Topic Author's Original Post - Dec 25, 2012 - 10:47am PT
Merry Christmas!
My favorite soloing shots are ones that really capture the experience, and sometimes that is in the form of a climbing partner dashing to a pack to grab a camera or a loving wife enjoying an afternoon hike with her husband.
This is the picture from the thread that inspired me to really explore mount Woodson. This problem seemed so impossible to me and the idea of a guy out for an afternoon romp on pleasant classics would be soloing this, YIKES! Of course, I know now more about who Greg is, and even though this would not be a giant peak in his mountain range of bold wide cracks I thought it was outta this world.
We've all heard this one but in the spirit of the JT reunion I'll recount it again....
One day after an early morning bouldering session, me and Yabo were beat. We decided to call it quits and take a rest day. We sparked a doobious cigarette and started yapping. Yabo told me he wanted to solo Spiderline (which at the time had only been top roped, never lead).
I told him he should wait until he got it "really wired". Then he told me he was meditating on the ledge below Spiderline the night before and all of a sudden there was a spider dangling in front of him. It had lowered from the crack above. He then said it was an omen letting him know he could solo Spiderline.
I tried to keep a poker face. I really thought he was getting too lost in this "omen" stuff but I couldn't tell him. I tried talking him into waiting again and he seemed OK with that. I split for camp and told my friend Buck Norden (sp?) about what just happened. He thought Yabo was losing it too.
Our conversation was interrupted by a whooping high pitched, "yay yay yay yay".
What the fuk was that? We looked up and there he was, a third the way up Spiderline.
I grabbed my camera and we ran up to the base to take a picture. Before we got going, Yabo's feet popped out of the crack and his body took a wicked swing outwards. Amazingly enough, he hung on!
I thought, "Cool, he can still downclimb from there". That's not what happened - he kept going.
John Yablonski on the first free solo (and lead) of Spiderline, 11c/d.
The he got near the last move - a funky roll over onto a dicey slab move. It was hot out and Yabo was sweating and shaking fiercely. So he takes his shirt off for the last move!
He was shaking like a leaf in a hundred mile per hour wind and he rolled into the slab move and climbed away. Norden was facing in the other direction - he couldn't watch.
Me and Norden went over to the Scatterbrain boulder and were talking about what we just saw. We both thought we should tell Yabo to cool it or he was going to get killed. Just then Yabo popped up on a boulder above us and said,"Who are you guys to tell me anything. I just soloed Spiderline!". Then he spirited away. He obviously overheard our conversation
When I ran into him later he had cooled off a bit. I did notice the largest hand jam gobie I have ever seen - on the back of Yabo's right hand. It was as round and almost as thick as a half dollar...the dude hung on hard.
-John Bachar
This next one isn't really a photo per say, and it definitely isn't amateur, but a moment caught on film all the same. Its from the bad ass flick Masters of Stone VI (available from http://mastersofstone.com/) and is on the video below:
There is a moment as dean cuts his feet to turn the lip move... almost anyone I know in that situation would be thinking PRECISION! CONTROL! MOVE PERFECTLY AND EXACTLY TO THE LIP AND EXECUTE THE MANTLE! But not Dean... he makes eye contact with you like a lion on top of its fresh kill, and stays there. You realize that Dean wants to be there, that he is thriving. He is in the moment, not 'doing a climb' but having an experience.
I'm not an adrenaline junkie, I can't mountain bike very well or snowboard or ski, even skateboarding scares me. The few dinky solo(ish) things I've done were never about that, and I look for that in inspiration, where I know that the climber is a samurai hopping among boulders in a roaring stream, not a gladiator in an arena.
a side note.... before biotch re-sized the Nat.Geo pic , I noticed a
rope piled on the ledge below thank god ledge...? wonder what the story
is on that?
a side note.... before biotch re-sized the Nat.Geo pic , I noticed a
rope piled on the ledge below thank god ledge...? wonder what the story
is on that?
Cool photos, the Bachar photo of Croft on the Rostrum, Bachar on OZ & the one Ron posted above are my 3 favorites & they all blow my mind as much now as they did when I first saw them.
Yeah this thread is awesome. Synchronicity where is that?! What a powerful place!
I'd have to add that Edlinger shot of him hanging one arm in the Verdon as well to my favs. Now if we could only see that & the Bachar on OZ. anyone???
RyanD, that is Honnold soloing the Phoenix 5.13, if I'm not mistaken its probably the hardest single pitch solo that has been done in the valley (Werner can correct me). Still If I had to pick one iconic solo it would probably be Honnold's triple solo of El Cap, Half Dome and Mt. Watkins in a day. I don't think most of the world (outside of us climbers) can really grasp the magnitude of that accomplishment.
I prefer Oz. It rolls off the tongue way better and Dorothy's little trip through Oz has way better allusions to drug culture anyway. When I think of Ounces I always think of my 20 oz Estwing hammer that I've used for thirty years.
outrageous solo. I assume he soloed the crux face pitch below? Yikes!
Yeah yeah I know OZ is about drugs, I wasn't referring to the Wizard of Oz, thanks for posting up. Sick shots, way to redeem James, not sure how the redpoint would have felt but I'm sure the word relieved comes to mind. I remember reading your story man, well written but yep ur a lucky guy, way to get back up.
G Davis, your clip from Masters of Stone reminded me of how great that series is. I haven't seen VI yet, need to get it. I wish all videos were as Yosemite-centric, but that's just me.
