MARTY KARABIN'S MESSAGE TO ALL CLIMBERS

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karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 3, 2017 - 03:37pm PT


 Reel Rock Tour 12


I was invited to attend the Sneak Preview Party of the Reel Rock Tour 12 at the summer Outdoor Retailers Show, which was at the end of July 2017. Beer and dinner was served first and then the fun continued in the movie theater. Two films were shown, first of Chris Sharma doing some amazing deep water soloing routes and sending a big project he has been working on, produced by Josh Lowell. Second film was filmed, directed and produced by Cedar Wright of a climber that was all about climbing routes free solo. Totally awesome!!! The great thing about going to the sneak preview is that Chris Sharma attended the party and gave a live speech about the film, Cedar wright talked about the film he created, and Alex Honnold also came forward and gave live commentary on the films. Once again big thanks to the Access Fund for hooking up the museum crew with show passes!



karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 10, 2017 - 10:07pm PT


 Psico Bloc 2017



On one of the nights during the Outdoor Retailers summer show in Utah, the Psico Bloc Masters competition was scheduled and the museum crew attended the event held in Park City Utah. Unlike the past two years no rain was in sight and the night was perfect. The pre event party started and Black Diamond was giving away schwag, posters were being signed by the climbing stars, food and drinks were served and other miscellaneous fun was happening. Black Diamond was one of the main sponsors of Psico Bloc and had a VIP balcony reserved serving free food and drinks. Big props to Black Diamond for all of the fun!!! This was the last year of the Outdoor Retailers Show being in Utah so I am not sure if this is going to effect the future Psico Bloc competitions. A lot of the attendance at the competition was people from the Outdoor Retailers Show. I noticed that this year there was no Psico Bloc schwag being sold. No hats, t-shirts or any memorabilia to take home from this 2017 event. So I had to get creative….the paparazzi never sleeps!




Final results:
Womans Masters: Kyra Condie
Mens Masters: Jimmy Webb

Wall height” 55 feet
Fastest time up the wall: Ben Hanna 41 seconds.
Kyra climbed the route 5 times that evening due to a perfect tie with Alex Puccio

I was able to score a few 2017 Psico Bloc items for the museum: Competitor shirt Jimmy Webb threw down from the wall during his semifinal final heat. A blue staff Psico Bloc shirt, and a Psico Bloc 2016 towel from Joe Kinder. 2017 Comp signage, comp poster and VIP comp pass. Once again it was a great time attending the Psico Bloc event! Big PROPS to Chris Sharma and the entire crew that put together and ran this awesome climbing event!!!



karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 24, 2017 - 02:50pm PT


--Smash and dash at the KARABIN MUSEUM







It is great to have stuff in life but at the same time stuff doesn’t seem to last. Monday 9/28 I came home from work to find my house trashed. Somebody in the afternoon broke in through the back bedroom window and went through every cabinet and drawer in the house. All of my electronic stuff was stolen. A backpack of climbing gear also stolen and 8 baseball card frames filled with 175 climbing cards was taken as well. The thief must have been mesmerized looking at my 20,000+ pieces of gear on the walls and didn’t know what to do with it so the climbing museum gear survived!!! Unfortunately all of my data supporting the museum is now lost. I had a few external backups of the info but those were stolen as well. Yesterday I purchased a new computer in hope that the iCloud system worked and iCloud hardly saved anything more than what was on my phone. So the last 10 years of 38,000 photos on iPhoto of my kids growing up and the museum and all video etc is completely gone. Over the last two years I spent thousands of hours making lists of the gear I have in the museum and shooting photos. Now the process starts over from scratch. At least I have the kids and the gear so all is great in that respect. Just feels like a lot of time lost sitting at a computer. I don’t believe the thief was a climber otherwise more climbing stuff would be missing. The thief probably thought the climbing cards were collectable baseball cards.

The key item here is the 175 climbing cards of which the majority was signed. Besides the cards that already have signatures on them, listed as “autograph” cards, the other non autograph cards that have autographs on them should be a key indication that they probably came from my museum. If anybody sees these cards please get in contact with me. The police were notified saying that other houses in the neighborhood have also been broken into recently and they have a few leads on who the thieves are, but no arrests yet. Once again I moved the museum into a storage building to hide from the world. Sucks to have this much history and not have a big secure place to show it. Someday!

karabin714@gmail.com



justthemaid

climber
Jim Henson's Basement
Sep 25, 2017 - 06:41am PT
Whoa- that totally blows. I can't imagine how much time it took to photograph and catalog all that stuff. Hopefully over time you can recreate the data .

