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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Aug 13, 2015 - 03:13pm PT
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Keep posting Avery. I love your posts and appreciate the work you put into it.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Aug 13, 2015 - 03:29pm PT
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Where is klk when you need him? Kerwin is a history professor at Berkeley and one of his specialties is the history of climbing. Last I heard he was working on a book about the evolution of rock climbing. A professional historian can bring to light all sorts of societal influences affecting the sport.
I've been corresponding with Catherine Destivelle who runs a publishing company and she is shepherding a book on the history of rock climbing. It promises to be quite inclusive. She obviously thinks there is a market.
Youngsters initiated into the sport in indoor gyms may think of it like tennis or golf; it's for the doing, not the reading and philosophying.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Aug 13, 2015 - 03:36pm PT
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All of the climbing history I know is from the Taco.
Scary....
Actually, there is a lot of good content here and good resources; all you have to do is ask. Old school guidebooks are some of the best sources of history.
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Reeotch
climber
4 Corners Area
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Aug 13, 2015 - 03:46pm PT
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History is very important for those contemplating a first ascent.
You certainly don't want to repeat history when you were hoping to make history . . .
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 13, 2015 - 04:12pm PT
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Nearly all of my interest is in my climbing future....what's left of it.
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 13, 2015 - 06:48pm PT
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Thanks for your advice, Lurkingtard.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Aug 14, 2015 - 04:23am PT
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I have been developing a pretty cool cliff near Dartmouth college. the entire area just reeks of history. On the other side of the valley is a small populer mostly top ropeing crag with a few established leads that is the hub of activity for most of the dartmouth students. I remember clibing there 20 years ago and asking why aren't we over there on the big cliff? The answer was its a choss heap and closed for birds. It is a fairly active ice climbing area and aparently Ward and Chris Smith had a look at it 30 years ago. They made it as far as where the good ice climbing is and saw a bunch of soaking wet slabs, turned arround and went to Rumny. The rest is history.
Anyways the rock is mostly face climbing and does not lend itself to many gear routs. There is the occasional old pin or rusty bolt with a story to tell. I have been as carefull as possible to not retro bolt any old routs. There is a faint line between two of our routes. Fairly run out 1/4 inchers and a pin to the midpoint belay ledge that just fizzeled out. My Gut feeling was that the bolts were part of a winter effort to get to ice that forms on the upper part of the cliff. A few days ago my buddy Ryan brought Andy Tuttle There to climb the big wide cracks that we have been so intrigued with. He said he had not climbed them before but thought the bolts in the first pod must have been bail bolts?( I agree?) then they did one of our climbs next to the old bolts that I thought were a winter mixed climb. Andy ponderd a bit at the belay and then declared " I think I placed that bolt?" Turns out it was an ice climb in 1990 before we knew what mixed climbing was(joke). I was super stoked to hear this history and Andy was stoked on our new climbs.
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Fish Finder
climber
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Aug 14, 2015 - 06:27am PT
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Hi Patrick
You need to follow your passion and not give a fukc who cares
Once you get to the point where you dont delete things on this site you will have matured and your body of work will stand alone
If its attention you need then post little video clips of you doing the jig
or puking or start a thread about selfies
but expecting accolades for posting articles from the past .... aint gonna happen as most of us live in the now
Best Gregg
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 14, 2015 - 07:09am PT
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Thanks Greg,
I never recall asking for accolades.(I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong)
I was a little dismayed about the lack of interest in my latest thread. I've already admitted that it was a mistake to delete it. For the record, how would you like me to say it: standing to attention draped in a black flag!
Nobody has mentioned the inconvenient fact that I have around a dozen fully operational threads at this moment on Supertopo.
So I urge you Greg, take a little time out from the 'here and now'. Who knows, you might even like what you find.
Patrick Kavanagh, Blenheim, NZ
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 14, 2015 - 07:11am PT
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Thank God for people like you, Dingus. Your worth your weight in gold.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 14, 2015 - 07:23am PT
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Ah Alaska.....went there fourteen years in a row. What's not to like about it.......steep, technical climbing to be had, planes landing you at the base of your climb and weather better than Patagonia.
Managed to spend all of that time there and not set foot on Denali....Foraker, Hunter, Thunder Mountain, Barille, Wake, the Moose's Tooth, Bradley, the Kitchana Spires et al provided much better sport without the crowds.
Avery, I don't understand your fascination with the number of ascents a route has. I've been on forty plus expeditions and only tried to repeat one route and that was because my partner was inexperienced.
When it comes to alpine climbing....once a route has been done I loose all interest in it.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 14, 2015 - 09:30am PT
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American Climbers and Their Interest in History
In the 70s when there were only a handful of major climbing areas in the USA, these locales were steeped in their histories from prior decades. The histories were concentrated in a few areas and climbers visited nearly only those few areas. Climbing areas HAD history. A lot of the information about climbs and styles passed around was oral and as such was often couched in historical terms. Even so, most of our cultural appreciation and functional application of histories didn't extend much further back than 15 or 20 years. We were also emulating and extending an ethos which those prior climbers championed. Once that changed in the mid-1980s, the functional chain of those histories was broken.
Now that time (the 70s) is 40 years in the past! When we were in our teens did we really care about stuff 40 years prior to our arrival? No, that was asking a bit much, because things had changed enough that the practical link was thin and the utility of those histories was less apparent. We knew mostly about the direct influence of Robbins and Kor and Sacherer. (Even reading Herzog and Rebufatt: their exploits were mostly of the 50s, just 20 years prior). In the 70s we knew plenty about the Golden Age climbers and were directly affected by them. We definitely cared what Robbins and his generation had to say. The routes we climbed were festooned with their old pitons and bolts, so there was plenty of outstanding evidence to spur our interest. We were doing FFAs of their routes, so of course we knew the history, or some of it. If you'd asked me in the 70s about climbing 40 years prior I wouldn't have felt so strongly connected.
