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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Jan 31, 2013 - 11:39am PT
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Like paying some young kid to carry your sh#t to the captain and then carrying it down for you.
That is true, I guess I'll go sit on the other side of the room with all my new, guided up Everest, buddies!
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Jan 31, 2013 - 11:45am PT
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Freakin lol.. see what I mean..
Not only are there almost no real rules.. most of the "rules" folks like to make up and impose on others are not about "purity" they are about making themselves sound better than someone else...
at least to themselves.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Jan 31, 2013 - 12:13pm PT
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Is mary jane, coffee, and donuts a performance enhancing substance?
Dunno, I just call that "breakfast".
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Jan 31, 2013 - 01:09pm PT
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Gotta say, consistant tweaks at Twight here and else where on the Taco, and the personal attacks on Twight are some weak ass, lame, sh#t.
Like Twight ever learned to hold his tongue? Riiiiiiight.....
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Jan 31, 2013 - 01:22pm PT
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Nice post man.
I would defend him to anyone that said he didn't knock down some bad ass stuff. So true.
It's just that my dad was bad ass too, and he never looked down or talked down on anyone in his life. He carried a quiet power. I've never been able to live up to it my-own-self.
So I just have never had much patience for those who talk high and mighty, even if they can knock it down with the best of them. Maybe I just read him wrong. If so, my apologies to everyone involved.
My opinion has nothing at all to do with O2 or style by the way.
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RDB
Social climber
wa
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2013 - 01:31pm PT
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People and personalities are just different. Doesn't make it bad or good imo just different. Twight is hard to seperate from his writing if you don't know him well. And I don't. Likely impossible if you haven't met him.
I'm good with that.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Jan 31, 2013 - 01:37pm PT
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Well said survival.
I still say it's interesting to contrast folks impression of Twight versus Alex Lowe.
Hard to get down on a guy who was so clearly badass but who's most famous quote is "the best climber is the one having the most fun".
Disingenous?.. in a way perhaps but .. in another I'm sure he meant it.
I suppose that's why people never seem to have anything bad to say about Alex Lowe. Even when he was alive.
Kinda dumb getting all serious about this stuff and Twight and whatever.. But it's fun BSing here on the Taco when I can't get out and climb today.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Jan 31, 2013 - 01:47pm PT
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But it's fun BSing here on the Taco when I can't get out and climb today.
heh heh, ME TOO!
That's about all it amounts to, or is good for, in my case....
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
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Jan 31, 2013 - 03:16pm PT
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Well, a certain amount of dicksizing is inevitable in any group like this ...
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nah000
Mountain climber
canuckistan
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Jan 31, 2013 - 09:01pm PT
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RDB: interesting post.
i can only speak for myself, but what follows is in response to your question: "...WTF are people giving Twight sh#t for?"
in general the issue is not his actual climbing nor his actual persona. not knowing him, it’s completely irrelevant what i think regarding those, but just so that what follows is clear, imo, he was obviously a badass climber, and he’s very likely an honorable person irl.
my issue is simple: it's the hyperbolic representation he makes of his climbing and the self-righteous judgement that he spews from that position.
if you read what he's written about himself (go ahead and click his wiki links before and after his first edit as one very representative example) you'd think he made a giant leap for climbing kind. sorry, just because he's a badass doesn't make him a climbing jesus. from my perspective, the climbing contribution that he made was not really that unprecedented. he helped consolidate and publicize an evolution within alpinism and yes some of it was relatively unprecedented for a north american climber. but on a world wide stage … i'm not convinced that it was as revolutionary as some of his writing makes it sound. maybe reality bath, but that is only due to a dead end willingness to expose himself to completely random risk.
now when a person couples a seemingly overinflated view of their historical position with a willingness to diss other climbers by applying their own personal tastes to publicly judge... well... let's put it this way: they're going to reap what they sow.
so that's the main issue for me. if he wants to imply a place for himself in the climbing pantheon, that's fine. who knows, maybe history will prove my current opinion wrong. but, if he wants to then use that position to diss other climbers: well his logic better be real f*#king good, and his actions better be real f*#king consistent with his message. for the reasons, i and others have mentioned, imo, twight fails often on both counts.
the piece that you originally linked to for example. there are very important issues surrounding using o's and sherpas. here's a list of a few off the top of my head:
1. crowding due to increased accessability is an issue (this is becoming an issue the world over, regardless of whether o's are used. for ex. even this climbing season on cerro torre).
