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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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I am KNOTT climbing with Tom Cochrane!
.... then again, he might be the luckiest bastard around here! He might even be incredibly GOOD luck!
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snowhazed
Trad climber
Oaksterdam, CA
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The pic I posted is the Dragway on the Dragtooth. Great route, just need to alpine ninja tiptoe in a few places.....
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labrat
Trad climber
Nevada City, CA
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Ditto on "Tom Cochrane, even if you were a cat you've used up your lives!"
Wow!
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le_bruce
climber
Oakland, CA
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There's a massive, katana-shaped plane of rock that hangs lightly wedged over and just right of Hawkman's first pitch. Looked menacing both times I motored past it. I'd bet Lower Bro has plenty of loose teeth like that.
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Didn't one of Werners entire FA climbs fall off the wall and dissappear? I forget the name, above Mirror Lake?
Werner's Crack. That and the Prude went bye-bye! (At least I think the Prude vanished also...)
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can't say
Social climber
Pasadena CA
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How about what I call the Wing that you see when descending from the Hulk?
Has anyone even climbed on this wall?
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steveA
Trad climber
bedford,massachusetts
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Back in 1970, on the Prow, in Yosemite, there was a block about 6 feet high, perfectly square, about 1 foot thick, standing on end. It was one or 2 pitches up, perfectly balanced, but I hesitated to push it off, as I nervously climbed passed it. Anyone remember it?
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Jan 10, 2013 - 12:42am PT
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one i had forgotten about:
during the years in the 1950s when i was teaching myself to climb in Boise, there didn't seem to be any other climbers in the state and my only options were to recruit a classmate or solo
one day i managed to persuade a classmate to join me on a first ascent
i led the first pitch up a chimney with no pro and banged in a piton for a belay
as i banged in the piton, the 'ledge' that was really a pile of rocks where the chimney flared out into a face, started making crunchy sounds
i called out to my partner on the ground below to quickly untie the rope from his waist and run off to one side
i pulled up the rope and then jumped up and down on the ledge a few times and a ton or so of rocks let loose down the chimney, down the hill, and demolished a wooden power pole next to the dirt road up the canyon, leaving me hanging from the single soft iron piton
my partner had now lost his interest in rock climbing and i lowered myself down
i did go back later and finish the climb and another one on the face of the chimney that became a favorite...
i think there used to be a lot more of this loose stuff on what are now popular routes, before so many people were crawling all over the rocks
there was another time when i was soloing Mt Hood at night and decided i was tired of snow and transitioned over to the ridge to the right of the usual snow slog above Timberline Lodge
this was fine until the sun came up and started melting the ice that was holding together this frozen choss pile...having to hold the rock together onto the mountain in order to ascend, particularly since the sun hit the rocks above me first...i am sure there was a greater weight of loose rock falling down for each move, than my weight moving up...
this turned into one of several instances
particularly on Mt Edith Cavell and Mt Rundell in the Canadian Rockies
Chouinard made an elegant description in the Alpine Journal of his similar experience on Mt. Edith Cavell North Face
a lot of mountains that used to be glued together with ice are now turning into a very different sort of challenge
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Chicken Skinner
Trad climber
Yosemite
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 10, 2013 - 12:49am PT
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SteveA,
I remember it and it was scary. I believe it was near the start of the 3rd pitch. I have a picture of it somewhere. After I did the route Bob "Berzerko Bob" Williams did the Prow and trundled it.
Ken
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Jan 10, 2013 - 01:09am PT
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I have a confession.
I was doing a new route in Yosemite many years ago. It was fine line up a double-overhanging corner, just barely past vertical.
But half way up there was a death block leaning out of the crack, directly above my belayer. I liked my belayer.
So I placed a bolt out on the face to go around it. Does that make me a bad person?
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Jan 10, 2013 - 01:21am PT
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Sierra, was that the route on Sentinel North Face that Kim Schmitz and i backed off of?
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Jan 10, 2013 - 01:24am PT
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^^^
No, but I ain't saying where.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jan 10, 2013 - 01:31am PT
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Now how hard was that? All that shame for all those years and the block's probably history by now anyway. No bad peeps around here. Trundling is necessary on occasion. So is a bolt.
Backed off from, Tom. I guess Schmitz didn't think you were a Rabbit's Foot, eh?
Have we ever seen a photo of the mythical Psyche Flake on NWFHD?
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Jan 10, 2013 - 01:48am PT
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i made two secretive solo attempts on it and then told Kim and he wanted a go at it
my part of the deal was to stay up all night guarding his food bag from the bears...which is another exciting story all by itself...
i think it was his first time on a big wall...the major trauma of the day was that his sleeping bag slipped out of his pack straps and fell down the wall, never to be seen again...
i heard years later that someone went and finished the route, but never heard the details
it goes up the right edge of the big overhang-topped alcove dominating the left side of the North Face...to the right of Robbins Direct and to the left of the Chouinard/Herbert
i always thought it would be a fun climb to do, basically a straight up crack all the way, with the big overhangs in the middle
the nemesis block was a few feet above the overhang and obviously loose
does anyone know more about this?
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Tom Cochrane, even if you were a cat you've used up your lives!
perhaps it is helpful to consider the circumstances of Schrodinger's cat...what if the cat intervenes in the progression of the outcome??
it's all about the opportunity for influencing circumstances towards a preferred parallel universe at each junction point
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
extraordinaire
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Death Block - What death block?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Tom,
i heard years later that someone went and finished the route, but never heard the details
it goes up the right edge of the big overhang-topped alcove dominating the left side of the North Face...to the right of Robbins Direct and to the left of the Chouinard/Herbert
i always thought it would be a fun climb to do, basically a straight up crack all the way, with the big overhangs in the middle
the nemesis block was a few feet above the overhang and obviously loose
does anyone know more about this? Actually that corner was not done (as far as I know) until 9/2001 as "Early Times", by Coiler and Josh Thompson.
The only other route between the Direct North Face and the Chouinard-Herbert (besides a free version of Early Times) was the Gobi Wall in 1969. The Gobi is much closer to the Chouinard-Herbert, as you can see in the modified overlay from the 1987 Meyers/Reid guidebook.
I don't know if the loose block was still there when Coiler did it, but I could ask him....
There's no mention of a loose block on the topo, so it's probably not there anymore.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Couldn't we say that the whole Bonatti Pillar was a giant death block?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Bob Plumb has a good story about eating lunch on a giant chockstone (shown in the guidebook description of the route) while doing an early ascent of the Backbone Ridge on Dragontail Peak (near Mt. Stuart, Washington state). After lunch they headed up the upper part of the route.
When the second person stepped off the chockstone and onto the rock,
the whole thing moved and cut loose, laying waste to the gully below.
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