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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 4, 2010 - 04:49pm PT
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Hi Ken,
Good to see you here. The pictures of you, Dennis, Joe, Russ brought a smile to my face. Ken's first post
For Campers who don't know Ken, he was a stellar 60-70s climber with a nice list of first ascents.
Lucifer's Ledge 1965 Ken Boche Dave Bircheff
Lucifer's Ledge Continuation 1965 Ken Boche Russ McLean
Lucifer's to the Oasis 1965 Ken Boche Russ McLean
Monday Morning Slab, Far East 1965 Dennis Hennek Ken Boche
Patio to Coonyard 1965 Russ McLean Ken Boche
The Mouth Boche-Hennek Variation 1966 Ken Boche Dennis Hennek
Psychedelic Wall 1966 Ken Boche Dennis Hennek
Gobi Wall 1969 Chuck Pratt Ken Boche
Snow Creek Slabs 1969 Bob Summers Ken Boche
The Cow, Left 1970 Ken Boche Mary Bomba
The Cow, Right 1970 Ken Boche
Marginal 1970 Ken Boche Mary Bomba Joe McKeown
Mt. Starr King, Northwest Face 1970 Ken Boche Mary Bomba
Mt Starr King, West Face 1970 Ken Boche Lee Panza
Mt Clark, SW Face Ken Boche Joe Mckeown Aug 19, 1970
The Grack, Right Side 1970 TM Herbert Ken Boche
Leaning Tower, East Face 1970 Russ McLean Ken Boche
Rainbows 1971 Ken Boche Russ McLean
Mass Assault 1972 Ken Boche Dennis Hennek Judy Sterner Russ McLean Sibylle Hechtel Tim Auger Mike Farrell
Welcome to ST
Edited for more routes
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Hey Boo
Maybe you can come up with some more photos of this fun trip? I posted this a while back but thought you might enjoy it and I encourage you to contribute to ST with your vast wealth of tales and photos from over the years.
Marginal-First Ascent May 1970
Boche was teaching in Palm Desert to avoid vacationing in Viet Nam and I was in grad school at UCLA. Fri he would drive into LA, pick me up and his girlfriend, the lovely Mary Bomba with the electric hair, and we would head to the Valley on many a weekends. I think Ken was spending 22 hours in his VW to spend 36 hours in the Valley!
The Grack was his idea but I quickly warmed to the concept as I always enjoyed climbing on the Apron. The odd thing about the climb is I have little recollection about the actual route but vivid memories of the picnic Bomba put together for us. Part way up, we stopped for an elaborate picnic lunch resplendent with fresh potato salad and cold greasy chicken. A feast indeed and we woofed it down lickity split to continue the route.
Now, cold greasy chicken fat is a hard thing to get off the fingers and since we had forgot to bring along warm water and soap we had to use the well proven and traditional technique of dragging our fingers across the granite. Chalk to us, was something you used on the blackboard and not in our vast assortment of gear. But we did have a bolt kit and a small collection of pins. Pretty much your standard Apron first ascent paraphernalia. .
I do remember being quite a ways out at times and I did take an 80ft leader fall, but to this day I still attribute that not to the difficulty or my own technique but the dam chicken fat. I think an 80ft “slide” was the perfect solution to removal of the chicken fat and maybe a little too much epidermis but I quickly regained my high point and finished the pitch.
We use to joke about the ideal Apron climbing attire being motorcycle leathers, We even
had our own Apron dialogue with such terms as Pilot Slippée and Piolet Crashée, just a little game with Yvon’s book on ice climbing.
During this era my Apron shoe of choice was the Robbins Boot. Several years prior, in a race down four flights of stairs at the UCLA Med Center, I made the serious error of jumping the last 12 stairs to guarantee success. Won the race but did major damage to my ankle. RR’s were perfect for a seriously weak and unstable ankle and I never went back to the traditional Apron shoe of the era, Kronhofers.
My theory was one of max surface area and the RR’s had any other shoe beat. And man were they comfortable. Did consider one time as a joke, a pair of ginormous clown shoes resoled in Vibram as the ultimate Apron shoe.
The name Marginal was my idea, but I have never been crazy about it. Seems pretty egocentric by todays standard and level of climbing. Perhaps we should have stayed with one of Boo’s ideas like Chicken Fat, or Lickity Split? Hey if you did the first ascent can you rename your route. Now that would be a confusing trend indeed, but certainly would stimulate Forum discussion.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Welcome!
Ken is posting as Boodawg, and perhaps will enlighten us as to his interesting nom de plume.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Hi Ken. Very stoked to see you are part of our little fire circle! Guido-Joe McQuacken has been really a big part of it in recent years, by the way. Best to ignore Roger, however, as he lives in the midwest and muses. Our next goal is to suck Hennek in here.
It would be great to hear what you are up to these days. Are you still on the Big Island?
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scuffy b
climber
Where only the cracks are dry
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Hey cool. When I was new, and studying the Green Roper and notes in the
back of Ascent, I always wanted to do all those Boche climbs.
I wanted a nice tight pair of Kronies, too.
I actually had a Ken Boche encounter, not that you'd remember, Ken.
As I recall, it was something like, you were visiting your cousin in Santa
Monica who happened to live next door to Dave Black, one of the G&E Buff
climbers (the Santa Monica guys).
You and Dave spotted each other over the fence and laughed at the surprise
encounter.Then Dave asked me, "Do you who that was? That was Ken Boche!
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Boche could be a little bit selfish. In Afghanistan he had his own personal cook, here is a shot of him gathering the evening meal.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Welcome, Ken!
Please share some stories!!!
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
climber
. . . not !
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The Starrking routes would be cool to hear about . I hiked around the dome once , and that west side looks really sweet . Welcome to the climber's forum .
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Welcome Ken!
I hope you brought your sense of humor.....
And your tinfoil hat!
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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I broke in at Yosemite by climbing a lot of those Ken Boche runout slab routes over on the Apron. All of us So Cal guys came from Tahquitz, Suicide and Roubidoux so Glacier Pt. felt rater cozy, though at times a little sketchy in the old hard-soled boots. Since we (Stonemasters) came right on the heels of Ken and Russ and Dennis and the others, our paths rarely crossed, but the routes remained the same. Sort of amazing to see those old photos. They feel like older brothers we never met . . .
JL
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Hey Boo,
Glad to see you made it. I checked that photo in the Stoney Point thread. Egad, I didn't know there were any pictures taken that day.
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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We even put routes up on the Apron (McLean and I) that we never finished- two or three pitches - one we tentatively named The Filthy Mother.
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C4/1971
Trad climber
Depends on the day...
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Fun to read about Ken, and I still remember my Kronnies, loved those shoes. Until Eb's came along. Remember ordering my first pair from Great Britain, and everybody wanted them. Three of us did a new route (Flakey Foont, next to Mr Natural) on the apron with all of us wearing different shoes, RR's, PA's and EB's. Interesting experience as the FA had one bolt in the middle of the first pitch and nothing else to the belay. Second pitch was a repeat. EB's were the preferred shoe. Soft rubber just stuck better.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Don,
> We even put routes up on the Apron (McLean and I) that we never finished- two or three pitches - one we tentatively named The Filthy Mother.
Cool - do you remember where? I've seen mystery bolts here and there, like above the top of what is now called Shuttle Madness on the far left side of the Apron (left of the Calf/Cow).
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Now you’ve gone and done it, Roger. I’m not sure if I should thank you or curse you, but I’ll play, OK?
Having been marooned, more or less in the Mid-Pacific for more than a quarter of a century, I feel like I need an experienced guide around this site, so I don't feel like I'm stumbling up Tenaya Canyon thru poison oak in the dark, looking for the beginning of Quarter Domes. I'd appreciate any tips on approaching and route-finding on this site... If anyone is moved to put links to or pastes in previous postings like Guido did for “Marginal,” that’d be very welcome. I’m happy to answer any questions as my senior moments allow…
While most have heard about the Airplane and its cargo that plunged through the ice into Merced Lake, there's an untold story about a treasure that was undiscovered when Guido and I left the Glacier Point Road and passed through Mono Meadows on our approach to attempt the first ascent of the SW face of Mt. Clark. Guido knows; so does Bomba… After all, Starr King and Mt. Clark are neighbors… But that story will have to wait, unless Guido wants to tell it…
Thank you all for your welcome; I’ll respond to some of the postings above:
Missing from the FA list is “Angel’s Approach,” the last “Kronhofer” climb that Russ and I did. When EBs arrived, the game really did change… In time, I’ll post a few of those “A-A” pix… (Also most of the high country climbs are missing.) If I have “Marginal” pix, I’ll post the best ones as well. Thanks, Guido, for bringing that story and the great photos out…
BooDawg? How the heck does one pronounce ‘Boche’ anyway? My family pronounced it ‘Bowie.’ My early climbing friends, Hennek, McLean and other high school classmates morphed it into “Booey” which got shortened to “Boo.” If you’ve ever tried to change your name, you know it’s like rowing a boat upstream; it has its own momentum downward, and even one’s best friends resist any changes…
On our first technical climbing trip to the Valley in 1964, Russ and I rappelled off the Higher Spire using body (Dülfersitz) rappels; Russ got a heckuva raw spot in his crotch which oozed for days and was commemorated by Jerry Hooper (a climber-friend of Eric Beck’s from San Diego) in the following limerick:
There once was a climber named Booey (Boche)
Who kissed Russ’s scab which was gooey.
