Discussion Topic |
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| Messages 1 - 81 of total 81 in this topic |
marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Feb 18, 2014 - 07:45pm PT
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Thanks, Scott! Really enjoyed that.
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HermitMaster
Social climber
my abode
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Feb 18, 2014 - 08:02pm PT
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Thank you, Scott.
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RP3
Big Wall climber
Sonora
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Feb 18, 2014 - 08:15pm PT
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Fantastic bit of history. Thank you so much for writing that up.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Feb 18, 2014 - 08:19pm PT
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That's the stuff!
Hi- Quality, 5 star story Scott. I could read this kind of stuff all day.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Feb 18, 2014 - 08:21pm PT
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Cool, thanks for taking the time, I love stories!
I wish guidebooks were encyclopedia sized and had one of these for every route
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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Feb 18, 2014 - 08:31pm PT
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Thanks Coz . . . it is good to get these tales into the written word.
Yosemite history.
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ncrockclimber
climber
The Desert Oven
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Feb 18, 2014 - 08:39pm PT
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Awesome story. Thanks for posting that!!! Seriously, Thanks!
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Rollover
climber
Gross Vegas
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Feb 18, 2014 - 08:46pm PT
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Great stuff Scott!
Thank you for that!
Edit: Impressive account BG!
Ballsy.
Climbing #156
Looks mossy??
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Feb 18, 2014 - 08:50pm PT
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Sometimes logging onto ST is very worthwhile.
Thanks for taking the time to give us this gem.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Feb 18, 2014 - 09:38pm PT
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Wow Coz! Excellent tale. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. History is always so much richer when those who lived it, do the telling.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Feb 18, 2014 - 09:43pm PT
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Ha ha, nice stuff Scott I always wanted to do that route since I first read about it!
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 18, 2014 - 09:43pm PT
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Nice memories Coz! Of all the climbs we did together I think this was my favorite...although freeing the Chimney of Horrors on the North Face of Higher Spire with you was also quite the adventure. I think what made How the West Was Won such great fun was the uncertainty of the ground-up style, never knowing for sure what we'd encounter; scoping it out with binoculars from the valley floor and wondering...will it go?
Here is the piece I wrote for the Nov 1995 Climbing Magazine
How the West Was Won
The first free ascent of the West Face of Sentinel Rock by Bob Gaines
"From Camp 4 all of us had stared endlessly at the north face of Sentinel, especially at dusk, when the oblique light lit up thousands of tiny features, creating a lovely sight indeed. So entranced were we by these possibilities on this face that we ignored the right-hand profile: the west face. This narrow prow of white granite, some 1600 feet high, is not particularly steep - perhaps only 70 degrees, yet smoothness is the middle name of Sentinel's west face. Hardly a ledge mars the upward sweep; not a single tree or bush disrupts the integrity of the soaring cliff"
-Steve Roper in CAMP 4
In the summer of 1960, Yvon Chouinard and Tom Frost first climbed the West Face route on Sentinel Rock. Originally rated VI 5.9 A4, in the early '60s the route was notorious for its dicey expanding flake aid traverse and the 80-foot-long, eight-inch-wide Dogleg Crack, led by Frost who used a single wooden block for pro. Ten summers later, Royal Robbins, on the first solo of a big Yosemite climb, added the second route on the face: In Cold Blood (V 5.8 A4).
Concerted free attempts at the West Face route began 13 years later when John Bachar came tantalizingly close to success. He freed the horizontal expanding-flake traverse with a 5.12 undercling, only to be thwarted by a short, blank dihedral at the top of the pitch. The rest of the route was no harder than 5.lOc. Next in line were John Long and Bill Price, who made several mighty efforts, placing a bolt on a face climbing variation to bypass the expanding flake. Not wanting to resort to placing protection on aid (ethics were stringent in the early 1980s in Yosemite), they gave up their attempt. In 1988, Scott Cosgrove and Jonny Woodward, two of America's best free climbers, added a bolt to Long's variation, only to be shut down by a single move.
