005 - 04:47pm PT
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"I find great irony in these statements.
What is the net worth of Patagonia/BD these days?"
What an assinine comment. Never mind that Chouinard has blazed a path with Patagonia that makes profits and growth secondary (and therefore I would never invest in it), the mere fact that he has been successful makes him somehow suspicious. Jackass.
And you people wonder why the rest of us think that CA, and especially the Bay Area, are the freaks of the week. Morons.
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Melissa
Big Wall climber
oakland, ca
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Jan 17, 2005 - 05:40pm PT
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That his company evolved into two highly profitable corporations feeding the fleecey desires of the "low but democratic mean" that he was complaining about is a bit ironic to me doesn't say a word about what I think about his substantial personal climbing accomplishments or what my opinon of Patagonia's business practices are relative to other corporations who don't donate 1% of their profits towards evironmentally-friendly marketing.
I guess if you want to put down people in CA in the same post that you defend Choinard, I might find more irony...although it's probably true that most of their products are made with cheaper foreign labor these days rather than at their humble start up digs in Ventura. (Source: Royal Robbins guest appearance on GORP site...He called the notion that the stuff was still being made in Ventura "quaint", I believe.)
I'd take a jab at you for being from the South except that it would be too easy and I wouldn't really mean it. I really do think that you have some reading comprehension issues and are a little loose with your emotions, but I wouldn't insult the other southerners by assuming that everyone in Atlanta, land of many summits, was just like you.
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Matt
Trad climber
San Francisco
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Jan 17, 2005 - 05:42pm PT
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hey crappy-
("papsmear" was giving you to much credit)
go crawl back in bed w/ your inbred cousin and suck you lunch milk from the same infected nipple that you've been gettin it from since you were six years old...
and fyi- there is a difference between finding irony in someones statements and criticizing them (or their business practices).
2 B clear- my directions to you were NOT intended to be ironic, amd Dr. MLK's birthday is the perfect day to reflect on why so many of us in sunny CA think so many of you (all too closely related) southerners are unclean, un(der)edumucated, unethical, and largely unrepentant of the tragic social traditions that are still held dear by so many people in your neck of the woods.
"Moron".
EDIT
haha, guess i'm not as nice as melissa, i will happily return the "easy" regional pot-shot! of course there are a few good apples, even in crappy's rotten barrel, but that don't mean he ain't a putz...
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Degaine
climber
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Jan 17, 2005 - 06:15pm PT
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Pappy, insults aside, you certainly raise an interesting point. One could indeed interpret from the above article, that Chouinard considered the growth of climbing and other mountain sports to be a grave danger to the environment yet needed this continued growth for his company/companies to survive.
YC in part responds to the question of corporate responsibility and the environment on the Patagonia website (also posted below):
http://www.patagonia.com/enviro/reports/corporate.shtml
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On Corporate Responsibility for Planet Earth
by Yvon Chouinard
Featured in our Winter 2004 catalog
As an alpinist who set out to make gear for my friends and never thought of myself as a “businessman” until long after I became one, I’ve wrestled the demons of corporate responsibility for some time. Who are businesses really responsible to? Their shareholders? Their customers? Their employees? None of the above, I have finally come to believe. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy planet there are no shareholders, no customers, no employees. As the conservationist David Brower liked to say, “There is no business to be done on a dead planet.”
But what does behaving responsibly to the environment mean? It took me nearly 25 years in business to learn how to ask that question. It has taken another 15 years of trial and error to uncover the process that Patagonia – or any environmentally minded company – has to go through in pursuit of answers. I think I know how to break that process down to five steps. These steps apply to individuals as well as to companies who want to reduce the harm they do and make a difference.
STEP 1: Lead an examined life. Most of the environmental damage humans cause is a result of ignorance. That ignorance is willful when we avoid confronting our problems, when we refuse to learn because we don’t want to have to act on what we know.
As an example, 15 years ago we had no idea which of our four major fibers (cotton, wool, polyester, nylon) caused the most environmental harm – or what kind. We assumed then that “natural” cotton was the most benign and oil-based polyester the least. Only after we had the sense to commission a detailed environmental assessment of these four fibers did we learn the truth: Conventionally grown cotton, which uses 25 percent of all insecticides (8 percent of all agricultural pesticides), turned out to be the worst villain of all. Since then, we’ve asked a lot more questions, and these have led to a lot more action – to the use of recycled polyester and less harmful dyes and to the elimination of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) in our luggage fabrics.
