Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
| Messages 1 - 151 of total 151 in this topic |
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 13, 2012 - 07:04pm PT
|
Hey everyone.
Especially, Hello, and I'm sorry, to all my old friends I've lost touch with for so long. I learned hard lessons turning something I loved into a business. Sometimes I try to hide from it all, but it was incredibly formative. It was a rich experience, worth reliving at least one more time, for posterity. Hopefully this will be good therapy for me and maybe... well, we'll see how it goes...
I'm just going to write and post as I am able. This may take a while and might even be boring. I suppose we post things for ourselves. I've been meaning to write for a long time. This way it'll be saved no matter how many hard drives crash on me. My climbing stuff will start on the next page.
Well, I can say a couple of things for now...
My first notion of the sport of rock climbing came with the news to my mom, that our neghbor across the street's 19 year old son had broken his neck "rock climbing". I must have been 8 or 10, and thought it curious that someone would climb just a rock, but I was told that it happened at Smith Rocks, in Central Oregon. So I guessed it was a really big rock and must have been part of practicing to climb mountains. His name was "Dan" or "Dave" Ferries? Much later got the details that he had been doing an aid climb on face of "The Monument", and after his fall, had hung upside down for about 3 hours before he could be rescued. I remember seeing him once after that with a halo thing on his head, but walking down the sidewalk, so I assume he recovered, possibly fully.
The thing here was not that climbing was always that dangerous, but that statistically, to my mom, of all the people she knew of, who ever climbed, 100% of them had broken their neck before reaching the age of 20. Me and mom is a 2 volume tangent and I'll just clip it here by saying that my climbing certainly never pleased her.
Fast forward to home room class... maybe 10th grade. Kent Benesch was in my class by virtue of alphabetic proximity. He lived on my old paper route and was someone I always liked, but never hung out with. I was a dirt bike stoner and he must have had climbing friends or something... Anyways, one day I look over and he has what must have been a really early "Climbing" magazine with Pat Ament on the cover doing some sick overhanging boulder problem with just a chalk bag and nothing but air behind him. I was amazed, but kent assured me that although he was very strong, that there were little edges and things you can grip onto. I could kind of see it, but geeze! I didn't give it much thought until later. Kent and His brother Craig were climbing partners for some time, although later, when I got into it, it seemed Craig was elsewhere. Kent was a big part of the early Smith Rock scene, back in Alan Watt's point system days (oh yes, I will spill...).
Finally at age 19, my best skiing friend "Boyt" (Ross Horton), took me hiking at Smith Rocks, which is a real playground that most people only see a small fraction of. I was curious if we'd see any rock climbers. When we arrived, we could see across to the base of Parking Lot Wall, 2 figures doing something at the bottom of the wall. We made a rough plan and went to investigate the climbers as our first destination. At this point I had never seen a carrabiner or a rope or harness or anything. I saw a movie once about someone climbing The Matterhorn and that was it. I still assumed for roped climbing that you pounded an axe into the rock to climb up.
Upon approaching the wall, I remember seeing Alan Watts slowing rappelling down from the overhanging first pitch of the old aid route "Unfinished Symphony". It all seemed very technical. Two ropes, a bunch of criss-crossed carabiners, harness, taped and chalky hands, and he didn't seem to even care about the fun of the rappell. I think Tom Blust was there with Watts that day and Alan had just "freed" it (512b, pin scars with a stupid crux reach and say goodbye to the nerves in your left pinky for a while), but I didn't know what that meant. It only occurred to me as we were walking away to ask what "freed" meant.
Boyt told me "It means climbing by just using your hands and feet, and it's how MOST climbing is done. The rope is just so you don't fall and die..." (I was incredibly naive)... "He holds on by sticking his finger tips in the little holes!"
Unfortunately, we had just missed the event, otherwise the whole affair may have actually seemed real. I was truly blown away. My brain now had a first hand data point on what rock climbing was. Alan Watts climbing 5.12b, five minutes from the car. This was the spring of 1982...
|
|
hairyapeman
Trad climber
Fres-yes
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2012 - 07:10pm PT
|
Good start! Keep em coming!
|
|
ncrockclimber
climber
The Desert Oven
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2012 - 07:14pm PT
|
Cool stuff. Thanks for taking the time to share. I look forward to reading more.
|
|
michaeld
Sport climber
Sacramento
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2012 - 07:16pm PT
|
Great read, +1
|
|
couchmaster
climber
pdx
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2012 - 07:17pm PT
|
Welcome Steve. Thanks for sharing your tale (s)! We've met briefly at Smith Rock back when you were (still are?) a badassed climber. Frank Cornelius drug me along to you to borrow one of the little new TCUS you'd made. I couldn't afford one. I might have actually used Franks...it's all kind of hazy.
Holy crap though! The memory of what a game changer those were never left me though. Great climbing invention. Nutting the East Face of Monkey (or any steep shallow pin scarred crack) on aid before Alan put in newer bolts to free it was out there in crazy land till TCUs showed up and it seemed a bit more..... survivable...and fun, they were a game changer for harder free thin crack routes as well:-)
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2012 - 07:20pm PT
|
Staying tuned.....
|
|
slabbo
Trad climber
fort garland, colo
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2012 - 07:28pm PT
|
Steve- i still have a TCU from WAY back- works perfect and must be 30 years old or close. i think it was $18 ????
|
|
Rankin
Social climber
Greensboro, North Carolina
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2012 - 07:35pm PT
|
Very nice writing. Thanks Steve!
|
|
mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2012 - 07:54pm PT
|
Welcome Steve!
|
|
k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2012 - 08:00pm PT
|
Thanks Steve!
But I can guess from the way you left us hanging, that Watt's dude had it all wrong. Blfff, fingers in the little holes.
What a riot.
|
|
drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2012 - 08:35pm PT
|
Yeah man, can't wait for more.
|
|
R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2012 - 09:01pm PT
|
Hey Steve, good to hear from you. I still remember the 0.75 tcu I found on Mescalito that you placed on your solo ascent.
Say hey to all the Flag boys. RB
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 14, 2012 - 06:09am PT
|
After the encounter at the base of Picnic Lunch Wall, my interest grew a bit. Ross had moved to Bend and we made a number of excursions... some to Smith for more exploring and scrambling, but more importantly, to Awbrey Meadows, A superb bouldering area with lots of variety and problems in the 5.8 to 5.12 range. It was popular with all the locals and a great place to meet other climbers. We had top roped a 5-8-ish layback using swammy belts and an old twisted Gold-Line rope that was stiff, like a fishing pole, but got the job done.
I could see immediately that the system was safe. It allowed us to go where we would die otherwise, and that was very, very cool. Shortly, I bought a harness... a white, wrap around Choinard that served me well for a couple of years. I climbed in tennis shoes for almost my whole first year. I'd blast through the toes pretty quick and just kept fixing them with shoe goo. I had cut all the knobs off the soles to make them less flexy.
It was all really fun in those days... I was getting up new things almost daily and doing things that were impossible weeks earlier. Ross's brother Dana had a better rope he gave us, and we top roped a few other short things. I met another kid who had a harness and a few biners and we combined our stuff to make a rack of 8-10 carrabiners and went to Smith to see what we could do. I remeber leading a bolted 5.9 face climb, clipping each bolt with a single biner and arriving at the belay with one to spare. I was a rock climber!
Those days at Smith seem surreal to me now. You could just show up at the parking lot, meet climbers and ask what they were going to do and if you could tag along and get a top rope. It seemed completely normal. Everyone was friendly and I don't remember ever being blown off. Pretty soon, I knew some people with gear, and even had a guy I'd just met, loan me his rack for a week. At that time it was all hexes and stoppers, but now we could climb cracks too! That was a very big deal.
Somewhere in here I met Rick Dierckson bouldering and was taken under his wing. He was quite a character, who I'm sure, is well remembered. He told me to "Never buy hexes, "friends" are the ticket. One friend is better than a whole rack of hexes". He took me to Smith and led me up a 5.10. I remember yanking the gear as I climbed and leaving it on the rope. As I neared the belay, I had 7-8 pieces dangling in front of my legs. Rick was happy I made it without falling, but just shaking his head at what a mess I was. He taught me my first lessons of trad climbing in good style, a little ettiquette and how to just be less embarassing. He also showed me how to self belay up a rope with a jumar. I think he was living with Brooke Sandahl.
I finally made the trip to Portland to buy some real climbing shoes. Now I could actually find rests and place gear on lead. I still had almost no rack, but was meeting lots of people and getting top ropes wherever I could. It was the steep part of my learning curve and I would try anything, it didn't matter how hard it was. I remember watching a guy trying to lead Whartley's Revenge at Smith and noticing that his belayer was tied off, as if to keep him from flying upward if he had to catch a fall. Whartley's is a steep, strenuous (5.11b) crack climb with the crux at the top. The climber failed at the crux and took a short whipper, but offered me a try... I got up the strenuous part by just moving through it quickly. It wasn't pretty and at the rest before the crux, my leg wouldn't stop sewing-machining. I was still losing strength so I went for it... No real thought, just pulling on jams and paddling with my feet. Flailing to where my hands simply would not clutch a hold anymore. I made a faint stab at the crux reach and immediately flew off backwards. I may have tried again, but was so arm-pumped by then, there was no way, and lowered off. I think Watts and (Chris) Grover had shown up and seen a bit of the spectacle... the new (5.10a) kid, trying to lead Whartley's. After that I was part of the scene and climbing had become all that mattered. Soon I would even lead a 5.11a and make my way onto the locals' points list...
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 14, 2012 - 07:22am PT
|
Some of the Smith Rock locals back then were Alan Watts, Alan Lester, Chris Grover, Tom Blust, Kent Benesch, Craig Benesch, Frank Cornelius, Brooke Sandoval, Steve Mrazek, Dana Horton, Rick Dierckson, Chuck Wheeler, John ("Deucie") Middendorf, Sean Olmstead and Doug Phillips. The local business was the "Juniper Junction", 100 yards from the parking lot, which sold ice cream and later the "Fire" (fee-ray) shoes imported by John Bachar. At Terrebonne was a mexican restaurant that made superb chimichangas.
Climbing with Frank (Cornelius) one day in the basalt gorge, he told me, "If you can make number 1/2 sized friends, they'll sell like hot-cakes in The Valley". I'd taken machine shop and welding classes all through high school, then, in college, I had access to the machine shop there. I decided to do a batch of 50 as a manufacturing project. They had fairly bendable steel stems and tubular brass triggers. It was before I knew anything about swaging wires, so I think I used bicycle cable and swages made from copper tubing, with a swager made from a pair of plyers that I would hit with a hammer. I didn't know what a logarithmic spiral was, but I knew that a friend cam decreased 1/3 in radius each 90 degrees. I juggled numbers until a certain percent added each 15 degrees gave me that, and machined lengths of cam stock, that was then sliced to make cams. Springs were made from guitar string. They were pretty crude, but worked well and sold quickly enough when Watts took them to Yosemite and sold them off in the Camp IV parking lot.
At that point, I had been to the valley one time, for a week, with Sean Olmstead. It was an odd fit, because he was straight as an arrow and I had a weed habit, but we had lots of fun bumbling around and tring to find good climbs we could do, which was maybe mid 5.10. It was an adventure just being there. For our first climb we went to Reed's Pinnacle wall to do the highly recommended "Reed's Direct", but it had people already on it and more people waiting, so we went down the wall to a thing called "Stone Groove", which is maybe 5.9 or 5.10a. It's the first time we've ever been on granite and the stuff feels like glass. It wasn't even vertical, but it was pretty hard for us both. It felt slippery and awkward. We both came down a little fearful and humbled as to what we may have in store for us on anything harder. As we reassembled our gear, Werner Braun walked up in just shorts, shoes and a chalk bag. He mumbled something and proceeded to free solo up and then down the climb we had just struggled with, then moved on before we could even get our packs on. We just stared at each other in disbelief. It was the only climb I can still remember from the whole trip.
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2012 - 08:34am PT
|
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2012 - 12:35pm PT
|
Welcome Steve!
As a fellow Aridzonian I look forward to your tales of business and pleasure!
I still proudly carry several of your TCUs going all the way back.
Several generations shown here and still in service!
Thanks Mr. Byrne!
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 14, 2012 - 01:43pm PT
|
The scene back at Smith was really fun. On weekdays it was best to make plans with someone, but on weekends you just showed up and headed down to the dihedrals. The base of Moonshine Dihedral was the standard place to dump your pack. Typically most of us would warm up bouldering on the easy traverses at the base of New Testament. This is also the base of Whartley's and just a little over is the base of The Shoes of the Fisherman. Eventually all plans and preferences were known, and we'd split up accordingly to go do our projects. Generally, later in the day we'd head back to the dihedrals and depending who was around either hang out or head up the hill to the parking lot. One of the great things about Smith is how much of the area can be surveyed at a glance from the parking lot.
The (basalt) gorge was a little different. The parking for it is down at the end of the road and you can't see anyone until you're right on them. For me, the place had a completely different feel. More forbidding and dark and humbling. The river also goes through some rapids there and makes some noise. You just don't notice the birds twittering like other places in the park. The rock varied from slippery smooth to open celled obsidian foam that will shred your taped hands just by touching it. Most of the rock is in between. Awesome columnar lines, with an amazing variety of climbs.
Alan Watts was the mastermind of the Smith Rock points system for hard climbing. In retrospect, I'm sure he has mixed feelings about it, since climbing is not supposed to be competitive. Somehow it wasn't taken that way, but we were still curiously motivated by it. I remember the incredible satisfaction I felt one day when (Chris) Grover had conceded that I probably had more points than him. At this point I don't remember how many points anyone had except that Watts had like triple that of anyone else. Alan Lester was the established number 2 local and the rest of us were all packed tightly somewhere down the list (Yes, Alan kept track!).
The way it worked is this: To get on the list, you had to lead a 5.11- or harder climb with no falls and all pro placed on lead. Once you were on the list, you could get points by just top roping... the base scale was 3 points for 5.11-, 4 points for 5.11, 5 points for 5.11+ and so on. If you led the climb, there were bonus points available. Nothing counts unless it was freed. To count as a lead, all the pro had to be placed on lead and not fallen on. If you yoyo'd, it counted the same as a top rope. So you got 1 bonus point for leading it, 1 more for leading it on-sight and 1 more if it was a first free ascent.
In retrospect, there were quite a few things would never have gotten climbed without the point system. Obviously ugly, hard things that can really take some skin off your shoulders. Shoes of the Fisherman has this awkward section, with slot groveling, shoulder gripping, snagging rack etc. Really not fun. The other one that was just horrible was Tarantula. Innocent looking thin crack undercling left under a roof and then around the corner into the flared slot. There's a bolt out on the face to keep the rope out of the slot. Awkward with lousy painful jams. It looks pretty easy, but is hard because there's just no good way to pull on anything. 6 points though, and right off the trail... you can't pass that up! For what it's worth this was all very good training and taught us to be creative and deal with stuff that was unpleasant (Thanks Alan).
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 14, 2012 - 03:55pm PT
|
I met Doug Phillips just after making my first batch of point fives. He had just finished developing his Slider Nuts. He passed a bunch out that we were all playing with and they were the only thing to this day that would work in the gaps between the bricks of the bathroom buildings there at Smith. They worked really well in paralell cracks, but were a bit heavy and could get stuck pretty easily. Doug needed help making Sliders and had seen my point fives, so he offered me a job. I had been faced with the dilema of moving to Klamath Falls to continue my engineering education, when I really just wanted to climb. A year off of school while working at Metolius Mountain Products seemed like a good answer.
Doug is extremely soft spoken at first, but we had a lot of fun working together in the shop across the driveway from his old house. He has a good sense of humor and things were all in all, pretty good. We climbed together occasionally, although he didn't seem so obsessed like some of us. Sales were good. All the stores seemed to be buying them and Metolius had a good foothold for launching anything new that may come along. Unfortunately this only lasted about a year, by which time the stores must have all been stocked and the real market demand from climbers took over. In any case, my job had dried up and I was let go the next summer.
My next decision was to move back to Bend and take a few more classes and get access to the shop there again. I made another batch of small friends (3/4" this time) and was climbing and bouldering a lot. Alan Watts moved into the same apartments and we started training and bouldering together more regularly. We agreed to take a ballet class to improve balance and flexibility. It was good. Within two weeks I was placing my feet statically where I had to swing them before. We took it for two quarters. There was another guy in the class that we never quite figured out.
