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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - May 26, 2006 - 02:56pm PT
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hahahaha and yahoooo!
man i love this stuff.
thanks.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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May 26, 2006 - 03:36pm PT
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Nice stuff, thanks all, keep 'em coming.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 20, 2007 - 09:09pm PT
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Here's a story, as told by a couple few of us recently, from a Supertopo thread:
-Tarbuster:
Tell us a story Werner.
C'mon.
Pleez.
-WBraun:
I'll give you a story Roy
One day I go drink out of the Fern Spring that Kauk is trying to keep clean and pure (it is anyways).
Some woman is there and she tells me I can't drink the water.
I ask her why not?
"See that sign there sonny, it says unprotected water not for drinking"
Too fukin bad for you woman I'm thinking, and I keep drinking. I wish she would have seen the the green sh'it we were drinking out of that water hole in the Sahara desert.
Anyways I keep drinking and she's starting to get pissed at me telling me she's going to report me to some Ranger.
Mawhahahaha ....
-Tarbuster:
Wow, that Kauk guy, protecting the spring.
Such a sacred warrior dude 'n stuff.
I just have to post this photo I conscientously ripped from Bachar's Klemens thread:
-Russ Walling:
Kauks lips in that pristine roadside Spring... and the dead cat that someone threw in there to try and poison the King.... something about a bolt war...... real cloak and dagger stuff going on around that Spring. At least run the water through one of Chongos tube socks before imbibing.
-Tarbuster:
...Holy Water!
Then there was the tyme, Shoot, Russ:
When the rangers told you to git the fuc out and escorted you to your new camping spot out of C4, down below the sewage treatment plant below El Portal right? Yeah, we'd have coffee till 11am or so and one morning I almost ignited an itsy-bitsy propane cylinder & you backed away over the bridge and flopped back sides into the boulders and poison ivy. (Sorry bro).
Most importantly to my story (wrong thread really), was the deal when the laundry, wafting freely in the stream all nicely tied to rocks and cleanin' up fer free got, well, um, contaminated.
-Raydog:
Giardia
-WBraun:
Hahahahaha LOL
Now we're gettin somewhere ......
-Tarbuster:
......so then Russ, the regal, lazy basta'd, say's "shoot, Andre (Andre, the Bull Testes, The Schmutsvink, but that's another story) was supposed to take care of that laundry yesterday!"
"Damn, Roy help me in the van with this poop infested, well, now that it has had time to rinse, formerly poop infested laundry"... Which I did Russ, cuz, I'm yer bro right? and, "and we're gonnah get it all nicely rewashed and dried out over at Curry yah?"
Sure.
Like we drove around the loop for the next week with me, you and that stink and both of us with our heads hangin' out the side windows as you drove the bus scopin' for killer OW projects.
-Russ Walling:
Here I am filling my bottles in Fern Springs for an ascent of the Odyssey:
-Russ Walling:
yeah... that damn laundry... I put a rock in each Tube sock (eat your heart out Jim Collins) and tossed them in the river for a nice cleaning..... two days later the fukkin socks were about 5 feet long and covered in brown fur from the sewage plant..... All the rest of my clothes, which were all strung out along an old 9mm rope and chucked in the river too, also turned brown from copious stool remnants that must escape from the plant.... Fuk man! We never did wash those things again... just tossed them out... a 165ft of clothes!!!
-Tarbuster:
Got' Damnit Russ!
It gets better: that was the same 9 mil we used as a fix/haul line on The Prow dammnit, with a big torn spot on the sheath.
...'member rackin' up for that pup on 'cid, middle of the night, with the rack selection a mediocre jumble of pegs 'n what-knott thrown down Then, we get to the base and you jerry rig a harness out of fuchin' old bale slings that found their way onto our racks.
-Russ Walling:
Same one.... red... core shot... bought it off some Brits in camp 4...
The Prow... what a deal that was... how about how we lost all the rack when the bag exploded after it hit something on the way down after we tossed it... and once back down into the forest we would shake the trees and stoppers would fall down to the ground..... All the pins shot through my sleeping bag and it looked like a Chinese lantern when I held it up to the light..... then we tied the haul bag up with some aiders and a daisy or two and hauled it behind our bikes all the way back to camp! Through the Deli, past a horse ranger on the Lower Falls Bridge (Moses?) who sh#t herself and the horse went all spooky.... then I sold the haul bag immediately to some Germans who speedy stitched the hopeless rag back up and went up on Mescalito the same day. Unreal!
-Tarbuster:
Fuchin' made my decade, as laughter goes, totin', draggin' that haulbag between our bikes by the aiders: we'd rip a right turn and the bags would track left behind us. I could hardly pedal I was laffin' so hard. That was the same trip we mixed cans of Chunky Soup with Cracker Jacks and declared it "wall ready gourmet"...
-WBraun:
You guys are on a roll.
"the fukkin socks were about 5 feet long and covered in brown fur from the sewage plant ...."
That was too funny, I can't stop laughing.
-Russ Walling:
Best part is all this good stuff is well hidden in a thread nobody will read.... mwhahahaha!
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scuffy b
climber
The deck above the 5
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Jul 20, 2007 - 09:26pm PT
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One day we're walking along the Horse Trail, it's maybe a little
drizzly, we're headed west when we encounter a big, big group
of teenage girls, mounted up and headed east.
Well, the best place for us to stop and get out of their way
happens to be where the trail gains a few feet elevation. You
know, of course, that if a horse has been traveling on level ground for a while, a sudden climb (of just about any size) will
cause something to leave the horse, either gaseous or semi-solid.
So, Every Horse farts or craps, exactly when the 15-yr old girl
on the next horse back comes into Eye Contact with several Men.