So great was the pleasure,
He dove for the treasure,
And found the appendage quite chewy.
Now Hooper was an English teacher and enjoyed limericks, and I think it was he who composed this one about his friend Eric:
There once was a climber named Beck
Whose balls hung down from his neck.
He jerked at his throat
Till his cheeks they did bloat,
And he spitted out c#m by the peck.
Realizing no one could ever pronounce “Boche” ‘on-sight,’ when my brother, Philip, realized he was going to have a male child, he & I conferred and commiserated on that potential problem. We independently decided to change the pronunciation of Boche to “Bowshay,” giving it a French flare as in “Boché,” even tho it actually comes out of Germany. It helped that, at the time, I had newly moved to Hawai’i where I had very few friends, since long-term friends, as I said, resist such changes…
The “Dawg” part of BooDawg was added very recently by a friend here in Hawaii who is continually making up new nicknames: BooDini, Boodalini, etc.
Peter, thanks for your welcome; however, if I ignored Roger, this thread wouldn’t even be here; I suspect that he has his own very good reasons for being in Ohio… It was Hennek who told me about Dr. Deeg’s thread during a Birthday call I made to him a few weeks ago. We talked slide scanners a bit, and I’m betting that he’ll come forth with loads of good stuff if we can be patient and encourage his participation here… I’m also rattling Russ’s cage…
Actually, scuffy b, I DO remember that encounter! I’m betting that if/when Russ McLean reads your comment, he’ll laugh because we had an inside joke about “THE Ken Boche and THE Russ Mclean, as if we were actually famous or some nonsense…
Guido, shame on you for spreading false rumors about my having a private cook in Afghanistan. I do have plenty of stories and slides from that trip which I’ll save for another time. What a great photo!! Thanks, mate!
North face of Merced Peak??? DO tell!
I have pix of Starr King’s west face which I’ll post at some later time with some commentary.
Kevin, great to hear that you are on here. Thanks for demystifying your nom de plume. Marooned as I have been here in a land of brittle, weak, sharp and low-angle rock, I don’t climb much now. I DO have ALL of my old climbing hardware, however, pack-rat that I am. Some are museum-quality, I’m sure. Now, I go hiking and snorkeling a lot, and sailing sometimes, especially during the winter when the humpback whales are here. I especially enjoy diving down and listening to their singing. You can actually here them in real time from a buoy near where I live. To do so, go to: http://www.jupiterfoundation.org/new_bw_liveaudio_hawaii.html
Hey Don! Did you ever post anything here on our 8th ascent of the Nose?? In just perusing my many boxes of slides, I think there will be many others who may repeat your statement, “Egad, I didn't know there were any pictures taken that day.” LOL. I thought it was pronounced, “Feelthy Mutha!”
Looking forward to sailing among the whales tomorrow. Here’s a couple of pix from 2 weeks ago! And looking forward to continuing this thread…
I hope there’s enuf humor here…
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Dick Erb
climber
June Lake, CA
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Ken, Welcome to the campfire.
The 8th ascent of the nose with Lauria that you mentioned, wasn't that the first winter ascent?
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guyman
Trad climber
Moorpark, CA.
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BooDawg.... THE BOODAWG.... yes please post up more stuff.
Makes for great reading....
Guy Keesee
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Lovely fire pic, Dick; thanks for the warm welcome.
Yes, our 8th ascent of the Nose was the first in winter.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 8, 2010 - 01:14pm PT
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Hi Ken,
Here are the rules for SuperTopo.
1. We are all interesting, insightful, and funny all of the time.
2. We are completely objective.
3. We have no online personalities different than our best behavior in real life.
4. We are apolitical.
5. We always spell correctly and use perfect grammar and style (although there are differences between The University of Chicago Style Manual and the NY Times Style Manual.) Non-native English speakers are never criticized for English usage.
6. We post only tasteful pictures and poems.
7. We never lie about anything that happened long ago. Or recently.
Other than that, the only common thread is the fire.
PS: What are the details of the first ascent of "Angles Approach?" Meyer's last guide shows the route, but lists the FA information as 'Tom Higgins, et al.'
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Hmmmmmm....I wanna hear the BooDawg Guido Airplane Approach story....
Lesseee,
y'all stumbled upon a bale
and got too burnt to spell the word whale
You called each other dude
til you ran out of food
and had to pull the plug and bail...
???
hehehe, never tried an onsight limerick before!
Guess I better stick to climbing.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Survival
Best to wait until later in the day after you have twisted a few, or just after a splurge of "wire water" in the early am.
There once was a climber named Boo
Neither Protestant, Catholic or Jew
On discovering a bale
He declined to inhale
Believe this-you are one of the few.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Posted this on Hero's site but might be more appropriate here.
Boche and Guido on one of our infamous, First Ascent -by- Topo-Only, explorations. Often 2-3 day endeavors and often devoid of anything worth climbing. The Topo lines may have been stacked together but the rock was sh#t.
Don't let the short hair fool you. Circa late 60s. If the route turned out to be worthless we always had alternative modes of entertainment.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Sweet photo! Classic!
Don't worry Guido, I am most DEFINITELY NOT fooled by the short hair.
I was in the service....clever ruse!
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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ken Boche nice to meet ya!
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Feb 10, 2010 - 08:29pm PT
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Ken,
Good to hear your voice again after these many years. You sound happy and why not in your paradise. Next time there, I’ll try to look you up, now that I know you are alive and you know I'm the same, for the moment. I do recall days at Stoney, bantering with you and funnybone Russ, and Couch and all the wonder of starting climbing all together more or less from our home base in LA, venturing to Tahquitz and Yosemite and then beyond ...
Roger writes: "PS: What are the details of the first ascent of 'Angles Approach?' Meyer's last guide shows the route, but lists the FA information as 'Tom Higgins, et al.'" Glad to set the record straight: I had no part in the FA and all credit goes to Ken and "et. al." How did that guy climb, Ken? I remember him, sort of faceless but somehow he squeezed into a couple of my FAs and maybe yours too. Seriously, the Meyer's guide is simply wrong on this one, though none other with my name that I can find.
I'm seeing those glorious sunsets now, thinking of your home.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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hashbro
Trad climber
Mental Physics........
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Feb 10, 2010 - 11:06pm PT
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My very first thought of becoming a climber, was at a slideshow that Ken and Russ gave at a local junior high in Orange County in 1972 about a wild Yosemite ascent they had just completed.
These guys got my palms so damn sweaty, there was NO turning back.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Feb 11, 2010 - 02:29am PT
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Ken,
Thanks for the FA info on Angel's Approach.
Do you have a year for it? Pre-EBs, so before 1971?
I remember we figured out the correct info in the past year or two, with help from Tom.
It must have gotten lost in the years between the Roper guide and the first Meyers guide.
It's a cool route. I've done it several times, and helped replace the bolts on it a few summers back.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 11, 2010 - 07:51am PT
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Guido: Great shot of the two of us!! I wonder how many topo–non-FAs we bailed on…
Survival: Did you ever visit Nam?
Pyro: The pleasure is mine.
Long Ago: How great to find you here! Yes, life is good here tho I miss family, friends and old haunts quite a lot, never more than in the past week of so since I’ve found such a flood of memories here. Yes, please look me up if you get out this way. I still remember that classic party at your Oakland place where Haan commented that “It was the first party of “OUR generation” after those hosted by Yvon and RR.” I remember your great stereo system and a vinyl record you had of wolf howlings. I put it on and opened the window and turned the volume WAY UP; soon every dog within 2 miles of your place was carrying on like Jack London himself was mushing through town! Sheesh! I was a trouble-maker, I guess.
