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landcruiserbob
Trad climber
BIG ISLAND or Vail ; just following the sun.......
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Soloed something on the wind tower. What a great canyon.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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OK, maybe we should just hear from those people whose first climb WASN'T Calypso.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Bastille crack, maybe '77. Ament almost beaned me with a dropped carabiner.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Batsille Crack with my wife, back in '01.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Of course he chose a crack.
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Dick Danger
Trad climber
Lakewood, Colorado
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Bastille Crack ---> Touch 'n Go ----> Rosy Crucifixion... It was a steep curve.
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Pcutler
climber
Iowa
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The naked edge
Totally classic - wicked exposure on the last two pitches
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o-man
Trad climber
Paia,Maui,HI
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It was Redguard Route with Deek Cook in the very early 70's we did the "Bird Walk"
first pitch. It was rated 5.6, chuckle,!!
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MH2
climber
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The one a step or two from the car.
Myself and Steve Lewontin
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Cool.
Same pose, same place.
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Pewf
climber
nederland
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West Buttress of the Bastille, I think. I remember getting wigged where it got wide and traversing out onto the knobby face instead.
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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Fat Dad wrote: OK, maybe we should just hear from those people whose first climb WASN'T Calypso.
West Buttress of the Bastille was my first route in Eldorado.
But, more importantly, my second route was Hair City. I completely missed the first bolt and was looking at a huge groundfall potential thinking to myself "this must be why they call it Hair City."
Epilogue: I went back up on Hair City about ten years later and with Jim Erickson's permission moved the first bolt, which he had place on rappel, to a better location.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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That is a great picture Jan.
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Edge
Trad climber
New Durham, NH
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Onsite free solo of the West Overhang on the Wind Tower. I showed up without a partner and it called to me.
This was also my second climb west of the Mississippi, the first being an onsite free solo of the Third Flatiron.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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I still wander back in my mind to those early days,
with Larry and Layton and Culp and others... Layton, Larry,
and I made what was viewed as the first known ascent of Calypso,
and Layton gave it that name. There are three climbs that stick
in my mind, and I can't for anything remember which came
first, as they all happened rather near to each other. Calypso,
Bastille Crack, and Pseudo-Sidetrack. I was about 14, maybe still
13, can't recall, when I led the Bastille Crack. I didn't put in
a single piece of protection and made those two first normally
shorter vertical pitches as one long one... I didn't
think a leader was supposed
to put anything in unless he was on the verge of falling, and
I felt so solid I just kept going. When Larry and I did Pseudo-
Sidetrack, it was an easy climb but pure discovery to move upward
into those windblow realms, the river loud below, pigeons, a gorgeous
place to be alive, the solid rock with so many holds everywhere
from which to choose, to have a few choice friends. Little did we know
how deeply the years would touch our lives, and how we would touch
one another... and how fast it all would fly by into the
past. Everything was young and new and beautiful, and we
were free. I think sometimes of our parents, how supportive they were
of our strange new pursuit, how courageous they were to let us go
and for them not even to know if we were really that safe, but to
sense our spirits, our love of adventure, our sense of mastery
of our newfound discovery,
climbing, how it belonged to us alone. And that was something very
special in and of itself, that no climber today will quite understand,
what with the masses and mobs of climbers these days...
Jan, do you remember the time I tried to take you and Dean up T-2?
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MisterE
Social climber
MEEPMEEPmeepMEEP
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Anthill Direct or Yellow Spur, I can't remember which. Probably Yellow Spur. circa 1994. I do remember that Anthill direct scared the crap out of me on the "5.6" runout.
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local
Social climber
eldorado springs
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Bastille Crack in 1964. I held a long leader fall with a 3/8th goldline on the last pitch when one of my partners pulled a big block off and rode it to the ramp below.
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wayne burleson
climber
Amherst, MA (currently in Lutry, CH)
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Grand Giraffe. 1982.
I had just driven from Boston and ran into a guy
in the parking lot who had just done Tangerine Trip and
wanted to do something wide.
I was clueless...
And it was desperate...
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WallMan
Trad climber
Denver, CO
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Pat - thank you for continuing to share your wonderful stories and history with us, fascinating! I and many of my climbing friends have the utmost respect for you and your generation of climbers that established, in very bold style, the climbs that we enjoy today.
One point I would like to share with you is that even though there are many more climbers today, and even though many of us are climbing established routes versus pioneering new territory, I can assure you that for me as well as many of my climbing partners, the pursuit of climbing is an obsession, very core to our existence and to our soul. So while I agree we might never be able to fully relate to the feelings you experienced in the era you climbed, the "specialness" of climbing certainly isn't lost for many of us that climb today.
You authored one of my most enjoyable climbing reads, High Over Boulder. I met you briefly at a book signing, so my copy is autographed.
Carry on, my friend. Wally
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Calypso in '75 and rope-soloed the Bastille Crack later that year. I used to hitchhike I-70 back and forth from SoIll to climb there. Also did T2 one time leaving a pair of crutches on the ground with one of my friends who couldn't second the start. I had chipped my heal bone, but it did really bother me climbing, but I hadn't really thought it all the way through and the descent was a nightmarish face-in crab crawl that took forever. Old man Fowler read us the riot act when we finally got down.
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