The way their faces turned bright red, one after another, it was
as if they were on light switches.
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Jul 20, 2007 - 11:52pm PT
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Tarbuster - showing us how it's done!
Thanks for all the words everyone, great - and the pics, Tar.
And for your piece about Bruce Hawkins.
Maybe I can dredge some text up from the San Diego archives...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 21, 2007 - 11:35am PT
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Excellent!
Missed this one.
Here is your story 426:
---Bones, drop me a line.---
Jon Fox, a bro-brah from Berkeley. A 74’ Lincoln Mark IV Continental with no speedometer. 10/29. Around 10 pm, we leave the East Bay, Valley bound. Fox and I are headed to do the Nose... It’s a route deeply versed in history, from Warren Harding’s first steps on the moon in 1957-58, to Lynn Hill’s first free ascent that fall, at a stiff grade of 5.13c. I've gazed up at the headwall many a time--how long I had longed to become a "granite astronaut" in Longian vernacular.
I take over driving around midnight while Fox grabs some Z’s. I am really wondering if I am going 40 or 70, my exhaustion from work seeping into the reality of no working speedometer. The lines seem to be moving, but who knows? Jon’s Mark IV has an enormous trunk with all the wall sundries easily packed in and room for more.
I wake Fox after a while to take over helm. We stop for water at the entrance to the Valley. 1:30 a.m. Our mission won’t be complete for the night for a while…there’s 15 miles of curvy roads and then a short hike up to the base of El Cap, where we will sleep on a flat sandy bench beneath the Nose route.
We roll up to El Cap meadow, pack our haulbags, and hike. It’s a 10 minute hike at 2 in the morning. We arrive to find 4 other climbers nestled cozily in sleeping bags in "our" spot. Ugggh. Not only will we contend for space, but there will be a clusterf*#k in the morning. I tell Fox that we should camp 100’ away, get up earlier than them and pass them on the climb before they’ve left the ground.
4:17 am. "Pop." "Ping." These are the sounds on the outside of my sleeping bag. Jon is throwing small rocks at my head to wake me up. I find my headlamp and struggle to gain a purchase on conciousness. After 2 hours of sleep, I feel like I’ve been punched in the head. Repeatedly. By a cage fighter. It’s like a bad hangover, more accurately, replete with the "nerves of (near) vomit". We plan quietly, a couple of spies on the subterfuge hauling mission.
I tell Fox we will use fake European accents if we get caught. It is still pitch dark, but I’ve been up the first third of the route, and know it will go quickly, if we can only pass these four cocoons who are napping at the base right now.
I shoe up with climbing boots and step out on ledges above their small camp at the base of Pine Line. The rock is cool, and my beam shines on a small circle of illuminated granite. My sticky rubber soles edge their way above the other climbers in their sleeping bags. I shuffle and then hear:
"Whaddya homos think you are doing?" The agitated voice comes from one of the sleeping bags.
I reply in my best, brusque Austrian accent, "Yah, vee have twvoo sixty meeeter ropes und go veddy fast, yah!"
"Oh, you think so?" The sleeping bag asks.
"Yah, yah!" is my response.
There is silence from down below. What are they going to do, get up at 4:20 am and race us? I feel the slightest tinge of guilt and am curious about karmic reprecussions.
I free climb the 5.7 pitch in a few minutes, and, instead of hauling (normal procedure,) I rappel back down and give Fox the game plan.
He goes up the ropes.
"Eick vein oolen." Fox calls from above.
"Haulenshtien!" I keep up euro airs and we quickly pass, stealing 'quietly' through the night as I "escort" the scuffling bag up the slab.
Perhaps it was us blowing their psyche, or the other party just wasn't efficient, but around 8 in the morning, we are on Sickle and they are just starting. They retreat later that afternoon after doing 1/17th of El Capitan. We are goading them, yelling, "Yah, vat do uu homos tink uu are doink?!!!" Again, I think of karma and my micro debts.
The bottom half of the wall goes relatively smoothly. One night, I tell Fox several times to bring his headlamp because it’s getting dark, but he doesn’t. I bitch at him 40' up to "hang out for a sec" and haul it up, but he says "no can do, brah". After more than 1/2 the haul rope is out (and it's pitch black, virutally) he calls down for the lamp--no go, can't get the haul back, the pitch trends sideways. I get super pissed at his "in the dark" anchor system when I see two bolts a few feet away that he could have used. His belay constructed from gear is a huge, spaghettied tangle of ropes and slings. It’s okay, though, we are right on time (kinda) to the sleeping ledges..we get there around 11:30 at night.
The second day passes with King Swings, gripitude and finding a Halloween stash below 4. A tiny plastic pumpkin is clipped to the gear sling; this false idol must come with some curse in theme with Hallow's Eve. We snatched the few "Bit O Honeys" that came with the tiny jack'o. Thanks, random stashers.
The highlight of the day comes when we change out cylinders on the Gaz and fire it up. Didn't let the gas sit so it goes off like a flamethrower, threatening the whole matrix of anchors and ropes. Fox admonishes me as I "keep trying". Must look like kind of eerie from EC meadow...will o' wisps on the wall.
A fitful night is passed at 4, Fox used the "rule of bivy" to establish himself on the smallest but flattest part. I believe he referenced Greg Child's rule accurately, so I was not "shotgun". I rigged up a haulbag as a hammock, hovering all night, ready to smash Fox into oblivion.
On the third day, I wake up to see some storm activity far away, above the Pacific Ocean. It looks like a front, screaming in from the coast. I rub the sleep out of my eyes and start climbing at first light, after we brew up some java. I am clicking on all cylinders, climbing quickly and efficiently, with one eye on the rock and the other on the sky. Very worried about the storm. Everything has a hurried feel and makes the upper pitches less than enjoyable.
