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Anastasia
climber
hanging from a crimp and crying for my mama.
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Feb 17, 2011 - 12:54am PT
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Joshua Tree...
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bjj
climber
beyond the sun
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Feb 17, 2011 - 04:10am PT
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I learned to climb in the Tahoe region so there were multiple mother crags for me. Donner, Big Chief, cave rock, pie shop, the boulders of bliss and old county, lovers leap, pie shop were all visited very often. I feel fortunate to have lived somewhere with so much diversity.
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ladyscarlett
Trad climber
SF Bay Area, California
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Feb 17, 2011 - 04:39am PT
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This is an awesome thread!
Been poking around in the past, but have finally been inspired to post.
Seeing these posts, I thought it would be easy, but what can I say, I'm young enough as a climber, that I still have my bib on, so my perspective is a little skewed.
Still, the place that always feels like I'm coming back, even though I haven't even come close to exploring it all, is the place where I got REALLY high for the first time.
Sometimes I feel like the High Sierras are an addiction, and Tuolumne was/is my gateway drug.
However, I AM a bay area girl at heart and often find myself staying out late, getting in and out of trouble, playing with dykes,
experimenting with crack and the such. Yeah, I still can't help having fun at The Leap.
Man, all this thinking...I want more! Maybe it's time to learn how to climb in the rain...
cheers!
LS
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hooblie
climber
from where the anecdotes roam
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Feb 17, 2011 - 06:46am PT
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rincon
Trad climber
SoCal
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Feb 17, 2011 - 10:03am PT
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The good old Kernville Slab is the site of my humble beginings
The Kern Canyon always feels like home to me, even though I have never lived there.
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Feb 19, 2011 - 12:07pm PT
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always consider this place my mother crag!
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NigelSSI
Trad climber
B.C.
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Mar 15, 2011 - 12:28am PT
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Mount Maxwell, Salt Spring Island.
Is it choss? Yes. Yes it is.
Is it fun? More so when it's over.
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dfinnecy
Social climber
'stralia
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Mar 15, 2011 - 08:42am PT
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Very good thread.
For me it is CRSP. Tuolumne played a very important but minor role.
When ever the family had a day out when I was a kid my answer was always CRSP. I think I was around 10 when I climbed Castle Rock proper for the first time up the polished access slot. That was the day I learned that getting up is only half way. I tried every which way I could to get down, walked around and around on that ledge. I sat up there, probably cried a bit, and tried to hide the fact I was stuck from my parents who were milling around the boulders. Finally some hippie guy with a big shaggy head of curly black hair, a chalkbag and real climbing shoes helped me down.
'This is something real'. I was a foolish kid who always was hungry for adventure. I realized early on that everything was sanitized in this world and I was baby sat no matter what I was doing. The margin of safety in the everyday world is wide and calculated for us. But here was something that could kill you. No one is selling tickets or asking for certification. Its just nature and you can walk up and take a swing. See how you measure up. When I finally got an older friend with gear to take me out to Goat Rock to learn a bit of proper rock craft that was it, I was done.
It was in Tuolumne that I first stood at the bottom of a big(ish) climb and literally shook with fear and anticipation, having spent the previous weeks with the welling fear of leading these famous cracks invade my every thought and dream. Looking forward to it carried terror made up of such ridiculous pleasure. This is real, measure yourself. Measure twice, cut once, right? Cut it right or you might die. Do you measure up? Well you'll know soon enough.
Over the next decade I was a deeply unhappy person for a lot of reasons. All the common reasons. I hated my lack of drive, my inability to have an intimate relationship, my lack of faith in my chosen but neglected religion, my generalized anxiety and fearfulness, my crippling shyness. Maybe you know the bill.
Except at CRSP. Now, I'm not a good climber. Some may stand on the shoulders of giants but the best I could ever muster was maybe get a piggy-back ride. But when I was up there around the boulders things changed. I had ambition and dreams. Problems here and there started to fall, problems I never imagined I would ever be able to pull off. I felt capable for the first time in my life. I actually carried on a few conversations with people.
When i first started climbing at Castle Rock the Yabo Roof had moss on top of it, the Jensen book showed a problem there but I refused to believe it was possible. When I finally pressed over that lip I stood on top and felt higher .
My father had a series of strokes over a those years. His intellect and body and dignity were assaulted from inside by the slow, cruel failing of his own instruments. My family and I kept vigil at the hospitals, took care of him at home, and loved him and each other the best we could through those years. What had been the testing ground of CRSP became a bosom of misty beauty and sanctuary. 15 minutes up Hwy 9 are arms of interwoven redwood and fir and a manzanita ribcage around a passive, quiet heart of stone.
I'm much happier now, a bit of age and young kids will do that to you. I go through long periods where life circumstances allow climbing and long periods where they don't. Right now circumstances don't so I daydream and pick around at old subjects of fancy on the internet. I think about the experiences that molded me, or sent me off on a tangent, or just enabled me to get past one more day. CRSP was the place.
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martygarrison
Trad climber
Washington DC
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Mar 15, 2011 - 09:11am PT
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jopay
climber
so.il
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Mar 15, 2011 - 09:26am PT
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Jackson Falls
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Tork
climber
Yosemite
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Mar 15, 2011 - 02:06pm PT
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Wawona Dome
Here I am being born
Looking out the womb
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Mar 15, 2011 - 02:18pm PT
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My mother is frigid now...
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Tork
climber
Yosemite
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Mar 15, 2011 - 02:21pm PT
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Wow!!!!
Nice shot Kris!
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Mar 15, 2011 - 03:55pm PT
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really nice Kris!
my momz is bipolar or DID
Sonora and Pinnacles, but could have been Joshua Tree just as well
Pinns...
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TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
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Mar 15, 2011 - 08:28pm PT
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I hear yah Kris:
I'm hoping to see Mom again late summer/early fall ;)
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Nate D
climber
San Francisco
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Mar 16, 2011 - 02:02am PT
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I like your post dfinnecy.
And nice pics here!
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schwortz
Social climber
"close to everything = not at anything", ca
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Mar 16, 2011 - 04:59am PT
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its the gunks for me (too bad i dont have many photos)
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Cave Creek, AZ
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Granite Mountain, Prescott, Arizona.
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SuperTopo on the Web
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Let us know!