STEP 2: Clean up your act. Once you learn the environmental costs, try to reduce them. And when you can reduce them, you must. Once we found out how harmful cotton was, we sought a sensible alternative. And we found one. Organic cotton posed none of the worst environmental problems but it was difficult to buy (because so little was grown) and to process. In order to go organic we had to build a new infrastructure, from farmers to ginners to spinners to weavers and knitters. We did so in only two years’ time. Everyone at Patagonia, knowing the environmental costs of the alternative, worked with gusto to make that change on an “impossible” schedule. So did our business partners. People love to figure out how to do the right thing, once they know what that is.
STEP 3: Do your penance. No matter how diligent a corporation, it causes waste and pollution. Our initial fabric assessment told us that antimony, a dangerous heavy metal, is used in the making of polyester resin. To eliminate antimony requires the action of the major chemical companies: As a little David, we didn’t think we could take them on. Like any other responsible corporation, Patagonia should pay penance for its sins – while we work to figure out how to clean up our act.
Our penance takes the form of a voluntary “earth tax.” For many years we donated a percentage of our profits to grassroots environmental organizations working to save and restore habitat. In 1996, because profit figures can be so easily manipulated, we began to donate 1 percent of sales to these organizations, in lean years and fat, without regard for profit levels. Over the years we’ve donated about $20 million to thousands of groups.
STEP 4: Support civil democracy. It’s obvious that governments and corporations hold a lot of power, but so do small groups of people who care passionately about an issue and press their cause. The great social movements of the past 200 years – for democracy itself, for women’s rights, for social equality, for conservation and preservation of the environment – rose up directly from small groups of people who spread the word to others. Today in the United States, small groups of kayakers and fishermen work tirelessly to bring down dams; duck hunters toil to preserve wetlands. And it’s mothers who exert the most pressure to clean up local toxic landfills.
I’ve learned from a lifetime of being outdoors that nature loves diversity and hates monoculture and centralization. A thousand diverse activist groups, each passionately working on a specific problem, can accomplish more than bloated, cautious NGOs or governments addressing all the big issues at once. Even though I work for tough laws, I don’t trust my government. I support the front-line activists, the river keepers and tree sitters who work to save a single patch of land or stretch of water. These are the people who do the most to hold the corporations at bay and keep the government honest. These are the kinds of groups to whom we give most of our money.
STEP 5: Influence other companies. If you undertake the other steps, this one is a natural. The company that discovers new ways to be more environmentally responsible has an obligation to spread the word to others – to share the knowledge of what can be done. Organic cotton farmers, ginners, spinners, weavers and cloth manufacturers who followed our lead have created new sources of revenue for themselves. As a consequence, the cost of organic cotton has declined with commercialization.
Again, people like to do the right thing when they know the right thing to do. Mike Brown, who headed our environmental assessment team during the 1990s, now runs an organization called Eco-Partners, which brings together environmental officers from companies like Nike, Mountain Equipment Co-op, even Ford Motor Company, to trade tips and knowledge. Yes, we are now working with fiber mills to eliminate the use of antimony (and methyl bromide) in polyester. And, finally, we’ve started an organization called 1% For The Planet to encourage other corporations to give a helping hand to the environmental activists who are doing such good.
In the end, Patagonia will never be completely socially responsible, nor at any time soon be able to make a totally sustainable (“cradle-to-cradle” recyclable) product. We have a long way to go and we don’t have a map – but we do have a way to read the terrain and to take the next step, and then the next.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Jan 17, 2005 - 06:17pm PT
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I find great irony in these statements.
One or both?
I guess I was a bit confused too, but, was going to let someone else ask. Which didn't work out so well...ha ha...
You clarified the first statement, but, what's ironic about the second?
I still think putting a chance for a first ascent in South America on ebay (to support the Patagonia land trust) and if no one bids, just baggin' the FA anyway and calling it "Mount Paris Hilton" was one of the funnier things I've heard anyone, much less that Coonyard feller, say.