Chalk on the Great Roof (LH had been working on it) also made our "standing on good gear" efforts seem a bit light. I couldn't fathom a dude ever doing it free. I boldly made that prediction, but the more apt a man is to make declarative statements, the more likely he's to be proven a fool later. Tip O' the Hat to Mr. Caldwell.
200’ from the top, the clouds are flying overhead. The wind starts whipping loose nylon and clothing around. I am yelling at Jon to come up the ropes, preparing for the final section of El Cap. It’s dark now, so I strap on my headlamp. The round beam illuminates a 5’ swath of the golden granite. I check the anchors and get myself ready to climb. As soon as Jon arrives, I blast off, neglecting a tidy belay-rolling the summit fever.
The last pitch is an overhanging headwall. In 1958, Warren Harding drilled bolts throughout the night on this section, topping out at dawn, as his team had been out of food and water on the epic and the needed to finish. I clip my way up the headwall, poking my head out from the shelter. A few snowflakes fly when I do so. I am really worried, as two parties have ended their lives at this very spot.
A Japanese party was entombed in ice when the leader fell off the last moves and then hung in space without being able to ascend the rope back to the top. The belayer and leader froze to death and it was days before the search and rescue team could peel their lifeless corpses off the top and thaw them out. They were entombed in several feet of ice from what I've read. Another party of Euros passed in a similar manner.
I think of this grisly scene as I scream frantically for slack from Jon. I can’t move and snow is starting to stick on the slab, making the last pitch way scary. Later, he tells me that the ropes were tangled. He's paying inches at a time while the ghosts watch me writhe over the final slab. I am thundering "SLACK!" in between whimpers 'slack' as I desperately tug-o-war, considering the fall. Debts being paid? I can only hope.
The snow is now flying around me in every direction as the wind refuses to blow just one. It's disorienting and I keep feeling like I am slipping because I can't find a horizon line. I crawl to a pine tree and tie off the ropes. It’s full-on now, and my shell is in the haulbag, 160’ below.
I am shattered to pieces at the top. I can’t haul the bags because they won’t move. Wet ropes, the haul is running through blocks and at a harsh "lip angle". All I want is my jacket so I keep thrashing the tree in vain. Fox arrives after (seemingly) an eternity of blowing snow has pelted my face. I'd screwed the pooch by backcleaning a ton of bolts on the final pitch.
I am plastered and soaking wet with white stuff. We are screaming at each other about the haulbags, the bolts, the condition still stuck below the lip. He’s pissed because they aren’t already at the top. I am pissed because I can’t haul them. As in most big walls, it’s the team effort that gets them over the final bulge.
Fox keeps yelling as I am immediately sedate (mostly from getting my shell on). "It’s over, it’s over," I keep repeating a mantra of stupidity. He eventually stands down and is calm while we pack up.
It's far from over. I should know, I've blown out an ankle 4' away from the car---it's not even over on the "ride home"....Never having been to this section of the top of El Cap, I worry as we make preparations to descend. The storm thickens and my headlamp barely cuts the fury of blowing snow. If we go astray, we take a 3,000 plunge. I lead straight back from the wall and into deep manzanita bushes, a bane of all California climbers.
The only thing on our side is the fact that we both have several layers of clothes. Try thrashing through thick manz in the summer with shorts on and you will be cut to the bone. After tunneling for several hundred yards, it’s futile to do anything until dawn, we decide. We are plunging back first down a hill, trying to find a flat spot to bed down. There are a few inches of snow covering everything. Finding a micro flat area, we unpack our sleeping bags and bivy gear. Snow piles up. We haven’t even eaten dinner and have one PowerBar left out of our rations.
I huddle inside my swampy sleeping bag and worry about what the night will bring. If there is a foot of snow by morning, it will likely make the normal descent route impossible, and we will have to trudge several miles along the rim of the Valley to find a walk-off. I sleep uneasily until 5 am. The sound of rain pattering is the biggest relief I’d ever experienced. I know that the rain will make the regular descent possible and we won’t be walking miles breaking trail in snow with pigbags on our backs.
The sun comes up and it is a partly cloudy fall day, such a difference from 12 hours before. We melt some snow with our stove and split the PowerBar. 125 calories later, we don’t dally, as pizza and beer are calling us.
After getting to the floor of the ditch, we try hitching a ride from the descent point to where the Mark IV cruiser is parked, a mile up the road. A Ford F-350 without a shell stops.
"You guys climbing?"
"Yeah! Can you give us a ride?"
"Sure, you guys look pretty wet." The nice couple looks at us and decides we’re decent, but sopped, guys. (Yeah, right..)
I hop up on the full sized truck and Fox, who is built a bit less lanky than I, tries the same move, but gets pinned under his burdenous haulbag. I drag him in like a beached whale, grabbing the straps of his bag and yarding body and bag into the bed. Everyone chuckles and the Ford churns down the road--soon we are changed into dry clothes. Our totem is hung from the rear view as we drive for pie.
Down in the Valley, I call work in the bay area. "No, I won’t be coming in today. Sorry, I was stuck on El Cap in a blizzard last night." I get written up later that week. There is a saying, "the worst day fishing beats the best day working." If you substitute climbing in there, you have to further amend the statement. "The worst day climbing beats the best day working, so long as you walk away from the climb (not too badly hurt-a few gobis to be expected)...."
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Jul 21, 2007 - 11:47am PT
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Thx Tar, here's one more "for the road"
I always liked this photo from "another time" the "same" kinda place.
