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murcy
Gym climber
sanfrancisco
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Aug 13, 2011 - 10:37pm PT
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The chalk was a serious error.
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wayne burleson
climber
Amherst, MA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 14, 2011 - 07:06pm PT
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Nostalgic buildering bump...
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E Robinson
climber
Salinas, CA
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Aug 15, 2011 - 02:33am PT
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In 1986 I was called in to a meeting with the Dean of Student Affairs who institued a ban on every area but the Art Building and the Old Chem Building. I tried to convince him of Stanford's burly mountain sports history and compared Deuce's big wall prowess to John Elway's quarterbacking prowess. Couldn't convince them to cherish the buildering value of the campus though.
I probably have a bunch of digitized shots from the early '80s that I'll try to post when I get a minute.
Wayne, one of these days it would be great to connect.
Bruce, what is that about an injury for Brian...Brian Cox?
Mr. Popper had to have been Coz's problem...always wished I had a pic of him going over some of the bigger arches.
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Captain...or Skully
climber
or some such
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Aug 15, 2011 - 02:36am PT
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good buildering at Stanford. Shhhhh.
Don't tell anyone, eh? It's already illegal. Winnows the sheafs.
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Aug 15, 2011 - 02:43am PT
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Hi Elliot-
I think you must have lost them when you compared me to Elway! But thanks for the terrific compliment.
Speaking of Elway, I'd often see him around campus when I was there 1980-1983. I recall one time, late at night when he and an injured defensive lineman were outside the Manzanita dorms repeatedly smashing a golf cart (assigned to the injured lineman) into a tree until it was just a pile of junk. Though it must be said, Elway was quite personable when not drinking.
Cheers!
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Aug 15, 2011 - 03:50am PT
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Elliott,
Yes, Brian Cox. A couple of years ago he had a fall on 3rd Pillar of Dana and had a bad ankle fracture. I saw him last summer and he was on his bike but had a pretty noticable limp when walking.
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Aug 15, 2011 - 02:46pm PT
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At MY AGE, I know how hard an injury can be. I tripped on a root two years ago out running at Edgewood County Park, did a cannon-ball through the air twenty feet and landed on my left butt. It's taken that whole time for the sciatica to get out of the nerve endings in my IT band. The more I ride my bike the better it gets until now the pain is only intermittent. Healing only takes 6 to 8 weeks, but the pain messages live on in the geriatric central nervous system a heck of a lot longer.
Moral? Don't get injured when you're old and burned out!
Best wishes to Brian Cox on a full, if not so speedy recovery.
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wayne burleson
climber
Amherst, MA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 15, 2011 - 04:51pm PT
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Hey Bruce and Brian, Sorry to hear about these injuries.
Hang in there...
Although our relative age difference diminishes as time goes on.
I remember thinking that both of you (in your own ways)
claimed your were older, compared to some of the rest of us,
in the early 80's ;)
And Bruce, can you comment about my note about the Galiber
Contacs upthread? It seems that Fires always get all the credit
for advanced rubber, although you guys did all that magic
on the Apron before they arrived. Maybe this has already been
discussed on some shoe-related thread...
Reminds me of a quote attributed to Dan Michael where he
referred to friction climbing as "rubber religion".
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msiddens
Trad climber
Mountain View
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Aug 15, 2011 - 06:26pm PT
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so MANY memories climbing there
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Aug 15, 2011 - 06:43pm PT
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best wishes to Brian. Sorry to hear about his injury
He introduced me to the Stanford buildering.....among other good things.
Fred Glover
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wayne burleson
climber
Amherst, MA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 15, 2011 - 06:55pm PT
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On the topic of "interacting with art/architecture via climbing".
I got pulled off a famous Calder sculpture at MIT by the same
freshman physics prof whom I had locked horns with a few years
prior...
We chatted congenially about how one of many ways of appreciating
a work of art was "to climb on it"..
As a perky 20-year-old, I argued, that climbing can be seen as disrepectful vandalism on one end, or as enraptured praise on the other...