One day we decided to run down to Awbrey for some bouldering. I had been getting close to working out the crux of Chris Grover's thin crack problem, but hadn't done it yet. It starts with a couple of non jamming moves and then a little pinky jam you can lay off of a little. higher up it widens to a finger lock and then a handjam. When the time came we went over to it and I felt pretty good and finally pulled through the crux. Alan was "spotting" me sort of. What this meant was that at the critical moment, he almost couldn't get out of the way. I had my eyes glued on the bomber fingerlock where the crack widened and fired my hand up there as soon as I thought I was in range. I was! I had it! but just as my finger slotted into the jam a foot slipped and it was yanked out, leaving ugly flappers on both sides of my index finger. The fall was only six or seven feet, but I must have been really focussed, because somehow my tongue was all the way out when I finally hit. My feet hit in a way that didn't help and I landed hard on my butt. My tongue was instantly numb and I knew this was not good. I'd never been aware of sticking my tongue out before and this was a nasty wake up call. Alan gave me a concerned look as I brushed off. My finger was my only functional problem. I tell him "I vit my vongue" or something, and have him look at it. He says it doesn't look too bad and we laugh it off a little, except for my finger... that was unfortunate and would affect my climb selections for a couple of weeks. We bouldered for another hour and then jogged the mile back to the apartments. Upon inspection in the mirror I realized I'd need some stitches and went to the hospital. Eight stitches... two on the bottom and six on top. To hear Alan tell it later, he says when he looked at my tongue it was barely hanging, but he wasn't done bouldering, so he played it down. It left a very nasty scar that I carry with me to this day.
|
|
jfailing
Trad climber
Lone Pine
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2012 - 05:51pm PT
|
Steve - keep it coming! Thank you for writing these great stories about Smith in the early days!
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 15, 2012 - 03:26am PT
|
Mixed in with the climbing and friend making, I was also always tinkering with new ideas. I had made a roller nut, A little two-cammed mini buddy, a set of curve RP's and stoppers, the drilled 'biner etc. and finally the TCU. Doug Played a little too, he made some cool hauling pulleys and did some stoppers, but mostly just made sliders as he needed them. We did go and test the first TCU together one day at the gorge, but until I brought cams into his shop for him to play with he had never made one, and until I left Oregon, he had never made a TCU. The Idea for putting a cable loop around three cams sprung together, came while sitting in Doug's shop one day. At first, I didn't think it would do much, except make the units flexible. It wasn't really any narrower. There were still five elements plus two springs, but it seemed worth trying, so I made one up. The very first one had the cables soldered straight into holes drilled through the axles themselves. The trigger and spacer were similar to those of today. It was tricky to make, but very compact and in rock, it was easy to find places where nothing else would work. The next ones were very similar to much later ones and can be identified by coffin shaped fittings and loose, peened over axles. I had made the first ones with steel dowel pins for the axles, but they broke at 800# in Doug's tester, so I replaced all the axles with grade 8 bolt shafts.
The first batch of six were played with and sold to a few locals. Todd Skinner was the first person to see one and truly get excited. He instantly knew what the future held, long before anyone else. He had appeared at Smith with a couple of friends in a VW van, and we all liked him right away. They were proud to be living and climbing on 85 cents a day per person and he even bragged about finding a fresh road-killed deer(still steaming)and leaping out with a big knife and cutting off the hind quarters. He imagined out loud what a passer-by would have thought and made a demonic, knife handler pose. I still laugh. I was able to sample a bite of his quarry, fresh sauteed, right there in the parking lot. Not bad at all!
Soon I was making batches of ten and starting to sell them as the new flexible point fives, but also in 3/4" and #1 sizes. I had learned from Hugh Banner to use a router to make cams and made a jig and some pattern cams. I made a trip to the valley with Doug and a couple of his friends from cal. in his old silver van. When we got to camp IV, I made the rounds, trying to sell some. I remember handing one to Skip Guerrin (sp?) who looked at it for a moment, then cast it down onto the picnic table and declared, "That's the shittiest point five I've ever seen." I was surprised. Maybe Skip, just didn't like me or something. It's the only conversation I've ever had with him. I still laugh about that to this day. Others were more open minded and gave them a chance. Dick Cilley immediately bought some and started selling them from his trunk.
Back in Oregon, Doug was going to meet with his patent lawyer, so I had him take a TCU to get an opinion. It was obvious by this time that there would be a demand for them. He came back and told me that It clearly violates Ray Jardine's friend patent, but that the improvement could be patented. It would cost about $3000 and still wouldn't allow us to make them legally. He said, "The patent part is really up to you, but I just can't afford the risk." (of violating the friend patent by selling TCU's). I was disappointed, but it put me where I was anyways. If I wanted to make a living I needed to make and sell TCU's and I was the only one who made them, so it should work out. I had no reason to distrust Doug and had no hint he ever planned on making them, so I figured we would part as friends and I would start my own little business, like he had two years before.
My first task was making a deal with my parents, who were mildly encouraging, but seemed much more concerned that I might not finish college. I told them my plan would be to find a school with the bachelors degree I wanted and good climbing nearby and that I would go part time, while running the business and establishing residency. Then I could enroll full time and be back on track. I would just need about $10k to get started... They reluctantly agreed, with the plan that I would pay them back, starting in about a year. I couldn't afford a patent, but no one else even knew how to make them and patents were for big corps that could afford to hire lawyers anyways. My plan was to sell TCU's by mail order at first until we were established, then later sell to stores for a wholesale price. Finances were tight from the beginning, but I was living my dream and very excited for the future.
There were three schools I was looking at as possibilities... U of Cal at San Luis Obispo, NAU in Flagstaff, and U of S. Colo. at Pueblo. I was going on a road trip to go look at schools. I would start with a couple of weeks in Yosemite and then make a big loop and visit my school towns...
|
|
drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2012 - 09:28am PT
|
Cool. I know where this is headed, and i like it.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 15, 2012 - 11:48am PT
|
One of our natural, favored activities as humans, is watching the release and transformation of energy. High speeds, explosions, impacts... all can be very captivating. As climbers, we often find ourselves in high positions surrounded by loose, heavy objects that are just begging to head downhill. We would call it trundling if we helped them and it is generally not encouraged in guidebooks or by anyone unable to witness the events.
I confess to trundling. I f*#king loved it! I even made special excursions just to go trundling. I had help sometimes... actually alot of times. One time, Frank Cornelius and I went up to do "I Almost Died", a slanting 5.11a, with the crux just before you get to the base (long uphill hike). It is situated overlooking the wide, steep, scrubby slope that wraps around the right side of Picnic Lunch Wall at Smith Rocks. After finishing the climb, we became diverted rolling a few rocks down the hill. First, grapefruit sized, then watermelon, then Frank says, "Hey Steve, come check this one out." I come over and he's got a washing machine sized boulder, all ready to go and just needing 2 sets of legs to get it started. I don't actually remember pushing it, but the rest is still petty vivid. It rolled a short distance, then hit something and broke in half. One piece went nowhere, but the other half, about the size of a trash compactor, found a stable axis and started rolling. We could see very quickly that this one was going the whole way. There hadn't been anyone down there and it's not the direction most people would go upon entering the park, but we yelled like hell anyways. The rock started taking bounces and it had this incredible spin. It was as if it accelerated with each bounce. We lost sight of it briefly as it passed through a few cottonwoods next the river, then heard a woody crash just as the block reappeared mid river with a splash and finally rolled to a stop on the opposite bank. As we hiked down it was apparent that some of the bounces were well over 50 feet. Where the block crossed the trail there had been a bench. All that was left now, were two little boulders with concrete flat spots on top. This element of the event still gives me some regret, but at the time, it was hilarious! The block is still there, I'm sure. It's the big yellow one. All the others around it are darker.
Frank and I climbed, bouldered, tripped and trundled together quite a bit towards the end of my Oregon days. Then we caravanned to the Valley together at the beginning of my exodus. It wasn't my best trip. I had pinched a nerve in my ankle when a block we were leg pressing rolled back and pinned it (yes! I know, trundling and karma!). It's amazing how important ankles are, even for just walking around. I think I bailed early to go visit my sisters in Newport Beach and to heal a bit more and then went back to Yosemite.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 15, 2012 - 06:01pm PT
|
Back in the Valley was the funnest time there. This was May 1985. At that time I was climbing 5.11+ if it was a crack and about 5.11- if it was face. I wasn't going to get much better. At that time Deucie was there with all the camp IV regulars. Scotty Franklin was climbing trad routes, Christian Griffith, Johnny Woodward, Todd Skinner and others made for an interesting scene, with lots of diverse opinions.
I was of the mind to go trad if you have a chance of doing it, and if it's just out of reach, save it. And if it's way out of reach then go ahead and flog it. There was actually a climb at Smith, no one had led free, called the Zebra Seam. It got top roped alot and I had been all over it many times. I actually led it (placing pro) on top rope, then led it again without the top rope. It was the worst style ever (still 2 bonus points!).
One unfortunate side effect of saving climbs, is getting overly worked up about them when the time comes to try. Back to the Valley, Christian Griffith wants to go do "Tales of Power", a really steep handcrack below Separate Reality. It was a dream of mine ever since seeing a picture of Ron Kauk doing it. I wanted to lead it on sight, so I told him I'd go and follow him if he made it, but if he had to hang, he had to lower off and clean all the gear and we were jugging out. He agreed. It was immediately apparent that this 5.13 face climber was way out of his element. His hands were pretty pudgy and just weren't making it happen for him. We stuck to the deal, but I think he had me tie off the rope so he could jug and clean at the same time. I heard lots of grunting and cursing and when he got to the ledge he was pretty scraped up and not at all happy. Looking back I feel stupid about it, cause I fully scoped out the climb on rappel. Still, it was fun watching an big international name in lycra, so out of his element.
When I was ready I had the same issues finding a partner. That was until I met "Mr. Way", now probably just known as Brian Knight, and offered him $10 to follow me... on jugs if he had to. He went for it and It went well. My hands go into 1 1/4" crack pretty securely, so there were only a couple of sketchy moves right off of a good rest. Then it was Brian's turn. Again there's horrible grunting and cursing, but he actually came up smiling. He immediately spent the $10 on food and then fed me with it. I felt bad, cause that meant he did it for like $6 and change, but we hung out and became friends. Later I ran into him doing dishes at the cafeteria in Telluride. We crashed at his place and he let me wear his ski pass for three days. Believe it or not, he was totally stylin' and had a HOT girlfriend living with him. I hear he's a lawyer now... Man I'd like to see that. He was a riot.
Peter Croft was also very active in the Valley at that time, but he didn't seem to rope up much. I was okay soloing 5.8 or 5.9, but didn't like to hang it out too long at one time. Peter came by one day and asked if anyone was going over to Middle Cathedral. He wanted to go solo the northwest face I think. I asked if there was a good solo, but maybe shorter and 5.8ish and he suggested the Braille Book, which was about vertical in a book, with lots of holds. It looked good so we headed over there. Peter to do his 9 pitches and me to do my 5.
It's a really good climb. There were a few places where the rock seemed a little fragile but there you could be careful and it wasn't too bad. The top of the 4th pitch has a nice little ledge, but above that is an off width that looks harder than 5.8. Even if it was 5.8 off-width I'd still be screwed. Why didn't I notice this on the topo? I tried jamming myself into it and squirming up, but that was ridiculous. I couldn't figure it out. There was a hand crack that went up to the left, but it was obviously harder than 5.8. I considered downclimbing and looked down for a moment... Yikes! The hand crack was looking better now, so I gave it a try. It went up a short overhang and over a bulge out of sight. I was thinking it was too hard and then over the bulge I got to a fixed nut with a carrabiner on it and nothing but mossy blank above. I hung on biner for a moment in disbelief and then started carefully downclimbing back to the ledge. I remember squeezing every jam really hard and made it down to the ledge, but I was freaked. I tried arm barring the off width again, but there was no way. I sat down and may have wept a little. I worried about mom if I didn't make it out of this... That wasn't ok! But Pete! Pete knows where I am, he can get me a rescue... No, that might piss him off... I look at it again and think I just may be able stem it palm to palm and not use the crack at all. I finally try it and find it to be about 5.8. As soon as I topped out, I see Pete trotting down the trail from the top. He has a big smile and says, "How'd you like it? That's a nice one, eh?" I told him my adventure and he says "Oh, yaa... I think there's a little 5.10 off of that that doesn't go anywhere, you don't want to go that way". Whoa Nelly was he right!
The best part of the trip was running into the Flagstaff gang over by the base of controlled burn. I think it was Jim Gaun, Bobby Dubois, Rand Black, Jim Erdman and Barry Ward. After hearing about Flagstaff, I decided to head there next. They gave me the address of the local climbing "flop house" I was on my way...
|
|
Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2012 - 06:45pm PT
|
This is good stuff!
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2012 - 08:06pm PT
|
Hello Steve-
Been a long time...
I believe we climbed the West Face in good time on that 1985 Yosemite visit. Quite a fun adventure.
Looking forward to seeing where this goes.
Until then, cheers
John Middendorf
|
|
michaeld
Sport climber
Sacramento
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2012 - 08:16pm PT
|
Love it man, love it. Keep them coming!
|
|
JBC
Trad climber
Portland, OR
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2012 - 09:49pm PT
|
Hey there Steve!
Great stuff, keep the stories coming! I fondly remember working with Wired Bliss as an early dealer. Great cams, and great dealing with you. My personal original set is long gone, but I was pleased to be able to replace them not long ago.
Jim Couch
|
|
squishy
Mountain climber
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2012 - 09:57pm PT
|
best thread in a while...
|
|
Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
the secret topout on the Chockstone Chimney
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2012 - 10:06pm PT
|
Famazing! Keep it coming Steve!
|
|
R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2012 - 10:17pm PT
|
^^^ Flagstaff Boys right after that +1
(Barry, Jim G., Jim E. & RB sitting on Bobbly Wobbly's Baja Bus Tailgate during a Valley trip.)
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2012 - 04:28am PT
|
Thanks, everyone. The encouragement helps a lot.
Hi John... It has been forever. I've missed you and I'm sorry for what came between us. You figure prominently in the next pages and I remember only good things. I hoped you might read this. Are you in Taz now? I gotta tell you my plans...
As I recall, When we did the West Face of El Cap, we passed Charlie Fowler and his woman partner (can't remember her name, just a lot of really bright colors) at the big ledge before the crux. I think we did it in like five long pitches and were back down a bit after lunch. What a blur that was! It was, "Come on, come on, come on!", then "Go... Just go!.. just keep going, pull on whatever, but just don't stop!" This went on for 3 hours, then we had to jog to the rappells with all our gear. You were checking you watch the whole time, like we were late for Disneyland. You were kind of in a speed climbing phase. I remember, you had done Nutcracker in 30 minutes base to base... How blurry was that?!
I assume by now, it's probably been speed soloed. Does anyone know the record?
I'll continue tomorrow and eventually get to the end or thereabouts. I just wanted to thank everyone again for the support.
|
|
silentone
Mountain climber
wisconsin
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2012 - 04:56am PT
|
Cool thread
great reading
I like your style
Thanks for telling us your story.
S.O.
laughing about the trundling did you keep it up or quit?
|
|
JMC
climber
the swamp
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2012 - 04:58am PT
|
Hans Florine maintains a site with Yosemite speed records here: http://www.speedclimb.com/yosemite/Elcap.htm
The West Face has been ticked at just under 2 hours. I'm enjoying your serial autobiography, Steve. Keep it up!
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2012 - 06:01am PT
|
I don't trundle much these days, but it is still in my blood. Years later, in my hang gliding days, I had a friend with a built up, high horsepower jeep. Our local hill generally required 4wd, but he wanted to try it in 2wd and just horsepower up it. We got pretty far up, but started bouncing as the tires would spin and then bite. Finally, one of his axles snapped and we came to a stop. My first words, upon seeing the wheel laying there were, "Hey, can I roll the wheel?". This was Merriam Crater, northeast of Flagstaff, which is a grassy cinder mountain 1400 ft high and we were at about the 1200 foot level. Keep in mind, this isn't just a tire. It's the whole wheel, complete with bearings, brakes and now a short piece of axle...
At first it stayed on the road, but then veered off and disappeared down into a little valley. It had good speed when I saw it last. After driving his jeep down to a safe spot on three wheels, we went to look for the wheel, but couldn't find it. He drove my truck while I flew over a couple more times, but I never saw it. He told me later that he had gone back with a friend and another tire, and had his friend watch from below as he rolled the 2nd wheel. The 2nd wheel came to a stop and 50 feet from it, they found the first one.
These days, I think I'm less enthralled by the destruction, but I don't know. If it was the right rock, and I was in the mood and no one was watching...
|
|
rick d
climber
ol pueblo, az
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2012 - 08:24am PT
|
steve!
what is up. Glad your here tellin' stories.
RB, the whole crew in one spot. Maybe you could start a flag thread and tell about Gaun's pacemaker.
|
|
drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2012 - 08:34am PT
|
Classic shot there RB.
Loving checking in on this thread.
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2012 - 08:38am PT
|
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2012 - 11:26am PT
|
I almost made it to Flagstaff. In those days I was driving an beige Audi Fox station wagon. It was essentially the same car as the VW Dasher, but somehow much less reliable. It was pretty quick for an econo and handled well when shod with good, low profile tires. The best part was a rear area about six inches longer than the rest, so I could sleep diagonally with the hatch closed very comfortably. In the Valley lots, I could usually hear the rousters in time to hide and throw some gear over my bag. After waiting through a few flashlight taps they would usually leave. Once, over in Curry Village I forgot and left my little tv on... that time I got busted.
