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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Sep 21, 2012 - 05:35am PT
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In the early 70s I spent quite a bit of time at Indian Rock. My bouldering was spotty, if you will. I don't like crowds. Whenever I went there, I generally went across the street to the small park and went cruising back and forth over the traveses, high, low, in between, for hours. Much more relaxing and took me to the Dolomites in my head. For a time I could be Comici! Who needed Robbins?
Randy Hamm introduced me to the place. He liked it there as well.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Sep 21, 2012 - 07:24am PT
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Yeah, Mouse from Merced, I use to do those traverses across the street a lot as well. Fun and sure helped build the arms (and legs). If it was too crowded at Indian Rock, I'd go to Cragmont, which was even more crowded. Or Perhaps Mortar Rock or Remillard Park.
But some of the best views of the bay was sitting on top of Indian Rock, drinking a beer and smoking a doobie. That was classic too.
Good view from Grizzly Peak Rock also, if one could find one's way through all the broken beer bottle shards.
A good thing about Dalkey Quarry, it being so close to Dublin city centre (25 minutes by DART) and a 10-minute walk from the DART Station, one would think that in such a conurbation area, like Grizzy Peak, that there would be loads of broken bottles, trash etc. Not so, none. Okay, once I saw a television dumped at the bottom of one of the cliffs, but that is it.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Sep 21, 2012 - 09:11am PT
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ArmandoWyo
ask someone over 60 what mimeo was
I am under 60 (56) and of course it stands for mimeograph. I use to use them a lot at school on the school newspaper (cheapest way of publishing back then).
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BBA
climber
OF
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Sep 21, 2012 - 11:50am PT
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Does the AAC have the entire collection of Yodelers? Maybe five or six years ago I was at the Sierra Club HQ in SF looking at documents and was given the "Yodeler" binders to peruse. They were an interesting history, and I was told they had not made it to the Bancroft. The paper was in trouble, starting to fall apart in a few places. It's a digitization project of worth because of the role the Bay Area had in early rock climbing.
I used the Yodeler as a reference for the first ascent of Kat Pinnacle on page 129, Volume 4, A Biography of William and Jeanne Kat (on the web). I was focussed only on William Kat, so I skipped a ton of interesting observations and climbing information by others about other climbs.
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ArmandoWyo
climber
Wyoming
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Sep 21, 2012 - 12:01pm PT
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Patrick, the old mimeos were cheap, but not too good for preservation. I had mimeos of first Valley guide (really a 2 page list, half of it, Climbs To Do), first Pinnacles National Monument (by Dave Brower), and Cragmont and Grizzly Rocks in Berkeley. All mimeos. These were Dick Leonard’s and the RCS’s records, so I don’t think the original mimeographs exist. Now the mimeos that Dick and others made are in the guidebook collection at the Library. Would folks like to see the scans I retained of these?
Armando
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Sep 21, 2012 - 12:03pm PT
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Armando, yes we would love to see your scans!
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ArmandoWyo
climber
Wyoming
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Sep 21, 2012 - 12:23pm PT
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BBA,
I don’t think the AAC Library has Yodeler, but you should ask Beth Heller. Maybe in Nick’s collection, but not in mine.
The guides I have were pages of the Yodeler, but that is all I had - the selected pages, and not the complete issues. But I had a lot of them. These were part of the complete Cragmont Climbing Club/Rock Climbing Section records from 1932 on, everything from meeting notes to expense receipts of “expeditions” to the Valley in the 1930s to records of climbs done, books read, and RCS parties. These are now all part of AM Guidebook Collection at the AAC Library. I was the RCS chair in early 1970s, but didn’t inherit (or even see) this treasure trove then, but years later, when RCS had been shutdown by the Sierra Club and this big box of records had been badly damaged in a flooded basement. As I recall Willi Fuller, another ex-chair of the RCS, was heading to Alaska, and gave me the box. He didn’t know what to do with the box after the Sierra Club had abandoned the RCS and said I was the only “responsible” person he could think of, which I took to mean, I had lived in the same house near Indian Rock for a decade. Maybe I was on his way. Same way I “inherited” the remains of the Rotten Log from Royal Arches, which should be in my ex’s house in Berkeley - unless consumed by the termites.
Armando
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Rich101
Mountain climber
Anatone , Washington
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Sep 21, 2012 - 03:28pm PT
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IS this the Erric Beck that started climbing in San Diego RCS ?