Chalk, like all lubricating fluids, complicates the issue...
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Double D
climber
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Aug 16, 2011 - 12:40am PT
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Many fond memories of Stanford bouldering. I took Yabo there for his first time in the 70's and we did a bunch of high-balls directly over the rails on the back of the church. Scary but at least there were easy down climbs established from the windows. Jim Ericson had an amazingly long traverse (by the chemistry bld???).
Took Yabo to the Ross & Wilson bldg in Palo Alto. IMHO that was the thinnest vertical bouldering around the area.
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E Robinson
climber
Salinas, CA
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Aug 16, 2011 - 01:01am PT
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Here is all I could still find of early 1980s Buildering photos -
Hope these bring back a few memories for folks.
E
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wayne burleson
climber
Amherst, MA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 16, 2011 - 01:06am PT
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Great photos Elliott! Yikes those were high-ball...!
Anyone heard from Bill Myers?
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E Robinson
climber
Salinas, CA
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Aug 16, 2011 - 02:14am PT
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Was trying to figure out a way to go the Winds with Bill this month, but failed. I need to call him.
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phylp
Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
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Aug 16, 2011 - 12:35pm PT
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Wonderful photos, Elliot - thanks!
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Weekend Warrior
Trad climber
Palo Alto, CA
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Aug 17, 2011 - 12:06am PT
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George Goodman's Artificial Stone 1899
I started buildering in 1968 and did so every year until 2009 (thanks for the well wishes). In '68, it was illegal, so I went at night or sneaked around on weekends. In '69, SAC got Stanford to agree to an approved list of building climbers to be kept at the police station. I then started climbing in the day. When stopped, I'd say check with HQ, I'm on the list. The patrol soon got tired of asking, so started a ~15 year period of almost hassle-free buildering.
The only incident I remember was in the 1973 or 1974 when some mucky mucky got upset about the chalk in Memorial Court. I thought that this was pure hypocrisy as the chalk from the erasers that were beaten on the outside of the upper windows was much more prominent than the climbers chalk. But, to appease the powers, Roger Gocking and I took a bucket of water and 2 soft bristle brushes and washed the climbing walls.
Some time in the 70s, I was out on the Art Wall. It was getting dark and I was finishing up, when a man walked up, holding a briefcase with FJS on it, and asked me what I was doing. Usually, I was too busy for the inevitably inane questions, gave a brusque reply and continued climbing. But, as I'd just finished, I walked up to him and said "practicing rock climbing". He asked if I climbed in Yosemite. I said that I did. He asked what was going on there. In whatever I said, I mentioned Bridwell, He let on that he'd taught Bridwell to climb. ?! OMG! Frank Sacherer. After my mumbling died down, he was good enough to answer my questions.
Later in the 70s, Jim Collins arrived. While I maintained a low profile, he wasn't publicity shy, once telling me that it got him clients to guide in the summer. Small wonder, then, that he was the lead in a SU Daily article on the subject of buildering in 1978. My how things had changed in a decade. He also started naming routes: "Torture Chamber" (the traverse on the backside of Encina Hall) and, new to me (Eliot), "Psycho Roof Staircase" (the Durand building staircase). A story about each.
Once, Jim stared a speed climbing challenge on Torture Chamber (just the original traverse). He posted a sheet of paper and pencil on the door that led out to the small courtyard at the bottom of the stairs at the right end of the original traverse. In those days, this door was permanently locked. On it, he kept track of his increasing fast times doing the traverse, crossing off the previous best and writing down the new record. If I remember, he got it down to 90 secs or so. I wasn't really interested in his challenge, so I decided to change the game a bit. One day, I did 7 (swimming pool) laps of the extended traverse and wrote it on the paper. While the times got a bit faster, the 7 laps remained until the paper disappeared.