3-D with Speedy and Alex "Yuripov"
Long story short, those bastards loaded Speedy up with 2 ropes and a 20lb rack of gear...1 am, he was free juggin the last pitch honorarily part of the FBMC. He kept saying "I can't make it...can't"...
Loads of encouragement saw no noticable altitude gain. I threw him down a hank and "shorthauled" while he jugged. After he beached over the lip, I ran up the ropes (and dragged up all that junk from Speedster) to the guys that set him up all heavy...."u deeks!" was the only thing I could say...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 21, 2007 - 11:54am PT
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Vy don't vee yust climb...
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rockanice
climber
new york
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Jul 21, 2007 - 01:00pm PT
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(long story)
Another Day in the Woods
Pogue maneuvered the car into the far corner of the parking lot where the guide book said the trail started. He turned off the engine and in a matter of moments began his ritual transformation from jacket and tie to jeans and leather boots. As he did so, he glanced at his watch; it was after mid-day, but there was plenty of time left to find and scout out the cliff. Pogue finished tightening the laces of his heavy leather boots.
The area was an obscure park and quiet on a March weekday afternoon in the Northeast. It was Tuesday and not another car could be seen in the lot. This adventure was a little reward Pogue allowed himself as a break from the nine to five work grind: a salesman’s perk on the road. He was out to take a look as he had done at so many other “off the beaten track” areas. It was just another reconnaissance mission to a forgotten and neglected crag. He left his shoes and chalkbag in the trunk of the car, figuring he probably wouldn’t climb anything. The moth always underestimates the lure of the flame. The cliff holds a minor place in local climbing history, and a few pioneering regional legends had deemed the area worthy of their attention once upon a time. The desire to explore it burned strongly, and he set out.
The first obstacle in his search presented itself right away. A swift, broad creek without a bridge required crossing. As a kid, Pogue Mahone had spent many hours pitting the skills of balance and nerve against the hazards of rushing water and slippery stone. Streams and creeks always provided welcome challenges that could usually be overcome with a little confidence and a bit of ingenuity and luck. The penalty for failure rarely amounted to more than a wet sock or two. After a bit of easy leaping, Pogue scrambled up the opposite embankment in a dry pair of boots.
A wave of excitement washed over him as he rounded a bend and his eyes first set on the small crag. It was always the same, that first rush of excitement. He felt that gnawing hunger for what might appear around the next corner. With this fresh coursing of discovery running hot in his veins, Pogue stalked along the base imagining the thoughts of those earliest climbers as they eyed the first lines that would go. He then touched the rock. No sooner had the moth put flesh to stone, than the urge to climb sang through him.
He pulled into the first moves almost unconsciously, automatically, though he soon awoke to insecure slanted holds, his heavy leather boots reluctantly adhering on rounded polish. He ignored the warnings to retreat. Once the boots had left the ground, they kept moving up. The handholds were there; they were just tenuous and slopey, offering little in the way of any truly solid purchase. He knew he was broaching a point of no return.
The boots moved on up, though, soon leaving the realm of cautious bouldering behind. The line topped out at around thirty feet with the difficulty well within Pogue’s ability. Still, those old leather boots began to remind him how accustomed he had become to sticky Spanish rubber. Spoiled, even, you might say. The next sequence of moves, though, had brought him a prize: a solid incut hold. “Yes, breathe, just breathe and know where you are,” he thought. At twenty feet he was more than halfway there. He paused a moment. To reverse the earlier nebulous moves by downclimbing now with those cumbersome boots was far less appealing than pushing on and finishing. Ironically, it is the co-mingling of fear and confidence that often drives the decision-making process. Within the context of self-assessed skills, you must decide what it is you fear the most and then act. Pogue, through long experience, knew fairly well his capabilities both physically and mentally. Today, he didn’t try to ward off any lurking demons of fear. Rather, he acknowledged them with familiarity, and yielded to them the respect due formidable adversaries. From previous battles he had learned that you don’t always prevail against these demons, but he also knew that he was more than capable of being their master.
The holds returned to dirty slopers and Pogue began to wonder when the last time anyone had done this route. The polish on the route evidenced much previous traffic, but the buildup of dirt suggested it had been long ago. A serious air began to creep into what should have been a casual affair. Pogue resolved to beat the demons. “No adrenaline”, he commanded. “You must not allow it. Keep moving and keep focused.”
Pogue climbed to within three feet of the top only to arrive at an impasse just short of salvation. He knew he was off-route, too. The easier finish lay three to four feet left from where he now found himself uncomfortably perched. He had deviated from the true line, fooled by some “red herring” holds to the right that put him onto this dead-end course which led to much harder climbing. The top was at once mocking him and beckoning to him earnestly. The ground was now an awful, long way down. As his leather boots scuffed around on sloping holds, Pogue began to feel his strength ebb. Once his momentum stalled, he knew he had only precious little time to act.
The moves confronting him to a direct finish were steep, thin, face moves that did not invite an immediate attempt. Some mere few moves to the left promised a “Thank God” handhold that offered an entrée back onto the path of least resistance. “Breathe. Just breathe,” he counseled himself in an effort to chase desperation back into dark recesses. No, the direct finish would not do. To regain the proper line looked tough, but he resolved to work left. Delicate footwork with indelicate boots would have to get him there. It had taken the eternity of almost half a minute to decide. A first tentative move left pinned his fate to reaching the “Thank God” hold.
He moved. First, one hand left, then a committing step left. One more move up diagonally, then a foot shuffle and…R-E-A-C-H. A long reach stretched sideways as his left arm shot out to the “Thank God” hold. It was simultaneously to be an instant of salvation and damnation.