2. if discarded bottles and trash aren't cleaned up, that’s an issue.
3. guides placing fixed protection in order to make the life of client escorting easier and therefore changing the experience for everyone else (currently, a significant issue in the canadian rockies).
4. hell, even the fact that most of the world has no clue what real climbing is and so they fall into thinking that someone who has climbed everest with o's and sherpas has somehow done something important, noteworthy or worthy of respect.
all of the above, yeah, let's debate any of those.
but equating someone using o's with lance armstrong, or someone lieing on a resume?
seriously?
the logic is a. transparently weak/hyperbolic and b. smacks of bringing non-localized rules to climbing (the irony of who the proponent for this is, just kills me).
i may have no personal interest in ever breathing out of a bottle of oxygen in order to climb. i may think queuing up on everest is the most moronic thing i've ever seen. i may even think that there is a place for limiting the use of o's to certain mountains or routes due to crowding. but a carte blanche equation between the use of o's and cheating?
nah, man, that equation is an insult to real cheaters everywhere.
but i'll give him this: he's one hell of a marketer and provocateur. look we're already 150 posts into a climbing topic and we're actually still discussing the original topic. in that regard kudos, mft, kudos.
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nah000
Mountain climber
canuckistan
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Jan 31, 2013 - 10:57pm PT
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Jim,
fair enough. all four of those are relatively perennial issues. but you're right with regards to fixed protection in the canadian rockies, and by guides especially, i should have prefaced it with "as always" rather than "currently". haha.
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nah000
Mountain climber
canuckistan
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Jan 31, 2013 - 11:53pm PT
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Bruce,
here's a thread from gravsports-ice discussing parks canada's recentish retrobolting on the east ridge of mt. temple.
my comment probably has as much to do with the statement "all politics are local" as anything. ie. i was probably just thinking about it because i've run into it a few times of late. i climbed the east ridge ten or so years ago and while i sympathize with the parks rationale, i'm also saddened that others won't get to experience the wonderful joys of being lost in the black towers for themselves. haha.
and while it was probably retrobolted quite a while ago, i was just on the kain route on mt. louis this summer. here again i understand the rationale: that thing is climbed almost continuosly in good weather in the summer. still there is something sad about climbing a route that was put up in 1916 and having bolted belay anchors the whole way (or more correctly once it meets up with the gmoser route) and a perren crack sprouting a large number of bolts.
again, i don't know what the solutions are, and maybe there are none. it just seems like these are the questions that are worth discussing. ultimately they are questions of history, of climbing culture, and of climbing's future.
and as with all questions of culture there are nuances and multiple valid viewpoints. a black and white fundamentalist approach just seems, to me, so ... juvenile.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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On the topic of O's on Everest:
Once Michael Graber tried to nab a Marlboro off of me in a bar. I grabbed them back like he was trying to steal my wee wee or something.
See...he had to turn around really close to the summit of Everest a short time before. I didn't want to pollute his lungs!!
Things also used to be very different 20 or 30 years ago. This was Robbins or Chouinard, or somebody's vision:
Yosemite was the pinnacle of world climbing and everyone had to come and do El Cap and get drug up painful offwidths. No sh#t. You really had to come to the valley and get good.
Then you were supposed to take that skill into the high mountains and do wicked hard routes rather than the "generally" easy routes on the big mountains.
The problem with that is that some of the best climbers on Earth can rule the world below 15,000 feet. When they go higher they always get sick. Altitude sickness is serious.
Something like that. Then eventually the valley quit being the mecca of the planet.