In June 1995, the days were getting longer and a winter of guiding at Joshua Tree left me craving something bigger than 100-foot crags. Scott Cosgrove was up for a project in Yosemite, so I suggested we give In Cold Blood a try. Scott was fit from a winter of bouldering at Joshua Tree, where he developed a secret new bouldering area. Scott bagged Josh's first 5.14 the winter before, so I figured if the route was freeable, he was the man to pull it off.
We scrambled up the approach ramp. The rock loomed overhead like a gigantic gray tombstone, causing us to speculate on where Derek Hersey fell while soloing the Steck-Salathe two years before.
In Cold Blood began ignobly, traversing through a malevolent manzanita, then passing a loose section up to an immense, 400-foot high, right-facing dihedral, where the route quality drastically improved. The dihedral resembled that of another Robbins classic, Tahquitz's Open Book, both in size and stature, except that at the tip, instead of turning low-angle, In Cold Blood's crack overhung, with a 5.11+ layback/jam capped with a smooth, ass-kicking offwidth. From the ledge atop this pitch, with the sun sinking low, and our forearms spent, we leaned back to scan the possibilities on the upper wall before zipping down fixed lines. It appeared as if Robbins' A3 aid section could be bypassed by traversing straight right.
Two mornings later Scott redpointed the pitch, an improbable variety of underclings, sidepulls, and edges; sustained to the end, where a 5.12 face move gains the belay. The crux was so devious that when I pulled it off I felt as if I'd done a magic trick. At the belay we were both smiling. Certain elements combine to make a pitch memorable. Here, it was the stunning backdrop: 2000 feet of electrifying exposure, amplified by the roar of Sentinel Falls cascading 4000 feet down the adjacent cliffside, with Cathedral Rocks and El Cap dominating the horizon, the Merced River snaking through the meadow below.
The route above appeared much easier, going through a lesser-angled recess in the face for several hundred feet. Adrenaline propelled me up the next lead, a deceptively steep slab, with two 5.11 go-for-it sections, that ended 80 feet shy of a huge sloping ledge. We felt like we'd nearly solved the puzzle, but a colossal cumulus cloud exploded over El Cap, and we quickly retreated, fearing an epic thunderstorm descent of the ramp. Sure enough, just as we hit the Four Mile Trail, lightning crackled over Sentinel.
From the Valley floor, through binoculars, the next pitch appeared vertical, yet studded with those gargantuan gray knobs peculiar to certain parts of Yosemite Valley. Scott laybacked around the corner to the right, balanced upward on 5.10 knobs, sparsely protected by three hand-drilled 5/16-inch bolts, then belayed from the top of the sloping platform. Our ledge celebration was cut short when we gazed up and saw the immense wall above us. Scott volunteered to lead the next pitch, a "moderate" crack ending at a knobby headwall. As was often the case on this route, the moderate section was a nasty 5.11, replete with a strenuous offwidth and an overhanging layback.
Scott quickly scanned the rock above the belay, then immediately rapped back to the ledge. He didn't have to say anything, I knew we'd gotten off-track. The angle above was near vertical and the knobs were yards apart. Dejected, I led a 5.9 pitch to rejoin In Cold Blood at the base of a huge, detached block. Above this soared the infamous "Incision," a 200-foot knife blade crack that split the headwall. When Robbins reached this point on his solo ascent, he felt blessed by good fortune, but free climbing it looked impossible.
Scott jammed a 5.10 offwidth to the top of the block, hammered a couple of pins into the hairline crack, then took a closer look. "It'll go for sure," he yelled down. "How hard?" I shot back. ".12d, maybe .13a." Since 5.12 is my max, I eyed the face to the left. An easy traverse led down and around a corner. What was on the other side? Surely the West Face route wasn't far away. Linking these routes would give us an all-free ascent.