I-40 leading to flagstaff comes up a few big hills on the way. Approaching Williams, AZ, 30 miles to the west my oil light came on, then I started losing power and finally the clunking. I made it into a gas station in Williams, but that motor was done. When I came to Flagstaff, it was in the passenger seat of a tow truck.
The guy towed my car to the Holiday Inn parking lot, next to the Audi dealer. This was on west 66 just as you entered town. I think it was a weekend. I decided to walk around a bit and maybe find a popsicle. Right down a short street was the little Pik Quik store. As I was paying for my popsicle the clerk asked if I was a climber (he could tell from my hands). I nodded and told him my basics. His name was Danny Ott and I met with him and a few others the next morning to go climbing in Winslow. When we met up, it was Tim Coates, who was really our guide, Danny, Dave Gorman, Stan Mish and Tim's girlfriend, who's name escapes me. It was to be a skinny-dipping trip, which made me nervous, since I wasn't sure I wouldn't spring a boner at the sight of Tim's girl, but mostly we just climbed. The Winslow gorge (Clear Creek Canyon) is about 200 feet deep, with mostly sheer walls and a riparian oasis in the bottom. Further down it becomes lake and I look forward to canoeing there when my kids get a little bigger. I was immediately struck by a thin crack across the canyon, called "The Hanging Judge", a 5.12 climbed by Tim. Alas it was a bit of a project to get to and no one there was up for it.
When I arrived in Flagstaff, there were two groups of climbers. There was a climbing store owned by Larry Coates, Tim's older brother, and it was the headquarters of the "Purist" group. They were the old timers and the purest of trad climbers, even eschewing the use of chalk. I went in there once, and asked if they had any for sale. I was told, "No!" and brow beaten so badly that I never returned (I mean sheesh! no chalk?). There were rumors of crags that they wouldn't tell anyone about. Tim had been sworn to secrecy and was kept sequestered. There was absolutely zero mixing between them and the folks I was getting familiar with. They are still a mystery. In any case, Tim was resposible for most of the hard routes done up until then, and my hardest projects would be repeats of his. Tim was pretty quiet and never gave any details and I never saw him climb. That day at Winslow, he and his girl just pointed out some things and disappeared up canyon until much later.
I remember climbing a bolted 5.10 face with Stan, who would become one of my best friends. It was super hard, varnished sandstone with soft stone behind it that had degraded leaving very sharp edges. Yuck.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2012 - 02:30pm PT
|
The early moments at any new climbing area are always kind of magical. You see things and want to know what it is, how hard, freed yet? etc. Flagstaff has a lot of smallish areas locally, and a continuous variety in almost every direction if you were willing to drive. There was the Overlook at Oak Creek Canyon, terrible climbing and great bouldering at Mount Elden, bouldering at Buffalo Park and the museum, beautiful basalt at Paradise Forks and down in Prescott there was Granite Mountain.
I think in most cases a central spot is needed for a full-on "scene" to really develop. Oregon had Smith Rocks, Yosemite had Camp IV and other places had their own. The climbing scene in Flagstaff was kept coherent by virtue of happy hour at Alpine Pizza on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It has a covered outdoor patio and was simply "THE PLACE TO GO", if you were a climber in Flagstaff. Stan used to show up in his little blue Datsun truck with his trademark mannequin leg hanging suggestively over the tailgate. Wonderful times were had there, even for non beer drinkers. Later we would share space with the equally impressive and rowdy, "Mutant Bikers" gang. They used to stack their bikes in one big pile, which I remember being well over my head on a couple of occasions. It seems like within a couple of weeks I had met just about everyone.
I rented a warehouse space (555 Blackbird Roost #9) and set up my bedroom on top of the office. Barry Ward was my first employee at Wired Bliss and my main climbing partner for maybe my whole first year. He's tall and thin, extremely good natured and was climbing at about the same level. We used to bail from work early, several times a week to go climbing. Sometimes we'd just go bouldering, but usually we went to The Overlook to free solo.
The Oak Creek Canyon Overlook is at the top of the highway switchbacks on Hwy 89A, about 12 miles south of town. It has a mix of pretty clean to jumbled basalt columns and is loaded with routes, mostly from 5.6 to 5.10 in difficulty, and all crack climbs not requiring off-width skills. It was heaven. We set up a rappell rope in the same place, in the same tree, with the same rope, using the same knot many many times. It was our favorite rappel and we knew every little bounce and bulge blindfolded. Depending on moods and such we'd do 6-12 pitches in a couple of hours, and then head home with sated minds. Often we would climb together, sometimes separately. Free soloing was special, because it was simply too serious to be competitive in any way. Backing down was a proud thing. Scaring yourself was stupid and it wasn't about that. It was about doing it and not scaring yourself that made it ok. It was a phase for me and for Barry too. I'm so glad we both lived. The sense that I may have been encouraging Barry always made me very uneasy, but he insisted that wasn't the case and his choices were all his. It seemed ok and I don't remember any bad scares from it.
Courage is something you learn, or maybe fear is something you get used to. There isn't much difference, but it does allow a person to do some stupid things and luck through them. I don't remember how I ended up by myself at the left end of Granite Mountain, but I found Jim Waugh there doing a hard climb with someone and my mind clicked. Rap line going up! The climbs in that area all end on the same big ledge, about 100 feet up and there's no way to climb down. They were going to rap off and I could use their rope if I wanted to solo something. Down a little ways from Jim and partner was a twin crack in a box stem thing that was 5.8 or 5.9 depending how you did the exit around the roof at the top where the stem box ends. I think it's called "C.W. Hicks", or maybe that was the climb Waugh was doing? It was chilly and a little wet, but the rock was dry and climbable... mostly. As I got to the little block/roof part, I could see that the left side (5.8) was dripping with water and became concerned for a moment. Looking down, I had done a lot of stemming that wouldn't be easy to reverse and the right exit didn't look too bad, so I continued. You can kind of stem as you move out to the lip of the roof, but then you have to commit and move out onto the corner. Once you get your feet up to crack level, it's over. I committed my feet first and swung over onto them so I could see up the crack. There was an obvious, kind of weird, half hand jam and I wanted it. I reached up and expected alot more grip than I was getting. It was wet and my hand slipped. Just for a moment I was out of balance. My stomach flipped! I grabbed again and still slipped, but less and then again hard! Finally I had enough to move on and advanced through to the top. I was shaking bad as I clipped in to rappell. On the ground I told Jim about it (less detail) and he said, "Aww... I would have given you a belay." I feel stupid just remembering it. It was one of very few moments in my life when I really felt threatened... and for a wet 5.8?... I just shake my head. Soooo, sooo stupid.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2012 - 05:40pm PT
|
The first days at Wired Bliss, Barry and I worked together making benches and setting up shop. Then it was on to sourcing materials and making jigs and just nailing down procedures. Everything was hand made. I had looked into getting springs made, but I'd have had to buy too many and making them by hand was more economical. I also looked into getting fittings made and ran into the same story.
I think it was about that time that I was on the phone with Alan Watts and he told me that Doug (Metolius Mountain Products) was also going to make them and were calling them TCU's. I was blown away. I asked him what the f?, basically, and he told me, "Doug says the two of you worked together on it and decided he couldn't afford not to make them". I knew Alan knew better, but apparently Doug had given him a job and he was on Doug's side or somehow didn't care. I called Doug and asked him what he was doing and he said, We got a call from the Japanese (a group there were buying in batches for a club or something) and they saw some and wanted to buy 150 and that he also planned on wholesaling cheap to "penetrate the market". His position was that we worked on them together and he saw it as an "equal opportunity". The fairy tale was over. It was going to be a battle.
Cash was always very tight. Now I also had to get into as many stores as possible, before the Metolius knock offs. Selling to stores, they all expect a wholesale price, plus Net30 terms. We really weren't ready and did the best we could. We were always behind on orders. There wasn't enough cash yet to grow any quicker and we started losing our market share. Eventually we grew to making a couple of hundred units a month when it was busy in the summer. In the winters it got slow. The competition from Metolius was a serious blow. They already had ins at Adventure 16 and most of the stores in the country. Beyond that, all most people knew was that they were invented in Oregon. There was a small corrective factor in neutral parties who knew the truth, but it wasn't enough. I may have thought eventually we would win out, because we had the truth on our side and because I had essentially, already seen Metolius fail once.
The next Spring I had just developed the .4 and made a climbing trip with my girlfriend back up to Oregon and then down through Yosemite. At Smith Rocks I ran into Doug at the base of Picnic Lunch Wall and we had a conversation. He showed me a different style of TCU, with nicopressed cable loops around the axles and the thinner double cables soldered into a flat base. He said they were cheaper to make and worked just as well, but he was puzzled that nobody seemed to want them, so he went back to the original style. Like an idiot I told him about the .4 and that we were going up to 1 1/2 as well. A couple of months later a friend came in with a metolius zero he had bought on the road. I traded him for one of ours and started playing with it. Within a few minutes I had broken the welded fitting off of the axle. I called Doug again to warn him of the problem, but he didn't seem concerned. You'd have to place one upside down in a pin scar and then whip on it and he probably figured I just wanted him to look bad. I thought about promoting the issue, but just let it go. That wasn't who I was. I was still a climber.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2012 - 06:23pm PT
|
Retrospectively, I was still in good spirits about climbing. I'd run into Deucie again in the valley and he was psyched to come visit Flagstaff. I was also climbing at about my peak. On my last day I led Fish Crack on- sight and then top roped it, jamming the crack straight in. My girlfriend was having a bad day and didn't make it and got really pissed.
On the way home she was driving and we got pulled over for speeding in Tuolumne meadows. I thought she'd just get a warning and I'm pleading with her to stay calm, but then the officer came back and says, "Ma'am did you know that your drivers license is suspended?" She freaked and started just laying into the cop and screaming at him. We caught eyes for a moment and he motioned for me to get out and come talk to him. I came back and got in his car. I explained to the cop that she was on her period and had a bad day climbing and was really frustrated. Then I begged him not to give her a ticket. That I obviously had my hands full already. He asked if my license was valid. I lied that it was and he let us go.
Later, as we were passing a detention facility evidenced by multiple "Do Not Pick Up Hitch Hikers" signs leading out of Death Valley, she finally asked what we talked about. I was a moron and told her the truth, because I thought it was pretty funny. She freaked out again and told me "That's it! Get out" as she slammed on the brakes and pulled to the side of the road. I said, "OK! Fine! Just let me get my stuff!" I was incredulous, but ready for it to go down that way. It had been a very rocky relationship due to my being overlapped with her previous boyfriend. It had been a devastating yoyo thing and my heart was ready for closure. This would work for me... dumped mid desert, by a prison! I got out my pack, Ghetto blaster, box of tapes and my sleeping bag and closed the back of her truck. It was done and she started pulling away. I couldn't believe it, but it was perfect. After a short distance she stopped, reversed and much more calmly said, "Come on..." I reloaded my stuff and we drove home without further incident. We never spoke of it again. I think Deucie fell for her as well, but sometime later, when she and I were more "over". We never talked about it, but I think she may have hurt us both pretty bad.
Deucie's visit was a blast, and we did the standard tour, complete with Alpine Pizza and local's introductions. He was impressed and decided he'd move to Flagstaff and start A-5 Adventures here...
|
|
steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2012 - 06:33pm PT
|
Here's your three-sided stembox at Granite Mountain.
Magnolia Thunderpussy. Originally rated 5.8, now crept up to 5.9
The really hard first pitch of C.W. Hicks is to the left.
|
|
Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2012 - 07:02pm PT
|
This is awesome, the spontaneous illustrations by the peanut gallery is supercool.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2012 - 08:46pm PT
|
Yep, that's it... Magnolia Thunderpussy... out the right side there. Yeeee!
|
|
R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2012 - 08:52pm PT
|
It's almost Time to make the units (while bluesing out to The The - Soul Mining)
|
|
OlympicMtnBoy
climber
Seattle
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2012 - 01:31am PT
|
Wow, I'm really enjoying reading this thread. Thanks Steve, I've been on the edge of my seat for a few moments in there, please don't stop yet!
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2012 - 06:40am PT
|
The early Wired Bliss days were very special. Nothing was perfect, but it was good. The tasks themselve were all pretty basic. Some required a little skill and some not. There was some scrap at most stages including final assembly, and we usually had a couple of "2nds" that would get snapped up quickly. Everything on my rack was always for sale except my small bass nuts, And would be replaced by prototypes or 2nds. I was able to climb as much as I wanted and started getting some great people to help me.
The first employees were Barry (Ward), Matt Knopf, Jim Erdman, Alan Humphreys, Dave Insley, John Rapp, Todd Applewhite, Frank Wetherell, Bobby Dubois, Brent Fogelberg and (I'll fill in more as their names pop back into my head) at one point there were 13 people.
They all brought in their favorite tunes and we listened to alot of the same music over and over. Just like photos, music triggers memories and become themes for certain points in time. On my trip with Sean Olmstead he had a tape with early U2, The The, and Zebra. I'm easily taken back to that time. Earlier, in Bend it was Led Zeppelin's In the Out Door and Loverboy. In the Wired Bliss shop the first new arrival was Soft Cell's Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, which was the theme tape for the Flag gang's Yosemite trip back in 1985. We listened to Big Audio Dynamite, English Beat, Marillion, The Cure, the Meat Puppets and many others.
No one had a schedule. Everyone came in when suited them and worked as much as they wanted. For some, that was full time and for others, much less. There were no specific paydays. As money came in it got distributed. Sometimes someone would need more and go negative and other times we all waited. It was all cash under the table, kept track of on a chalkboard. The pressures from wholesaling so early, meant that we were never able to afford going completely legit or pay back my folks for their loan. There was only so much you could do. It made more sense to just get what we could out of it, and try not to think about what we were missing. The business aspects were not my strengths and still aren't.
I was a "shop guy", from the age of 12 when I got my first dirt bike and started tinkering. In 9th grade I took my first welding class, then machine shop and since then, always made sure that I was enrolled in classes that gave me access to the shops. By the time I was 15, I could fabricate most things I could think of.
I wasn't supposed to be racing motocross, but was anyway, and in 1979 the hot setup on dirt bikes was water-cooling. An air cooled bike would lose about 30% of its power due to heat, this is especially painful on a 125. All the bikes came air-cooled, but a few guys were machining away the fins and welding flat stock around them to form a water jacket. Then they would put on a small radiator behind a perforated front number plate. It cut the power loss to about 10% and was such a huge brakthrough that in two years, all 125's would come stock with water cooling.
I had bought a spare cylinder and did my own. When I was done I took it to the local shop to have the bore honed and while it was sitting on the counter Rob Muzzy walked in and saw it. At that time Rob was a motorcycle tuner who primarily modified motocross engines for flat-track racing. He also made exhaust systems that were used by many of the top pro racers. Working for him when you're 15, is a dream come true. He saw the cylinder and asked me if I welded it, how old was I and did I want a job. I only got to work for him in his garage for 4 months before he got hired by the factory Kawasaki road racing program and moved to Florida. He taught me a lot though, and introduced my to the small scale business model almost everyone starts with. In the garage, with workers paid under the table.
It had been that way with Doug at Metolius. When he decided to go legit and pay taxes it was a big surprise. I was supposed to get a paycheck for $250 and he hands me one for less than $200. Then he tells me it's so he can go legit. It took some explaining for him to understand that it meant the same as a cut in pay for me. I was very pissed. The timing was also really bad, because I had an abortion to pay for. I didn't tell him that, but after some discussion, I got him to maintain my pay rate and write me a new check. I should have seen it as a warning sign.
|
|
rick d
climber
ol pueblo, az
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2012 - 08:12am PT
|
Steve-and origins of the denim lined thin-hands crack in the shop?
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2012 - 02:54pm PT
|
Having Deucie come to town was like getting a big fun Christmas present. He was truly game for anything.
One time, I think it must have been part of a Tucson trip, he and I and Ira Hickman decided to go skydive at Marana. None of us had ever done it before, so the mandatory first jump was a static line jump from pretty low... like 3000 feet.
The instructor was a short for her weight, middle aged woman who, appropriately, took the subject very seriously. She also demanded full, eye to eye contact, no talking, hands on your laps attention at all moments. It was way more than Ira could handle without making jokes, and the next thing I know, he's getting chewed out. He was totally trying to comply, but Ira had kind of a "Matt Damon" look and just couldn't quite get the smirk off. I couldn't see what was happening, because I wanted to jump, and I could tell the only way that was going to happen was if I maintained eye contact with this control freak, sky-nazi. I was on probation by association and kept a very straight face as she erupted again and started to kick Ira out of the class. Deucie's cheek must have twitched and suddenly he was in the path of her fury as well. Both were kicked out and given back their money. I gave her my most innocent, obedient, yes ma'am, ass kissing look and was allowed to proceed. All good fun, not much risk, and it gets you in the air. The instructor was on the radio every second and I don't think I was allowed to make a single twitch without her say so.
