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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Nov 18, 2014 - 10:40am PT
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I only knew Gary as a "younger man", except for one visit later. He had pretty much just started climbing around San Diego, maybe a year earlier than I had. Hi and Gallwas and George Schlieff and Barbara Lilley climbed a lot together, learning as we went. He was always a sort of lost soul, always a little or a lot hyper, always irreverent and profane, and always eager and fearless to get onto a climb.
He visited us once when I was rangering in Denali on his way back from Europe. Said at that time that the Alps were a mess, S#1T on every ledge, rocks raining down, incompetents everywhere, and that he was ashamed of being an alpinist. His level of irreverence and profanity had quadrupled and I was nervous introducing him to anybody. He also showed me the small revolver in his pack which he said - jokingly? - was to protect him from the cops. That was my last contact. Wish I could add more, but details have faded.
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Dom Green
Trad climber
Sheffield UK
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 21, 2014 - 04:50am PT
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Hi Wayne
thanks for that - that last visit is very telling.I recently heard that he had managed to get a hold of a gun while he was in Europe too! I wonder what he would make of the Alps these days!?
How long did he stay with you in Alaska?
great stuff - thanks very much
Dom
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Nov 21, 2014 - 07:21am PT
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Keep the stories coming Wayne! Hell, you're making me feel young.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Nov 21, 2014 - 07:26am PT
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Wayne, how could you accomplish all this at such a young age, you must be approaching late 60s hey what!
I'm with Donini on this........
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Nov 22, 2014 - 08:55pm PT
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You ARE young, Donini! Hell, you can't be a minute older than Gaston Rebuffat.
Anyhow, you invoked another story of Hemming.
Gary and I, in 1953, decided to go tackle the east face of Mt. Morrisson. We had maybe three years of climbing experience between us, but we made up for it with hubris. We drove up from San Diego in my ‘41 Buick, hiked in and camped where darkness caught us. Melted a lot of snow for water, had a fine big dinner - and then didn’t feel so well. It felt like a hangover. We figured mountain sickness, coming from sea level too fast.
Up early, only a few hours sleep. We still felt lousy. Melted more snow and drank a lot of tea but there wasn’t much appetite. Mild headache, a bit of nausea. Thought about bagging it. But we’d come all this way, so let’s give it a go. Maybe this will wear off. It didn’t.
We chose the most obvious line on the big face. After about three pitches we had enriched the scree slope with about a ton of loose rock.
I was anchored into the angle of a steep open book, the only good stance I could find. Hemming came up and on past. I asked him to watch the loose rock. I think he said something like, “Hell, I’ll climb like a butterfly.” I wasn’t sure how he’d master that - we both felt like decrepit toads.
Fifty feet higher he screamed “rock!” and a cascade of gravel rattled down on me. He followed up with a stream of obscenity. Hemming was a Master of Profanity but this seemed a bit more frantic than normal. He seemed to be pushing hard on one wall. Then he shouted, “Merry - move out of the groove - I’ve got a big loose slab up here and I can’t hold it on much longer! It’s coming down! Move your ass! Fast!”
I managed to whack in a dubious pin a bare six feet to one side and clip in to it, and he screamed “rock!!” and did some kind of dainty dance move to the left and a chunk of the mountain crashed down, caroming from wall to wall. It obliterated my previous stance and roared on down in a cloud of dust, taking more of the mountain with it. I was peppered with fragments, choked with dust and amazed to be alive.
I looked up at Hemming with eyes like targets, and he looked down at me with eyes like Easter eggs, and we didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he said, “Sh£t, I’m coming down”. I lowered him, he salvaged some hardware, and we rapped off, quivering all the while.
Funny thing, though. Aside from the after effects of mortal terror we both felt a bit better physically when we reached the car and drove back toward San Diego It was several years before I realized what the “mountain sickness” problem was. It was carbon monoxide poisoning.