Interesting guy. I like that recent climbing rag interview when he disses bouldering but then admits his elbow injury was due to falling whilst bouldering. What a character. Self described as a "wealthy dirtbag"?
Cheers (and, bummer we didn't get a chance to get together...next time!),
Brian in SLC
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Pappy
Trad climber
Atlanta
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Jan 17, 2005 - 06:18pm PT
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Melissa, dear, what in the hell makes you think that Patagonia makes sh#t that facilitates climbing mountains? They make sh#t for the dippy housewife and her kids in the gigantic Suburban. Fine. I'll do the same thing to spend my time climbing, surfing, and fly fishing. I do not have a reading comprehension problem. It is quite clear to the rest of us, if not to you, that your comment had a mean spirited and envious undertone. (BTW, Chouinard has no connection to BD, nor did Chouinard Equipment ever turn much of a profit, and I seriously doubt that BD is "highly profitable" now. What the hell do you do, hawk aroma therapies?)
And I am amused by you and the Mutt's attitude towards the South. I'm not particularly happy down here because there ain't enough ice. But it is pretty clear that CA is a f*#king economic disaster that we are going to have to somehow resuscitate as part of our social contract, even though y'all pretty much spun out of the real world a while back.
I'll have to admit that you have some of the finest geography on the planet. And it's wasted on you.
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Jan 17, 2005 - 06:22pm PT
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Actually, I sort of agree with Melissa on that one. He use to have a lot to do with Pataguchi. They diversified their assets to protect the money making pig that Pataguchi is. He, choonyard, was there in the begging. Perhaps it was hypocrasy that melissa is eluding to? I see it that way to an extent.
He ripped on pushing equipment technology and yet BD pushes the limit in many ways on developing new and improved technology.
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Melissa
Big Wall climber
oakland, ca
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Jan 17, 2005 - 06:43pm PT
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Brian...I found irony in both sentances because it took both to see where his approval/disapproval lied and the reality of the companies is opposite on both accounts. The spin-offs of "Chouinard" are all about gear and 'technical clothing' to help you send (or look like you do). I seriously doubt the marketing folks at either BD or Patagonia sit around discussing how they can get climbers to do more with less.
...Sorry it didn't work out in SLC. The whole avalanche thing kinda condensed my schedule (and I was pretty worried about the road closing again).
Pappy...
I understand how corporations work. I work for one. One that aims to turn a profit and aims to benefit society. The more things that we create and sell that benefit society, the more we profit. Patagonia is probably more ethical than most in the clothing industry. They are still existing at odds with the minimalist thang that Choinard seemed to be espousing in his 1972 article. Chouinard was one of the most influential climbers of our time. I still found the 1972 statements vs. his future as a climbing capitalist ironic. Why so much anger?
As for my aromatherapy, look on MedLine or the USPTO.
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ricardo
Gym climber
San Francisco, CA
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Jan 17, 2005 - 07:00pm PT
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well .. it was true then .. its true now ..
the more popular climbing becomes .. the harder you have to look for the "hardmen" routes ..
and the more beatout that the trade routes become in YV
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jan 17, 2005 - 07:01pm PT
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Well, I wouldn't put him quite in the same catergory as DaVinci, but there is a certain timless resonance about that piece.
From the old Pogo cartoon strip, "We have met the enemy and he is us!"
The trade routes at JTree now have a almost worn out feel to them. I'm worried an epedemic of chiping is about to ensue by those misguided enough to try to "restore" them.
Legions of ham fisted gym climbers are tearing down Tahquitz one block at a time. It's a frightening place now on a Saturday afternoon!
Just beating the crowds to get a permit in the Sierras can be a challenge. Galey and Iceburg are crowded/filty enough to be considered health hazards.
Someone frees a line of rap drilled bolts two feet from a perfect crack on El Cap and it gets a feature article in a magazine. As they become more famous, they will be emulated.