Tucson was also the site of the annual "Beanfest" down at Cochise' Stronghold in the Dragoon mountains south of Benson. That place has a feel to it. I don't know exactly what it is... history? ghosts? I've found myself more in awe there, than even Yosemite. It could be just me. At one of the events, we split up to explore and scramble. I saw Bobby Wobbly (Dubois and I think maybe Jims Gaun and Erdman doing something reasonable so I went to investigate and followed Bobby up as he climbed. It was 5.7 ish and quite fun. Usually when you solo you have to climb by yourself. We chatted and Bobby seemed a little nervous. I was ok.
We had first generation 5.Tennies back then. They climbed awesome, but blew out quick and I think the importer (Chris??? something Cole?... help me), lost his shirt replacing them. Later models had more foam in the soles and were more of a scrambling only shoe. When we got the first ones, I remember going to the overlook with Jim Gaun and doing a few 5.11's in them to see how they rated. We were very impressed.
After leaving Bobby and Co. I headed up to the pass behind Rockefellow Dome. Rockefellow is just freaking massive! It's about 400 ft (?) tall and thrusts from the earth in a way that is somehow, just... humbling. As I popped over the summit into the "point of most awe", there was Deucie, also drop jawwed at the unfathomable impressiveness of the thing. The bright yellow lichens streaking the clean shear face seemed to dance slightly, mocking us in our insignificance. We exchanged a "Whoa!" and a "Ya... no kidding." and decided to scramble around the back way behind Rocko to head back down towards camp. I was in the lead first, then John then me again and we found a nice line, mostly clear of brush and with good, runnable talus. I was moving pretty quick, but John was on me close and giggling and so it was... Game on. I can't imagine moving any quicker. We were like a couple of gazelles. As we rounded behind the dome, our path, which was pure fall line, had steepened a bit and we started being faced with small drops in the 4-6 foot range. That simply meant touching with both feet for a moment and hd no affect on momentum. When the drops grew into the eight foot range it got a little serious. I remember thinking many times that was sketchy, but John was right there. The rhythm changed and the drops became the game. A couple of drops later we're both laughing out loud. Finally after a big drop of maybe 10 or 12 feet, I hear a whoa!! and the footfalls behind me faded. Our heart rates were about at redline and we eased up. It was hillarity in motion. The most fun I've ever had.
Later we were on a kayaking trip with Stan Mish and Bobby Becker up to the San Juan and Deucie wanted to paraglide off of the Mokee Dugway. A thousand foot sandstone escarpment with a very improbable, switchbacky road carved into its face. The spot he jumped from was a little ways down from the top, but it was nuts! I've always thought paragliding was a bad idea and in those days I knew of several fused ankles for reinforcement. To be on top of a cliff with a parachute that you have to inflate and get control of and then jump is serious business. Those of you who have seen John in serious mode will know what I'm talking about when I say he had his game face on. He did everything right and it still looked crazy. Truly at the mercy of the wind. At the bottom he had that wide eyed look of someone with massive adrenaline slowly dissipating from their veins... and a big smile, "Wooo Hooo!!!"
I was satisfied with what I had seen. I wasn't going to do that.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2012 - 03:11pm PT
|
Whatever happened to Ira Hickman?
I'll never forget the time he ran down the Peralta trail in the supes and ran full speed into a Barbed wire fence at thec parking lot. As I recall it just ricocheted him backward, with little effect. I came down the trail a few minutes later and he was laughing about it. He might still have been in high school....
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2012 - 05:01pm PT
|
This is some wild stuff. I recall there might have been some chemical enhancement on our talus running adventure. Fond memories.
|
|
R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2012 - 08:43pm PT
|
Tim Toula turned us all onto 5.tennies; they were pretty cool for sure.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2012 - 07:07am PT
|
One of our trips was to Las Vegas. It seemed to be one of those trips with more driving than climbing and we ened up at a remote canyon that one of the loacls wanted to check out. It as a whitish rock that looked like almost granite, but was more like bad sandstone. There was an obvious hand crack we climbed that would have been 5.9. after about twenty feet you passed from vertical crack into less vertical fractured blockiness. More holds appeared, but nothing you could pull on.
I wasn't our best outing, but on the way home we got to talking about gear. John said he'd been think about doing a slider type chock with a "sliding ball in a groove."
Note: my original post I wrote "rolling ball" and I am sure that both forms were discussed. As I am corrected on details, which can be important I will correct and note my posts accordingly.
I told him about a "Roller", I had made back at Metolius (before "Rock 'n Rollers"). It had a single roller about a quarter inch wide that rode in a matching groove in the wedge element. The one I made was all brass and it was the only thing I've ever seen that actually held in the precision ground slots of a milling machine table. In rock, the problem was point loading on the roller, which either fractured the rock or deformed the brass under any serious load. I suggested that a ball would be even worse, but if you cut it in half and let it slide instead of roll that it would have good surface area and still be able to articulate. John said "Wow. That's good, but it wasn't my idea. If you want to pursue that, go ahead." I was always open to the idea of a new product, and it seemed worth pursuing, so when we got back to town, I started playing around with it...
Earlier I had seen how John had tied cord around the triggers of his tcu's, for easier removal back in slots. It gave me the idea for the "Fumble-Proof" triggers that became standard very shortly afterwards. Most simple inventions have a moment of discovery lasting not more than a few seconds. A spot of clarity where old methods merge into the new one. In both cases John had provided a key stepping stone.
For the first prototype I wanted something flat, thin and strong that I could clip into or tie a sling on. I had an old Choinard "Crack-N-Up", so I cut the arms off of it and soldered on the new components. It was immediately apparent that I was onto something, but needed to scale it up and get it onto a cable somehow. We bought a milling machine for cutting the grooves and I made a short, stubby little cabled #2 prototype and proceded with more testing.
John had turned me onto a very useful item for gear testing called a "f*#kedness device" or "f*#kedness tester". It is not, I repeat NOT, called a "Funkness Device". What it is, is a good sized climbing hammer with a few feet of strong cable attached to the head and another carrabiner on the loose end. You could do one with webbing, but man! the Cabled F testers were really the ticket. What you did was place the gear to be tested in a crack and attach the loose carrabiner from the F tester to it. Then you made a mighty swing, bringing the hammer's mass to bear hard on the end of the non stretchy cable. It could create an impact force capable of breaking or deforming most any form of crack protection. The goal, if it was a chock, would be to have it fail at the cable or break apart, rather than pull out of the crack. It revealed the weak part of a piece and gave one a sense of how "F*#ked" it was. I also remember it being more dangerous than swinging an axe. I wasn't quite ready to use it on my new little trinkets. The first tests would be done in the real world of big wall climbing...
|
|
Dickbob
climber
Westminster Colorado
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2012 - 01:42pm PT
|
Steve,
Great thread. It brings back lots of memories. I learned true crack climbing at the Forks. Every summer weekend in the year 87 and 88 we went to Flag. Always had a lot of respect for the Flagstaff boys.
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2012 - 02:26pm PT
|
Steve, your memory on the inventive aspects is amiss. What you write here is quite frank, yet different from what you said to me the last time we talked in the discussion of the patent; however there is more to the story. Perhaps it is time to get all this out in the open. Let me gather my thoughts on this painful subject.
|
|
JMC
climber
the swamp
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2012 - 04:05pm PT
|
bump. 5 sizes of TCUs for sale in 1989, and 2 sizes of rigid quads.
minor drift - John, this must have been an expensive catalog to make at the time, with the 4 page color insert, and staggering royalties to Jaybro and Xavier for their musings.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2012 - 07:30pm PT
|
Hi John,
It's coming up. I'm trying to remember as best I can from each step. The conversation in the car was the beginning. The patent comes after Mescalito, and we still have some good times left before then. The best stuff is coming up. I can't quite peg why I'm doing this now, but it started flooding back in my mind as a narrative, so I thought I'd go with it and get it down. Thanks for following this. It means a lot to me.
|
|
R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2012 - 08:03pm PT
|
Steve,
I fondly remember both you and John from BITD. Both of you contributed to the culture of not only the local Flag climbing scene, but innovative to the climbing world as well.
It is healing and important to retroinspect the past and use that to help with today and tomorrow.
Until later, RB
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2012 - 08:39pm PT
|
Steve, I will be posting a different version of the story. One point that I need to make clear now is that the idea that I introduced on that roadtrip was NOT a rolling ball, it was a sliding ball in a grooved wedge. The significance of this will be more clear, for those readers who are interested, when I post scans of my drawings from prior to my sharing the idea with you, as well as the explanation of the logic behind the inspiration.
I am trying to figure out how to present my thoughts in a like manner. I appreciate your frankness, and many of your recollections are quite flattering. And I see that a different version of your recollection might have replaced what actually happened. In the beginning of this thread, I was not surprised when you said the memories were good, as you were the one who walked away with the Lowe royalties and sole credit for the idea among the climbing community. It wasn't the same for me. But it wasn't the money, nor the lack of credit for the idea, that has been grievous. Instead, it was something else (two things, actually--our friendship of course being one), which I will elaborate on further when I present my thoughts.
I will probably wait so as not to distract from your very much appreciated history (which goes way beyond our inventors drama) of what for many, especially in the Flagstaff community, was a seminal time of our lives.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 19, 2012 - 01:34am PT
|
Corrected prior post to read "sliding ball in groove". I believe we talked of both sliding and rolling, in any case, the notion of a ball was John's and my part was to cut the sliding ball in half. I do want to get this right.
|
|
jack herer
Big Wall climber
Veneta, Oregon
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2012 - 01:43am PT
|
Hi Steve,
Great posts, being a only a young child during that time it is fun to read about the local good old days. I live part time in Camp Sherman, a couple houses away from Dougs. One minor correction, it's actually Kent & Craig Benesch. Kent is still cranking 5.12...
Cheers
Tyler Adams
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 19, 2012 - 01:46am PT
|
correcting...
Wanna light a bag of poop on Doug's porch for me?
Thanks!
|
|
jack herer
Big Wall climber
Veneta, Oregon
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2012 - 01:53am PT
|
Not at all friends with Doug, never been over there. Sorry things played out as they did.
Just a friend of Kent's, whom I owe much gratitude too for helping a young climber out.
Cheers.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 19, 2012 - 06:58am PT
|
Okay Jack, you can stay.
I'll pay you $50 each time you do it, and $100 if I get a picture. No limit. I'll pay you somehow.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 19, 2012 - 07:50am PT
|
The Flag locals were almost all into climbing big walls and many great stories were shared over pizza and beer over at Alpine. Rick Dierckson had been very explicit to me about not pulling on protection, EVER. "Protection should only be weighted in the act of your life being saved". Then on aid climbing: "There's no point in aid climbing." "You may as well just jug a rope, or climb a ladder, or drive there."
Is Rick still out there? The last time I saw him, he and Skip Guerrin were leaving Hueco Tanks to go exchange the rental car they had just trashed because it was making bad ticking noises. They had gone 4-wheeling in the night and came back to the quonset hut where everyone hung out at maybe 2:00 am. When I saw the car, maybe a Grand Am or something in dark metallic red, it had loose fenders and a mangled rabbit coming off of the front bumper, like the bowspit of a ship. Memorable... Skip always hated me, just for being short, I think. What a pair.
I had been focussed on free climbing, but all of my friends did walls and now Deucie coming to town would finally be the tipping point. We talked about it alot. I would go think and then come back and ask questions. Then when I thought I understood the process we talked about failing. How to fail if I would need to and why it happens. Big wall failures seemed to be pretty common and I wanted to understand why.
Occasionally there were undeniable events, such as injuries or gear failures and dropped equipment, but here were also a lot of cases where the team was unbalanced and patience was lost, or motivation was lost some other way. A "F*#k this." decision is made, and the effort is abandoned. After analyzing the possible social dynamics related to me doing my first wall, I decided it might be best to do a solo. I was going to be slow and didn't want to impose on anyone. Another issue was patience. Belaying for aid would seem to me to be exceptionally boring. Then there's the issue of hauling. If you solo, you can "body haul", meaning that you ride the end of the haul line down as your bag goes up. When body hauling works well, it is truly a wonderful thing. The sequence of soloing appealed to me. I would always be busy and I wouldn't slow anyone down. If I failed it was all me.
The next question was when to do it. These discussions were taking place during the fall of 1987. One aspect of wall climbing is managing water. I believe "(1) two liter bottle of water per day per person in winter and about double that in the summer" was a general rule of thumb. John had suggested "Mescalito" and estimated it ought to take me at least 8 days. My thinking was pretty logical. Going in winter would save 30 lb off of the weight of my haul bag, I would stay warm by being very busy and I wouldn't be able get bored or piss anyone off. I actually thought my odds were best this way. The biggest motivator of all was John saying that it would be very "bad-assed". I also wanted an adventure.
That Fall we had gone on a few trips, soloed quite a bit at the overlook and hung out a lot. John had bought a house near downtown, that had a nice warehouse in the back. It was very nice and had a big flat wall that became a climbing wall. I was a bit jealous and wanted to be equally equipped at the Wired Bliss shop. We built a small wall for Wired Bliss. Face climbing was always my weakness and I generally blamed being short (5'5"). Later, Scotty Franklin would prove that being short could actually be an advantage. Scotty also had a pair of enormous guns, and was one-arming back in his teens.
I had made a "crack-machine", inspired by Tony Yaniro, for the Wired bliss shop. It was the "denim lined thin hand crack" mentioned earlier. In those days, the best way to get my attention was to whisper "handcrack" into my ear. "Free pizza" worked as well. I had small hands that made a lot of hard climbs feel several grades easier than they were rated. This helped my ego, which was rarely sated. Tales of Power is the ultimate example. It was rated 5.12b, because the crack is 1 1/4", most peoples' rattly fingers bad size. I could hang upside down from 1 1/4", but 1" was a different matter. My test was a bulging slippery basalt crack at the Forks called "Sail Away"... I didn't want to tape up to use the machine and wood wss too slippery, first we tried kitten fur (jk), but it was too soft and so I lined it with denim. Unfortunately, it would give blisters as quickly as it gave a pump.
In any case, the Wired Bliss face climbing wall had 3 holds on it when I fell off and landed on my wrist. I thought I had sprained it and laid of it for a couple of weeks. Getting X-rays was too much $$$ for the minimal pain I was facing. We went to J tree on one of our outings and something happened doing a little handcrack roof on toprope. Apparently my cracked "Scaphoid" bone separated at that time and has never since completely healed. I didn't realize it was broken until a year later and treated it as a sprain and continued climbing. It didn't hurt to pull on things, but I couldn't mantle on my left side anymore. It wouldn't be a factor on El Cap.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 19, 2012 - 11:28pm PT
|
An El Capitan big wall climb has got to be one of the most unique experiences in the world. The entire trip, you're never more than a mile from the car. You're so completely on your own, but you can see car headlights. In my case I knew I was going to get checked on, but how much can they tell from the ground? Do they wait until you haven't moved for two days and then what?... get out the telescope and look again? If something bad went down, you can't just expect a chopper to magically appear. That El Cap rescues happen that way at all, seems unreal. Especially solo, and on the steep part of the wall, any kind of rescue was putting a lot more people at risk than you ever want to be responsible for... probably just to scrape off a body. Will the rescue guys split up my gear? A lot of thoughts were going through my head on that drive out there.
The biggest unknown for me was how would I deal with being on the side of a cliff for days at a time? Do some guys freak out after a week and unrope and jump? It's got to have happened. How tempted will I be? No partner to stabilize thoughts, have I ever been alone that long? What about at the top? Base jumping had fascinated me. Especially the story of Bret Mauer, who jumped El Cap as his first parachute jump. Randy Leavitt had coached him in a vertical wind tunnel and that was it. I knew that the jump spot was at the top of the New Dawn wall at a spot the called "The Diving Board". If I was successful I'd be dumping my haul bag from there. Would I freak then?
I kept my speed down. It was hard to. I went for three years with a suspended drivers license, because I couldn't stop getting pulled over. The speed limit was still 55 mph back then, which was unsafe for everyone because of the threat of falling asleep and wrecking from the boredom. The Audi would go about 100 if you let it run, but was happiest at about 80. Going well below this and solo, seemed epic. In those days everything was precarious, money, the car, drivers license, and now this improbable trip.
I hadn't told my folks I was going. I figured they were better off not knowing what was happening. I doubt they could imagine the nature of this kind of climbing. That it would mostly be just hard work and a kind of repetitive routine. But so far up that if you drop something, it just disappears... No clanking down the rock or echoing from the base. Just poof, gone. No noise at all.