We were probably working with about 10 to 20% less oxygen than the ambient air - already far less at altitude - could provide. Aside from the sensation of crapulence, we were working with that much less judgement and physical ability too, and didn’t know it.
I had a neat little gas stove at the time with a Sigg cookset. It had a Borde burner, a simple horizontal tube tank with a coil and burner off one end, real low profile. The flame wrapped around the bottom of the pot much more completely than the little Sveas which were popular at the time. And what I discovered later was that when the flame hits the pot bottom, the burning fuel is partially quenched and CO is produced. The more it wraps around the pot, the more CO. Sealed up in a tight little mountain tent, the CO level climbs to a point considered hazardous in just minutes with any stove, and just keeps going up even after the pot boils. You melt snow in a tight tent for a couple of hours and you’ll think you’ve got acute mountain sickness, because the symptoms are almost identical.
The affinity between hemoglobin and carbon monoxide is approximately 230 times stronger than the affinity between hemoglobin and oxygen so hemoglobin binds to carbon monoxide in preference to oxygen. Fast! And its half-life in your blood is about 5 hours. Pick up a good dose at dinnertime, and you’ll still have some left when you boil the pot for breakfast - and add to your carboxyhemoglobin.
I think a lot of climbers, even high altitude climbers, aren’t aware of the insidious effects of camp stove CO. It would be interesting to see a thread on this subject. Got a hunch there are many who have experienced it.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Nov 23, 2014 - 10:04am PT
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I bet you wish you still had the 41 Buick stashed somewhere!
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Nov 23, 2014 - 10:26am PT
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You bet. The '50 Studebaker coupe too!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Nov 23, 2014 - 11:40am PT
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Thanks for the advice, Wayne. Fun story too.
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Dom Green
Trad climber
Sheffield UK
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 24, 2014 - 08:55am PT
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Hey Wayne
Thanks, brilliant stuff! wow.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Apr 23, 2015 - 01:18pm PT
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Dom- Thanks for the update. Do you have the English translation of the text posted above?
Any alterations or additions to Tenderini's original content in the new edition?
Wayne- You are a treasure trove of great stories. Please keep then coming.
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Dom Green
Trad climber
Sheffield UK
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 24, 2015 - 03:59am PT
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Hi Steve
I'll do a translation as soon as I can get some clear space.
The main text of the new edition is the same as the original with a new foreword.
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Tamara Robbins
climber
not a climber, just related...
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I'm trying to obtain a photo of Hemming and dad (Royal), for an upcoming Alpinist issue focusing on The Dru. Any image of the two of them from around the time of their ascent would be great! Please email me @ tamara@postpro.net if you have anything that might work..... Time is of the essence! Thanks in advance....
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Guck
Trad climber
Santa Barbara, CA
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Thank you Gary for inspiring so many of us. Sad that you left so soon.
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Dom Green
Trad climber
Sheffield UK
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2015 - 07:58am PT
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Very Poignant
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Sep 25, 2015 - 09:53am PT
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Terrific writing about Hemming in the Alpinist Mountain Profile of the Dru, particularly Royal Robbins piece about the American Direct. Stuff like that keeps me reaching for that magazine again and again.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Dec 10, 2016 - 06:29am PT
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A cool Gary Hemming story
This piton was hand made by Yvon Chouinard and given to Gary Hemming. When Gary Hemming was a student in Grenoble (France), he was hosted in the Thomas family. Stewart Fulton was also hosted in this family. 14 years old Dominique Thomas started to climb with Gary. When climbing, Gary always carried the piton as a luck piton. When Gary went back to the US, he gave the piton to his friend Dominique Thomas. Dominique is now 71. He was mountain guide and physiotherapist. He was also technical adviser for Alpélit.
With permission from Denis P.
You can read the complete story in "La saga Alpélit", which is coming soon.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Dec 10, 2016 - 12:20pm PT
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That is a charming story, Marlow. I knew both these guys, Yvon much better than Hemming. Yvon gave me one of his first RURPs, and I lost it on a short climb we did.
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