Not wanting to add bolts to Robbins' classic nail-up, Scott rapped from the precarious block and quickly disappeared out left around the corner. He was yelling, but with the wind and the roar of the falls I couldn't make out a word. It wasn't until I heard a very faint but distinctive tap, tap, tap of the hammer and drill that I knew he'd found the missing link. Moderate, but classically exposed, a 5.10 tip-toe dike traverse led to the heart of the upper West Face. A 5.11 layback flake and a two-bolt face traverse left led us to the 5.10c offwidth pitch on the West Face route. Two hours later we were standing on the summit. We called our 16-pitch route How the West Was Won (V 5.12b).
Scrambling down the descent gully, Scott commented that Yosemite was in another Golden Age, when the big walls first climbed in the '50s and '60s were now being free climbed. When we hit the paved trail we stopped for a moment and looked back at the great north face, its features highlighted by the afternoon light, then we shuffled down among the thronging Fourth of July tourists back to the car.
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thekidcormier
Gym climber
squamish, b.c.
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Feb 18, 2014 - 10:35pm PT
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The virtual camp fire is roaring this evening!
Thanks for stoking it up.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Feb 18, 2014 - 10:47pm PT
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Great thread and elucidation, 9.5 out of 10 ! 1 more photo and it's a solid 10. Thank you so much for sharing it.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Feb 18, 2014 - 10:56pm PT
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I remember that article BG. It's good.
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Darwin
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 18, 2014 - 11:01pm PT
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thanks Coz
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Feb 18, 2014 - 11:03pm PT
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100%
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 18, 2014 - 11:03pm PT
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photo by bob gaines
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Feb 18, 2014 - 11:11pm PT
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Thanks for writing and sharing the stories, Scott.
Pretty cool to get stopped by one move (but still find it very tough),
and then go back again and "win"!
The fun is in the adventure(s) along the way, of course.
Cool to see Bob's story written at the time as well.
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 18, 2014 - 11:29pm PT
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 19, 2014 - 02:05am PT
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i was long gone and not reading climbing mags in 95 and never heard this story.
good to find it here.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Feb 19, 2014 - 02:23am PT
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dang fine shoot-out there
viva la wild west!
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Feb 19, 2014 - 02:53am PT
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Gold brings gold! Thanks BG!!
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Feb 19, 2014 - 03:18am PT
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Thanks for sharing good stuff!
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Feb 19, 2014 - 04:10am PT
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hey there say, cozgrove... very nice! i will come back and read it a second, time, :)
so much to 'digest' for someone like me, that never knew these places...
thank you so much!
say, rollover:
i really love that 'mossy rock' looking photo, :)
thanks guys... :)
*another:
wow, we learn so much at the supertopo, post!
edit:
neat, a few more pics are loading, :)
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The Alpine
climber
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Feb 19, 2014 - 10:54am PT
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THIS is supertopo. Thanks.
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Brian
climber
California
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Feb 19, 2014 - 11:18am PT
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I've posted this before but...
Coz and Bob Gaines launched my wall career. I fixed to Sickle with my friend Bruce, then we rapped and went back to the car, fully depressed about how long it took us, how big that Stone is, how small we were, etc. Coz and Bob were working to free How the West was Won and they pull up on the way out of the valley and find us sitting by the car. Coz (who knew Bruce pretty well, and had seen me around Josh) says "what are you two doing on the ground?" We mutter some lame gumby excuses. The wall is so big, we are so small, it took longer than we thought to climb to Sickle, etc., etc. Coz and Bob climb back into their ride. Coz takes one more look at us and says, "if you aren't up on that wall tomorrow, we're gonna kick your ass and slash your tires." It was just in kick in the pants we needed (friendly, but a real push back at our excuses). We climbed back on, climbed on up, and summited.
Brian
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James
climber
My twin brother's laundry room
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Feb 19, 2014 - 11:32am PT
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Nice one Coz.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Feb 19, 2014 - 01:30pm PT
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Good story.... got any more????
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 19, 2014 - 01:35pm PT
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When I tried the west face of sentinel I said where the fuk is coz when you need him.
That's why I failed.
You weren't there ......:-)
"if you aren't up on that wall tomorrow, we're gonna kick your ass and slash your tires."
LOL classic ....
