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Evel
Trad climber
Nedsterdam CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 27, 2014 - 03:22am PT
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I went up on C-Flex when I was just a lad! Did the thing , and it became one of my favorites at Seneca. Bad Rep that's undeserved. Very Doable if'n yer SOLID at 5.9 (HOHOHEEHEE...)
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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Feb 27, 2014 - 03:26am PT
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Probably a whole new set of holds now. You probably like it because the description says huge overhang.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Feb 27, 2014 - 06:44am PT
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Mad men is pretty interesting but if I recall ends before the summit? Ai seneca I need a summit every time:) Simple J was pretty cool. Isa I think on West Pole?
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David Lewis
Trad climber
North Conway,New Hampshire
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Feb 27, 2014 - 08:44am PT
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I did not see Candy Corner a classic 5.5. Nor did I see Marshall's Madness to Crack of Dawn, start with some balance moves on Marshalls and end up on a beautiful crack that keeps you entertained (slow continuous burn) to the top of Crack of Dawn 5.9-5.10A. Great photos of people climbing Crack of Dawn can be had by sending someone 1/2 way up Triple S, another classic 5.8, which would be a 5.9 at most other craigs.
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TwistedCrank
climber
Bungwater Hollow, Ida-ho
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Feb 27, 2014 - 09:43am PT
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The three things I liked about Seneca when I spent time there (a couple of spring breaks around 1980):
1. It's the anti-Gunks. At Seneca Rocks, the strata is dead vertical. At the Gunks it's kinda horizontal.
2. It's steep.. Real steep.
3. On rain days, the local caving is a fun distraction, if you can tolerate crawling around in a damp hole.
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WanderlustMD
Trad climber
New England
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Feb 27, 2014 - 10:19am PT
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Orangeaid
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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May 31, 2015 - 08:15pm PT
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I just posted a story about Jan and Herb Conn's first visit to Seneca Rocks here.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/2625512/Conn-Routes
One of the funniest bits in my interview with Jan involved her first visit to Seneca Rocks with Herb right after the war. They were in the road and absolutely delighted to find hundreds of pitons left for them to liberate and reuse elsewhere. She chortled when she surmised that instructors apparently told trainees to place a bunch in one spot before finding the next one and left them all in place.
These war effort pitons changed the course of American climbing history by allowing these two wonderful but beyond frugal climbers to explore and climb hundreds of wild summits all across North America.
The Face of a Thousand Pitons took a hit for Herb and Jan!
Jan was reluctant to take credit for the Conn's East and Conn's West routes as commonly described in the Seneca guidebooks but did say that she and Herb climbed several routes there.
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jstan
climber
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May 31, 2015 - 09:18pm PT
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Seneca and Seneca climbers are an unequalled source for stories.
At one meeting of the mountaineering section of the PATC held in down town DC we were
having a slime Buck Harper competition. June, a feisty lady of 60 or so, complained bitterly
about Buck's failure to maintain the outhouse at the pavilion. She said,"Buck is the worst I
have ever seen! Last winter I had to pat it down before I could sit."
Because I have had a wide experience observing climbers, I am an expert and experts have to
make comparisons. I can't avoid making one here. In this instance the reputation possessed by
the Vulgarians was left in the dust.
I have published one excellent event held by the Vulgarians and featuring Dick Dumais but
never felt my linguistic flourishes fully captured Dick. Mea inadequa.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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jstan- I would press you to begin to empty the coffers and redeem your estimable self.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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I've done a bunch of routes at Seneca BITD. Can't remember the name of any of them other than Triple S. Here's a picture of one of those routes, a fairly easy one I think...
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Made a couple trips to Seneca in the early 90's to climb with a fair number of the old wreck.climbing crowd there. Most significantly, with Inez D., which launched quite a few years of adventures back home in Arizona and in Yosemite.
What a cool place... like to go back someday.
Dale W. (I think he was a cousin of Inez's) on Ecstacy...
Leading Marshall's Madness (5.9) on the left. Some other guy on Triple S (Shipley's Shivering Shimmy) (5.8) on the right. There was a lot of sputtering going on about Triple-S being some kind of hideous sandbag, but it seemed pretty consistent with the ratings back in AZ to me. Fun route!