Richsrd Sheffield
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The Real Mad Dog
Gym climber
Napa, CA
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Sep 21, 2012 - 10:57pm PT
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I do remember Peter Haan soloing it. Don't know anything about Robbins. However, when I started bouldering there back in 1963, there was a large tree, and it was possible to traverse from one wall to the opposite one. So, I speculate that back in those early days, if someone had attempted to solo I-12 (5.10B ???) and fell off, hitting a few branches could save one's life. Over time, branches and then the tree disappeared, as did the soil, so for the regular watercourse route you start a foot or so lower. The answer lies with Royal? Are you listening?
p.s. Not too long after our Rockzilla gym opened in Napa, I dropped by after a good meal and perhaps three glasses of wine, and in street shoes led a 10C (at about age 65). The next day, I really struggled to do it. So, should we climb drunk (I wasn't quite there; doubt if I've ever been drunk.)? Rhetorical question.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
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Sep 21, 2012 - 11:09pm PT
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If Randisi suspected it was apocryphal, why did he post a thread with this title and repeat a slanderous story he thinks is FALSE?
Weak.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Sep 21, 2012 - 11:19pm PT
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Graniteclimber are you stoned?
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ArmandoWyo
climber
Wyoming
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Sep 23, 2012 - 12:25pm PT
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Armando, yes we would love to see your scans!
Peter,
I will start to review them and select the neat ones to post. Give me a moment. Still trying to milk the last of our Teton summer - before our looong winter.
Armando
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Sep 23, 2012 - 04:04pm PT
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Enjoying this thread.
It illustrates how even the tiniest crags can have a storied history and be significant to generations of climbers.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Sep 23, 2012 - 06:32pm PT
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No kidding. If nothing else, Berkeley's Indian Rock is at least one of those static Byzantine Edging Temples we all know about scattered across the world, too close at hand to a town to be overlooked or only given the once-over and yet too tiny to make much difference other than social.
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Sep 23, 2012 - 06:39pm PT
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Someone should make an artsy climbing movie sort of like the Red Violin, where Indian Rock is the constant in a sea of changing history and personalities.
I'll be flailing there some time this evening for a bit. Maybe around 6pm?
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
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Sep 23, 2012 - 08:51pm PT
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"yet too tiny to make much difference other than social."
Do most big crags or mountains "make much difference other than social"?
According to the wikipedia History of Rock Climbing article, the practice and concept of the dynamic belay was invented at Indian Rock.
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gonzo chemist
climber
Fort Collins, CO
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Sep 23, 2012 - 09:44pm PT
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this is actually a really cool thread.
I have a question for BBA or Guido:
the "Borghoff" that is mentioned in the letter up-thread....is this the same Mike Borghoff that put up 'Borghoff's Botch' at the Gunks and 'Borghoff's Blunder' at the Garden of the Gods?
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Sep 23, 2012 - 09:58pm PT
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What I meant Granite, and being one of Indians denizens since 1963 myself, was that Indian Rock's actual rock climbs, though technical as they can be, are still utterly tiny little things and in themselves make no difference within climbing, do not have the import that the "real" routes in the real hills and gorges. What is so rich and important about Indian Rock is its long history, its social power and ability to connect thousands of climbers, all levels, through more than eighty years.
Gonzo, Mike Borghoff was the marvelous poet and father of our very own Mister E. and yes I believe one and the same in your references.
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Dirka
Trad climber
SF
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Sep 23, 2012 - 10:31pm PT
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Climbed and lived by it for about Five years. Endless laps and countless sunsets. "pine for the dayz". Even got a job as leader of Cal-Ventures leading their climbing course for a summer. What a great place.
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BBA
climber
OF
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Sep 23, 2012 - 11:19pm PT
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My year plus at Indian Rock while I was at UC went from August 60 - December 61. Those were great days. One of the interesting memories is the day I heard the screaming of tires and brakes then a large crash. Another one bit the dust going too fast down Marin. In my short time at Indian the only guys who were pretty regular were me, Guido and Foott. Galen was in and out as was his strange pal Scott. Roper was a sometimes presence. Not many could take that place daily. Pratt was in the Army.
I was thinking about the broken flake on the Watercourse and it popped to mind that Janie Taylor asked me and someone else what we were doing on the Watercourse as we were failing by trying to do it a hard way and avoid the flake. I said we couldn't make it she said it's easy and used the flake. I believe I resolved then that the flake had to go.
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