I had been told to expect problems. Deucie couldn't tell me what my problems were going to be. Only that it's a big part of what makes doing walls interesting. Almost all of the problems would be mechanical puzzles. Pulley problems. Physics... I was confident, but not to a point where style was actually ever a thought. Just getting up would be enough on this one. I had made a shock corded, 8 foot longer cheater stick. This would be my ace in the hole if anything was out of reach. It folded into a little 12 inch bundle and had a short length of very malleable aluminum connecting a hook to the stick. The hook had a short sling with a biner on it. When weighted, all of the load would go onto the hook. The soft aluminum section allowed the hook to be positioned as desired to most easily hook things, probably fixed pieces or slings.
Werner nodded approvingly when I showed him the stick... "You'll make it"... "Looks like you got it all." He'd hardly said anything else as he checked out my gear layed out behind my car, parked at El Cap Meadow. It was a real trip for me. The only time he'd spoken to me before that was back at Stone Groove 2 1/2 years ago. Now he's checking me out, sizing me up and probably thinking "This will be interesting". I had left a note for him on the Camp IV bulletin board that morning, but he'd been in touch with Deucie and knew the score. He would check on me daily and phone in the update. There wasn't much going on in the valley at that time, which was mid January. It seemed like there was alway a patch of clear weather for a week or two in January so this was hopefully my best window. Werner left, I assume back to Camp IV, and I commenced humping loads to the base of Mescalito.
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2012 - 11:50pm PT
|
Now we're getting to the good stuff. Keep it coming!
|
|
steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2012 - 12:13am PT
|
We used to hit Alpine Pizza all the time in the early 90's.
This is the back of a t-shirt I picked up sometime back then.
Haven't been there in years... just sort of moved on to other places.
Anyone know how the pizza is these days?
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 20, 2012 - 12:37am PT
|
One thing I should say about myself on this climb, is that I didn't hurry. It made much more sense to me to conserve and rest and enjoy. That's how I rationalized what is actually laziness. If you can imagine actually doing a wall and being lazy about it, and a novice, that was me.
It took five trips to get all my gear to the base, maybe 3/8 of a mile and a couple of hundred feet vertical. By 2:00 I'd be ready to start climbing.
About half of the gear was mine and the rest was borrowed. Deucie had set me up with everything I'd need. There were some items he made me buy, like the haul bag itself, but most of it was on loan with just a few rules about what was or wasn't ok to drop off the top. The key custom gear was from Fish Products (Russ Walling) and included the bag, a big "Fish Hook", port-a-ledge and several smaller sewn stash bags with loops.
It wasn't what you might expect for January. Clear, sunny and calm, and about 50 degrees. There was no trouble staying warm while humping the loads, that was certain. Then the rock had it's own warmth. Facing south makes it a wonderful solar heat collector, aimed perfectly to catch the sun in winter.
Mescalito starts out with five pitches that are less than vertical, ending on a big lumpy ledge. There are some pendulums to the right from there, and then you're committed to the main part of the wall. It surprised me when I found the bottom of the route. It's not like free climbs where you just look for the chalk. You have to pick out the slings from the first belay and kind of work your way down. It looked pretty blank until I was right up to it. Then I could start to see a few rivets and features. At the bottom it started looking reasonable... wires, a couple of rivets and into some cracks. I was looking forward to this.
The first two pitches went down without much incident, except for the hauling. I'm guessing that the haulbag weighed 150 pounds and I only weighed 130 (back then), so I had to pull myself down to it. My plan had been to body haul as much as possible. This is a method of hauling where you clip yourself into the haul line, and with a pulley, lower down as the bag is pulled up. Unfortunately, when the bag outweighs you you still have to work for it. On the first pitch I learned how fun this was going to be. It was apparent right away that the only way to get the bag up was a combination of body hauling and jumarring down the haul line, pulling myself down and the bag up at the same time. When I reached the bag I jugged back up to the anchors and did it again. Eventually I would have the bag at the anchors and then rap down to clean the pitches from the bottom up.
It must look a little funny to see someone bivy 200 feet up, but I never saw any point in trying to fix ropes. That would mean energy wasted jugging and then sleeping on the ground. It had been a good first day. Loads got humped, 2 pitches down and no major difficulties setting up the ledge and getting comfortable. I slipped into my double sleeping bags, pressed play on my tape player and opened a can of cold Beefaroni. I was exhausted. Half way through the can I fell fast asleep, not to wake until it was day again.
|
|
Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2012 - 12:37am PT
|
Enjoyable all. Thanks.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 20, 2012 - 01:23am PT
|
The second day wouldn't be quite as smooth as the first. The next pitch would teach me a good lesson.
I had the lead routine down pretty well. It's enjoyable aid climbing when it's less than vertical. You can get into a stable rested position for making placements and it's a lot easier to jug with your toes stabilized against the rock. Most of my placements were made from the second step of my aiders. There seemed to be designated placements that everyone had used that were maybe 3 feet apart. Occasionally there'd be something longer or shorter or there'd be options, but mostly it was specific spots where you had to place something.
About 30 feet up the third pitch I had placed a couple of small nuts and found myself staring up at a flared 1/4" pin scar aimed upward into the crack. I'm guessing it was a thin Lost Arrow scar and I was thinking about what to put in it when I remembered the Ball prototype. The placement was a long reach and when I got the piece into the scar I didn't like the look of it. It was hideously flared and the direction of pull on the piece was straight out. I tried to pop it back out, but I had set it slightly and couldn't quite get high enough up to yank up on it. I thought if I pulled hard it would just pop out so I hooked on an aider and carefully shifted my weight onto it. It was holding! I could not believe it was holding! Carefully, I climbed up a step and hooked in my fifi. It was a miracle, I was giggling. The next placement was a bombproof stopper, which I casually placed and removed from my biner of medium stoppers, replaced my biner of stoppers on my rack and selected a "free" biner. I then clipped the free biner to the good stopper and started reaching for my free aider.
Pop! ting! pop! and suddenly, I'm just dropping... During the fall, I got turned sideways, and then I hit the haulbag... Whumph! When I finally stopped, I was upside down, about ten feet below the bag and feeling really stupid. I was physically ok, but it scared the hell out of me. There were some scrapes and bruises, but nothing serious. I was surprised the rack was so heavy and getting flipped over was a big wake up call. I collected myself and jugged back up to my last good piece, did one more move and without hestation, whipped out the cheater stick and reached to hook the stopper I had all but clipped into before falling. I felt humbled. It had been a mistake that wasn't necessary and it could have ended my climb right there. I had to be more careful. The rest of the pitch passed without creating any memories.
The fall had shaken me. It was about 40 feet, and my second longest of all time. It also distracted me, and I forgot to check the topo before starting up the next pitch. I never carried all the rack with me at once. It was more like racking up for a free climb at the start of each pitch... looking up and guessing on sizes. What wasn't used was kept at the top of the haul bag. I thought size-wise, the next pitch looked similar enough, so I went with what I had. I didn't realize this was a mistake until two moves from the anchors... Hook moves!
I only had a single bathook on my rack, but I was faced with two moves to get to the anchors. I thought about cheating, but it was horizontal and it would have been a process to get my weight over there. The hook placements were bomber, an inch deep with a quarter inch lip and a deep depression behind that for the point of the hook. I considered going down to my bag for another hook, but really didn't want to waste that much energy. I decided to try something different and proceeded onto the first placement with my single hook. I knew the move would be critical so I gave myself plenty of slack to reach the belay. Carefully, I placed the point of my fifi hook into the depression next to the skyhook that was holding me. I was going to "match hooks" and try to make the move off of my fifi. My eyes were glued to the wobbling little hook. I held it straight with one hand while I carefully reached right with the good hook and found it's new placement. At the point where I was ready to transfer my weight onto it the fifi turned sideways, popped from its hold and sent me flying. I must have had alot of slack or pulled something, because I had gone about 25 feet. After recovering, I jugged up a little and pendulumed into range for another "stick move" to finish the pitch. This fall wasn't as far, and was cleaner, but it gave me the sick feeling that I was in over my head.
The fifth pitch up to the ledge was easier. Even the hauling didn't seem as bad. There were anchors on the wall for the portaledge and it was nice to have some rocky earth under me. The climbing itself wasn't scaring me, but I was scaring myself. Two days and I'd already fallen 65 feet from stupid mistakes... How good would I be when the climbing actually got hard?
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 20, 2012 - 06:52pm PT
|
The next pitch included a couple of pendulums to the right. I felt more committed, since I wasn't sure how to undo them if I had to retreat. I still wasn't worried too much, and had a very positive mindset. I had settled into a routine. Each morning I waited for the sun to reach me and warm things up. This is probably the best time on a wall and I feel sad for all the teams that get up at dawn and start climbing cold. The higher up I climbed, the earlier the sun would hit. One of my greatest pleasures was seeing the line of the sun come down the wall to me, anticipating and then feeling the it finally hit me. After a half hour or so I would get up and go to work.
The solo method of that day consisted of tying one end of the lead rope to the belay anchors, tying yourself into the rope with a clove hitch and feeding yourself slack by advancing rope through the knot. Is you climbed and left pieces behind the lead rope was clipped into them. When belay anchors were reached the lead rope would be transferred to the new anchors and tied in, then the slack in the haul line was taken in and the line was clipped into a hauling pulley or similar setup. I had a hauling pulley made by Doug Phillips bitd. With the slack removed, the climber ties into the haul line and starts down the wall, as if rappelling, but supported by the haul line and the bag on the end of it. Body hauling was sarting to work for me and on my best days, I did 4 pitches.
I did take some more short falls, and finally tallied about 100 feet of falls taken. When you're aid climbing and come to a fixed piece you have some options. Obviously, if it's good you just clip it and go, but when it's questionable, different people do different things. Some people yank on things pretty hard and try to break them, others might try to avoid it somehow altogether. I was lazy and small so would try to be very gentle and pretend the fragile pieces were asleep as I clipped into them and climbed up. I remember advancing once on a medium copperhead with a single strand of the 7 strand cable left. Other things would fail. It would have been easy enough to do the route without any falls, but I think it would have been slower.
At times things were pretty fun. There's a thing called the "Molar Traverse" where from the anchors you go straight right a ways and then straight up a crack in a corner to the belay bolts up under the roof. The body hauling had become easier as I consumed food and water. On this pitch the haul was effortless. I was able to coast into position and clean the entire traverse from the anchors over to the crack in one big pendulum swing. It made me smile and giggle as I plucked the gear. Back at the bivy and it had started snowing lightly, but the snow was blowing up the wall, not down.
It was a different world... Vertical pack camping. Some things were really wonderful. In real life I'm an insomniac. It's very rare for me to sleep through an entire night. On the wall I slept perfectly, every single night. It's pretty ironic when non-climbers say there's no way they could sleep on the side of a cliff, when it's the best sleep I've ever had. There was also the weight loss and ab workout. Absolutely the best program in the world. I started out pudgy and stumbled off "cut". The first few days, my abs were pretty sore. Moreso than any other part of me, but that had passed. As had a sore throat from the first days of the climb. I was way behind on my eating and would have plenty of food, but water was going away at the expected rate. If I didn't find or collect some, I'd need to ration it.
I don't remember if it was a single pitch from there or more to the base of pitch 13. At first I was psyched when I got to the belay, which feature a decent ledge, but the weather was finally getting crappy. Inside the rain fly I was starting to get drips of condensation and I just didn't warm up like the other nights. I had a couple of little shaky pouch hand warmers and a can of beef stew that I thought would be much better warm, so I combined them and put it in my big stash bad with my extra clothes and hat. That would be my breakfast tomorrow.
One of my main staples was Cheeze-its and cream cheese. It was another recommendation of Deucie's, highlighted by a near starvation story, stranded by a freak storm on the South Face of Half Dome with only a single tub of cream cheese for several days of extreme cold. My problem was that as soon as I ate some food and my stomach stopped complaining, I would fall asleep. I had cans of fruit, the aforemention Cheeze-its and cream cheese, some snacky stuff and a bunch of Chef-Boy-R-Dee products. Mostly, I just ate the Beefaroni, a half can at night and then the rest for breakfast. Tomorrow would be a special treat.
It kept getting wetter and the insulation in my bag wasn't working very well. I could stay warm if I didn't move around. Any parts of the sleeping bags not against my body would be cold. I still slept ok, but I was achey and sore from not moving when I woke up. As I looked outside it was full on raining and the next pitch looked ugly. I didn't feel like climbing and decided to take the day off. Above me the rains were melting snow on top and on all the ledges. Even a seemingly vertical face like El Cap has ledges and channels that seem to direct water this way and that. After a while the drips started combining into trickles and then worse.
Inside my rain fly, I decided to have breakfast and maybe move my bivy over a little if the most offending rivulets failed to abate. I looked around for my big stash bag, but couldn't find it. There weren't many places to look, it was just gone. So much for a warm breakfast. I had a bad feeling. I looked outside again and the drips were worse. I had to move and it wouldn't be to anywhere nearby. The whole ledge was being showered with rain plus a line of drip streams a foot or two from the wall. Back inside it was apparent that I had to DO something. The condensation was dripping from multiple sources. I was being evicted and had the ugliest pitch of my life between me and my next home.
|
|
dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2012 - 09:47pm PT
|
Mmmm, wall wetness.
|
|
justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 03:12am PT
|
Wallflower wanting more.
please continue.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2012 - 06:58am PT
|
I'd decided to climb a single pitch and get my bivy to a drier spot. I wasn't hoping that the next belay would be drier. It simply couldn't not be. The spot where my portaledge had hung was now directly under several thin, dancing streams of water. The next belay would be drier for sure.
After climbing up a few moves, I was drawn into a flared squeeze slot with a thinner crack way in the back. These sort of pitches are no fun for anyone, whether free climbing or aiding. The problem is you can't reach up very far, so each move was less than a foot. The other problems are untangling aiders and forcing up the slot with all that rack on. The pitch was miserable purely by virtue of the climbing, but there's also a very cold running water drip hitting dead center on my head.
I hate water and especially cold water splashing me in the face. I did kayak for a while and had great fun on river trips, but my face kept getting splashed. Sometime the water was really cold and would go up my nose. I remember sitting in eddies dreaming of doing dry things. I had a cheap plastic rain suit on, but I was still getting soaked. I was getting really frustrated, Water was getting in through my neck and running up my sleeves when I reached up. I tried just forcing through it, but there was no use. I was just thrashing worse and getting more frustrated. Finally I broke down crying. I didn't care about climbing up anymore I just wanted off. I decided to bail.
I started thinking about the sequence to get down and how long it was going to take... If I kept my bag with me it was going to take a few days. If I dropped my bag there was still no way I was getting down in a day. And then there was the pendulums... How do I undo those with my haul bag... or even without it? I just sat there for a while... Thinking, sobbing, and realizing how committed I really was. If I wanted off, I may as well go up. At least I had a procedure for that. And then there was the irrelevant aspect of finishing what I came for. I didn't care.
Committment is what makes adventure what it is, and I don't think it can be pleasant. How do we handle the difficulty? Without the commitment you can back off. I've had lessor adventures, where the tasks were not too bad and bailing was never a thought. I barely remember them. I remember this day. It was 25 years ago, and I remember it better than my last meal.
I'd go up after all, and I would eventually get off this thing and be done. I became numb after that and just worked through the pitch. My spirit had been broken. I don't remember the rest of it, just that godawful slot. I actually don't remember any more at all from that day. I know I got up it and set up a new bivy and that it eventually stopped raining and I had shelter again, but I don't remember any of it. A complete blank.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2012 - 07:57am PT
|
I remember the next morning pretty well though. I had broken through. The sun was out and it was getting nice and warm. The only way it get's that warm in the winter is after a wet storm. The storm had kept the overnight temperature up a bit and the combination of that and the angle of the wall to the sun made my spot the warmest in the valley. I hung everything wet out to dry and basked in it. Gradually, I became more comfortable and happier. Then I got motivated again.
I was getting pretty efficient with the climbing and my bag had become lighter than I was. Body hauling was working perfectly and I had some good days, including another 4-pitcher. I took one more fall on an expanding crack/flake pitch that scared me, but the rest was just mechanical work. The weather was good and I climbed a lot in just a tee shirt and sweats.
There was still one more pitch that I was concerned about technically, and that was "The Bismarck", a big, right facing corner with a crack that grew from gear size to off width at the top. I think most people lay back up the top part... I'm not sure. Deucie said I'd figure it out, but I didn't know how. My free climbing on this climb was kept to about 5.5 with my boots on and all that gear. As I reached the belay below it and looked up, I was delighted to see a short length of fixed roped dangling out of the crack. Assuming it was good (and it was), I would have no problem.
I bivied at the base of it. I had been light on water at that point and made use of some drips at the back of the ledge to eventually collect 6 more liters. Foodwise, I was in good shape as I was only eating about half of what I had planned.
At the top of The Bismarck is a big ledge. The biggest on the whole climb. I unroped there to change clothes and briefly imagined running off the edge, into space... I quickly tied back in and stayed tied in. I just had a few pitches to go, maybe two more days, I was thinking. I'd get there... No hurry.