That discovery channel series was excellent to watch. There were some tough old suckers, your young narcisists, endurance athletes who wanted to try it. They don't even carry ice tools. Pony up the money and go.
I kind of enjoyed the show. It wasn't really climbing, but that's OK. People do all sorts of crazy stuff.
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steveA
Trad climber
bedford,massachusetts
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Every climber started their sport by emulating, others who had gone before them.
I first met MT in New Hampshire, while hiking up to do a climb on Whitehorse Ledge. He was cutting wood on John Bouchard's timber lot. John had taken a liking to him and gave him a job.
At that time Bouchard was a top flight alpinist and I'm sure MT was influenced by Bouchard's style.
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RDB
Social climber
wa
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 2, 2013 - 01:22pm PT
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"Every climber started their sport by emulating, others who had gone before them."
good comment and so true.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Fostering a cult of personality is nothing new in climbing internationally but it usually galls a bit over here.
I used to joke that Twight couldn't take a dump without a shriek and a paragraph and he seems to be a man who needs a lot of attention even now.
I do wonder where the posturing and self irony ends.
Hard to imagine having the opportunity of hanging with Tom Frost, Henry Kendall and Jeff Lowe and yet preferring to pass the time in a smoky tent instead. That degree of self involvement is a bit tragic from my perspective.
Jeff's comments on the Kiss or Kill thread are very telling.
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RDB
Social climber
wa
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 2, 2013 - 05:02pm PT
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Right on Coz.
Found this on House's web site. Telling in this discussion I think.
"I want to say that the term normal route is deceptive on a mountain of this scale, it only gets climbed every few years (I believe a total of 4 ascents this year, there were a couple of other oxygen-assisted ascents, but those don’t count in my book).
One of the lessons of this expeditions was that for us to go to such a monsterous peak as their first 8,000’er was a judgement error on the part of Marko and I. My first 8,000’er was Cho Oyu, which is a total piece of cake in comparison, similar to climbing Denali. Makalu is steeper, higher, and simply more massive; a much more difficult proposition. To wit: Most parties who summit Makalu spend four days about 7,400 meters. By comparison on Cho Oyu the high camp is at 7,300 meters and from there to the summit takes most acclimated climbers (again, only counting those not cheating) about 8-12 hours.
THE WEST FACE...
...was almost a non-starter in part because both Marko and I objected to acclimating on the normal route, which shot us in the foot because it was pretty hard to get properly acclimated without going up there. We shunned the normal route because we both hate the trashy fixed lines, and we don’t relish the drama-scene that exists on all normal routes on big mountains these days. There are simply too many climbers breathing bottled oxygen and getting in way over their heads. This can end tragically as it did on our last days on the mountain when a Swiss climber died. Marko and I tried to get four O2 bottles up to her, but before we could reach her location (at Makalu La, 7,300 meters) we got word that she had passed......
..................
I think that the real question now is this: Am I willing to meet the mountain on the terms it demands? I can’t know that answer right now."
more here:
http://www.stevehouse.net/SteveHouse.net/Makalu_2011.html
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orangesporanges
Social climber
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Ever climbed that 8000 Coz? Did you use ladders?
Did you meet Rob McDonald on 300? What do you make of blokes that strut around reminding people of how bad arse they are(were?) - he hasn'd done an MMA fight in years yet still tells everyone he IS still an MMA fighter - thought Twight would have pulled him into line on that since his beloved "disciple" trains/exercises but doesn't seem to be still competing at anything.
Bhouy does that Gym Jones crowd love to Twitter.
Wonder why MFT didn't want to go to the rock gym - you hung a tonne, so was it you or him?
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RDB
Social climber
wa
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 2, 2013 - 05:06pm PT
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Orange you are an idiot.
As the man said, "I could explain it to you, but I can' comprehend it for you."
Anyone that has spent any time seriously doing MMA knows he is a fighter and his rung on that ladder. Not climbing or being unable to climb doen't make you something else. Unless you want to tell me Jello is no longer a climber...
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