I did the Durand staircase before I met Jim, maybe before he arrived. It was part of my normal workout. I'd do laps: up one side, down the stairs, up the other side, ... One day, a while after I 1st met Jim, I was out doing my usual circuit and ran into Jim. He tagged along, doing the problems I did. We headed over to Durand and started doing laps. After ~6 laps, he dropped out. I did 12, a new PR. This was in the days when Jim was edgy, competitive and making a name for himself, so it was good to yank his chain a bit in the few times that this was possible.
The hay day of buildering was the 80s. It was hard to go out and not see someone or many someones. I thought that Messrs Cosgrove, Robinson, Palais et al were nuts: not only were the buildings much longer horizontally but the price for failure was very close to zero. But the popularity had a price: more chalk and more bodies climbing past office windows. The powers got uneasy and the 1986 meeting was the result. (I don't know if it is true, but I heard that the proverbial straw was some climbers telling the president of the U [Donald Kennedy] to f*#k off). Once, again, chalk was an issue. And, just like the 70s, there was still a lot of eraser chalk and I still thought the powers were hypocrites. For this, I was asked not to attend the meeting (do you remember Eliot?). When the decision was announced, I was prepared to be a good boy -- at least, for awhile -- and climb only on the Old Chem and Art Bldgs. But, then, Stanford had these buildings sandblasted to remove the chalk and, in a few minutes, did more damage to the Art Bldg than 30 years of climbing. I never climbed on either again. It was back to the future: sneaking about and being hassled (from time to time).
Soon, indoor climbing gyms happened, the crowds faded, the powers that be went back to sleep and I returned to climbing without much thought to being accosted. Not that it didn't happen: once in the 90s, I was asked to stop climbing the backside of Encina by 2 Secret Service agents. I never did find out just who was in Encina.
And to answer the question that started this thread: in the last 15 years, the times I saw others buildering can be counted on 1 hand.
Eliot: the picture of you labeled "The mechanical engineering building, maybe?" is really the Old Terman Engineering Bldg (just behind the church -- although it doesn't look like this now...)
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Gagner
climber
Boulder
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Aug 17, 2011 - 12:16am PT
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Hey Wayne - I see Bill Meyers on occasion here in Boulder. Skied with him a few months back. He's not climbing that much these days - shoulder injuries - but skiing and road biking a ton.
Paul
BTW Cool post Double D. I use to climb with Yabo out at Stanford - always an entertaining time for sure.....
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Aug 17, 2011 - 04:35am PT
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Thanks for posting up, Brian!
7 roundtrips on the Torture Chamber and 12 on the Psycho staircase - trying to match either of those would certainly render permanent injuries in most people, *if* they could somehow hang on. :-)
And I presume you mean the 45-degree diagonal finger rail under the staircase, not simply grabbing the stairs themselves....
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phylp
Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
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Aug 17, 2011 - 01:41pm PT
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That's a good story, Brian!
Your description of the laps made my forearms get pumped just reading it. Staying on those things for so long was like torture. After "the ban" I got more into doing laps on the art building wall, starting around the corner on the left past the sunken door and going around the backside. Just torture!
What I remember most was how much fun we had. Especially doing those long traverses, in a group, like some scruffy spider conga line. There could be 6 or more of us: Chan, Dan Prows, Michael, me, Joe Shiefman, Charlie Schreck, Chris Shiebold, etc. going around the entire four walls of the building to the left of the church, And Joe would never stopped talking, telling funny stories, almost making me fall off sometimes from laughing.
I think it was around the time of the "ban" that Joe bought his house in Cupertino and built the wall and crack machine in the backyard, and we started going there. Barry B. would finish work at REI and come over to join us sometimes. What was the name of the house in downtown Palo Alto where the guys built their own training set-up? Was it "Waverley Street"? The crew who lived there included Steve Annacone, red-haired Pete, etc. They had a Bachar ladder, crack machine, pull up board etc.
I just looked in my bookcase and found the old write up - 4 pages - detailing all the problems and ratings. It says rev. 11/10/88 and starts out:
"Access: Climbing is legally permitted (chalkless only) on the Art Wall and old Chemistry".
Is this from you Clint? I'll post it if people think it would add historical value and not stir up some trouble.
Phyl
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