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Impaler
Social climber
Berkeley
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Feb 19, 2014 - 02:11pm PT
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Thanks Scott! That was really awesome to read!
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Feb 19, 2014 - 03:13pm PT
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Scott, you are a supurb story teller. Always a great read. Keep them coming!
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Feb 19, 2014 - 03:21pm PT
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Bitchin Contribution Scott.
That is one proud wall!
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
extraordinaire
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Feb 19, 2014 - 10:08pm PT
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I was always amazed at how he (JB) would tell me the same stories over and over. One Easter morning I was sitting on a bench in front of the deli w/ an NPS trail crew worker, Bachar stopped by to chat, and soon launched into the story of a recent valley accident where the vic was in a complete death fall, not connected to nothing - but somehow got tangled in a rope below, and survived. He revelled in the luck of the dude. Some months later I read a feature about Bachar in an obscure Eastside rag, and there he was recounting that story.
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Feb 19, 2014 - 10:47pm PT
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Done deal Scott. I just thought it might be appreciated.
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 19, 2014 - 11:20pm PT
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Hey Coz, I found the old slides of How the West Was Won. I'll scan 'em and post 'em up here when I get a chance....
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Jim Clipper
climber
from: forests to tree farms
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Feb 20, 2014 - 12:05am PT
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allez
no really!
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Feb 20, 2014 - 12:06am PT
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Nice writing Coz. I was starting to lose interest in this site and this helps. You don't even need to provide pictures as others will and that face looks beautiful. Great picture^^^^^
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Feb 20, 2014 - 01:28am PT
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Wow!
Thanks!
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KP Ariza
climber
SCC
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Feb 20, 2014 - 03:46pm PT
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Kick ass read Cosgrove.
Its great to hear the accounts of Yosemite history coming directly from guys like you and Gaines. Please carry on....with more!
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:10pm PT
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Another way of looking at these climbs.
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:12pm PT
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Coz scoping it out from the approach ramp...
July 1995
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:19pm PT
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Coz leading the hardest crack climbing on the route (pitch 5) at the top of the dihedral, an overhanging 11+ lieback/jam capped with an "ass-kicking offwidth."
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:32pm PT
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Coz leads the devious face traverse, pitch 6, 12b
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:38pm PT
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crux traverse, pitch 6
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:39pm PT
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Great account and beautiful shots Clint!
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Rollover
climber
Gross Vegas
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:43pm PT
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Best thread in a while!
Thanks Bob!!
Obviously thanks to Scott and Clint too!
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:45pm PT
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The moment of truth for me, following the crux traverse. To free this wall I knew it all boiled down to this one pitch, this one crux, at this moment. I took every last piece of gear off my harness and packed it in the haul bag. I pulled it off....barely!
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:52pm PT
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All those years of runout slab climbing at Suicide Rock paid off....I led up through this 5.11 R slab section.
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shipoopoi
Big Wall climber
oakland
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:54pm PT
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freakin awesome write up cozzy. great to honour bachar that way and bring up the memories...yeah, soloed up nutracker with jb just once, and on the bike ride back we stopped and after smoking some bad weed, he told the same story...LOL.
Great tribute to bob gaines too. he is still the master guide, i obseved an SPI course of his, and he is the master of time management.
hope you are doing great, shipoopoi
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:56pm PT
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Scott hand-drilling, start of pitch 11
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 21, 2014 - 12:00am PT
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Scott getting ready to round the corner over to the West Face route
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 21, 2014 - 12:02am PT
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the Backdrop...
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 21, 2014 - 12:07am PT
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Sentinel Falls is your constant companion on this route...
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 21, 2014 - 12:08am PT
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Thanks Steve, it was great working with you at Josh!
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Feb 21, 2014 - 12:31am PT
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Wonderful!
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E Robinson
climber
Salinas, CA
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Feb 21, 2014 - 12:32am PT
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Very cool! Story, pics, and all.
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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Feb 21, 2014 - 12:35am PT
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Thanks for sharing your photos BG . . . must be more where that came from.