It's interesting how stressful events seem to suck the memory away from events leading up to or following them. Like a mental black hole. The section between here and the base of the final pitch is another blank to me, just like the top of pitch 13. I don't remember any of it... Was there a roof with pins out to the right or is that deja-vu from another climb somewhere? The mental files spill into each other and become confused. I sure do remember that last pitch though. It is still my most vividly memorable part of the climb, or for that matter, my entire life.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2012 - 08:18am PT
|
I had arrived at the base of the last pitch thinking I would bivy there if it was a good spot. It was late enough that I knew I'd have to be finishing and descending the next day. As it turned out, the belay was running with water in a bad way. I decided to go ahead and lead the last pitch, haul my bag and sleep on top. At this point I think it was just cloudy and maybe 40 degrees or so. The last pitch is cool, what I can remember of it. There's crack stuff up a bit then a mix of bolts and placements up and right, diagonalling and overhanging a bit. there were a couple of rivets over a bulge at the end and then you can crawl onto the final ledge with a little tree. When I reached the tree, it was pretty dark. I could tell I was on top, but I couldn't see how to get off the ledge. It didn't matter. That tree was exactly what I was looking for.
It was maybe six inches in diameter and arched toward the edge, creating a strong elevated hauling point. I'd just sit, stand, sit, stand. I could haul my bag up, hang my ledge from the tree and I was done. I'd rappel and clean the last pitch in the morning. At this point, I was tired, but upbeat... I was actually on top! As I started hauling I could feel the bag come off the hook and all was good for another ten feet or so. The bag then became stuck somehow and I began the usual efforts. Lowering, raising, pulling very, very hard and bouncing, but nothing was working.
The way I had been climbing, I would lead by tying off my lead rope to the belay anchors and advancing a clove hitch on a biner at my waist, I dragged a haul line clipped behind me. The haul bag was hanging by a hook on a biner at the anchors and had line #3 hanging from it (or stacked if on a ledge) and tied in to the belay. It would become my rappell rope if I couldn't just body haul to the belay. I had a 4th rope tied onto the haul bag. It had been that way since the pendulums way, way down and had largely been forgotten. In any case I was in a situation. My rappel line was at the bag and my haul line was under tension. A weird, misty fog had developed and everything was dripping wet and starting to freeze. Namely my lead rope. I needed my bag.
I was wearing polypro under a wool shirt and polypro under sweat pants. Over this, I wore that cheap vinyl rainsuit. I also wore a thin polypro hat, made from the legs from my extra long johns. My headlamp had expired, but the light wasn't too bad from the moon and clouds. I just really needed my bag.
I decided I would have to jumar down my haul line to the bag and either free it and jug back up, or somehow back it up and sleep right there. The haul line itself was a very used and fuzzy old purple 9mm and It felt very strange jugging back down over the lip at the top. Once I was over the edge and hanging free, I still couldn't see anything (the bag) so I proceeded down a few more feet. Suddenly, one of my jumars was just sliding up and down the rope! No friction at all. I realized it had iced and that the only thing holding me, at the very top of El Cap, was an equally iced jumar.
I thought if that went, I would slide to the bag and hit it at about 100 mph. Hopefully it would knock me out, before the feeble rope stretched to failure and I fell another rope length, before rope #3 saved the haul bag but left me with my icy jumars pointed the wrong way down the icy rope that had just snapped. Something might have tangled by then, but I suspect I'm dead either way. Oh God! How is mom going to find out? This is very, very, very, very bad. I'm about to go... from the top. No! Oh God No! These thoughts probably cycled through my mind in about 5 seconds. I didn't know what to do... but then I did! Moments like these bring a kind of clarity that can only be experienced. I think the flood of adrenaline must affect the brain, or maybe pre-death endorphins are being released.
I immediately removed the iced Klog ascender, plastered my tongue onto the icy cam and started licking! In a few moments I started to feel the little teeth and I knew it was working. When I put it back on the rope and it was functional again, I could see some light. I repeated the process with the other ascender, jugged up two moves and cleared them both again, two more, then again and I was back onto the ledge. I was never, ever going to try that again. I tried hauling again and just pulled as hard as I could until the haul rope's sheath ripped at my jumar and I knew it was hopeless. I was going to have to "sleep" on top with no gear.
That poor, dear little tree. There was about three feet of snow on top of El Cap. The ledge I was on had its own little snowdrift, settled and locked into place. The obvious spot to hide was between the little tree and the wall behind it. It wasn't sheltered of course, but it was level and there was the tree, an actual living thing. I climbed up it a few feet and ripped off some branches to make my little nest in the snow. I sat down on the pile of branches and started waiting for the next day.
After a while my feet started getting really cold... I sat there cross legged on my little nest, holding onto my feet and thinking of Hugh Herr. Alternating sides, I would take off a shoe and tuck my toes into the warmth behind the opposite knee while I tried to warm the rest of my foot with my hands. I kept thinking, "Sh#t like this is when people lose their feet." I was determined not to lose my feet. I never dozed, it was just too cold. I kept watching Orion not move very far after what seemed like a very long time. It wasn't foggy anymore, it was just plain cold and I was starting to feel stiff. The wind had picked and I was started to seriously worry about freezing to death. I really, really needed my bag!
Sometime around 2 am, I decided I had to try rappelling the lead rope. By then it had iced to about double size and looked like something out of a mountaineering tragedy film. I was able to free up short sections by shaking, pounding and flexing the rope. Then I'd, rap a bit, clip a piece, step in my aider and advance down past it, then clip the rope back in, take a minute to thaw my hands out and repeat the process. I had left my gloves at the haul bag and really regretted it. I'm sure it took longer than the lead, but as I made progress, I had hope again. Finally, I reached the belay and reeled in rope #3 to see my prize come wafting around a corner above. Oh, what a sight! I jugged straight to it, pulled over to the lead rope, tied into it, set up my bivy and slept right there.
|
|
couchmaster
climber
pdx
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 09:43am PT
|
Steve said: "My free climbing on this climb was kept to about 5.5 with my boots on and all that gear."
For reference, Zion seam that Steve references doing the FA on earlier in the thread, went at 5.12....before there was a 5.13. I was climbing strong and could get up it on toprope no hangs or falls - and in fact was TRing it when my belayer shocked the hell out of me by casually saying: "Steve Byrne led this"...!!!!! there was little to no pro for lead climbing. Maybe 5.12X then, but I don't think X had been invented. Probably another instance of Byrne's amazing little TCU's he'd invented helping to work a miracle coupled with skillful and strong climbing. Today, there is a whole bunch of big 3/8" bolts that were not there when Steve led it.
...anyway, for reference as it relates to his 5.5 free climbing comment.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2012 - 10:42am PT
|
The "Zebra Seam", got bolted? Who decided that was ok? I don't care. It's just so lame from the standpoint of tradition, that I'm actually surprised. As for my climbing it... I had it so wired before I led it, it was ridiculous. It should have just stayed a top rope problem, but I wanted the bonus point!
|
|
couchmaster
climber
pdx
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 11:19am PT
|
Sorry, didn't mean to make your narrative take a hard left turn Steve. I don't know the history of those extra new bolts .....but it is Smith. I looked it up on MP and that has it listed at 5.11d now. They curiously list Alan as FFA (TR) and you as the "FL" (does that mean First Lead??) and note the 8 bolts but don't say who or when they arrived, but that you did it without them.
http://www.mountainproject.com/v/zebra-seam/105804292
NOW! Back to the narrative and the foot amputations about to be.....what a great tale you are telling.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2012 - 02:11pm PT
|
Well, I guess it would be later that morning when I woke up, the sun was out and it was getting warm. I just layed there for a long time... probably until afternoon.
The spare, fourth rope had snagged on something and was the reason I couldn't haul. I unclipped it from my haul bag and dropped the end without even watching. Problem solved. I packed up and rapped back down to the last belay and got into cleaning mode. I coiled the third rope and climbed with it hanging from a sling below me. If I had any more problems hauling I was probably going to cut the bag loose and I wanted to make sure I had the needed ropes for the rappells off the top.
On top, I guess I celebrated (not that I had saved anything... ran out at p13). I should have gotten busy, but it's hard to do that sometimes. How bad could it possibly be getting down? I divided my stuff between what I was going to leave on top (canned food and water), what I was going to drop off the top and what I was going to carry down. I rearranged the haul bag so it had the empty water bottles on the bottom, then intermingled sleeping pad, bags and gear, with the pins and hammers on the bottom and more fragile stuff as you went up. I put everything in that I was allowed to drop and carried it up to the diving board.
It's hard to imagine a path off the edge of a 3,000 foot cliff that looked worn, but there it was. All of El Cap's base jumping history that I knew of had funneled down this little ramp. It's the perfect launch point. I'm guessing it slopes down about 20 degrees and is about ten feet from standing there to flying down the cliff. Three or four steps... I imagine for a moment and caught myself leaning forward in my mind. Yeeee! Those guys have some Balls!
I setup the bag as instructed, with an aider hooked to each corner of the rain fly and to the top of the bag forming a parachute. Then I scooched the bag down to the edge, gave it a push with my feet and it was gone. I never looked down from the top. I was still pretty gripped from the night before and finally got focussed on getting down. The snow on top had melted back from the edge a bit and so far, wasn't a problem up high.
Below the top of Mescalito was another story. I still had two ropes, the porta-ledge, ghetto blaster and all the special gear like friends, TCU's and Jumars. Maybe that's not a heavy pack for some guy's, but I was now down to 120 pounds and struggling hard. The snow was at that perfect point where you could almost stay on top of it, but every few steps, I'd "post hole" through and it would take several more hard steps to get back on top, and then again. Several times I had fallen over and had to take the pack off to get back up. Finally, I reached the top of the rappells very late in the afternoon. For anyone unfamiliar with El Capitan, the standard decent route is off the top to the right. The top slants down in that direction, and the base angles up, to a point where three long rappells will get you down.
The first and second rappells were uneventful, but slow from wet ropes. Then when I tried to pull the ropes after the second rappell nothing moved. A better grip confirmed my worst fear. My body weight wasn't moving the ropes. I started to worry and to think... "What do I have with me?"... Jumars, but no aiders, portaledge, but no sleeping gear... no rain fly = no shelter. "Oh God! Not this again!!!"
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2012 - 06:01pm PT
|
This time I was mid face, not even on a route and it was almost dark. Not a good place to be stranded. I tried to think of how to use the jumars to help somehow. I put them on as handles to pull on the rope with, then clipped into one and sat on it. Still nothing. Ithought maybe if I sat on it and lifted and whipped the other end, maybe it would go... still nothing. I only had one more possibility, I climbed up a few feet and tied a knot in the line and clipped into it then I climbed up a few more feet and let go, dropping onto the end of the rope I got nothing but rope stretch down to the ledge... I screamed out "Noooooo!" and then suddenly felt something. Not much, but maybe... I clipped into the jumars and tried it again. It was moving... just and inch or so at a time, but that was big. Each thrust moved the rope a little further than the last... Finally the rope pulled free and cascaded around me. Oh, yes! I was getting down.
I arrived at the bottom of the last rappell a little while after dark. I clipped on a little fanny pack with some candy in it and headed downhill. I left my pack right there and didn't even bother trying to pull ropes. I'd deal with everything in the morning.
Normally, I think the hike out takes 1/2 an hour, I did it in three. It was very dark with very obscure shadow and lighter areas where bare white granite was exposed. I was headed down some kind of gully and occasionally found myself on top of boulders or ledges I had to feel my way off of. I fell many times, but I didn't care. I'd stopped trying to catch myself and took most of them on my knees or hips. Sometimes I cried a little, it was so frustrating to just not know what was around me. Once, sliding down off a boulder, I was airborne for a moment. I thought I might have blown it, but hit something quick enough and kind of just rolled with it. Finally, I was walking through trees. I had no idea where the trail was and didn't care. Then there was road noise... headlights, the road, finally my car. I thought "God, I hope it starts". I gave it a fifty-fifty chance, but it came through. I was back down and sitting in my car. Unbelievable.
My plan was to head back to Camp IV and crash in the bathroom. There was some heat in there, so it would be a hell of a lot better than last night. I would have slept somewhere in my car, but with no sleeping bags I was choosing the shitters instead. Then I figured I ought to tell my folks what was up, so I headed over to the lodge to use a phone.
They said they had wondered what was up, since we usually talked about once a week. I told them a few very broad strokes and they asked where I was sleeping. I told them and they suggested that they could put a lodge room on the credit card. I said "Ok. That actually sounds really good!" I hadn't even hoped for that option. It was wonderful.
Back in the room I showered and looked in the mirror. There was no fat on me. I looked scary. It wasn't me, it was some skinny charicature of me. I put on fresh clothes, turned on the tv and went for a snack from the machine.
At 2:00 am I woke up. My hands were burning. I put them under cool water in the sink and it helped. Over the next few days they dried out and started peeling badly, I assume from the cold rappel. I eventually went back to sleep. My break from insomnia was over.
That morning, I got to be the star at Camp IV and it felt soo good! First, I got marched over to the gym for a weigh in (120 lb, 0 Oz.). I had lost ten pounds. Then it was back to the parking lot for debriefing. Someone had found my big stash bag at the base and brought it to me. I showed them the ball-nut, which had been very useful, my new hat and glove, and told them my story. Werner was there and Ron Kauk, two of my heroes, and they were praising me. It was a great moment for me, possibly my very best moment. Then it was off to the cafeteria, where I easily skarfed down a double breakfast. One of the guys hiked to the rappells with me and helped me carry my stuff down. When I found my haul bag it was pretty close to where it all started, but laying over with the rainfly draped over it.
I liked to drive at night, but didn't make it. Barstow found me with a bad alternator and another benighting in my car. These days, that would bother me. Back then it was almost expected. I finally parted company with the Audi on the dirt road leading south from the Dragoons following another Beanfest. It had been plagued with electrical problems and I finally concluded that it was cursed. I loved that car... We had some great times. I thought about it for a moment, and by the time I had coasted to a stop, I knew what was going to happen. I remember glancing in the rearview mirror as I rode away in a friends truck... that dumb headlight look.
Finally arriving back at the Wired Bliss shop, I was greeted by a nice welcome home banner and then a very worried girlfriend. It was finally, really, over.
|
|
steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 06:27pm PT
|
Awesome!
|
|
mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 07:36pm PT
|
One of the best running stories ever.
Thanks again Steve!
|
|
michaeld
Sport climber
Sacramento
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 08:51pm PT
|
So awesome!
|
|
R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 09:11pm PT
|
Great story Steve;
I especially like how your parents and all your climbing friends came thru for you at the end, I bet that felt great.
When Todd Applewhite and I were doing an attempt on Mescalito in 1988, I came upon a fixed tcu on pitch 4(?); It was one of your 3/4 units from your solo-ascent.
You certainly earned big-time respect and bragging rights for your bold "first" el cap route. You did good. I always wondered about how that went for you. Thanks for sharing the story.
I remember my first el cap route had multiple epics; It is amazing how vivid your memory is about the ascent; but I remember my first el cap route (the nose, with Dan Nguyen in '83) and about how many times I almost bought the farm myself.
Take care, Thanks for the memories. RB
|
|
dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 10:05pm PT
|
Great story!
|
|
Russ Walling
Gym climber
Poofter's Froth, Wyoming
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 10:06pm PT
|
Nine thumbs up! Great stuff Steve!
|
|
Scrubber
climber
Straight outta Squampton
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 10:54pm PT
|
Another hearty thanks for the great stories about life, business, and climbing.I sure love the couple Wire Bliss tcu's I have on my rack. I bootied both of them over the years, but the damn things just won't die. Quality craftsmanship.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 22, 2012 - 06:45am PT
|
Back in Flag, I got busy on the Ball prototypes and we did some big friends.
The big friend were 5.5" and 7". One of the previous pics shows a 5.5". If anyone has a 7" and doesn't use it... I would love to find one for the Nut Museum. We can negotiate.
The Ball was a fun project and I found a way of laying the cable next to a piece of steel and soldering it on without drilling a hole. It allowed a ball nut to be made that was as thin as the cable itself. It was tricky and I don't know if the manufacturers down the road ever made it work. I had it in my mind somehow that the Ball nuts should cost about $20, but was a bit worried about the production aspects. There were more skilled steps and scrap points further down the process.
I also didn't want to get screwed again, so I met with a patent lawyer and started the patent process. My lawyer was excited to be working on the project for me. At this point I was 24 years old and his youngest client by ten years or so.
I had made a couple of novelties. One was a double sided Ball nut with the split ball halves on the outside. I told my lawyer all the configurations I thought were useful and he added one or two himself. This is standard practice when writing patents and I think is what got me into trouble with Deucie a little while later.