More important, as you recall, were are frequent and intense trips to Stoney and then moving beyond… Have you checked out the Stoney Point thread in the last day or so? A film maker, Cole Gibson is making a documentary on Stoney. He says the 60’s is a bit thin. Did he interview you? If not, I’m thinking he may be missing an important piece of Stoney’s influence, considering the intensity with which we climbed there and the places that we went later.
Someone else on the Stoney thread, I think, was asking me for Kamps stories. You, of course, are probably the best one for those…
Do you have any pictures of our HD climb? I think you brought the only camera. Did you shoot B&W film then? I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of them. It was the 14th ascent, right? Memorial Day, ’66, as I recall. I suppose there’s a catalogue somewhere on here. But how to find it? Roper!
“et al,” aka Russolovich McClinsky, was a fine climber. But he could hardly speak English and certainly couldn’t spell for beans, but his German was good; he’d always held up H. Buhl as his idol, so he learned to speak German in case he ever met his daughter. I actually spoke with him today; he’s living a “stones throw” from Stoney at the end of his phone line with no high speed internet access, so he can’t get on here. I do think he’s moving in this direction, but we can’t hold our breath that long…
Hashbro: It’s hard to believe that Russ and I EVER went to Orange County, but if you say so,… Did the slideshow have the climb “Rainbows” (near Ribbon Falls) set to Dylan singing, “Mr. Tambourine Man?” I was thinking of re-doing that digitally, maybe posting it on here if possible.
Clint: Angel’s couldn’t have been pre-’71 or it would have been in Roper’s Green Guide. I’m guessing it was ’72, tho possibly ’73 since I was in Yosemite doing my meadow field research for my thesis. I made notes about the date of that climb in my copy of the Green Guide which I have to dig out of whichever box it’s in now that I’ve been wanting to refer to it 5 X/ day for the last week. It might have been a couple of years since EBs were introduced that I bought MY first pair. It was NOT ’74 since we went to Afghanistan that year. Did you ever go from Lucifer’s to the Oasis? That’s pretty wild!
Today, February 11th is my Dad’s birthday. He would have been 98 today. Thanks, Dad, for taking me climbing and introducing me to this world.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Feb 11, 2010 - 09:13am PT
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hey there say, ken/boodawg.... wow, what wonderful things to learn about you !.... (thanks for his "intro" roger)...
welcome!
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2010 - 10:34am PT
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Morning Ken,
Somewhere up-thread you mention that you have lots of vintage gear. Ken Yager has gotten the Yosemite Climbing Museum up and running with two major and successful exhibits. Please contact him--he posts here regularly as "Chicken Skinner"--and offer him your stuff.
I would also like to hear some about the Psychedelic Wall (1966 Ken Boche Dennis Hennek) and the Gobi Wall (1969 Chuck Pratt Ken Boche).
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 11, 2010 - 01:10pm PT
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I have more crap than the museum could really use, but a thoughtful selection is a good idea.
Please be patient on some of your requests; I'm thinking I'll do this chronologically, filling in randomly where appropriate. Thanks .
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2010 - 05:14pm PT
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Ken, I would let Ken Yager decide on the usefulness of your gear. Initially only really famous gear was thought valuable--original Salathe pins, real Stovelegs pins, etc.—or a specific piece of equipment used on a specific climb. What Ken told me was that putting together an interesting exhibit required a broader view of what is interesting: a glass case with ten historically significant items is not so interesting and doesn't make much of an impression. He needs to build exhibits. So, I shipped him everything I owned from the late 60s and 70s, including all of my camping gear and clothing. Unfortunately, I had thrown out some stuff that smelled bad--3 man Sierra Designs tent--or was rusty--Primus two burner cook stove. None of my stuff has any historical significance but it might help Ken put together a more interesting exhibit in which he can display the historical stuff.
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Feb 11, 2010 - 09:48pm PT
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Ken,
Sorry, no pics of the Half Dome ascent with you, but Vivian Mendenhall may have some from Mirror Lake area with tele-photo. You may recall she was there at the time, following our progress. I'll check with her. We would be specs, of course. FYI, Vivian lives in Alaska and is retired from Federal Wildlife Service, but still goes out on major bird watch trips, her passion.
I'll visit Stoney thread and post a bit on Kamps. No, no one has approached me regarding a film on Stoney, but someone did ask me to write a bit on Kamps for a Stoney guidebook, though the request was way long ago so not sure if project is still in the works.
LongAgo (seeming longer ago all the time)
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Camster (Rhymes with Hamster)
Social climber
CO
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Feb 11, 2010 - 10:14pm PT
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Ken,
Thanks for the great Layton Kor-centric interview the other day.
Best,
Cam
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TomKimbrough
Social climber
Salt Lake City
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Feb 11, 2010 - 10:35pm PT
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Ken - Good to her you are doing well.
Cheers,
Tom Kimbrough
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 18, 2010 - 06:29am PT
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Thanks, Roger for your suggestions to donate gear to the Yosemite Museum.
Tom H.: Thanks for the information on no pix from our HD climb. I'll comment more on our Stoney Pt. conversation...
Cam, You are welcome for the interview about Kor. Wish I could have been more helpful.
Tom K.: Thanks so much for your greeting; Good to hear from you.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 18, 2010 - 06:49am PT
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First Ascent, N.E. face of Mt. Brewer.
Russ McLean, Dennis Hennek, and I graduated from our high school in 1963, and that summer, in addition to a climbing trip to the Tetons with my father and brother, I took a hike into Bullfrog Lake over Kearsarge Pass from Independence, CA. From that lake, there's a lovely view of Mt. Brewer in the distance, and I greatly admired its nearly 1000' unclimbed face, and I set my sights on it.
I'd never climbed anywhere but Stoney Point until then, so Russ and I took a quick trip to Tahquitz where we did two moderate climbs and were able to practice swinging leads on real multi-pitch climbs. Late in the summer, carrying ropes and hardware, we hiked (in our Kronhofer "kettershoes") to Bullfrog Lake where we found, by sheer coincidence, Dennis and his brothers fishing by the lake. After a short visit with them, Russ and I continued on and eventually set up a camp near the base of the Mt. Brewer's NE face.
In the early morning, having chosen a proposed route up a prominent crack system, we walked up to the base of the face. This last section was up very hard frozen snow/ice, necessitating that we cut steps with our piton hammers (made by Salewa with a long, sharp point on one end of the head), so that our Kronhofers would hold on the snow/ice.
Arriving at the base of the face, we were surprised by the amount of fallen rock all around. Russ led carefully up the moderate first pitch, loose rock on every possible perch. Safely up, I came up and led the next pitch, a clean, classic chimney which led up to a more broken section of the face. From there, the climbing eased up considerably, so we swung leads for about 5 easy, enjoyable pitches to near the summit. Russ led up the last pitch, finally emerging from the shade of the face into the late afternoon sunshine with feelings of pride at being very inexperienced climbers yet having succeeded at climbing a new route on one of the Sierra’s most isolated and prominent peaks.
On our way down, we had to descend the very hard ice at the base of the face. We decided to self-arrest our way down the ice. However, we discovered that the picks and handles on our hammers were too short to protect our bare knuckles from the ice, so after we stopped at the bottom of the ice, our knuckles were painfully bloody, not for the last time… The following day, we descend to the Kings River and walked painfully in our tight “klettershoes” more than 20 miles down to Cedar Grove.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
walkin' the road to nowhere
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Feb 18, 2010 - 08:23am PT
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Awesome story, BooDawg.
That's the stuff I really hang here for....The golden stories.
Thanks for sharin' it, & the others, too.
Pure gold. Yowza!
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Feb 18, 2010 - 08:28am PT
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Welcome, the slab men cometh! I was always too chicken sh#t to pioneer slab routes. Lucky for me that Yosemite granite also has cracks.
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guyman
Trad climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Feb 18, 2010 - 10:23am PT
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Very cool story.
Thank you for telling.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Feb 18, 2010 - 12:23pm PT
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Great story and pix Ken!
Thanks for showing us how the new guys did it back in the day!
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 18, 2010 - 01:13pm PT
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Boo,
I remember your Brewer ascent well. Do you remember that I climbed with you on Lucifer's while you were still working on it?
