In Days of Yore; the 'Tobin' Effect

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survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
Oct 5, 2015 - 01:02pm PT
Wow.

Wonderful.
Mungeclimber

Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
Oct 5, 2015 - 01:03pm PT
real nice
Clint Cummins

Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
Oct 5, 2015 - 01:23pm PT
Here are some Cobra photos to go with your memories from the FFA!
survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
Oct 5, 2015 - 01:53pm PT
The hangdog shot is the best!!
hobo_dan

Social climber
Minnesota
Oct 5, 2015 - 04:56pm PT
Thanks for sharing the memories of your brother. Hope you ring it up again next year.
yanqui

climber
Balcarce, Argentina
Oct 6, 2015 - 11:24am PT
I heard those Tobin stories when I first started climbing. Must have been spring of 1979. I should have been finishing up my last quarter on my B.A. in philosophy but I had decided to check out the rocks at Minnehaha and after that I was hooked. Instead of going to class, I would spend every minute I could find climbing, hiking, hanging out by the rocks. I even managed to get some other friends interested in it for a short, but magical time. We formed a tight-knit and directed group. Adventure was our game.

There was an older, ex-climber hippy-type who used to hang out by rocks. He'd suddenly appear when we'd start bouldering or top roping and shout beta at us (usually wrong). We called him "Yosemite Bob" (or something like that) because he had once climbed a 5.10 in Yosemite. We were impressed. Yosemite Bob knew Tobin stories. He wasn't the only one. Kim Momb and Dane Burns were two of the local hard guys and important figures in the early development of Spokane climbing. They were gracious enough to help out some clueless noobs like us. They had also been to Yosemite and knew Tobin stories too.

I was born in California and spent my grade school years in the San Fernando Valley. I didn't have much interest in ever going back. However, in spring of 1981, some of plans I had set for my life had begun to unravel. For one thing, the girl I thought I would marry had left to work in the San Fransisco Bay Area. So I made my one and only pilgrimage back to California. And guess what: I spent more time climbing than repairing the rift in my relationship. In a three week stay at Yosemite I ran into a local guy that I had met a year earlier, climbing around Icicle Canyon in Washington (I wish I could remember his name or who he was!). One day, I found myself climbing Higher Cathedral Spire with the local guy and an Australian. They were testing me out for a go at Quarter Domes (I did OK on the spire: leading straight over some roof on the second pitch and leading most of the other pitches as well!). After that, I found myself (with my girlfriend, I think) in the middle of a spontaneous party that somehow had errupted in El Cap Meadows. Bushman was there. I remember that specifically (although I'm sure he doesn't). It hadn't been that long since Tobin's accident and it seemed everybody connected to climbing was aware of it. Another guy I somehow knew (from Spokane?) told me how Bushman had cruised a pretty rad climb that day. Was it the Good Book? Bushman didn't even hardly need to place gear, I was told. I was impressed. We (I mean everyone present at the party, if I recall correctly) locked arms together and proceeded to run backwards as fast as we could across the meadows until, at last, we fell down in the grass, exhausted.

After that trip, my relationship with my fiancée would fall apart completely and I would never go went back to California again. But I can honestly say, it all worked out fine for me.

Cheers Bushman.
NutAgain!

Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
Oct 6, 2015 - 11:58am PT
Your writing shares the magic across generations. Thanks for helping his spirit and values reach more people.
Andy de klerk

Mountain climber
South Africa
Oct 6, 2015 - 12:58pm PT
Thank you Tim
climbfitcoachtom

climber
covina, ca
Oct 6, 2015 - 09:10pm PT
As always, fantastic writing Bushman.
Thank you for sharing the memories first hand from a fellow climber.

As a child, I recall being amazed and a bit fearful for my brother and his friends on weekend excursions to JT and Idylwild as the hikes were grueling to the base of what was the target climb for the weekend. As the guys would work their way higher and higher up and out of site, it was usually the job of the belayer to keep an eye on the lead as well as keep an eye on me as an 8 or 9 year old climbing around on trees and rocks just high enough to get hurt.
Im sure that I was more a nuisance than anything but, at the time was in heaven just to be in the company of guys like John L, Mike G, Rick A, John B and Tobin. I was always looking forward to camp at night and tales from the day's events on conquering the massive, vertical slabs of granite.
What an awesome group of guys as they all took turns in keeping an eye on me... and my brothers. At the time I had no idea that I was a part of something so historic and timeless.
I have never in my life seen such a bond between teammates.
To trust another with your life in such a way was amazing to me and I was in awe of the abilities of these guys as they would sometimes take breathtaking falls and sacrifice skin and bone to master their skill.
Each offering their own unique ability and different technique to freeing the routes that were once only climbed with aid.
...Awesome!
Thank you for your photos, posts and comments as they are all read with a lump in my throat and an appreciation for being lucky enough to be a part of a sport that at the time was being changed by true heroic pioneers.
Such an influence each has had on my life, that not a day goes by without some sort of reflection of a day in my youth and "camping" with my brother's friends...The StoneMasters.
TS
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Oct 6, 2015 - 11:24pm PT
Nice write up, Tim.