Patent lawyers are really good at defining what the invention actually is and getting all aspects of that covered. They take it apart, flip it upside down, put two back to back, then two side by side, and try to make sure that all foreseeable modifications are covered. I didn't write the claims in the patent, but the two aspects that were novel, were the Grooved ramp (from John) and the split ball (from me). When the options were explored, one of them was two split ball units placed together, upside down and pulling on the Ball. This is essentially the "Monkey Paw", an invention of John's that came after the patent was filed, but before it issued.
The Monkey Paw is a really cool thing. A whole ball was in the center and it had two gooved ramps that interfaced with the rock. There was no differential friction needed with the rock, and they won't get stuck like a ball could. Back in the car coming from Vegas we didn't explore that possibility and I wish we had. I think it was what John was looking for all along. What John had suggested that day in the car, had a whole ball actually touching the rock. At that point it wasn't quite useful. In retrospect, from that seed there were two ways of making it work. One was to cut the ball, making it thinner and the other was to pad it with another grooved wedge making it fatter.
I had never conceived of it myself. I was focussed on making the super thin ones, but It got written into the patent. I don't think John and I ever talked about the patent, and definitely not about the claims. At the time he was very generous and gave me an "all yours" kind of feeling. We were best friends, or very close to that. He was busy setting up A-5 and making big wall hammers and other big wall specialties. Gradually our interests drifted in separate directions. Women became an issue between us a little later and our relationship became very strained. I think for a long time, John may have thought I claimed more in the patent than I should have, and that I did it to take away his idea. That was never the case.
My wrist also became increasingly symptomatic (a problem) and I had plateaued in my climbing skill. I made it up a couple of more things on my list... Sail Away, which turned out to be a boulder problem, and Gunsmoke, at Granite mountain, which turned out to be just contrived and dangerous. I was done free soloing also. It had been fun, but you can't do that forever, or forever will get kind of short. I was losing motivation to climb and was increasingly distracted by other things. Dirt biking, mountain biking, kayaking and skiing were all on the agenda.
I wasn't done climbing completely, but it was fading. Hard climbs had stopped feeding my ego and the fun stuff was getting boring if I roped up. I considered doing another wall... Maybe something in the Black Canyon or be bold again and go do Cerro Torre? No, I just couldn't get motivated. The wall was a great experience, but it was more work than fun and not how I wanted to spend my life. I'd be doing it for my ego and was starting to understand all the stuff I had done for my ego.
We started selling the Ball nuts in three sizes ranging from 1/8" to 1/2". The smallest ones we sold were the orange ones (1/8" to 1/4") and they feature the new soldering method. I don't think later manufacturers ever got that small which is a shame. Those orange ones must be highly coveted, assuming any survived. I made a smaller one (3/32"), which would be good for aid only.
Being called an inventor is something a lot of people seem to covet. I used to like it too, but inventing is such a short little mental step compared to the rest of the work that it shouldn't be the label used. The guy who usually gets credit is the guy at the end of the line who finally spits out a useful product, not necessarily the guy with the most novel concept. This leads to endless disputes and is the kind of thing that makes a lawyer drool out loud.
In the case of the "Friend", for example:
Cams were used to extract oil drilling pipe from wells (1897?). The thing looked like a friend for a round hole. Abolokov (Russian) makes some cams for climbing that work, but aren't terribly useful and it's way too early for a climbing market (1947?). Greg Lowe comes along and puts a spring on it, almost making it useful. Then, finally Ray Jardine sculpts it into a useful, marketable product and gets sole credit and royalties for the invention. Greg Lowe was pissed, and their argument sets the stage for the explosion that was to come.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 22, 2012 - 07:58am PT
|
Capitalism is a bad answer for an economic system. It's like saying unequal is fair, and then you have to define a fair way to distribute things unequally. In the case of inventions it's the patent system. This is such a complicated legal and administrative process that it can't efficiently do the job anymore. Patents are expensive because they are complicated and they are a legal product, but the patent itself is the cheap part. The real expenses come when you have to defend your patent in court. I don't know what the numbers are now, but in 1985 I was told it would cost a minimum of $50k to bring an infringement case to court, About as much as I ever made selling TCU's.
The TCU was a ripoff of the friend. It was totally covered by the friend patent. I think everyone making cams back then got a "cease and desist" letter from Ray Jardine's Lawyer and we all ignored them. Had Ray come and talked to me I would have paid a royalty, but that wasn't being offered. Jardine's mistake was not making small friends early on, and creating a void that needed filling. It became apparent that Lowe was letting it go with Wild Country. I'm sure most of us figured if Lowe can't afford to sue Wild Country, He's certainly not going to bother suing me, and neither is Wild Country.
Doug Phillips must have known this in 1984, but maybe not. By 1987 there were 5 companies making TCU's and I was flattered by all of them except Doug. In his case, he had been my friend, or at least pretended, and then misled me. I would have been happy to stay in Oregon and split the TCU with Doug, but he wasn't giving me that option.
I think what happened, was that after I had left, he received a request for 150 TCU's from Japan and got greedy. Maybe he figured he would just do the 150 or just sell to the Japanese?... but then, you can't tool up and make that many of them without people noticing. They ask questions and you come up with your best excuse. "We worked together on it". Come on Doug... How does that happen? I took an hour to make the first one and the basic design never changed. I did it in his shop though, and more importantly I had moved away. Apparently, throwing me under the bus (trade friend for money) was a viable option. In the end it has put him into the 1% and I have nothing from it now, but this story and a few souvenirs. Such is life. Well played, Doug.
For a time I thought the Ball would help Wired Bliss compete and regain our due credibility. Then I got a call from Greg Lowe, who had seen a Ball nut at the store in Boulder and really liked it. He talked a good story, flew me up to meet with him and told me how big this was going to be. We toured a machine shop they used and he talked about production methods. It all sounded good, and I was worried about ramping up with all the tricky procedures. I decided licensing to Lowe would be the best thing for the Balls and for me. Wired Bliss would be what it was.
My patent lawyer wrote up the license agreement, structured in such a way that I would get $26k up front and I would pay for patents in the U.S., Canada and the European group. After paying for the patents, I would have about $10k to play with and at a maximum would wait another 5 years before getting more royalties.
It turned out I wasn't done getting pooped on. My patent lawyer got a job at honeywell and left me with his partner, who was less enthusiastic and charged me much higher numbers than what I was unofficially quoted (and had based the license agreement on). The other thing was that Lowe sold his business to a british company with little interest in climbing hardware. I think Greg was just bolstering the company's portfolio and had no real intention of making Balls himself. No mention was ever made of a possible sale of the company and the news was a big surprise when it came. The result was a very feeble effort to produce and market them.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 22, 2012 - 12:30pm PT
|
There were some positive things... The license agreement allowed me to move into a house with roomates. The reduced Wired Bliss, was moved into the garage, and I enrolled in classes to continue work on my engineering degree. Most of the employees had finished school or gone on to other things, but a few stuck around for several years. Alan Humphries had been my best employee ever, and was really running the business for me.
John Sherman (Vermin) came to town and rented a room at the house. We biked a lot together, played a lot of Scrabble and climbed a little bit. He was into bouldering and I couldn't touch anything he found even interesting. I was more focussed on motocross and desert racing and wasn't climbing much anymore.
When I did go climbing, there were too many reminders. I've lived hand to mouth for most of my life and seeing Metolius TCU's on people's racks was always very painful. When I realized that his established name, Oregon base, $50k, business degree and deception had beaten my naivete', climbing focus, $10k and ideas... I became bitter.
I had given up on trying to compete. I moved to another house with a lesser garage and Alan moved Wired Bliss back into a small warehouse. When Alan was finally ready to move on I sold the business to Tony Crosby for $3k. He had it a short time and then it was sold to Mike Clifton and Jim Babbitt. They pumped some money into it for a while, but it didn't do well enough to keep going, and then Gene Hacker took over for a while. It is currently revived by Michael McGuinn in Loveland, Colorado.
I feel bad for not trying to help the various owners or popping in more to say hi. It's been a real mixed bag. For a long time I just tried to forget.
I finished School and went to work at a medical products company. After a year I got onto a project trying to make a product to treat diabetes. It would have made many lives much better if it worked. We had difficulties and so did other companies trying to solve the same problem. A certain competitor published a paper on a trial they had done with semi-encouraging results. The reaction on our end was a meeting to gather all patentable material that we might be able to use to impeed our competitors progress. I was in disbelief, because I thought the point was to help these people, but it was all about the money and who might control the market. If not us , then nobody. In the end the project failed and a bunch of technology got buried. Diabetics didn't benefit, and everything invested was lost. I quit that job after 5 years. Future jobs met similar fates for differing reasons.
I hate that the Ball patent stopped the Monkey Paw (and its patent) and I wish it had been produced in spite of it. I never said that to John, because we were already at odds by then, and the patent wasn't mine anymore. I think the recognition and royalties aspect would have been disappointing. It's probably easier for me to say that, because I got out before climbing got big and my standing in the community was therefore irrelevant. I feel very sad that it may have changed his outlook on anything. Since then he's gone to Harvard and done a lot of impressive, higher level engineering work.
My own pattern has been to go to work for some company for five years and then spend a year trying to start a business, run out of money, then repeat the process. I come up with something decent every couple of years, but I have some pieces missing to put it all together. I hate sales and marketing and tend to bog down when I get to that point. I also get overly focussed on infrastructure. It's a reaction from not being able to keep up at Wired Bliss. The biggest problem is always running out of money.
At this point there probably aren't any more engineering jobs left for me, at least not around Flagstaff, My last five year stint was installing Directv. When the recession hit, my boss quit her business and I've been back in development mode. Last spring I was broke again, but found a key source for one of my easiest products, so I invested our tax refund in my current business, "ByrneOs". I make a tool for the dirt bike market that's going over pretty well. I can't afford to go full on wholesale yet so I mostly sell direct from my website so far. Perhaps the deja-vu from that, is why I started writing this.
The big lesson for me from all of this is that greed and vanity rip people apart, and capitalism fuels it. It's heartbreaking to realize that we can't really share anything anymore. In place of trust, we need non-disclosure agreements and contracts and patents. The system we have hinders creativity and makes it a lawyers game. Someone might get wealthy from time to time. It's just not very often that it's actually the inventor(s).
When someone asks me what I do, I tell them I'm an engineer. If we talk long enough I'll let on that I invent things sometimes. I hate the word "inventor". A lot of people think of "Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang", and crackpots making candy trombones or something and risking everything to get rich. It's not like that... Most of the stuff I come up with, should already be out there and the reason I do it is because I simply can't buy what I want. I can list a few places where industry has missed the target... Wood stove tools, snowboard bindings, wrist guards for skateboarders, orthopedic cast ventilators, computer desks, ambulation therapy, child carriers and a few others. As I go along there will be many more.
If I make it once there will be a cascade of new products. Maybe that's the idea, and success at 22 would have been a mistake. I can't regret too much yet. There are too many years left and I plan to make good use of them. I'm 49 and have two kids now, Lauren (5) and Quentin (3) and a sweet, beautiful wife.
I also have a particular "dream project" I want to share. It's going to be awesome... but it may not be patentable.
Any takers?
|
|
Gunkie
Trad climber
East Coast US
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2012 - 12:49pm PT
|
One word: Awesome
Thanks for sharing!
Me: Patent # 6622978 with other inventions pending (ha ha ha ha)
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2012 - 02:25pm PT
|
Thanks Steve. a great narrative, and it if filled in a lot of the gaps I've wondered about for years, now.
|
|
Jonnnyyyzzz
Trad climber
San Diego,CA
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2012 - 03:19pm PT
|
Steve I've really enjoyed this thread. Great story's and reflections.
My own pattern has been to go to work for some company for five years and then spend a year trying to start a business, run out of money, then repeat the process. I come up with something decent every couple of years, but I have some pieces missing to put it all together. I hate sales and marketing and tend to bog down when I get to that point.
I can relate to this as I could have written those words my self. I have two pattens and have shared similar struggles being out of my element when trying to market and sell my product. I keep coming up with stuff though and maybe someday we'll both get one of them to take off for us.
Best of luck, Jon
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 22, 2012 - 04:14pm PT
|
Thanks all, it was good for me to do this. This was from memory. Part way through, nutstory (Stephane Pennequin) sent me the pic with the tree and that night all flooded back.
If anyone knows anyone who has one of our (Wired Bliss) #7 big friends, I'm trying to get one for his museum and will pay well for it.
There's another thing I made and gave to the general manager at Choinard, when I met with them. This would have been late 1987? Anyway's, it was a TCAU (Three-Cam-Alot-Unit), and I only made one. It had the double axles etc., but in a TCU format, 1 1/2 friend size. I'd love to track that puppy down and get it to Stephane as well. It was very trick.
Thanks again,
Steve Byrne
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 23, 2012 - 09:11pm PT
|
There are a few on the "Anyone remember Wired Bliss?" thread from a while ago, but I'm afraid I don't have any new ones.
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
|
Feb 27, 2012 - 10:47pm PT
|
{EDIT--Major Snip]
I had originally posted some email correspondence here between Steve and myself, which highlighted our differences of what transpired between us, but doing so was unfair to Steve, and I apologise.
I've had a think about it, and I concede: Steve deserves credit for bringing the ball nut to reality. I helped with the original concept, but Steve did all the work, and made it happen. Steve, if you're reading this, I'm sorry about harbouring resentment all these years, and I hope you'll forgive me. I forgive you too, and I'm sorry this all came between us. Ideas can be powerful and dangerous, and it was my doings that made this one more so.
I'd like to fill in some blanks on how the concept originated:
The origins of the ball nut came from the desire to create a nut that could adjust for both top-and-bottom flares, and side-to-side taper flares. At the time, there was the Metolius Slider, the Rock-N-Roller, and Don Best's Quickies. In Yosemite, the Don Best Quickies were the preferred nut of choice. I took to studying why, and it became clear to me that the way the small nut on the Quickies sometimes rotated on the main nut allowed the essential side-to-side taper to alter slightly, so the nut fit more securely in cracks that were horizontally tapered. In other words, adjustable nuts at that time were designed for vertically parallel cracks, but real cracks have both up and down taper, and side to side taper. I set about designing a nut that could specifically adjust for both, and came up with the ball and cylindrically grooved wedge design. This concept of a nut that could adjust for flares in both directions, and the specific design of a ball and grooved wedge, were the ideas I brought to the table, and shared with Steve. I had pages and pages of notes, some showing designs that were similar in function to the half-ball (examples below), but in the end, my mistake was not showing Steve all the thoughts I had developed. I had only described my thoughts to him, which did not provide a complete picture of what I was thinking, and also I did not clarify my interest in the development (until it was too late), as he mentions here.
In the end, Steve came up with his own solution, made the first working prototypes, and made it work.
The bright side of all this is that it has really clarified to me how two friends can share ideas--I think there are three levels:
1. The category (e.g. an adjustable nut).
2. The concept (e.g. an adjustable nut which can adjust for both up-and-down flares, and side-to-side flares).
3. Potential designs (e.g. a written description and isometric sketches illustrating the idea in detail).
Certainly, care should be taken when sharing this third level, as without a clear way for both minds to acknowledge the source of the designs, there can be trouble and misunderstandings as Steve and I experienced.
To minimise conflict, each person perhaps could document their thoughts in a provisional patent sort of way, then ask the other to sign non-disclosures, or some similar sort of acknowledgement. If the other also has ideas related to the concept, then the discussion of how to share any eventual fruits of the idea can take place very soon thereafter.
Not really sure how this can be implemented in practice, outside of an actual business partnership, but perhaps ideally, I think there could be a way to do it. Perhaps inventive people could form an alliance and set up their own internal idea "patent agency" so the ideas within the alliance have some documentation.
I've never really seen any value from actual patents--they are expensive, take years to become approved, and are a struggle to maintain. My philosophy at A5 was to just out-innovate the copiers, which kept us slightly ahead of the curve, and I think the energy spent innovating new stuff is better spent than energy preparing and defending a patent, so it would be good to create a system so like-minded innovators could work together collaboratively.
I'm really rambling now, but coincidentally, prior to Steve's story and all the old wounds getting exposed, I had been thinking of exactly how what happened with the ball nut could be prevented in the future.
I hope this experience can provide some value to the small-business innovators out there.
Cheers
John Middendorf
|
|
mellpat
Big Wall climber
Sweden
|
|
|
Feb 28, 2012 - 08:23am PT
|
The patentability of the "Monkey Paw" seems a bit doubtful to me, in view of e.g. the earlier published patents in Europe FR2440206 (Jean-Claude Bibollet) and GB2157355 (Curt Svensson). The latter patent was drafted by myself (a patent professional) for free as a thanks to Curt who helped me manufacture prototypes to my own patented product that was later marketed by Salewa beginning in 1986. My corresponding patent application EP47232 was published in 1982 and it shows a cylindrically grooved wedge in one of the drawings. But Salewa choosed instead to make the rock side of the locking wedge cylindrically curved for the same purpose - better load distribution and holding power in flared cracks.