You should place some ads in local ( non climbing) newspapers or media for the cards. And stalk eBay for the next year. Chances are the thief will have trouble pawning the cards and may just ditch them- hopefully where someone can return them if they know who is looking for them.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Sep 25, 2017 - 07:26am PT

I hope the thief/thieves realize how short-sighted it is to steal from a museum. Maybe then the cards reappear.
karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 9, 2017 - 08:15am PT


Two weekends ago I completed my ice pitons and screws display. On Monday morning I took the display to the gym and installed it in the display box in the Karabin Museum. Monday after work is when I came home to my house being broken into. Luckily for me this display was not still sitting on my kitchen table when the thieves were shopping in my house. This display shows early ice pitons and ancient crampons. I have a bunch of old full size crampons and other ice gear but I didn't have enough display space to show them for now. Over the last two weeks after the break in it was hard to get motivated to even look at the museum. I felt like somebody cut my legs off! Slowly I am getting my inspiration back as I am recollecting images and creating information for the museum with my new computer. Moving forward.........






ionlyski

Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
Oct 9, 2017 - 08:53am PT
Curious, what happened to some of the posts on this page? After Marty's discovery of the unfortunate break-in there were quite a few heartfelt words expressed, including one of mine, I noticed is gone now. Weird, how can your own posts disappear?

Glad to see you're back at it though and moving on.

Arne
karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 9, 2017 - 11:48am PT




ionlyski - I think you posted on another Supertopo thread named "Smash and dash at the Karabin Museum." Thanks much for the energy!

Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Oct 9, 2017 - 11:53am PT

TFPU!

Great to see the old ice screws, pitons and crampons. All the time I'm learning something new...
ionlyski

Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
Oct 9, 2017 - 12:38pm PT
Aw, so it was Marty. I thought I was going crazy for moment but it was only alzheimer's.
karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 30, 2017 - 07:36pm PT


Ian Jewell - Wow really cool and beautifully organized! I thought I was a little extreme keeping everything of climbing, but that display is really unique!


karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 30, 2017 - 07:40pm PT


I recently ordered a littleHammer nut tool from Australia. Cant wait to put it to the test!



karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 31, 2017 - 08:40am PT



A friend hooked me up with another Faza brush for Christmas. Check out the Faza website and see the passion that goes into these brush creations.



karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 31, 2017 - 08:43am PT




karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 31, 2017 - 08:49am PT



karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 31, 2017 - 08:52am PT




i-b-goB

Social climber
Wise Acres
Dec 31, 2017 - 08:56am PT
Great Marty, best collection ever!
karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 5, 2018 - 07:24pm PT





karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 5, 2018 - 07:30pm PT



Thanks everybody for the museum props!


My babies are now all grown up! The Karabin kids


karabin museum

Trad climber
phoenix, az
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 5, 2018 - 07:30pm PT


2017 Adventure Trip



For years the paper was hanging on the wall in view, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. Other employees mentioned they went on adventure trips, but I didn’t know it was a Phoenix Rock Gym Adventure Trip. One of the cool things about Paul Diefenderfer, the owner of the Phoenix Rock Gym, is that once you have worked a certain amount of hours, you are eligible to go on a adventure trip of your choice, and Dief will give you a few hundred dollars to show pics and write about the adventure. Sweet! So over the summer I went on a 4 day trip to California to visit four different locations. This was my adventure….

Destination One: Patagonia Clothing Company Corporate

As a climbing gear historian one of my biggest dreams was to be inside the Chouinard tin shed in Ventura CA. In Gods miraculous ways one thing suddenly lead to another and next thing you know I am the honored guest standing in the building of where the “Big Bang” of American climbing gear all began. Yes Ventura California at the original Chouinard Equipment tin shed, Great Pacific Iron Works, Patagonia Clothing company.

Terri Laine and Val Franco with the Patagonia Archives put together a incredible three day dream trip for me. On top of being wined and dined, I got the complete tour of every building on the Patagonia clothing property. My first impression of the many people I met during the tour is that everybody was genuinely happy and it was very noticeable! I want to someday work at the Patagonia Clothing Company so I can walk around smiling all of the time! Terri showed me all of the amazing displays she has put together for Patagonia over the years. She is quite talented! It really made me psyched to create more displays for my museum. Between the Patagonia Corporate tour and the tour of the Patagonia Archives and the dozens of hands I shook and the constant history all around me, I was totally spinning by the end of the night! And that was just the first six hours of my three days with them!


The next day the fun continued! Digging through the Archives and holding so many amazing company artifacts. The items I was most mesmerized with is all of the old Chouinard and Patagonia posters, company advertisements, promotional trinket items, signs, and so many pieces of clothing…..faint! Yes it was a lot to be within!!!! Then Terri took me to the Tin Shed. At first we took photos of us standing in front of the shed, and one of the requirements of the adventure trip is to take photos of the Phoenix Rock Gym banner at the location of the adventure. Yes I picked the Chouinard Tin Shed as that photo location. I was totally in awe standing at the big sliding door at the shed, but then Terri surprised me further and pushed on the side door and it was open. (Actually she secretly got the company president approval to unlock it just before we arrived at the shed).



You can’t just “walk” into the shed. The first view you see is the entire shop just as it looks in the history books. It is so awesome that the shop was kept original, dirty and intact. As the Archives honored guest I was allowed to photograph and touch anything while in the shed. Terri and I were in there for probably an hour and many times I found myself tearing up from the experience. The old Chouinard factory photographs themselves gives the viewer a feeling of rich history. Now add the smell of the old shop, the feel of the hammer in your hand, knowing you are standing in the place where many historic climbing characters worked, but also called home.