It seems that most of the denizens of this board are old enough to realize what has been lost. Not probably that anything can be done about it.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Jan 17, 2005 - 07:01pm PT
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I found irony in both sentances because it took both to see where his approval/disapproval lied and the reality of the companies is opposite on both accounts. The spin-offs of "Chouinard" are all gear and 'technical clothing' to help you send...and in the appeal of the mountains to non-climbers as well, and even more democratic mean, IMO. I seriously doubt the marketing folks at either BD or Patagonia sit around discussing how they can get climbers to do more with less.
Yep. See your point. Thanks. Makes even more sense when I think about how my new Patagucci shoeller pants blew the seat out the first time I wore them rock climbing...and compared to the pants they used to make that lasted forever...kinda funny...sorta...
But...
See, they do sit around and discuss how to do more with less:
http://www.bdel.com/gear/lightware/index.php
Oh shoot, "lightware" is headlamps...
Ha ha.
They do have some nice lightweight gear, though. Neutrinos etc. More with less weight at least.
I'd ignore the angry dude.
Brian in SLC
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yo
climber
NOT Fresno
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Jan 17, 2005 - 07:20pm PT
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There's loads of irony there and it certainly ain't lost on YC. This rant is one among many of his and they all strongly argue for adventure, fast and light, and respect for the creation. And this is the dude who finds himself the CEO of Supercorp. LAte at night he must just sit in the dark and laugh.
I love this stuff because it's the same bitch and moan I hear all the time, mostly from myself. The golden age is dead. All the plums are picked. Too many f*#king people. YC was saying this before I was born! And yet I've been alone on Serenity Crack in June and the first time I went up the Cap I'm pretty sure I was the first person ever to go up there. Sure seemed like it. Maybe the world isn't ending.
George Lowe was more scared on the NF of the Grand solo in winter than on the Salathe? Um, no sh#t.
YC wants me to leave my jugs behind next time? WTF? Should I prussik all the way up Mescalito? Maybe I'll just batman the rope, is that better style? What if I leave all those new-fangled springy things on the ground?
Actually, this is the irony I saw: he bemoans the loss of adventure AND advocates staying off routes that are "over your head." No, no, no! That's where it's at. Go get your ass kicked.
Thanks for the post, Roger. I could rehash the old dads' rants all day.
Ryan
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ricardo
Gym climber
San Francisco, CA
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Jan 17, 2005 - 07:54pm PT
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Ryan has hit it on the head ..
adventure is all around us .. just go do something where success is not guaranteed for you .. leave the bolt kit at home though.
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Jan 17, 2005 - 07:58pm PT
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Success was not guaranteed for us in the Vampires. The bolt kit didn't add to our ability to succeed. It merely meant we could establish rap stations to retreat/rap. Only holes we drilled were for stations. The bolt kit can go on the 'adventure' so long as you use it "wisely". Minus the belay holes our route went clean*. Otherwise, I agree with ricardo - Ryan nailed it (for me at least).
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StyMingersfink
Big Wall climber
3900S
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Jan 18, 2005 - 12:59am PT
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Only holes we drilled were for stations. The bolt kit can go on the 'adventure' so long as you use it "wisely". Minus the belay holes our route went clean*.
a quote from the big wall supertaco (bridwell?) something to the effect that the game was NO HOLES, anchors or otherwise. sleeping on pin-stacks (wouldn't bother me) and rurp belay stations (that might) were examples of pushing the envelope of one's climbing, as well as the climbing of those around you. a quiet game of one-upmanship.
Now it seem a climb just isn't a climb without three-bolt anchors 58 meters apart.
any thoughts on this? why must every station be bolted? convenience, safety, or laziness? maybe I'm just too lazy to bring the bolt kit even.
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Gene
climber
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Jan 18, 2005 - 01:17am PT
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Circa early 1970’s, Summit magazine had an account of Yosemite climbing way out in the future, maybe 1990’s or 2000’s. It was written in the days of the newly adopted clean climbing ethic and had heretical propositions such as tramways to the tops of Yosemite features and perhaps a restaurant for tourons in the Cyclops Eye. It incorporated all that was deemed wrong in climbing at that time and projected them forward. I think it also had climbers doing El Cap free.
Anybody have a copy of this?
Does anyone remember the cover of Summit with the article on Sylvester’s first jump off the big stone? Stellar production qualities.
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