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 18, 2010 - 02:09pm PT
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I remember that the inspiration for Lucifer's came to me while you, Don, and Kor were on the 3rd ascent of the Leaning Tower. With all the snow in the Valley, I'd looked up at the Apron and could see snow clinging to the not-so-smooth route that diagonals up and right from the right end of the Point Beyond then back up and left to Lucifer's. And it was the snow piled up on Lucifer's that revealed it to me. I remember that I made at least one reconnaissance before completing the route with Dave Bercheff (who kept singing, "When I woke up this morning, I was on 5.9, and you were on my mind..." a take-off on a popular song or the time.) I'd forgetten that it was you, Don, was on that recon. Thanks for the reminder.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 18, 2010 - 02:12pm PT
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I've copied this from the "Firefall" thread which is really mostly about photography of Horsetail Falls:
I have two very similar climbing stories related to the ACTUAL firefall:
On Memorial Day, 1966, when Tom Higgins and I were making what I think was the 14th ascent of HD's N.W. face, as we climbed the pitches below Sandy Ledges, a cloud formed over the dome, and we spent the late afternoon in a misty fog. At one point a golden eagle glided out of the fog to within 15' of us. We did the pitch behind Psych Flake (now gone) in complete darkness and fog. Within one minute of our arrival at the Sandy Ledges, the fog suddenly dissipated, and the whole of Yosemite Valley was revealed in the glowing light of the nearly full moon. And within a minute of that revelation, the firefall was released and streamed down the face of Glacier Point, imprinting itself on our memories.
Later that summer, I think, when Jim Bridwell and I made the first one-day ascent of Quarter Domes, I’d led the last pitch in the deepening dusk. After I tied off the rope for Jim to come up on Jümars, I sat down and let go of the day’s tension around getting to the summit before dark, and as I did so, I looked down Tenaya Canyon to see the firefall dropped from Glacier Point.
In both cases, each day’s focus on climbing as quickly as possible, combined with the rhythmic exertion-relaxation of the climbing-belaying cycle, followed by the nearly complete relaxation after each full day of climbing created the internal conditions for what I can only describe as “visionary” memories that have remained incredibly vivid to this day. These impressions and related phenomena are eloquently expressed by Doug Robinson in his article, “The Climber As A Visionary.”
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 18, 2010 - 04:35pm PT
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Boo,
All these years and I've always wondered how early (which ascent) I did the NW Face of HD. I went up in early May, before Memorial Day, with McClean, but he got "sick". Then I went up in early June with Cohen and he got sick - really ill. Finally on July 2nd, 1966, Chuck Haas and I reached the summit.
According to your memory, you and Tom Higgins did what you think was the 14th ascent on Memorial Day weekend in 1966 - that means if Russ hadn't got "sick", we would have done the 14th ascent, and more than likely, that Chuck and I probably did the 15th or 16th ascent, right?
BTW, "sick" meant "sick and tired of climbing so slow".
Oh, and with regard to our 8th ascent of the Nose. You MUST remember why we don't have any photos! You must!
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Eric Beck
Sport climber
Bishop, California
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Feb 18, 2010 - 06:27pm PT
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Regarding ascents of Half Dome in the summer of 1966, the summer I did it, the success rate was exactly 50%, 11 out of 22 attempts.
I counted it as an attempt if the party carried all the gear all the way up to the wall. Some non-attempts included racking the hardware in Camp 4 or saying "Let's do it" in the bar.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 18, 2010 - 09:48pm PT
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I can't believe how thoroughly I've been sucked into these supertopo forums; I spent the better part of the day digging out old climbing books and equipment for making pix for this site.
I want to add parts of the last paragraph of Robinson's article here because it illustrates what I was trying to relate about the firefall experiences:
In the last paragraph of his article, Robinson shares his own wide-open doors of perception:
“…the climber wonders how he came into that privileged visionary position vis-à-vis the universe. He finds the answer in the activity of his climbing and the chemistry of his mind, and he begins to see that he is practicing a special application of some very ancient mind-opening techniques… Oddly, it is not consciously worked for, but comes as the almost accidental product of effort in another direction and on a different plane. It is at its own whim momentary or lingering suspended in the air, suspending time in its turn, forever momentarily eternal, as, stepping out of the last rappel you turn and behold the rich green wonder of the forest.”
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 18, 2010 - 10:56pm PT
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Don,
Perhaps Eric and Roper can help with your question. But I do know the answer will depend on who else climbed HD in May of ’66. I think that was Dennis’ first time up (with Larry Marchak?). And I think someone else did it in May before Tom & I did it during Memorial Day weekend. I was kinda hoping that Eric and Roper and others might be able to compile a list of the ascents, at least up through ’66 such as was done in Guido’s Castle Rock Spire thread. Perhaps that’s been done; if so, I’d appreciate seeing a link to it.
I did want to tell a tale that I think came from May of ’66 on HD: This story was told by someone on belay on the lower part of the NW face of HD: “I was sitting on belay looking down the Valley when I noticed a fighter jet cruising up the Valley perhaps a thousand feet above the Valley floor but still several thousand feet below me. The jet started to make a gentle turn as if to go up Tenaya Canyon, but it wasn’t turning enough and instead began to head straight for the middle of the face of HD where it seemed as if it would certainly crash. At the last possible moment, the pilot turned on the jet’s after-burner, stood the jet on its tail, did several barrel-rolls, roared loudly over the summit of the dome, scaring the sh#t out of me. OMG!!”
Has anyone else heard this story or know whose experience this was? Certainly, in those days, jet-jockeys were more free to play than I think they are now…
Regarding photos from our 8th ascent of the Nose, of course, I remember the faulty design in that Alp Sport pack where by clipping in the cameras to the spring-clip that held on the hauling loop and letting it support the weight of the cameras, the clip pulled loose sending not only our cameras but also our raingear plummeting from the Stoveleg Crack to the ground.
Miraculously, somehow the film survived, so I have about 30 pics of our climb up to the Stovelegs. I think you have copies as well. I’ll scan them at some point soon, but for now, I’ve just gotten to 1963… But I have scanned this one from the Nose so far…
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
Last clip of Lichen Lunch
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Feb 18, 2010 - 11:00pm PT
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BooDawg....We have been diggin' it ALL.
We GROOVE on your input here, man!
YOU are more of the living history of what makes places like this great.
Or can be great.
I'm loving your contribution.
Thanks, man.
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john hansen
climber
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Feb 18, 2010 - 11:07pm PT
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Yes , this keeps getting better and better.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 24, 2010 - 01:27pm PT
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While I was in England in 1968, I met Ken Wilson who'd just taken over the editorship of what was previously called "Mountain Craft." He changed its name and had just completed the editing and layout for Mountain #1, a special issue on the history of British climbing from 1945-1959. Mountain #2 contained a summary of British climbing from 1960-1968. Wilson asked me to work on a special issue on Yosemite climbing. We enlisted Chris Jones' collaboration, and the result became Mountain #4.
There are many more pages of photos and text from Mountain 4 which, if there is interest, I could provide...
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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Feb 24, 2010 - 01:52pm PT
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Ken,
you mentioned Lucifer's to the Oasis. Yes, that is one sketchy route. My partner and I did it sometime around 1977 or so. I remember some really runout pitches. I almost took a 200+ foot fall when I slipped trying what felt like a 5.9 move. Luckily, my foot caught on something and I stayed put. Of course, I had to still make that move. Up high, we had single nut belays, we didn't carry pins by then. That was a real adventure.
Bruce
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guyman
Trad climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Feb 24, 2010 - 02:09pm PT
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Bo.... please keep posting
love every one of these.
GK
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Mar 25, 2010 - 08:36pm PT
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I’ve been digging in a couple of boxes and have come up with some stuff that I expected to find, some that I forgot that I had, and am missing stuff that I thought I’d find… Here’s the last issue of Mountain Craft, #81, that was the predecessor of “Mountain.” This is a Special Issue on Patagonia and our first view of Ken Wilson’s vision of what a climbing magazine should be. Apparently a copy of this issue was donated to the Prescott College library, but who else might have copies? Please let me know if it’s worth posting the actual text of which articles that are listed in the Contents. Enjoy.
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mooser
Trad climber
seattle
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Mar 25, 2010 - 09:02pm PT
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This thread is FANTASTIC! Please keep it coming, Ken, and others who were contemporaries during this time!