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KP Ariza
climber
SCC
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Feb 21, 2014 - 02:48am PT
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This is what this sight was meant to be about I'll bet.
Awesome, thanks!
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Feb 21, 2014 - 03:27am PT
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Thanks for dusting off the slides, Bob.
Those really make it real.
Nice Backdrop!
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Cole
Trad climber
los angeles
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Feb 21, 2014 - 03:40am PT
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Awesome story Scott!! Really looking forward to heading out to Section 6 again with you soon. Hit me up when you're in town!
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Feb 21, 2014 - 04:35am PT
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KP Ariza
climber
SCC
Feb 20, 2014 - 11:48pm PT
This is what this sight was meant to be about I'll bet.
Awesome, thanks!
+1 fukkin rights
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RP3
Big Wall climber
Sonora
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Feb 21, 2014 - 03:37pm PT
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Those photos are fantastic. Material like this is what keeps me coming back to ST. Thanks!
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 21, 2014 - 11:15pm PT
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Thanks for dusting off the slides, Bob.
Those really make it real.
Nice Backdrop!
Thanks Clint, those are some great topo photos you posted!
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Feb 22, 2014 - 12:18am PT
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Great post. A few days ago I watched the historic film about the first ascent of that face. Reading about the FFA makes me want to go climb it some day myself. Beautiful looking granite up there. From far at least...
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Feb 22, 2014 - 01:01am PT
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Coz & BG! Thank you for taking the time to share this classic Yosemite history story!
BG! Your old story about the historic ascent is great writing!
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Feb 22, 2014 - 02:43am PT
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Here's the entry for In Cold Blood in the 1971 AAJ:
In Cold Blood, West Face of Sentinel Rock. The renowned American
authority on mountaineering, Curtis W. Casewit. says, “Solo climbing is
insanity.” And Mr. Casewit, of course, is an honorable man. I love to read
such fatuous remarks, coming as they invariably do, from the ignorant. It
brings back the good old days when climbers were pariahs, when climbing
was not “in”, when there was no room in the game for parasites of Mr.
Casewit’s stamp. But now the enemy is within the gates. I confess to
lunacy according to Mr. Casewit’s ah ... “ standards”. I soloed a new route
on the west face of Sentinel last May, a route with some intriguing
sections, a bit easier than the Frost-Chouinard line. I started from the
Valley early in the morning of May 10 and returned there after dark the
next day. The ascent involved two tension traverses, 8 bolts, a few rurps,
and the following bongs: 2 2-inch, 2 2.5-inch. and a 3-inch. One third of
the placements were chocks. These are critical in a couple of sections of
shaky rock. It was a surprise to find the upper wall split by a thin crack
(Rageous Fortune Crack) which took wired chocks as if it had been made
for them. An unprotected jam-crack left me a little shaky but led nicely to
a chimney and an easy way out. The route starts up a dihedral 75 feet
south of the regular west-face route and needs little description, but go left
at the top of Rageous Fortune Crack. At one point in the middle of the
route, some fine rope work is useful in passing over the coarse granite. In
October Egon and Johanna Marte and I made the second ascent.
ROYAL ROBBINS
from
http://c498469.r69.cf2.rackcdn.com/1971/usa1971_325-381.pdf
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Feb 22, 2014 - 02:58am PT
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Wicked photos BG! Thanks!! I always love your topos clint!!
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Feb 23, 2014 - 01:14am PT
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view from the top of the west face
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA/Boulder, CO
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Feb 23, 2014 - 02:11am PT
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Nice story! Has anybody freed the original line you all attempted in 1987?
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phylp
Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
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Feb 23, 2014 - 08:41am PT
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Many thanks to Scott and BG for the excellent stories. Clint, the photo topo is great.
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Feb 27, 2014 - 01:15pm PT
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Old AAJs have some really interesting things.Piece written by TM Herbert regarding the 2nd ascent of The Wall of Morning Light is priceless.
Comment regarding the FA of Charlotte Dome's S Face is great too. They thought it was gonna stay an obscure route. :)
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Feb 27, 2014 - 03:49pm PT
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Great story. Thanks!