Inez working on Marshall's Madness (5.9), Face of a Thousand Pitons
Now THAT'S a rack!!! I think that was Phil Sidel's rack. Phil was another wreck.climbing denizen and a helluva nice guy that lived in Pittsburgh.
The Gendarme. Think this was on my second trip, so around 1994 or so.
Inez near the top of the first pitch of Triple S sporting a shirt from the Grateful Dead catalog. :-)
Very pretty place to climb.
Very green and very different than the brown view back in the desert!
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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Sep 10, 2015 - 01:27am PT
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My first visit to Seneca as as a kid, some time in the early '70s. Did the Old Woman Route, and finished on the Gendarme, without any remarkable incidents.
Later, around '85, I was leading 5.9's or so in CA, and went to Seneca during a visit back home. Got on W. Pole, which, IIRC, was rated 5.6 or .7 at the time. Man, that was an epic! Got on a runout, perhaps off route (plus my rack was pretty small), and was too scared to downclimb, so I just had to go up. Yikes!
Later on, went back again, and had a pleasant time. The rock there is a bit in it's own class.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Aug 27, 2016 - 04:46pm PT
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Bump for the appearence of Ben Mealy who I just prompted to join in.
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Aug 27, 2016 - 05:57pm PT
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Howdy Ben! Tell us a Trav's story!
Todd
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jstan
climber
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Aug 27, 2016 - 11:17pm PT
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Old people tend to think olde tyme stories will interest younger people. Rarely true, but anyways here goes:
Trav's closed only two or three years after I started going there. It was your normal pub located on an 1840's canal. The culture was wonderfully unlike 1960's Georgetown national capital. I worked at the Naval Research Lab where history stopped with Thomas Edison. Loved it.
After Trav's closed we all went to O.Donnells a mile further east on the canal. The owner had two young and very pretty daughters who acted as barmaids. It was a seamless devolution for Carderock types. My daughter, Kristy, enjoyed walking along the C&O canal and looking at the people and the animals of an evening so she naturally ended up going to O'Donnell's with me. Earlier one of the biker customers had had a disagreement with his girlfriend and had begun pummeling her on the floor right beside my table. Disconcerting.
So I determined to locate Kristy up on the bar itself close to the barmaids. They were more than able to handle any contretemps, biker or otherwise. Kristy developed a relationship with the barmaids as they seemed interested in the same kinds of things. Why would that be? If I had had a girlfriend I would have been at liberty to play my god given role and pummel her on the floor. But as it was I had neither a bike nor a girlfriend. Cest le vie.
Seneca Rocks is unlike any other place. Relish it.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
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Aug 28, 2016 - 12:10am PT
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My memory of Trav's is a bit different than John's. It hardly seemed like a normal place to me.
The clientele besides the local drunks consisted of bikers( the Harley Kind, not the mtn bike kind), the area poets, Olympic whitewater Kayak dudes who lived in old Glenn Echo and practiced in Great Falls Gorge, and climbers, who also hung out in the gorge and at Carderock, depending on season. The occasional ordinary redneck there for the fights added spice. About all we had in common was the PBR, aka blue gag.
Tuesdays we went after climbing to tell lies about what we did the weekend before.
Thursdays we hung out there to see where and with whom we would we would climb that week. The plans usually alternated between the Gunks and Seneca.
One night we showed up and headed to the booth in the back. I got the seat way in the corner. Right next to the booth was the pay phone ( before cell phones).
A biker dude, drunk as a skunk, puts his dime in the phone and misdials, so he loses his dime. The fellow is quick to anger, so after using the handset as a hammer on the phone, he pulls out his Bowie knife ( My first thought is he'll kill two or three others before he gets to me) and starts hacking at the phone line coming out the bottom of the phone. He's so drunk he's not having much success, but he keeps trying and swearing. The guys in our booth next to him try pretend he's not there, but they are freakin out. The whimpers and nervous laughs were actually kind of funny. Since I have a couple guys between us, I'm laughing out loud and getting shushed by the guys nearer to him.
Trav's daughter was tending bar that night, and she comes over to the dude with the knife, grabs him by the ear and drags him out the door while yelling at him
" Charlie, I told you not to do that. Don't come back until you are sober"
The next week saw an armored cable coming out the phone.
The place is still there, but it's been a series of upscale bistros with valet parking.
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