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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Mar 25, 2010 - 09:38pm PT
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Ken~
R-A-D! Please let me know when you get the copy of 'Yosemite Climber' to sign. Would love to add your signature to the growing assemblage.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Mar 25, 2010 - 09:56pm PT
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Marty, Roger said that he'd let me know when it gets mailed to me; I can let you know when it arrives. As far as I know, it hasn't been mailed to me yet.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Mar 25, 2010 - 10:36pm PT
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Here is Ken's portrait tweaked as best I can
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Mar 25, 2010 - 10:46pm PT
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Thanks so much, Peter. I hope all is well with you.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Mar 26, 2010 - 12:05am PT
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It is better now and thanks for asking; I was without work for 13 months and rototilled through one hell of a lot of money waiting. Busy now at least. Best to you K!
p.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Mar 26, 2010 - 12:10am PT
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Now wait a minute Peter-
You can't start tweaking Boo's photos, you're my go-toguy with all my old and funky slides. Boo has a million and Hennek two million and if McClinsky ever gets on here we are in deep trouble. So Boo, this is a one time gratis from Peter and don't get any funny ideas. Yah hear me Buckwheat? LOL
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Bruce Berryhill
Trad climber
Tulare California
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Mar 26, 2010 - 12:15am PT
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What ever happened to Russ McClean?
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Mar 26, 2010 - 12:52am PT
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Many of us have been working relentlessly to get him on ST- so maybe, with a little luck he can come up sometime and tell all of us. Seems like he has some problems with the speed of his modem connection? Now that is a classic McClinsky excuse to the max.
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Berdette Robison
climber
Green Valley, AZ
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Hi Ken ~
The miracle of the internet. I went to the Senior Prom with you at Canoga Park High School in 1963...how have you been the last 47 years? Actually, I last saw you in 1968. So, it's really only the last 42 years! I've been reading your Forum dialog and see you're living in Hawaii and have a beautiful daughter, Brianna.
Berdette
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Oh La La, the Boo went to his senior prom, gotta see those photos! Was he wearing white bucks or climbing shoes? Probably last time he dressed up? Or did he?
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, thanks for the nice bump, i don't think i ever saw this...
nice to learn more... :)
god bless...
:)
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Really, Joe, for sure. Imagine if McLean, Boche, Hennek dumped their collections on me all at once, I would be so f**ked--- there must be between just those three guys, tens of thousands of images. And there is your monster collection which we haven't even really gotten into. And then there is Doug Robinson's... which is gigantic too and totally unordered according to him.
This situation would be like one of those temporary lakes formed by an avalanche in a narrow high valley, only to tidal-wave out at some point. And because the problems of these images vary so much, developing Photoshop automatic batches wouldn't be all that efficient either.
But digitizing has to happen and happen soon as the damned things are rotting away as we write. Soon, Buds, they will be no more, you know... If nothing else at least scan the bastards in the highest res your scanners can perform and save as TIFFs. Correction can happen whenever later you know. It is the business of capturing and archiving in these TIFFs that is so time-sensitive.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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The gospel has been spoken by our Salvage Master-let the scanning begin!
Just imagine guys, those slides are turning to sh#t as you read this.
Oh yes, and has been recently revealed-McKlinsky has appeared on ST. Miracles do occur.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Does Ken Boche come from Thyang-boche, and is he part Sherpa? Just wondering.
Joe, Peter et al are correct on the "scanning old slides" thing. One option is to buy or borrow a decent scanner, and do them yourself. Another is to get a commercial place to do them for you. You'd probably want to get them all prepared and organized and cleaned. But it seems to work.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Boo Ya Dawg! Dig into that slide box NOW! The fuse is burning on those slides and you likely have some gems! Bite the bullet and digitize at least the good ones because you alone know what's what!
We would love to check it out!
Cheers-Steve
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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And additionally, a bad-assed scanner that not only does slides and transparencies but can do all sorts of regular bedscanning of opague media like pages of articles, paper etc, is well under $200, for christ's sake. And the thing will act as a copier for you too.
They usually can create PDFs, do OCR (optical character recognition), email right out of the device and so forth as well as quite a variety of corrections. Your output can also be in quite a variety of forms including RAW! I recommend Canon's CanoScan 8800F which can do up to 4800 dpi x 9600 dpi and is an LED unit so it can scan instantly without having to warm up for a minute or two. I have this scanner's earlier version that is not LED and its been great for years. I use VueScan as the driver for it because it is better than anything Canon or anybody else includes with their hardware. Plus Hamrick is all the time updating their driver to keep it cutting edge.
Here is a link for vendors for the scanner:
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?client=safari&rls=en&q=canon+scanner&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=16562959047936590824&ei=8xcyTLHcKKWMnAeNtPmOBA&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CFIQ8wIwBA#ps-sellers
and here is a link for VueScan:
http://www.hamrick.com/
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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OK! OK! OK! I've been workin' on it! Too slowly, I guess, what with the rest of life.
Thanks for all of you for encouraging me to move my stories along a bit more steadily.
The resurfacing of this thread caught me by surprise over this weekend, but old threads seem never to die here on the Taco Stand.
Anders: No, unfortunately, Boche comes from Wiesbaden, Germany. I've been trying to think of a clever word-play with Thangboche for years... Still no luck... Carrying heavy loads really isn't my favorite thing tho we've all had to do it, of course...
Berdette: Don't let Guido or some of these other guys fool ya' for a minute! Most are soft and caring under their rough, rock-hardened exteriors. I wonder if I still have our old prom picture...
Peter, thanks for the scanner info; I'll keep it in mind, tho I have a slide scanner now, tho I may upgrade it. But Hennek has been shopping for a scanner, and McLean is moving forward as well...
For anyone who hasn't heard, I'll probably be makin' a road trip from the Bay Area to the East Side between about Aug. 20 - Sept. 1 or later. I'm hoping to have a digital slide show (PowerPoint) ready to show to whomever, wherever, but I'll be posting some of that stuff between now and then...
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Berdette,
Ken is still kinda happen' it appears but is not as cute as he was 42 years ago. Guido and I however are still drop-dead amazing.
Look see, here Berdette. Here we have Ken before and after hanging out with Guido and I recently. Notice a certain freshening, joie de vivre and even je ne sais quoi with this ovah hea:
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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There's one thing that I've noticed about one's good, long-term friends: they razz one mercilessly AND they don't let us change from who we were when we first knew them to who we've become. But it's all in good fun. We just have to give it back as well as they dish it out!
Now in order to defend my so-called reputation, Guido states that I've never been dressed up since my 1963 prom. Well, I've got news for him:
1963: My high school senior picture.
1978: Dressed up for a posterity photo after having declared, "I'm never gonna wear this monkey suit again."
1987: My wedding, traditional Hawaiian wedding attire.
1990: At my brother's wedding.
2000. Aloha shirt and silk sarong, high fashion in Polynesia.
2010: I got dressed up for a choral performance of 60's music with Waimea Community Chorus, complete with make-up. After intermission, we changed into more free form 60's outfits. I chose a "60's in Hawaii" aloha shirt.
So, Guido, that's about FIVE TIMES I've been dressed up in the last almost 50 years. That's not too bad, tho I HAVE put on aloha shirts often enough as well.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Gee thanks for all these ne'er-seen-before images, KB. It is going to be hard for Guido and I to not just right away ask, what the hell happened to you??? You used to be such a nice boy.
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Berdette Robison
climber
Green Valley, AZ
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Guido, Peter, Ken -
Ken's senior picture is just how he looked at the Prom...and I'm sure he wore real shoes! Not much of a change except for the gray hair...not bad for 47 years later. However, we went out to dinner first and he didn't have enough money to pay for dinner! Sorry I interrupted your climbing reminiscing...what a great site for you all to reconnect and stay in touch.
Berdette
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Berdette
Dam-Boche pulled his infamous dinner trick on you. The nerve of that guy.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 7, 2010 - 10:57am PT
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More importantly Berdette, in our never ending fascination with all Boche, all the time, where is the picture of you on prom night?
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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In my own lame defense, let me say that the prom was just my 3rd date in my life. And I'll keep mum on just why we went where we did for dinner that night and the surrounding details... If only I had a credit card in those days...
I looked for the prom pic, and I didn't find it, so unless Berdette has it and is willing to post it, you guys'll have to be content with my senior pic which Berdette says is what I looked like. And you guys'll have to fantasize how lovely SHE was in her short, white dress, orchid corsage, deeply penetrating brown eyes, soft melodic voice...
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Ken, great pics! My, you're holding up well- must be the In-N-Out Burgers.
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Berdette Robison
climber
Green Valley, AZ
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Hi Ken ~ and Boys!
What a memory; I'm very impressed! I do remember the white dress and corsage...but penetrating eyes and melodic voice??? Now, I think it's droopy eyes and raspy voice! I don't remember the details about dinner, except I think it was somewhere in Hollywood...Chinese?? I don't know if I have the Prom picture...sorry guys. If I do, it's packed in a box and I'm on my way out of town for a few days, but will check when I return and will be happy to post it! Listen, I want to know if any of you remember your date for the Senior Prom...and what she was wearing???