Pogue heard it as much as he felt it. The pain and the sound intertwined; the stringy fibers of his left shoulder tore like a slowly twisted celery stalk crunching into uselessness. Yet, Pogue fought to finish the moves, somehow managing to hang on as his good hand quickly assumed the burden of keeping himself pasted onto the face. He was at the very finish of the climb with his head and shoulders breaching the top of the cliff. In the immediate aftermath of the shoulder trauma, some muscle function lingered for a brief few seconds allowing Pogue to splay his arm up and out across the top itself. Unfortunately, the arm was useless, except for the minimal friction of its’ own weight against the rock. Although this was something, the arm would be of no help in any attempt to perform the manteling exit moves required to finish the climb.
On some cruel level, Pogue laughed appreciating the comedy inherent in his predicament. “Out of the pan and into the fire,” he thought, just as he was so close. The fingers of his good right hand searched for any hold with which to pull those last few moves. Finding none, they searched for even an indent or weakness that might encourage a gamble. Nothing presented itself. All within reach was a water caressed rock tableau that was silky and smooth like the metal playground slides he remembered as a kid. Time was now a fleeting commodity, and he knew that swift decisions needed careful weighing. It was very simple, really. He would go up or he would go down.
Among the many wonders that climbing can bring us is the instant ability to distill the essence of life to the focus of a mere grain. Not many routine activities require such a concentrated immediate analysis of an individual’s wants and needs. All peripheral demands of life are suddenly stripped away. The human animal is simply left to struggle with the gravity of life and death either through reason or primeval instinct.
Unroped, alone, and injured. Clinging and tiring, Pogue began to bend to gravity’s demand for a timely decision and conclusion. The ground loomed far below and the earth’s pull was becoming more insistent with each passing second. Rest was not an option. Pogue had delayed as best he could, but a reckoning was now past due. His left arm was gone, and soon gravity would wrest all control from him.
The longer he hesitated, the less energy there remained for a climbing effort. From that height, the penalty for falling in mid-sequence would be severe. To fall and land with his body at an angle would mean critical or ultimate consequences from such a height. An off-kilter landing was not a desirable outcome amongst the dirt and rocks that littered the base. Finishing upward seemed to be an “all or nothing” gambit in trying to top out. The top was smooth and featureless. Just one single handhold might have allowed him to grovel up onto his stomach, and, perhaps, worm and thrash his way off. It was not there for him. To attempt the necessary finishing footwork while trusting those leather boots to get the job done was more than Pogue could ask of them.
Did Geronimo break his legs in his fabled leap? Pogue thought not, but reckoned that a broken leg might be more than a fair trade-off as a means of deliverance from this plight. That seemed fair enough. There would be no more climbing today. The odds of a slip seemed too great. If he was going to land, he was determined to do so in a manner of his own choosing, feet first rather than headlong. The decision was made. The legs were to be sacrificed for the good of the cause. In one fluid, relaxed, motion, Pogue released himself from the cliff, gently turning to orient himself to the landing. His fall time elapsed was longer than he thought it would be. Then, with a violent abruptness, the ground rushed to meet him, impacting squarely those large leather boots. Instantly, the rest of his body merged with the dirt and stone at the base of the climb.
Later, dried blood that dripped sideways on his face suggested he had lost consciousness for a bit. He couldn’t reconcile this, though, with his sense that no lapse of time had occurred between his impact and a curious realization as he lay sprawled among the dirt and rocks before the cliff: No wrenching pain of broken bone was evident. Oh, he’d felt better for sure, but he rolled over gingerly, and realized he could bring himself to his feet. Blood on the pebbles beneath him let him know he was not unscathed, but he was surprised that his legs had come through enough to allow him to walk away. A large gash above his eye and some overly taxed legs seemed a pretty good bargain. He’d been willing to pay a little more, but the salesman in him said just walk away from the table and take the deals when you can.
Slowly, he made his way back to the broad creek. With no deference to his earlier game, he plunged into the coursing stream, and walked steadily across splashing along in those big leather boots. He wondered how many stitches he’d need this time, as he ambled along, just another day in the woods.
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Jul 21, 2007 - 01:12pm PT
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not mine, but i've always dug this poem:
The Face
Everything kisses and burns.
There is light on the face
In blistering night, so cold
You could snap
But such wind and sweat you hang on
To the face, to ice and sharp stone.
In the night you face blisters
With cold. And everything burns,
Everything kisses. You bend to the face
Made of stone and you're cold,
Beyond reach, and you're glad:
It's you who lights the face.
There is no other place
You'd rather be.
 ET, 1982
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Jul 21, 2007 - 01:16pm PT
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and this absolute classic by donald justice:
Here in Katmandu
We have climbed the mountain.
There's nothing more to do.
It is terrible to come down
To the valley
Where, amidst many flowers,
One thinks of snow,
As formerly, amidst snow,
Climbing the mountain,
One thought of flowers,
Tremulous, ruddy with dew,
In the valley.
One caught their scent coming down.
It is difficult to adjust, once down,
To the absence of snow.
Clear days, from the valley,
One looks up at the mountain.
What else is there to do?
Prayer wheels, flowers!
Let the flowers
Fade, the prayer wheels run down.
What have they to do
With us who have stood atop the snow
Atop the mountain,
Flags seen from the valley?
It might be possible to live in the valley,
To bury oneself among flowers,
If one could forget the mountain,
How, never once looking down,
Stiff, blinded with snow,
One knew what to do.
Meanwhile it is not easy here in Katmandu,
Especially when to the valley
That wind which means snow
Elsewhere, but here means flowers,
Comes down,
As soon it must, from the mountain.