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Feb 27, 2014 - 04:13pm PT
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I think this very informative string by SC emphasizes why there should be a new written guide to Yosemite climbs in a book format because that's the only way you'll be able to visually compare and contrast adjacent routes and areas with your eyes all at once. Downloading the topo of an individual route is fine if all you want is the info needed to do that route. But a guidebook lets you compare adjacent routes instantly. A PC, iMac or iPhone are different mediums than a book and do different things, some of them better than a guidebook, but some others not as well.
With all of Clint's larger than life photos, it looks like such a project is in good hands and well underway to completion. A giant totally accurate compendium of Yosemite climbs as hard as it is to write would certainly sell well. A coffee-table Yo guidebook anyone? Certainly would give you better sense of the historical progression of routes.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Feb 27, 2014 - 04:28pm PT
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Bruce,
I enjoy making the overlays (thanks mostly to xRez and GIMP),
but I don't have any specific plans to make a book with them.
Some of them work on a computer screen a lot better than they would in a book -
the Sentinel West Face (10" x 31") and Ho Chi Minh Trail (6.5" x 30") overlays are very tall and narrow.
Easy to scroll up and down on the web, but they would have a very
reduced width in a book that would fit on a bookshelf.
(Kris Solem made this point earlier when I posted a huge photo overlay for some Voodoo Dome routes in the Needles - that amount of detail doesn't fit into a 6" x 9" guidebook; it might not fit into a coffee table book, either).
The current book is topos (black and white line drawings) and I'm trying not to get too distracted! :-)
But there will be some overlay photos for locating things.
It hasn't been decided yet if they will be in color, but it's getting cheaper to use color and I struggled to find things in the previous black and white overlays.
One possibility would be to put the overlays in a PDF or similar that could be viewed on a smartphone. Some people take their phones on climbs with PDFs to look stuff up if needed. "Just don't call me." :-) "Dang it, Clint, your overlay guess was way off and now we're stuck!!!"
Ed had a cool idea of some kind of overlays integrated with an xRez type zoom-in system. I.e. you select the route(s) you want overlaid, then zoom in to see more rock detail. The line width stays the same, so the line obscures less rock as you zoom in. Maybe a "coffee table" style screen?
"Armchair mountaineering" or "shadow climbing" (my old friend Dan Nguyen taught me that last term, like "shadow boxing").
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Feb 28, 2014 - 02:05am PT
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Would be a money maker if you could find a cheap way of getting a big color coffee table Yo guide printed in the States or elsewhere (China!). Nice to make it a full multimedia production with continuously updated interactive links to topo pdfs and giant wall pics. Videos taken on the routes would be hot too. That way you could have all the advantages of a book and the advantages of Internet based information reinforcing one another.
Whole lot of work!
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Feb 28, 2014 - 04:49pm PT
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To clarify my statement (woke up late with a headache!):
A big coffee-table text/graphics/image book linked to (and supported by) continuously updated online resources at a site with downloadable topos in pdf format and larger images of walls and areas too big for the printed medium all with gps coordinates you could access in the field from a smart phone. Of course, at home from a PC or Mac too.
A lot of big history and art books from publishers like Oxford University Press and eminent historians like Anthony Beevor are like that right now. More information and videos at the web site that didn't appear in the book.
Again, no easy project, but given current technology very do-able. Trip reports and topo updates too. The book could serve as a front for a sort of mini-Yosemite climbing industry. What about some funding from the AAC?
Also, lots of online videos linked to individual climbs to illustrate cruxes and belays. Even mo' work!
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 28, 2014 - 05:10pm PT
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A coffee table guide book would definitely be DA BOMB!!!
Lot's of pictures, photos and history, along with
... some deli history slander thrown in for comedy ......
:)
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le_bruce
climber
Oakland, CA
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Feb 28, 2014 - 05:19pm PT
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So many "good-f*#king-god-look-at-that" formations in the Valley, but Sentinel, Sentinel has got something special.
B. Gaines photo
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