During the Patagonia visit, Val did a two hour interview with me where by coincidence Julio Varela stopped by and joined in with the interview. Then the fun continued and we all went to lunch. Julio is a really amazing person and he fully entertained us with many Chouinard stories from the golden years.



At the end of my stay with the Patagonia Archives, Terri, Val and I talked about relocating my Chouinard display to the Archives. At the beginning of 2018 the Chouinard display was going to be dismantled, boxed up and put back into storage anyways. For now everything looks positive and hopefully by the end of January, Terri and Val will the new caretakers of the Chouinard segment of the Karabin Museum. I feel really honored that part of the Karabin Climbing Museum is going into Yvon’s world!

My first props goes to God for writing this inspirational vacation into my journey! Many Many thanks to Patagonia for fulfilling one of my biggest dreams as a gear historian. Many thanks to Terri and Val for welcoming me into their world. Many thanks to Terri and Alex for sharing their wonderful home with me. It was hard to leave Ventura, but that was just the first location of four I have on my adventure trip.






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Destination Two: The Beach

From Ventura I drove the coastal highway back to LA. It was great to see the beautiful ocean which was my second destination on my adventure trip. Hang out on the beach for a few hours, feel the sand in my toes and listen to the ocean waves. It’s been many years since I have touched the ocean. So peaceful!



From the beach I continued South on the coastal highway and then I hit the LA traffic. What an experience! Driving 5-10 miles an hour for the next 2 1/2 hours in route to Santa Ana. My morning destination is Sender One climbing gym Santa Ana. I figured I can shower in the morning at the gym so I attempted to sleep in the rental car but it was terrible! I eventually ended up getting a hotel room for the night.






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Destination Three: Sender One Climbing Gym

There are two Sender One climbing gyms near LA. One in Hawthorne and one in Santa Ana. I was planning on stopping at them both but due to the super heavy LA traffic, I felt it was better to get further away from LA and plan a early morning session at the Santa Ana location. This was my final day in California where I had to drive back to Burbank to catch a 5PM plane home to Arizona, and I still had one more stop after Sender One before getting to the Airport.

Wow the gym opens at 6AM and was busy! The morning climbers cleared out by 8AM and I had the gym mostly to myself. I love the great outdoor crags, but also I love visiting rock gyms! It expands my ideas of what to do and what not to do at the gym I work at. Sender One is Awesome! Huge workout area with a separate Yoga room and the gym is packed with fun! The kids climbing area is fantastic! If my kid was having a birthday, Sender One is where its at! The kid climbing structures are so exciting that seeing the rest of the gym had to wait. The reserved kid climbing area is built similar to the amazing “Clip & Go” gym in Switzerland.




I bouldered around for a few hours and got a tour of the insides of the structures with one of the course setters. Each gym seems to have their own system to the climbing. Sender one is course set by hold color and has info cards at the start of the routes. The card shows the rating, course setters initials, and also included is fun wordage. The climbing walls looked amazing! What was really cool is that the tips of the aerie features continually changed color from the floor to the ceiling. I got a few pics with the Rock gym banner to add to my adventure trip story, and off to my final destination. Thanks for the fun Sender One!



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Destination Four: Evolv Corporate


Compared to Arizona, California is quite developed. There are so may people, buildings and cars everywhere! If my phone wasn’t instructing me on where to go, I would be totally lost! Tucked away back in a Buena Park industrial park I finally arrived at my destination. Heck yeah Evolv corporate!!!! I entered the building expecting confetti sparklers or something…..but it was silent. Like nobody around. However on the table next to the front door I notice there is a photo of Justin, Myself and Robert displayed! Now that’s true sponsor Love!


I waked back further in the building and hooked up with the big guys of Evolv; Kiyoshi, Jacob Jefferies, and Brian Chung. From there then the confetti and sparklers were happening!!! Full tour of the company, warehouse, Yosemite Bum resole department, and I saw a lot of shoes!!! I am amazed on how many hundreds of shoe style ideas and prototypes Brian has created. That’s total Passion! I have been with Team Evolv for 9 years now, and it was really really exciting to visit my sponsors home!


After the tour I went back and hung out with the guys that were resoling the shoes for Yosemite Bum. I must say these guys weren’t fooling around and were ripping through the shoes at an amazing pace. These guys knew every trick with every shoe of every manufacturer and knew the size of every part and piece of the shoes. I know its a job but dang I gotta give props to these guys for their skills! I was able to get some shoe sole samples from the cobblers, stickers from the shipping department, complimentary pair of shoes, then they piled on banners, signs, t-shirt schwag until my bags were so filled I wasn’t sure if my bags were overweight to get on the plane! Patagonia also gave me a lot of stuff to take home…..”Struggle of the reward!!!” Many thanks to Brian and Evolv for the fun, and sponsoring me all of these years! Evolv rules!


So that was four days of my life in August. From Evolv it was returning the rental car and flying out of Burbank CA back to sunny Phoenix. Dang there were a lot of cars and people in Burbank as well!!!! After this adventure, rush hour in Arizona does not bother me at all! Good stuff! Big THANKS to the Patagonia Archives and Paul Diefenderfer for funding my Adventure trip……Lets’s do it again!


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