Also reminded me that the series contains what is hands down the worst musical taste in all of climbing videodom. I'd take Euro techno in a heartbeat over that garbage, and I don't like Euro techno.
That's a great pic you started this thread with. Was at Sickle Crack a few weeks ago TRing. That is a stout free solo for sure. Hard to tell how the rock angles from that pic but that crack keeps wanting to spit you out until you get near the top.
Edit: Thought it was Sickle Crack anyways. Am I wrong GDavis?
Although I stick by my belief that the first rule of solo club is never to talk about solo club - including photos. If you do, perhaps a few photos of broken bodies should be included. We've all lost friends to solo climbing.
i am as bad as anyone else at being interested in this....but it seems totally wrong to glorify soloing. The pic of Derek on Mr. Clean. I suppose it is 11a but it is a very easy climb for someone at their finest, in the zone. but derek died on something easier than this. we should all take pause in that.
as for the dude that fell and survived in JT. i would be embarrassed were i him. thats just me. getting press out of something so sinister as to almost dieing, well, hell...anyone can can die.
as for the dude that fell and survived in JT. i would be embarrassed were i him. thats just me. getting press out of something so sinister as to almost dieing, well, hell...anyone can can die.
You are right - I have some extended family members dying of complications from extreme obesity. That is right, they eat so much that they are dying from it, slowly, and they can't stop.
Suddenly it seems like friends and heroes of people on this site enjoying adventure and their passion isn't such a big problem... every day is a solo, every freeway, every lead - risk is ever present in life, it is ever present in climbing.
Soloists aren't dying right and left. A few good friends of ours have lost their lives to it, just like mountaineering, alpinism, lowering off the rope... climbing is f*#king dangerous. Don't think your danger is better than James'. He put his heart out there and told everyone how it happened, exactly as it happened.
I would be embarrassed to have never truly lived.
edit - not really talking to Hawkeye per say, he has a valid opinion.
Soloists aren't dying right and left. A few good friends of ours have lost their lives to it, just like mountaineering, alpinism, lowering off the rope... climbing is f*#king dangerous. Don't think your danger is better than James'. He put his heart out there and told everyone how it happened, exactly as it happened.
I would be embarrassed to have never truly lived.
there is a very fine line between living and dieing. only you can choose. i am not pretending to choose for anyone other than to caution those who do not understand the difference.
I don't think you are stupid, anymore than the rest of us who solo are stupid. Looking at Hank's photo, the first thing I thought, is that's just stupid.
When JB died, I was at working on TRON surrounded by Stuntmen, I couldn't hide my emotions; when my friends asked what was wrong, and I told them my friend died climbing without a rope.
Everyone said some version of, "that wasn't to smart," all the way to, "your friend was just plan stupid."
I love the photos in this thread, and I have pushed my luck as many here have, but I can't help but notice many of the photos are now of dead guys.
All of them were friends of mine some better than others, and they were anything but stupid.
You're not a failure or stupid James, something happen to you that could have happen to all of us. I've had feet and hands slip off soloing, Werner has too.
I met you and thought you were one heroic guy to survive that fall and climb again. Don't listen to the haters, they're just people who flat out don't know what they're talking about.
You're wrong, James suffered Brain Damage from his Fall, so he is in fact stupider than the rest of us. He also walks funny, but not in the good funny way. In a few years he'll need one of these.
https://thehurrycane.com
The only reason Alex Hannold hangs out with James is to remind him of the consequence of failure.
Hawkeye-
Luck is the wrong word. Somewhere between my 7th and 8th week of laying in a hospital bed, Dean Fidelman and Lucho visited me. Dean spun around in a hospital wheel chair performing wheelies occasionally.
"Man, I can't believe you survived," Lucho said, "you got lucky."
"You are not lucky," Dean told me. "You are fortunate. If you were lucky you would not have fallen. You would have topped out gone to Vegas, won a million bucks and done blow off a hooker's ass. You are fortunate-you survived"
"You are not lucky," Dean told me. "You are fortunate. If you were lucky you would not have fallen. You would have topped out gone to Vegas, won a million bucks and done blow off a hooker's ass. You are fortunate-you survived"
very good attitude......i sincerely applaud you for that.
but in 20 years when you have seen your kids bouncing off your knee your perspective might have changed.
hats off to you regardless.
i know that i soloed things that at this point in my life were foolish. i was lucky, but i can only really comment about me and my skills at the time.
that pic of Derek on Mr Clean...when i climbed Mr Clean I never felt more solid....it could have been an easy solo.....and while i did some near that league, i was lucky.....but i can only comment on my own self.
And in 20 years, when you have seen your children walk away from your knee uninterested, showing total disdain for your boring life, your prospective may change too.
I've only fallen a couple times, which is twice more than most get. Never had a camera around for the hard stuff, just the fun ones. (thanx SM for the Derek shot, one of my faves)
Our great government needs to ban free soloing....that will stop all this silliness. Bouldering only up to 10 feet, crash pads mandatory at all times. Kinda like the ban on base jumping. This initiative will put thousands to work and save the lives of at least a few people per year. We can start the Fight/Solo Club and solo in secret.
The very first photo in this thread is a pic I posted on Mountain Project of Greg Cameron cruising the Crucible. The photo was taken by Elizabeth Benjamin
I don't know about you people ,But everytime i see a picture with exposier my legs and feet tingle and shake.the human mind is an amazing thing.my feet were tingling through out this thread.thanks for the pics and tales
ec
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