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rockanice
climber
new york
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Jul 23, 2007 - 03:32pm PT
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FIRST ROPE
At the tender age of twelve I was faced with the question of whether I was ready to go it on my own. No, I wasn’t kicked out of the house. It was worse than that. I had lost my rope gun. (Term "RG" probably not current then) Growing up in New York State, I had climbed in the Adirondacks, Vermont, New Hampshire, and of course, the Gunks. Always I had been second to an older leader, but now he was packed up and gone, having moved on to new horizons. I was stuck.
My apprenticeship had begun two years earlier in 1972 at the age of ten. I had been lucky enough to attend a summer camp on New York’s Lake George where “mountaineering” was one of the activities you could sign up for if Art and Crafts happened to be overbooked. I’ll never forget my first taste of climbing’s excitement when a group of us kids stumbled across a backcountry scene of ropes and helmets and cliffs. We all looked it over, and after the first glance, most of the other kids moved on. I was in a trance, though, like a deer caught in the headlights on some dark road. I was abandoned by the others who didn’t or couldn’t see what I had. This certainly wasn’t anything like braiding lanyards into keychains. This was something raw, wild and serious. It pulled me in immediately and irrevocably.
“Mountaineering” in that camp setting came under the able guidance of Mark Birmingham. It was Mark who would first outline the basics of the game for me, showing me mostly what I needed to know. In his twenties at the time, he was more than twice my age and probably three times better than my scrawny weight. Yet, it became routine to second him on multi-pitch climbs with a hammer hanging and banging around my knees on a sling.
As luck would have it, Mark also lived in my hometown. Although the camp season ended in August, my climbing didn’t. Mark was game enough to take me out to local spots like Laddin’s Rock and up to the Gunks where the season really just begins to hit its’ stride in the Fall. I guess he took me out those times because he knew he would not fall leading me up the easy classics like Horseman (5.4, F5 originally, now 5.5). I also like to think, though, that he indulged me because he believed that I stood ready to die before shirking my responsibilities on belay.
Someone photographed me belaying Mark when I was ten years old. I was tethered to a tree about twenty five feet behind me with my waist cinched tight in a loop of rope on a bight. Mark was pictured jumping in a simulated leader fall while I was being drawn and quartered in the midst of a hip belay, my body lurching, with my feet dangling three feet off the ground. Mark was smiling down on me laughing.
All the time, I was unaware that things like belay devices and harnesses were even available. All I knew was that a bowline and a hip belay would get the job done if it didn’t cut me in half in the process. Mark didn’t own a harness or belay device that I can recall, and he never bothered mentioning of their existence to me. When Mark finally moved away, the high point of my sophistication was to fashion a diaper seat sling for a brake-bar rappel. Suddenly confronted with managing my climbing endeavors on my own, I had just one burning desire. All important to my mind was the rope.
Oh the rope! The rope was the dream. That was all you really needed. It was my primary goal, but that meant cold hard cash which prompted an earnest campaign of things like cutting lawns and carrying golf bags at five dollars per round. I can still picture the first one hundred dollars that I ever scraped together in my life. I can see it all piled up on the rug in my room waiting to be counted. It was literally one hundred single dollar bills crumpled and creased, spread out like a pile of tinder for an expensive fire. It was truly a wonderful cache of money at the time. Of course, for me, it didn’t mean a new bike or a skateboard. Neither did it mean a go-cart with a rebuilt lawnmower engine. It could have meant all those things or perhaps a dozen other dreams to enchant a twelve year old kid, but that would not do for me. No, those one hundred dollars were my entrance fee to adventure. It meant forty-five meters of rope with a kernmantle core.
Yes, having the cash was a giant step toward the goal, but no stores sold dynamic ropes for climbing yet in the suburbs of Westchester County, NewYork. Too young to drive to New Paltz, New York, I was forced to consider the only other option I thought available. I needed to get somewhere, someplace, where all your dreams could be negotiated. I was going to New York City.
Up until this point, my parents still had a hazy conception of what was involved with this climbing thing. Not too many years later, they would see George Willig on the evening news after he made his infamous climb of the World Trade Center, but I quickly assured them it had little to do with what I was up to. At this stage, I could not afford intense parental scrutiny which might postpone my climbing career until I was legal to vote.
People say that climbing is all about risk management. Well, I couldn’t take the risk of asking my parents about getting a rope, only to be denied and forbidden, subject closed. As for taking the train into NYC alone, well, you could say it was a bit of a grey area, and I admit I knew what the right and wrong thing to do was. However, with my eyes on the prize, I wasn’t going to let a little something like common sense defeat me.
So it was with a happy heart and the extra thrill of a clandestine adventure that I bought a ticket to NYC. Soon, I found myself navigating my way on foot from Grand Central Station’s hectic frenzy way downtown past the Flatiron Building to a venerable sporting goods store on 18th Street. Once in the door and directed to the second floor, I presented myself to the counter at the top of the stairs. Finally, with the moment at hand, I plunked a wad of money down on the counter and withstood the grins of the older and seemingly superior clerks. They tallied up all the cash and bemusedly handed this skinny little kid a brand new factory coiled rope from Europe.
It served me well in those early heady days from top-roping to safeguarding my initial forays out onto the so-called sharp end. A long line of ropes would follow over the years, but sentimental fellow that I am, I still have that rope stashed away to remind me of the excitement of those early beginnings. Maybe because of all the changes that have been wrought in this game of ours it is that basic essence of adventure that I hoped to preserve, and that rope is my reminder and symbol. So guard your treasures well as we each must do in our own way. For me the battle continues today as I keep that rope hidden from my wife lest it suffer the same fate as some of the other “worthless junk” that she’s uncovered.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 23, 2007 - 03:57pm PT
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Rockanice,
2 very nice stories from you!