Berdette
Ken, I do have an email...didn't realize I was going to cause such a commotion among your climbing cronies! We seem to be communicating with an audience!
And, I'm not a climber...only "climbing" I ever did was with Ken at Taquitz Rock???
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Berdette, if you hang around here for a bit, you'll soon realize that despite the nonsense, we do form an idiosyncratic community with a lot of shared experiences and values. You're not the first "non-climber" to join the campfire, and we'd be delighted to have your company, stories, and perspectives.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Thanks, Jim, for your kind words. Yes, that healthy living plus decent genes helps keep one young. It would be nice to have some In-N-Out-Burgers here in paradise. Guess I gotta wait till I get to CA…
Berdette, I sent you 2 emails through the ST website; did you get them? You’ve definitely brought some wood to the campfire and given the coals a stir. I guess you’ll stay awhile. Welcome.
Anders: I always appreciate your kind words and thoughtful insights here on ST. Thanks for being here.
Ken
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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I’ve given one account of my climbing origins on the Stoney Pt. thread:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=971616&tn=180#msg1081378
I thought I’d fill in a few details and add some photos here.
I wanted to ask Peter and any other folks out there what are the best ways to prepare slides for scanning? Is there a mild solvent that will not damage the film but will remove some of the mold, etc. Now, I’m just using a camel hair brush. Also, some of the Ektachrome slides that were scanned are WAY discolored now. Can they best be fixed during scanning or with PhotoShop afterwards or both? Does any know good links to information about how best to go about this?
Climbing seeds planted: 1952 to 1960.
My first visits to Yosemite were on each of two road trips that I made with my family from Chicago to California in 1952 & 1953. Seeing the wide-open West and all its lovely features opened my eyes and yearning for adventures that I knew could be found there. One of my favorite pictures from those trips is the one of “The Tree You Can Drive Through,” in the Mariposa Grove which I believe fell over in the same snow storm that removed Psych Flake from the NWF of HD.
In 1957, my father bought a stallion donkey named Dominic, not a gelding, but one with both cojones! Dad built pack boxes from scratch, bought a pack saddle, learned to tie a diamond hitch, and set off for a week in the mountains with me (12 y.o.) and my brother, Philip (10 y.o.), by hiking over Kearsarge Pass, destination the Rae Lakes. Dad always had greater ambitions than we could accomplish, but that was the plan.
First morning out, not one mile up the trail, we meet a pack train, and Dominic, smelling some GOOD FEMALE (jenny) pheromones, charged into the middle of the line of burros, mounting several, creating havoc with everyone! It’s hard to imagine all the packed cookware & food, not to mention the client-riders, all in a state of disarray and confusion!! The wranglers were TOTALLY PISSED OFF!! I don’t remember the exact details of how we got out of that mess, but we only made 3 miles that day, I think.
We basically spent the next week crossing Kearsarge Pass and camping near Bullfrog Lake. Reflecting at the time, I considered it one of the best times of my life, and it primed me for more mountain adventures.
In 1959, my family went camping in Yosemite, and my dad, brother, and I hiked to the top of Half Dome. Great view tho we got back to the Valley well after dark.
The following year, we did a similar camping trip, only that summer we walked up Mt. Dana from Tioga Pass.
From the summit, we could see, not only Mono Lake, but Mt. Lyell as well, and that became the next summer’s goal in my dad’s mind.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
climber
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"I have pix of Starr King’s west face which I’ll post at some later time with some commentary."
Thanks . This is awesome .
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Hi Ken,
To get back to your questions on rescuing old slides and prints. I woke up too early and can't get back to sleep.
(1) The first order of business is to simply scan the stuff. The stuff is falling apart right now and soon you won’t have squat. You are archiving it for future work to take place. As photo rework is at times actually very time-consuming, I wouldn’t necessarily try to scan all of your stuff AND adjust all of it in one long terrifying session lasting weeks. Just get the rough work of scanning done and fix the resulting stuff when you feel like it, bunch by bunch.
However, you don’t want to be scanning anything more than once; you will end up doubling your work if you don’t clean the images pretty well. Resist just firing out some scans quick and dirty. That would be crazy and a waste of time. Do the nitty-gritty up front and eat away at your pile. This is where a lot of us are falling down.
So you have to clean the slides the best you can. Yes, mold can be removed, usually, and it is common as you have noticed. There are commercial transparency cleaners. They must not be water based as water would emulsify the dye colors. Alternatives are pure alcohol or naphtha. Again, you must not touch the transparency with any water ever. T-shirt material, lint-free cotton cloth is good. Cotton balls also. You can use compressed gas (available in little aerosol cans at office suppliers or photo shops) and your camel hair brush is good too, for to get rid of dust. Why archive the crap?
It is true in Photoshop and other programs you can do almost anything with a digital image these days. But if the slide is riddled with foreign matter, you will be hunting down all these little bits for hours per each slide, unhappy, eventually bitchy..... so cleaning is faster than a zillion such adjustments. If you don’t do this step well, you will end up quitting the whole effort out of sheer boredom or fury. And mold actually is much more problematic than mere dust specks to deal with digitally as it is also obscuring the image in such a way recovery probably is going to have to be more like painting than healing and is even more sophisticated and time-wasting with uneven results.
(2) The size of 35mm film is approximately 3.6cm X 2.4cm but at a maximum resolution of 4000dpi, that comes out to 3.6cm X 4000dpi = 5668pixels and 2.4cm X 4000dpi = 3778pixels. An image of these pixel dimensions at 8bit per color will come out to about 60Meg as an uncompressed TIFF file, about 120Meg uncompressed TIFF file if scanned in 16bit mode. Basically you want to end up with TIFFs as they are uncompressed files made by the scanner--- essentially unabridged files. Every time you save a JPEG, you get compression (usually) and therefore more abridgment of the data set. Another superb file form is RAW, which is the image in completely unadjusted “raw” data. Since you are merely archiving at this point, you don’t want compression, you don’t want adjustment--- you don’t want anything in the path between the original and the work you will be eventually doing on each image for a final, recovered result. And you don’t want the file to keep changing every time you close it.
(3) Ultimately, I would imagine your goal would be to go to a printing service with an image you have prepared in this way. It is likely they will expect a file to be in TIFF at 8 bits, Adobe RGB 1998 color and 254 dpi with no printer profiles attached to the file. www.Dickermanprints.com is a great service I use. You can upload to them via their online file transfer protocol tool too, so you can move a giant file to them this way, get it printed that day and get it sent to you. Their printing method is actually photographic, not inkjet or laser-jet. Their awesome 30” wide machine creates a projection of your image onto photographic archival paper (it’s all on their site) and then develops it just like a photograph. Your other goal is also to have your images handy, everlasting, and versatile. You get all this from TIFF or RAW. Further, as digital projectors are so cheap now also, I would think you might be also using one of these with your newly recovered photos.
(4) As you have archives, you treat them as such. You “save as” from them and you don’t go saving your changes onto the originals within the archive. So you might have your originals and then one or two lesser but repaired versions of each that you are happy with (in another folder), can email, print etc yourself silly. With the very low cost of computer storage now, this bulk is not a problem. I mean a terabyte HD is about $100.
(5) So yes it is possible to do just about anything in Photoshop now. But each adjustment is usually the result of time and effort on the computer, some trial and error and at first this work is fun but after about 30 or so at a single sitting, you will get jaded and less careful. To try and have the scanner do all your work automatically is likely not going to often be successful and just a fantasy. The images are going to need individual attention, judging by what you have submitted so far. A scanner’s correction functions are nothing like what Photoshop can do, or even Lightroom and others. And anyway, PS has macro-style adjustments in it so you can do some automatic adjustments in about 5 seconds that probably will supersede anything a scanner will do. And you then you go from there more deeply.