Nevermind Americans particularly, but it seems to me a lot to ask of modern youngsters to expect them to enjoy a living context for the stuff we did 30 or 40 years ago. Surely the context is there, but it's appreciation is more academic than practical. For example, I just learned young Australians by and large don't even know about Kim Carrigan.
Now with climbing so diversified and practiced in so many locations and so much of it happening in artificial environments, those histories are less relevant, at least in practical and functional terms of the routes most people now climb. The scope has broadened so much. Also, this is the information age. People can stay tightly focused on their immediate goals and get all the information they want online … maybe too much so! With all of that going on, the practical benefit of seeking deep history is less pronounced, even in the 15 to 20 year range, nevermind the 30 to 40.
So it seems history has become detached from the functional needs of climbers, even more so than it had for past generations.
An example of an exception: let's take doing new routes in the High Sierra or in any mountain range. From a practical standpoint, climbers seeking those experiences probably want to know what came before, so there is utility in examining the history; there is a sense of a living link which serves a functional purpose. It's an extension of an ongoing narrative which hasn't changed so much in terms of style so that history still matters to those particular climbers.
I recently enjoyed a narrative account written by a modern professional sport climber, Paige Claassen. For her, To Bolt or Not to Be at Smith Rock was of historical interest and significance. The history of the route enriched her experience of the climb. She understood the context of thin slab as an old one, but sought to understand it as a virtue in her growth as a climber. But direct context was still a relevant factor defining her interest, because she knew about the route as a child. So again, there is that functionally relevant 15 or 20 year span showing itself in Paige's experience.
http://paigeclaassen.com/to-bolt-or-not-to-be/
I doubt I answered your question directly Avery (Patrick!), but those are my thoughts on the broader topic.
 Roy
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Fish Finder
climber
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Aug 14, 2015 - 09:45am PT
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"Nobody has mentioned the inconvenient fact that I have around a dozen fully operational threads at this moment on Supertopo."
nobody has to because you just did
For me its more about the human nature (personality) than the actual climb
But your efforts do have merit
ex: Surgeon General- by bringing up the history in a thread, it has brought us to the present as EE and Dana have ripped it up recently
It must take some time to pull up all the old articles and Im sure you must read some, perhaps if you added some info that you have learned about the individuals , the quirky, the uncanny, the eccentric -= you may pull in more people to comment
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Hard Rock
Trad climber
Montana
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Aug 14, 2015 - 02:29pm PT
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History and the Mags for the old climbers: I've noticed that thet mags will repeat the popular climbing areas about every 10-15 years. They will repeat the history section again and again. I let my subscription die for a while. But the subscriptions have gotten cheaper. Some issues I can finish in a half hour (nice of them to save me time in my old age).
As to old climbing gear: Some of the youth don't even want to climb with my stuff. But the nice part is - no one every steals anything from my rack and if it does get mix up on a big trip I will always get it back.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Aug 14, 2015 - 02:59pm PT
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I have never climbed in Alaska, or New Zealand, and only one summer in the Canadian Rockies, but I really appreciate your threads featuring these places. I have only commented on one or two of them, but have read them all with great interest and sometimes amazement.
For example,the accounts of ascents of the North Face of Alberta contain some incredible stories and photos.
Thanks for the threads and the effort, Patrick.
Rick
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 14, 2015 - 03:25pm PT
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Thanks for your kind words, Rick. Kudos to Tarbuster for his thoughtful statement.
The history in the majority of my offerings is actually quite recent. There certainly not the cobweb strewn threads some people suggest they are.
Thanks also to Greg for his insights. I may not agree with you, but I do take your comments seriously. Your Surgeon General idea has great possibilities. I'm friends with Dana, so it could be a realistic prospect. The statement about my operational threads was there merely to illustrate a point, nothing more.
I have tried in the past to post Yosemite threads, but kept running in to all sorts of copyright issues. It was a pretty harsh learning curve.
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Avery
climber
NZ
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 14, 2015 - 03:40pm PT
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Thanks Jim,
My fascination with a given route's number of ascents is all about history.
No two accounts are the same. Each one has a life of its own. Some repeats are effortless others are epic. It's all part of the kaleidoscope we call the climbing experience. I sincerely believe there's a lot there for people to enjoy and possibly learn from.
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Psilocyborg
climber
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Aug 14, 2015 - 03:47pm PT
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I read and enjoy all your threads. There is so much stupid bs on here, your threads are a little Ray of sunshine...except this one. This threads sucks.
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Aug 14, 2015 - 05:42pm PT
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I never recall asking for accolades.(I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong)
I was a little dismayed about the lack of interest in my latest thread. I've already admitted that it was a mistake to delete it. For the record, how would you like me to say it: standing to attention draped in a black flag!
I love your threads.
BUTT. if you are dismayed about lack of interest, i can only deduce that you might be an attention whore.
like many others, i have only aspired to climb some of the walls you post about. so what is there to say? good job avery, thanks?
how many of those do you need?
you are smart enough to know that the routes and walls you have posted about have only been climbed by a few so I am not sure what can be gained by me saying "i read about that in mags once".
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 14, 2015 - 06:58pm PT
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Yep...regional rock climbing history would mesh well with a regional rock climbing forum like Supertopo.
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