A real pleasure.
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Jul 23, 2007 - 04:06pm PT
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a piece I wrote for Climbing 7 years ago. Hope it is not too long. Maybe more appropriate for the "living legends" thread.
Life beneath the big walls...
I walk into Camp 4 with my 17-year-old son, Braden; he wants to show me his latest moves on the slack line. It's his high-school graduation day, the ceremony held in a nearby meadow beneath the thundering Yosemite Falls.
We pass among the tents and my head spins. I lived in this camp when I was his age, met his mother when just a bit older, and, when he was born, became one of several Yosemite climbing dads at 20.
It's just a simple campground, but in a wondrous place, mixed oak and pine woodlands, the granite walls and boulders attracting the residents who left legends behind. I am one of the lucky climbers who have been able to settle here. Though I've sometimes lived elsewhere, I've stayed connected through Braden, who has grown up in the Valley.
Braden leads me confidently through the oaks to the slack line that Dean Potter and Cedar Wright, the slack-line masters, have created in the woods out past the rescue site. Braden has eagerly picked up advice while watching his new mentors jump, twist, turn, and do laps on a piece of 70-foot-long, one-inch webbing 10 feet off the ground. Braden walks the line, executes a 180, then another, and cruises to the far tree. He has entered a world of balance and focus that I can only marvel at; I never could get the hang of the slack line myself. Braden's audience is a group of his peers: kids born and raised in Yosemite, whose parents are mostly old friends from the 1970’s climbing scene.
Twenty-three years ago, I camped here with my mentors, Mark Hudon and Max Jones. They were tearing up the Valley, doing early ascents of many 5.12 cracks, the top standard of the time. They were generous with tips and inspiration for me, an eager 15- year-old with big free-climbing dreams. One day they left for a road trip, leaving me behind with six mattresses they had "borrowed" from the women's dormitory across the street, this being long before the invention of the therma-rest. I returned that day from climbing to be detained by the Law Enforcement Rangers for possession of stolen property. After some heavy lecturing and a quick call to my dad to make sure I really was a "serious climbing protégé" and not merely a runaway, the rangers let me recruit some friends, carry the mattresses back across the street, and go free. Over time we grew to prefer sharing the mattresses with their rightful owners, which is how our families began and why we are here today celebrating graduation.
From Camp 4 we go to dinner at the Ahwahnee Hotel. Back in the 70’s, this was a favorite haunt of ours where we would spend the stormy days in the sweet shop and the great lounge. One such day in 1979 we organized a slide show in the Winter Club Room for an audience of 20 or so young climbers. The topic was the 3rd ascent of the Pacific Ocean Wall by Bill Price, Auggie Klein, Dave Dieglemann. and Guy Thompsen. Some hotel guests joined us and were thrilled by the slides. We all thought someone had secured permission so when the security guard challenged us we said “oh yeah, the manager gave us the room”.
Halfway through the show, the guard was back with a stern looking woman in a suit. “Bill, you got permission right?” “Oh, I thought you did Dave.” “Well, of course, the manager said we were welcome!” Finally June yelled “I am the manager and you have two minutes to clear out before I have you arrested!” Sheepishly, and with apologies to the guests, we left.
This community has not always been a harmonious one. At one of the lowest points in our history, debates about rap-bolting intensified enough to cause blows between friends. I remember sitting in the bar with Jim Bridwell, one of the most important mentors to many of us. He said, "On your dying day, when you face your maker or the universal void, do you think it will matter one whit how hard you climbed or what style you used? No way, man. Only one thing will matter, how many people you helped along the way."
Yosemite can be limiting as a community. Many people settle here to escape the outside world, seeing a life near nature as a refuge. They can be unwilling to engage the energy, progress, and ideas outside these large walls. I found I had to leave to grow, to meet people from different backgrounds and viewpoints. I tried to live the best of both worlds and provide that for the kids. Time in the city checking out art, urban culture and skateboarding; time in the mountains spent at village soccer games, climbing and skiing.
At times I bumped hard into the conservative aspects of a small remote village community. Stonewall, the gay climbing club, was welcome at CityRock but would have had a harder time being accepted in Camp 4. The women leaders of Project Bandaloop used to get into frustrating arguments with the rescue site dudes over gender equity, though over time such interactions have created understanding and friendships.
It was a fire that summoned me back: the house where my son, his mom and his two sisters lived burned to the ground. Everyone was OK, but when Braden called me, he was standing in his boxer shorts and that was all he had left.
All of our neighbors, and even young climbers, gave us clothes, food, money, and help sorting through the blackened wreckage. I realized how valuable it is to be a member of such a community in this day and age, and moved back here full time.
The best aspect of being in a long-term member of a community is to be part of renewed cycles of mentoring. The recent passing of David Brower has caused many of us to reflect on the legacy of our Yosemite climbing forebears, the Sierra Club climbers of the 20s and 30s. They invented the belay system we still use, and pioneered the first "modern style" technical rock climbs. They started a successful Rock-Climbing Section of the Sierra Club that fostered a climbing community through technical instruction and an environmental ethos. It was unforgettable to hear David Brower speak last year at the Camp 4 reunion, with so many generations of Valley residents in attendance. Sitting with my extended family, I felt Brower's commitment to exploring and preserving mountain environments reach through the generations into the future.
One recent evening, my son and I completed our first climb of El Cap together. We did the Zodiac, 20 years after I first climbed it when I was just shy of 18, exactly the same age as he.