(6) The typical problems you find in old transparencies are many. Color shifting, loss of color saturation, physical damage, annoying mistakes by the photographer such as unwanted things in the frame, under- or over- exposure, out-of alignment or level, distracting lens distortion, saturation problems, skies that are totally blown out, grain and various noise effects, to name a few. It usually seems you have lost your image forever and you are so bummed but once you start working on it even with the automatic actions, you will get excited to see much more come out than you thought was there. But Photoshop is expensive and you have to eventually commit yourself to it if you buy it. Don’t buy an earlier used version on the cheap; you want the current one which is 12.01 in Mac because what has happened in this latest version group is just so astounding and powerful and you won’t want to get all into some dowdy old version that lacks what we can do today. I think of PS as a serious-as-hell hobby actually and have taught myself how to use it the last two years while I had no construction projects. Up till now, I was not any good whatsoever with it and felt it was a huge-ass failing of mine. So I used online tutorials at www.lynda.com , a book by Richard Harrison that also had a DVD with it and was cheap, other online tutorials, and of course a lot of practice. It is the ultimate image program in the world and has tens of thousands of PS professionals crazy-assed about it. I also have two monitors: one is 30" and the other 21", so I am not working in some tiny view space.
Here is an example of your rather hard image file to fix. It was once a full color picture, now look at what it is like 50 years later. Most of the colors other than yellow, magenta and red are almost gone. It is grainy, has highlight issues but it is pretty clean, thankfully.
Here it is after about 10 minutes of work in Photoshop. We have recovered more of the full spectrum that should be in the image. The itty-bitty original file on Supertopo was only 37Kb so I had almost no data to work with, but even so we are getting closer to an acceptable color image from 1955 or so. If I had a more full-bodied file of it, the results would be quite a bit richer I am sure.
So my point is PS can be miraculous and very stimulating; stuff can really come back from the grave, and if you get reasonably competent with PS, your skills are useful for so many other activities.
Online you can search for CS5 (Creative Suite 5) videos to get a further idea of what this insane program is capable of and also how to learn to use it. My approach of doing online tutorials and having a book with a DVD plus its companion online help turned out well.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Thanks so much, Peter, for your lesson in archiving and working with old slides.
To summarize, you recommend that everyone who has slides that they want to digitize:
• Resist what I’ve been doing, that is “just firing out some scans quick and dirty,” then reducing their file size to make storage and posting pictures easier.
• Clean images with pure alcohol or alternative. (Is drugstore isopropyl OK? How about Q-Tips?)
• Get a better scanner plus an external HD, so one can archive the images in TIFF or RAW format.
• Work on the images with PS, first doing a “save as” to preserve original TIFFs, as time and patience allow, storing the doctored ones as different images.
Anything else?
You gave scanner recommendations above. Do you have recommendations for a HD and for a digital projector?
Thanks again, Peter, for your encouragement and guidance on this stuff. Just don’t let Guido know, OK?
Ken
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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It has to be pure (99.99%) alcohol, KB. Regular alcohol has a certain amount of water in it. You can get pure at the pharmacy usually.
Q-tips used carefully will be okay. There will be some cotton fibers that you can blow off. The issue is scratching or lifting the emulsion of course so don't be blindly rubbing away there. Here is a blurb on cleaning fluids:
http://www.film-center.com/clean.html
Here is a link for PEC-12:
http://www.amazon.com/Photographic-Solutions-PEC-12-Emulsion-Cleaner/dp/B0002HTIP4
A little light box is helpful but not essential. I have one and actually don't use it very much at all as I use Adobe Bridge to simulate a light table and its organizational space. But Bridge's use presupposes you have already scanned... so dealing with an effing mountain of slides usually goes better if there is some kind of light table or box.
Most of the HD's are fine--- you can searchfor reviews about a particular model of course and perhaps find people having total cows over stuff, saying whatever. I have two internal ones an Hitachi 1TB that is also my "Time Machine" (apple) and additional storage and the other is the startup and is an Intel 500 Mb. As my main unit is a Mac Pro (with 16 GB RAM) it can have two more drives in it also. Kind of tidy! There is no reason to just keep loading up your resident drives with stuff that you are archiving if it starts to be to much data for your get-up. Namely, don't exceed 70% use of any hard drive. Instead if you start to get close to filling up, archive the suckers on DVDs or on an external drive that you use occasionally, bringing out the files you need when you want to work on them.
Scan your slides 4800 dpi or the next stop less than that. Get VueScan to run your scanner also, as I said before. Separate the task of cleaning and scanning from the heavy lifting of correction.
Once you start working in Photoshop you are going to need some real RAM, remember. Working with these big-assed RAW and TIFF files. You might not be happy below 8 GB. 5 or 6 might be the last resort. Depending on your rig, your video card might have a cow working with the adjustments and actions, especially tools like "blur" , "liquify", "puppet warp" et al. The symptoms will be long pauses while it struggles with its new math assignments, crashing, refusal to perform an action (without or without a corresponding message)--- stuff like that. A video card under 512 MB will have problems, at least I have found.
You don't need 3-D. You will be thoroughly happy with standard PS. Never fail to update your software as updates come up. Don't fall behind on it. I use Cnet TEchTracker to keep me hot happy.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Jul 15, 2010 - 03:03pm PT
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Thanks, Peter; I'm checkin' it all out.
EDIT: Your link suggests that the best one can hope for reasonably is to move the crap on the slide to its edges. That is a HUGE PLUS, since then one can crop the crap (or cut the crap!) from the picture around its edges once it is scanned, leaving a much cleaner image than it would have been otherwise.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Jul 15, 2010 - 03:27pm PT
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However, we went out to dinner first and he didn't have enough money to pay for dinner!
MWA HA HA hahaaa!! FCBOA, Future Climbing Bum Of America for sure!
Welcome to Berdette too!
No prom pic here, I was hanging on the side of some dirty mud aid wall at Smith Rocks that night.....
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Jul 15, 2010 - 07:36pm PT
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Of course, there's no way to cut the crap and mud-slingin'/teasing from the Taco Stand. But those who hang around on mud walls gotta do SOMETHING with the mud that they bring home, don't they? But hey! I'm smilin' big grins at this, especially since Berdette can't remember the circumstances around the dinner which was not Chinese... So the secret lies with me...
Thanks, Survival, for joining the fun-fest!
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Berdette Robison
climber
Green Valley, AZ
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Jul 16, 2010 - 07:52pm PT
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Mighty Hiker and Survival ~ Thanks so much for the "Welcomes". Other than giving you an insight into Boodawg's Prom night, which has now become the topic of much razzing, I'm not sure what I can bring to the "campfire" in the future. Lots of stories, etc., but probably not of much interest to most of you! Lots of past, lots of risks, but no climbing adventures.
Ken ~ So, there really is a story to the restaurant...sure you don't want to share, since I have no recollection whatsoever??? And, if it wasn't Chinese, what was it??? I'm dragging out the picture box this weekend...see if I can unearth that Prom picture. It's been a delightful trip down memory lane! Glad life has treated you well...
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Jul 16, 2010 - 08:38pm PT
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Yes, there really IS a story about the restaurant, but I haven’t shared it on this thread because it might make YOU blush a bit and might subject you to the kind of razzing that you see directed at me. However, I think these guys would be kinder to you than to me. (Hint: It was filet mignon steak, not Chinese.)
What you can bring to the campfire is as diverse as all the various threads that a quick survey of topics found here reveals. One example is the question you asked up-thread which not even one person has yet ventured to answer: “I want to know if any of you remember your date for the Senior Prom...and what she was wearing???” By starting your own thread with such a question, you’d certainly get a LOT of answers, and the women on here would chime in to keep it all balanced, humorous, and would support you in revealing the female perspectives. I think that’s what Mighty Hiker was getting at: we are all human and have more in common than just climbing. You could expand on your original question in your opening post by asking about dinner, any embarrassing incidents, underlying significance, if any, etc., etc. I bet there’d be over a hundred responses to such a thread in less than a week, maybe by the end of the weekend. You’d facilitate similar trips to ours down Memory Lanes for many guys and gals here. But it’s your question, Berdette, not mine, so I leave it to you to initiate the thread. C’mom, be brave! Take some risk! As we used to say, “It’s only 5.9” (Hard but not extreme difficulty!)
Afterthought: If Berdette posts a prom thread, I'll respond with the restaurant story.
Meanwhile, tomorrow is my daughter, Briana’s, 16th birthday, and we are going across the island to Volcano for the weekend. So when we get back, I’ll check back here to see if you found that picture and posted it and if you have started your own thread on Senior Proms or any other personally insightful and revealing ideas that might inspire you.
Have a great weekend.