Steve says he "hates that the Ball patent stopped the Monkey Paw". But I don't see why it should stop it. A full sphere between two grooved wedges appears to be something completely different from what is shown and claimed in Steve's patent (US4834327).
I think Steve's idea of using a spherical section combined with a plan opposing surface as a locking wedge was good and well deserved of a patent. The "Ball nuts" are still in the market place today.
If anyone cares to look up the patents mentioned, go to http://worldwide.espacenet.com/numberSearch?locale=en_EP and insert the numbers as shown (i.e. with the two nation letters) in the box. Then click, click and go to "Original document".
Ingemar Mellgard
|
|
drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
|
|
|
Feb 28, 2012 - 09:11am PT
|
Bummer.
Still a good read. Sorry it comes at the expense of a broken friendship.
For the record, thank you both for your contributions.
Still using gear from both you guys.
In fact, an early gen Bliss tcu is racked on a Grade VI biner.
I'll keep'm like that, and light a white candle.
|
|
justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
|
|
|
Feb 28, 2012 - 09:26am PT
|
Good post Riley. I was close to posting a similar sentiment, but yours sounds more eloquent. This is a great piece of climbing history. Thank you all for sharing.
|
|
Gunkie
Trad climber
East Coast US
|
|
|
Feb 28, 2012 - 10:42am PT
|
Why do I feel like banging in a piton?
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Feb 28, 2012 - 11:49am PT
|
JM -- "Just like in climbing, when two climbers discuss an idea for a first ascent and the idea develops in subsequent discussions, then one of them goes off and does it with someone else without letting the other know, ..."
Now ain't that the truth. It's happened to me. It happened to Charlie Porter and many others.
That is one of the hardest thing to swallow when someone does that.
Also if someone confides in a route to keep secret and that person spills it to someone else and that party runs out there and does it sucks too.
And as an example pertaining to the above "ball nut" ... The "Bird Beak" was an interesting observation.
Gene Foley came up with that idea originally even prior to the "crackin up".
He displayed his prototype in Camp 4 and there was not much interest at that time.
Years later after the invent of the "crackin up" they cut one end off and some how Bridwell becomes the father of the invention?
LOL ain't it grand. :-)
All in all pretty interesting stuff in this thread please carry on :-)
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
|
Feb 29, 2012 - 02:07pm PT
|
Thanks everyone for the good words. I have revised my post and actually feel much better letting it go and also just remembering the good stuff. cheers
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
|
Feb 29, 2012 - 02:37pm PT
|
Time moves on. Yesterday I went for a trail run with my A5 butt pack (buddy bag?) to carry my iPhone and keys, instead of a lighter and wherever else I would have carried in it 20 odd years ago....
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
|
micronut
Trad climber
|
|
Steve,
Thanks for the inspiring and page turning memoir. We've never met, but thanks for sharing.
One of my very first cams (I was 19) was one I found at the bottom of a swimming pool at Auburn University in Alabama. I found the thing, a blue, Wired Bliss mid sized cam down in the deep end near the drain. I air dried it, sandpapered off the stem.....cause "I dont want the chlorine to degrade the metal", and promptly added it to my rack of wired nuts and slung chocks.
I loved that thing, though I'm not sure I ever fell on it. What a moron. I couldve died a few times over in those early days. Who knows how long it had been in that pool. That sling must have been worth about 14 lbs of load.
I'll try to find a picture of it.
Have a good one,
Scott
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
Stephane-
Steve made both those objects d'art pictured in your photo--really, he was the only one in the shop capable of that level of machining precision. I believe Steve drilled out that 'biner on a drill press, which is no mean feat.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2012 - 03:08pm PT
|
Hi everyone, and thanks again for all the kind words and support.
I've thought a lot about everything that has transpired. My conclusions are pretty simple... Friends need to share their feelings. It is what defines friendship. We live in a culture where the sharing of feelings, dreams and expectations are generally discouraged, except maybe in chick movies. A lot of times we hide them to get along better and sometimes it backfires. Sharing ideas is another part of being friends and then how those ideas are handled can become the issue. It happens in all walks of life, not just to inventors.
I think John and I both messed up by not being clear about our expectations, and we understand each other a lot better now from going through this. In the end, I made a friend's life less positive from what I did. I didn't see it coming, but any pride I felt from developing the Ball nut is overbalanced by this and other results. In terms of how inventor friends can work together, I think it just comes down to understanding each other and being clear about intentions. Being friends means splitting it up won't be an issue, as long as everybody who wants a piece is heard out before the patent is written. That's where I got off track.
I wish patents weren't necessary, but free market capitalism seems to demand them. The original intent of the patent system was to protect the investment of the inventor and to educate the public on the new technology. So far, I haven't found it to be very useful as a source of technology and as far as protecting anyone on a budget, it doesn't. Something is missing for the small scale. Perhaps a cheaper, 5 year patent for small scale inventions would work with an equivalent to small claims court for litigations... I don't know. I see patents the same way I see internet, get rich quick scams... there's always that nagging doubt that this one might actually be the real deal and worth pursuing. If patents were cheap or affordably defensible, I'd feel a lot better about them.
I'd like to leave this part of it for others to ponder and maybe for John and I to forget and move foward. This was way longer overdue than I had realized. I'm really sorry about that.
Thanks All,
Steve
|
|
jfailing
Trad climber
Lone Pine
|
|
It appears civil discourse is not dead?
This thread has been a great read. Thanks Steve for the rich personal story, and for some history on your experience making climbing gear, and also to John for providing a secondary take on the whole story.
Is the hatchet buried?
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
Hatchet buried, I reckon.
Stay hungry, stay inventive....
|
|
R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
|
|
As I said in earlier post,
I fondly remember both you (Steve) and John from BITD. Both of you contributed (greatly) to the culture of not only the local Flag climbing scene, but (both of you were) innovative to the climbing world as well.
I am glad both of you worked thru it ... some things needed to be said. I will say though, it hurts to watch friends have issues about the past ... as I tend to forget the bad times and reminesce on the good times.
But in the end, the memories of your friends and family is what are most important in LIFE! Embrace it and be glad that you BOTH were there. Today is all there is for now.
Peace on ... RB
Edit: Thanks John, Maybe a future thread for me to write about.
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
and best to you too, RB. I recall you were pretty innovative back in the day, being the first to compile all the routes of El Cap at the same relative scale on one massive sheet of paper. That was cool.
|
|
bmacd
Boulder climber
100% Canadian
|
|
good to see a happy ending here ...
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
Remember this one?
|
|
Mimi
climber
|
|
I'll never forget partying with you, Steve, in Flag on a wild weekend when a lot of AZ climbers were there. A bunch of us had been in the Valley, you too, and I was really psyched about climbing and doing it right. It got really crazy that night at Alpine Pizza. Jim G. was breaking glasses, some were tripping after a rad day of cinder cone scree plunging, I was reeking on an old beau for being a hangdog on Butterballs. It was effing great!!!
I have one of RB's blue prints of El Cap. After leaving the Valley I somehow got wind of his map and had to have one. Rand, you were nice enough to send one for a nominal fee. It's faded now but still legible. The precursor to Clay Wadman's nice map.
|
|
silentone
Mountain climber
wisconsin
|
|
Hey Jaybro..............
Your socks don't match
Sorry. Must resist.
Cheers
S.O.
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
Jaybro, your right foot seems to have got stuck in an off-width for too long… It’s time to part with your Big Bud #7…
Forgive this Corsican joke.
|
|
The Alpine
Big Wall climber
|
|
This story would be a great marketing tool for a new company formed together by John and Steve.
|
|
Bargainhunter
climber
|
|
I'm only halfway through this amazing thread and had to post. This is perhaps the best thread ever on Supertopo. Steve your narrative is amazing and the comments from the others enrich it too. I can't stop reading this. Some of the lines you write are simply classic (e.g. "By then [the rappel rope] had iced to about double size and looked like something out of a mountaineering tragedy film..."). TYFPU!
I feel like I'm listening around the campfire with a bunch of others who are totally focused on your story, with baited breath, ears straining on every word...
|
|
JBC
Trad climber
Portland, OR
|
|
Great stuff guys! I fondly remember working with both of you BITD. Thanks for sharing!
Jim
|
|
crunch
Social climber
CO
|
|
This is a great thread. Fun stories, and really fills in some fascinating history. Thanks.
If anyone knows anyone who has one of our (Wired Bliss) #7 big friends, I'm trying to get one for his museum and will pay well for it.
From last week:
This one of yours? There's no markings. Looks like the "Eric Kohl" #7, from the Marty Karabin thread, here: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1547699&tn=0&mr=0
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 18, 2012 - 12:10pm PT
|
That looks like a Kohl... Pretty similar, but I remember chamferring the holes more. Another thing I remember doing was welding the spacers into the cams so they wouldn't get as floppy from wear. That may have been unique, and combined with the chamferring would be the key identifiers.
I'll pay $$...
Anyone?...
|
|
pk_davidson
Trad climber
Albuquerque, NM
|
|
|
Oct 25, 2012 - 04:20pm PT
|
Bump for a great thread.
And even more so for the moving beyond.
Speaking from serious experience, our patent system is totally broken and completely F'd up. One of the major purposes of the system today is for large companies to snow the patent office with total BS and numerous patents and then use these indefensible patents to drive their smaller competitors out of that business. Even if you have irrefutable proof of prior art, acts of ommission, etc... if you don't have about $2 million to even start the game of patent fighting, forget it (much less quite a few mill more if it really gets going). As my patent attorney once told me, patent litigation is the realm of kings. Most patent attorney's will go nowhere near litigation, very specialized stuff.
Such is life in our system.
Steve & Duece, bravo on you men for moving beyond this in such a public way.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2013 - 12:24am PT
|
Bump for the patently absurd...
|
|
little Z
Trad climber
un cafetal en Naranjo
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2013 - 01:56pm PT
|
bump for interesting climbing-related read
|
|
crunch
Social climber
CO
|
|
|
Apr 16, 2013 - 02:21am PT
|
That looks like a Kohl... Pretty similar, but I remember chamferring the holes more. Another thing I remember doing was welding the spacers into the cams so they wouldn't get as floppy from wear. That may have been unique, and combined with the chamferring would be the key identifiers.
The spacers on my unit spin freely. Two spacers each side, unequal sizes. Was someone else copying your Wired Bliss #7 design? Maybe this was an early version?
Burly. It once held a 60-foot fall!
if you're interested, I'd trade it for the same size modern Camalot (#6, for the BD model year 2013).
|
|
maddog69
Trad climber
Ut
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2014 - 01:21am PT
|
|
|
maddog69
Trad climber
Ut
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2014 - 01:22am PT
|
The holes on the stem are beveled. The Spacers are fixed to the cams and spin with them. The Axel Bolt is marked "c X s". I lived in a bad world with a crack junkie wife (and all the real world Zombie savagery that entails) and an amazing baby girl. I went from climbing to daily pick-up ball on the Pima Rez. with 400 pound basketballers and ubiquitous savage dogs of every diseased variety imaginable. Rode my bike around and this was my self defense tool, kept it on my bike always. Rick carved my name on one side and its name on the other. The Dog Killer. Neighborhood of 25 years ago last month. Jesus. Is that right? 1988.
|
|
maddog69
Trad climber
Ut
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2014 - 01:24am PT
|
And boy were they.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2014 - 02:29am PT
|
Jingus :)
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2014 - 08:44am PT
|
Maddog Sixty-Nine: I know a good family, somewhere in Corsica, that is ready to adopt your "Big Dog Tool"...
|
|
rick d
climber
ol pueblo, az
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2014 - 09:15am PT
|
Andy-
I sent my #5 I got from YB for a box of bolts off to the museum, you could send that hunk off as well. I'll take your jingus things and you can use them w me on covert missions....
gimp
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2014 - 09:22am PT
|
Rick: this photograph is an old shoot. I took it a long time ago, before that you very kindly sent me your splendid Wired Bliss Jumbo Bud (or Big Bud) #5.5
|
|
maddog69
Trad climber
Ut
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2014 - 04:10pm PT
|
My hat is off to Steve (and J.M.) for this thread. It's a bittersweet remembrance.
Maybe the tool gets passed on in my will or something, hah. Or maybe, maybe Steve can have it if he did make it.
I still fear the dogs (and the 5 inch wide cracks). I was just so caught up in Steve's writing I wondered if this was one he spoke of. About the sentimental days this thread dug up: I was going to say something like "you can't go home again" but in the case of Flagstaff you can actually go back again. You can go back again and again and often times you simply have to, just to make it through the spring or return a big raft or something.
If I get my trip to the Turkish Agean off the ground next summer I will def. bring the f*#ker in case I need to trade it for some couch time, or just an explanation as to how all that Boxite mongery wound up in Corsica.
Actually one of the other things was that Chuy Dreamt, repeatedly, that he got to the lip of The Pole and a big flesh ripping dog beast was on the summit deck and wouldn't let him step up off that last un reversible hook move, or whatever. In these ways the gadget is also a wee bit of a fire dancing Kachina as far as the Dog Killing meme goes. As we all know, the only thing worse than getting mixed up in other people's magic is boxing off some of your own and sharing it with unwitting heathens on distant shores. So, if someone does end up with this they better have a good supply of fresh sweet Navajo corn pollen to feed it, or plan on a lot of sleepless years in later life stuck in that earth stopping moment when the day wind has ceased and the night wind has yet to begin and the coyotes lad. The coyotes.
(Or is that too much spirituality religion, faith and climate for these climbing forums. It's hard to tell scanning the topics above ...)
I am busy for about a month then I'll be looking for some weekend fun. I have limits though so let's not get all Swoopy and Gimpy.
I might even have a regular back-country plane ride to someplace about 30 minutes from that other place you spoke of once. I am needing some desert time for sure but J. is commuting to Denver for work and I'm driving the kid wagon 5 days. Also, up here it is always Moab this and Fruita that and Jackson Hole with the family more wekends in July then there are weekends all summer...
But let me know, maybe if your kid hasn't run away from home yet he can drive up and get me of a Friday, I'll expect full George Kennedy style driving.
Except for the little dog. Obviously.
|
|
Synchronicity
Trad climber
British Columbia, Canada
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2014 - 05:14pm PT
|
bump for some cool climbing history
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2014 - 03:43am PT
|
Mixed in with the climbing and friend making, I was also always tinkering with new ideas. I had made a roller nut, a little two-cammed mini buddy, a set of curve RP's and stoppers, the drilled 'biner etc.
|
|
HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2014 - 09:13pm PT
|
I really enjoyed reading through the OP's posts. It has made me nostalgic for northern Arizona all day and I literally just spent an hour trying to convince a friend to move there. Thanks for the great memories and also the classic picture of Jim Erdman bitd!
|
|
crunch
Social climber
CO
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2014 - 11:26pm PT
|
No dogs killed yet:
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
Apr 28, 2014 - 03:41am PT
|
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
May 27, 2015 - 12:56am PT
|
This monster Wally Cam feels alone here in Corsica... Still no Wired Bliss Jumbo Bud (or Big Bud) #7 in the Nuts Museum...
|
|
Roots
Mountain climber
Tustin, CA
|
|
|
May 27, 2015 - 08:16am PT
|
Great Reading and glad to see WB products. -thank you Steve, Nuts Museum, et all!
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
|
May 27, 2015 - 08:20am PT
|
Glad to see this thread back.
I'm still using my #7, but as it's less unique in its coverage these days maуbe its getting closer to the nut museum.....
Edit any word on availability of new big wir d bliss units? Anyone here know? I know the company changed hands, but my Inqueries to the new boss, have gone inanswered,,,,,
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
May 27, 2015 - 10:14am PT
|
Jaybro: After that Wired Bliss posted photographs of the cam lobes of their future big units on facebook, I have not found any more information on these cams. In the meantime, I have secured the photos on my computer… I did not that Wired Bliss changed hands, again…
|
|
Ira Hickman
Social climber
Kennewick
|
|
Great stories. Thanks for sharing. I had forgotten about getting kicked out of parachute class. I always seem to irritate femminatzis more than most. I think they can read my mind or something.
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
Nov 21, 2016 - 12:12am PT
|
…/… I remember chamferring the holes more. Another thing I remember doing was welding the spacers into the cams so they wouldn't get as floppy from wear. That may have been unique, and combined with the chamferring would be the key identifiers.
Steve Byrne The Chouinard carabiner, drilled by Steve Byrne, has over 100 holes and took about 4 hours to drill.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
|
Nov 21, 2016 - 06:38am PT
|
Time well spent ?
|
|
nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
|
|
|
Nov 23, 2016 - 12:23am PT
|
John Middendorf mentioned the Wired Bliss Jumbo Buds for the first time in the catalog A5 1988.
Jay, could you let me know if the Jumbo Buds or Big Buds came onto the market before this year?
|
|
J R
climber
bend
|
|
Some good reading
...bump
|
|
| Messages 1 - 151 of total 151 in this topic |
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!