Descending, we had nearly reached the road when Jim Bridwell caught up to us, coming down from a film-rigging job on the summit. He had loaned us the rack to do the climb, and he questioned Braden about how it was to climb it hammerless. “It was cool, my dad took the only fall!” We hitched a ride with Tommy Caldwell back to the lodge and shared a drink with TM Herbert, who told stories about his last ascent of El Cap with his son Tom. Out in front of the lodge, we watched Leo Holding re-enact his extreme campfire gymnastic moves.
The new generation of kids and young adults born and raised in Yosemite is the interesting group to watch. As our kids take off to college or to travel, they will broaden their perspectives and bring back new ideas. As the offspring of Valley climbers they already enjoy connections with people all over the globe, because the whole climbing world seems to visit here.
What will Chelsea Cashner, Yuoddi and Lonnie Kauk, Libby Brossman, Lynnea Anderson, Braden Mayfield, Layton Bridwell, Ellie Corbett, Anji Ballerini-Chapman, and many others do to express themselves in life? How will a childhood spent walking under towering granite walls and swimming near waterfalls inform them and the lives they choose to lead?
How do we preserve our community and the environment? We teach, guide, spend time with our kids in the mountains, and help people make connections between nature and their daily lives, wherever they live.
To this community of Yosemite and the greater community of mountain adventurers around the world, life in the mountains has been the greatest gift. We need to pass it on.
Peter
Here ya go 426
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Jul 23, 2007 - 04:27pm PT
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hey Maysho, where's the pic of yer kid slacklinin'...
nice stuff gents, keep up the work (my first red edelrid is loooong gone:(. I want to hear some more PMB stories...got a toddy in hand.
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rockanice
climber
new york
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Jul 23, 2007 - 05:11pm PT
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Thanks for the thread. Have been enjoying all your good stuff and with you, Oli, JL etc. it's a high bar set for sure and tough mixing in with legends
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rockanice
climber
new york
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Apr 23, 2008 - 03:55pm PT
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(Originally posted last Fall as reply to "Close Calls" thread on gunks.com recounting a day in WY over 20 years ago.)
Cook’s Day Off
When I lived in Boulder my mom used to invite me out to meet her at a "dude ranch" in Saddlestrings,WY (HF Bar Ranch). Having been there before, and knowing a ton of virgin sandstone abounded, I brought a rope and some gear with me to visit. Typically, these ranches are staffed with kids from college to round out the permanent hard core wranglers and I figured this would be where I'd recruit a partner somehow.
I knew already where I wanted to climb. From previous years on trail rides I'd seen this cave about 100 feet up this sandstone wall and I just imagined what we might find if we could only get up to it. Mesa Verde it was not, but it was enough of a draw for me to convince some non-climber it was worth the effort to accompany me. It was the cook's day off, and he was an amiable companion for the adventure.
We saddled up the horses and rode off across the terrain where all those Marlboro advertisements were shot and the cook told me how they got to be extras milling around a chuckwagon or something in the background. It was a beautiful bluebird day and we left the plains behind for the wooded slopes bringing us up into the foothills. Along the way, just short of the sandstone wall harboring the cave, we pulled off the trail and I sized up a likely cliff face to indoctrinate my new friend to the art of the belay. The only ropework he knew was of the lariat variety, but he was tall and young and strong as hell.
The cliff was over a hundred feet easily and since he was going to be using a hip belay I figured it would be best if he belayed me first from above on a true toprope. The climbing looked pretty easy, but it was straightforward walking around to the top and I anchored him there to a tree for his first lesson. "When I yell 'falling!' you slam your brakehand straight to your heart, and all that friction across your back and chest will allow you to hold my fall." He grasped the mechanics of reeling in the slack so that the brakehand never strayed from its’ ever ready position. I looked his technique over again and told him to drop the rope to me when I scrambled back down to the base of the climb.
OK, climbing, climb on. I began moving up and the cook yarded in the rope pretty tightly, maybe thinking he had to pull me up. Well, I figured I'd let him in on the finer points when I got to the top and left it at that. When I was about three quarters of the way up, a sizeable sort of easy buttress / overhang had to be surmounted. and I pulled over the lip and established my whole body onto this gigantic feature. It was then that I felt or somehow knew that this huge block section was going to detach and I cast off of it as the whole rock above my hands and below my feet loosed itself from the main cliff. The cook never got a warning as it happened so fast and as I pushed off a section the size of a car dropped as I swung out with me swinging back into its’ wake of vestigial rubble and dust. Below me an explosion of rock roared like thunder and then it was suddenly quiet again. I clawed my way through the scar pretty quickly and clambered up over the top to lock eyes with the cook.
Holy smokes. We peered over the edge and the horses were well off to one side and still tied. No, they were still alive I was really thinking, and I was still alive. I quickly assured the cook that he passed the belay test and he visibly restrained himself from hugging me when I told him that was all the climbing we would do today and he thanked me. No, thank you, cowboy. We walked down and surveyed the carnage of rubble at the base that evidenced the event. Ice climbers know that feeling late in the season when they spy huge columns of ice laying heavy and broken at the base and can't help but imagine being caught under such a barrage. The day was young and we wandered and explored feeling lucky on more than a few scores and I packed that rope up for the remainder of the trip, but when I bought the cook a beer later that evening I told him we'd go back and get that cave in the cliff next year.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Apr 23, 2008 - 11:18pm PT
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Thought of climbers I've known while driving home from work tonight. This came to mind.
Climbing fires up your soul
and it's combustible
it burns up some relationships and ignites others.
Climbing purifies your soul
with the adrenaline
that courses through your body.
Climbing seduces your soul
a mistress that is never satisfied
always demanding.
Climbing is a mystery to some
a life to others.
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