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Berdette Robison
climber
Green Valley, AZ
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Jul 17, 2010 - 12:34am PT
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Never one to pass up a challenge, I posted my question about the Senior Prom...now it's your turn to tell all about the restaurant! Even if I do blush, no one will ever know! I couldn't find the prom picture much to my dismay, but did find a letter from you from Grand Gulch, Utah which must have been about 1982ish. You were teaching a desert field studies program in the canyons of Utah and Arizona on your way to teaching an Hawaiian field studies program
Hope you had a wonderful birthday weekend with your daughter, Briana. I'm a little ahead of you. My grandson, Justin, turned 8 today and my grandaughter, Breonna, will be 6 in August. They are truly my greatest joy in life...I'm a far better gramma than I ever was a Mother...I was too busy chasing what I thought were rainbows.
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Berdette Robison
climber
Green Valley, AZ
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Jul 17, 2010 - 04:02pm PT
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Ken -
I did find another box...no Prom picture, but my Senior picture...not to be outdone by you!
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DrDeeg
Mountain climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Jul 17, 2010 - 07:31pm PT
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I seem to recall Boo had a pair of pants without pockets. So when he went out, he never had his wallet. Must have been quite a search to find them.
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Berdette Robison
climber
Green Valley, AZ
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Jul 19, 2010 - 06:24pm PT
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Since I started my trip down memory lane on Ken's forum, I must finish it here. I'm sure most of you have heard more about our senior prom than you ever wanted to know. But, I must finish...
Ken, I truly don't remember any of the "restaurant" story! Now, I must apologize for accusing you of not paying. It was probably a bit pricey and you had no idea or enough money to pay! So, guys, it really wasn't intentional!
On to my adventure in Yosemite. I was at UCSB and decided I wanted to go to New York to find fame and fortune. After a month, and neither fame or fortune, I returned to LA and got a job at Camp Curry in February 1966. I was totally enamored with you and went there because you were there! I actually drove up there with you and Dennis in either his truck or yours and spent 2 nights in one of the campgrounds. I then moved into the dorms and loved it up there. On Memorial Day, 1966, I was in a very serious car accident returning from a dance at Bass Lake (the place is still there; can't remember the name) in an XKE with 2 other girls and the guy who was driving. It was about 3:00 am and he fell asleep and hit a tree. I was thrown from the car, broke my wrist, leg and had 45 stitches in my head. From my wanderings around your writings, that weekend seems to have been one of your big climbs. Anyway, you did come visit me in the Yosemite hospital...if you could call it that...before I returned to LA and eventually graduated from UCLA. Those 4 months in Yosemite were fabulous...and just the start of my wanderlust. I may have never left there except for my accident.
By the way, we did eventually master the "kissing" part!
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Jul 20, 2010 - 05:08pm PT
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Berdette, I'd forgotten about your accident and visiting you in the hospital. Yes, what a change that brought to your life! Thanks so much for instigating our trip down Memory Lane.
I'd be pleased to hear more about what you liked so much about living in Yosemite from the employee's perspective. I'm sure others would agree as this site is Yosemite-based, and the Curry Co. & its employees, in SO MANY WAYS, have had a strong influence on climbers.
You mentioned your wanderlust, so I'd like to hear about your further travels; again, others on this site thrive on "trip reports" (TRs), even ones that don't involve climbing. So post 'em up!
Here are a few pictures from last weekend's trip to Volcano.
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Berdette Robison
climber
Green Valley, AZ
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Jul 20, 2010 - 08:26pm PT
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Ken: Beautiful pictures...must be an amazing place.
I can still remember driving into the valley with you and Dennis and seeing Yosemite for the very first time. As I'm sure all of you know, there are truly no words to describe it. I was very fortunate to work in the offices in Yosemite village running a teletype (anyone under 60 even know what a teletype is???) with a real 9-5 job. My roommate, and almost everyone else, were either housekeepers or waiters working all kinds of odd hours. We had no TV, no car, no telephone, never saw a newspaper...almost no contact with the outside world...just surrounded by the majesty of the rocks, the trees, the sky, the clouds. The dorms were in the village and we had our meals at the Lodge. We would walk to each meal and it was just awe inspriing to be part of that beauty. I certainly don't have to tell all of you climbers what that world is like. I don't think I've ever felt more at peace before or since and I've spent many years searching. I was 19 and had the whole world ahead of me. Interestingly enough, I didn't return until about 10 years ago when I just drove through. As I'm sitting here writing this, I wonder if I had returned when I recovered from my accident, I would have recaptured that serenity that has eluded me ever since.
I got married in 1969 and my beautiful daughter, Donna, was born in 1971 when we moved from the valley to the beach in Oxnard. Lots of good years and then I got restless. I got divorced in 1981 and began several years of just packing up and moving on...by myself. Many regrets in life, but my biggest is leaving my daughter. Remember, I had already gone to New York at 18 and Yosemite at 19. My first stop on my quest was Sedona, AZ which was almost as breathtaking as Yosemite. I'm sure many of you have been to Sedona. I spent almost a year there and found the beauty there almost as extraordinary. In those days, I would decide it was time to leave for whatever reason, pack up my car (and in those days my cat) and just get in the car and drive. I went to San Francisco (too big) and drove down the coast and stopped in Pismo Beach, rented a condo, bought all new furniture and stayed three months! Now, you have to realize that at each stop, I had to work, so I would get a job or a series of jobs (print advertising sales in those days) and then off I'd go! Next stop, Carpinteria which I loved and actually stayed for five years. Then back to San Luis Obispo where I lived in every city in the county for 16 years...including another marriage and divorce along the way. During these years, I explored Big Bear, Lake Tahoe, a town on the Rogue River where I almost bought a newspaper, Monterey, Lake Arrowhead and other parts of Arizona. I spent a couple of years in Wickenburg, AZ and am now in Green Valley, AZ which is about 25 miles south of Tucson. My daughter and son-in-law were about 45 minutes away which is why I moved here. I moved here and they went back to the central coast of California and moved to Boise ID last year. I'm ready for my next journey, but have been unable to sell my house or I'd be gone already. Somewhere along the way, and only in the last couple of years, I've found that peace within myself that I was so busy searching for outwardly, or thinking someone else was going to fill.
I'm not sure you were really interested in all this retrospection...and certainly, this is the strangest place to do all this...a very public forum!
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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a nice warm Welcoming me to meeting (left to right) Ken Boche and Russ Mclean at Stoney Point.
Happy Time!
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nature
climber
Hampi Karnataka India
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crack of dawn..... where's the fish?!?!111169
not much for fish the but the stories were priceless! Thanks again for those, Ken!
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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No fish on that trip, but that thar cooler was FULL of BEER!
Having just arrived in CA from HI, via UT, I was lookin' thru my old Southwest photos and came across this one:
In UT, I visited a petroglyph site where I took a few pix of the rock-writing.
If I can get a picture of this event, I'll post it to the Petroglyphs and their Meanings thread.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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It was a pleasure doing business with you.
You did well to lose the beard.
You are, mein herr, the PhotogotooDawg, the shots you've presented of the 2012 Facelift are deserving of highest kudos.
(Golf claps, muttering....)
No, really, I wish to hellp that I had known about this Thread of Note earlier, before we had met. None-the-less, it's been a fun fortnight.
From a Merced Bear to a UCLA Bruin,
"If you go out in the woods today, you're in for a big surprise..."
You weren't singing the other night. And I missed your a capella performance at Meatfest. Next year.
MFM
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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It's remarkable, the things we see that we can compare.
The best things in life are free.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 22, 2013 - 12:42am PT
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bump
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Nov 22, 2013 - 01:31am PT
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You gotta love the Boo. Cheers, Ken.
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Salamanizer
Trad climber
The land of Fruits & Nuts!
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Nov 22, 2013 - 01:51am PT
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I missed this thread the first time around. I wasn't aware of who BooDawg actually was.
I climbed Marginal recently and found it to be a quite enjoyable route. I liked the fact that I could climb to the ledge, run the rope around the giant block, sit down and become the belay. No need for placing pro or building an anchor etc...
I had a lot of fun on that route. Actually picked it because of it's name. If it was called Chicken Fat I probably would have walked by over to Misty Beethoven or something.
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H
Mountain climber
there and back again
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Nov 22, 2013 - 12:21pm PT
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Ed, Thanks for bumping this thread. What a wonderful way to spend a sleepless night. Relished every post.
It's one of the many things I love about Supertopo. Funny how the momentum waned. Hopefully it will pick up the momentum again. I completely missed seeing it.
Ken, great to read your exploits and have your insight. I am so glad your climbing again. Any time your up this way let me know. Its a great time of year to climb on Saint Helena. Hope your business is flourishing.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Sport climber
moving thru
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Nov 22, 2013 - 03:37pm PT
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I had no idea of your illustrious past. You sing a darn good acapella! Now I see why. Cheers, lynnie
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