Of course none of never got over losing Tobin. He was way out in front. I think about him often.

JL
Gnome Ofthe Diabase

climber
Out Of Bed
Oct 7, 2015 - 07:54am PT
mastadon

Trad climber
crack addict
Oct 7, 2015 - 05:13pm PT

I knew your brother peripherally in Yosemite in the 70's. He had so much spirit that it seems inconceivable that he's gone.
jstan

climber
Oct 7, 2015 - 06:27pm PT
OK. Tobin was way out in front. If so it's a damn shame we don't have his counsel now two generations later.

Think about it.

couchmaster

climber
Oct 8, 2015 - 05:59am PT


Thought about it jsan: good point. Great thread. Thanks!
Bushman

Social climber
Elk Grove, California
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 10, 2015 - 02:12pm PT
The youngest of us brothers (8 years younger than Tobin), Tom was only around 17 or 18 in these pics at J.T. We were on a couple routes on Headstone I think.
We went out climbing together several times at Bishops peak and Yosemite in the mid '90s and he could get up anyhting I could by then. Always a strong dude, he got taller than Tobin and I by a few inches, so now I always call him my 'big' little brother. He flashed Sacherer Cracker then, and we did all the pitches (really a cool route I always thought). Tom cranked on all the harder .10s we did together as well.

In a legendary row, about a year before we lost Tobin, Tom and I had it out one time at my dad's house in Arroyo Grande over some sibling rivalry bullsh#t. I was pretty much at fault as usual and should have taken the high road, and we almost put each other in the hospital. He was in his teens and I was in my early twenties, and it wasn't a fair fight, but that kid stood his ground and woudn't take any B.S. from his A-hole older brother. It was a brutal nighttime barnyard brawl and with no witnesses, we both fought dirty. After I served him a humiliating smackdown and a dirt facial, he retreated into the shadows to lie in wait. Foolishly, I tracked him into a darkened horse stable only to be blindsided when he nearly broke my arm with a steel pipe. I gave chase through a field and he came out from behind a tree with a two x four, and almost broke my other arm. He once again fled and finally escaped as I ran after him in a crazed stupor, both arms flailing uselessly at my sides. It was pretty ugly and we didn't talk for weeks. Then one day in passing we both said, "Hey," and that was the end of it, bygones be bygones.

Tom has a true Sorenson sense of humor and we always talk to each other for days about all of our crazy adventures whenever we get together. He has a sometimes clumsy and somewhat reckless streak like myself as well. Needless to say, I really love that guy and I couldn't ask for a more stellar brother.

Tom is the sprout on the right (not the dog).

A little more recently.
bbbeans

Trad climber
Oct 11, 2015 - 08:28am PT
A touching tribute indeed. Great read about a great man!
Rick A

climber
Boulder, Colorado
Oct 11, 2015 - 08:39am PT
Beautifully done, Tim, the story, photos, and the poem.

That is classic Tobin style, right there. Layback up for thirty feet and trust that you’ll somehow manage to get a nut in higher. For that type of layback, modern cams are a huge improvement. Fiddling blindly with nuts and trying to will them into sticking around the corner, was often a fool’s errand.

Clint: Thanks for the photos of the Cobra, the last pitch in the mouth of the serpent looks incredible.

Jstan: I think I get your point: that climbing is not worth dying for. And I could not agree more. But engaging in any style of climbing--even if confined only to gyms or sport climbs-- still results in accidents and “unnecessary losses” compared to staying earthbound. Tobin pushed the envelope more than what the rest of us might consider prudent, but we all take some level of risk to engage in this pastime.

As to Tom, I remember him. I think he may have been camping in Yosemite Valley with his dad when Tobin and I did Sentinel Falls. Say hello to him for me! I had a similar, but much less brutal, fight with my older brother when I was 14 and he was 16. Like your battle, it was a red letter date in our relationship :).

Rick
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