Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
roy
Social climber
NZ -> SB,CA -> Zurich
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2015 - 01:15pm PT
|
I enjoyed your review Greg - a very nice job.
Thanks, Roy
|
|
pc
climber
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2015 - 03:13pm PT
|
Thanks Greg. Skillfully written and the ultimate question, artfully avoided.
Cheers,
Peter
|
|
Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 30, 2015 - 03:52pm PT
|
Glad you enjoyed it, Peter and Roy. I'm taking my son to see Honnold speak at the Diablo Rock Gym tonight. Should be interesting.
|
|
Ney Grant
Trad climber
Pollock Pines
|
|
Glad you enjoyed it, Peter and Roy. I'm taking my son to see Honnold speak at the Diablo Rock Gym tonight. Should be interesting.
And...
How was it? Did you meet him?
(Great piece by the way, and I just purchased China's Wings - looking forward to it!)
|
|
Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 2, 2015 - 07:48am PT
|
Ney Grant: He was exactly as I predicted from his book, an articulate, goofy fellow. He presented on Patagonia, so obviously I was charmed by that. He hit just the right downtones in his talk to come across as badass without being arrogant. It was very well done. And holy cow, what a "gong show." Diablo Rock Gym was packed. I was impressed. He represents us and himself well.
One thing that I found personally funny was when he said something to the effect of, "Well, this is suburban California, so probably nobody in here has any alpine experience, so let me tell you....etc., etc., etc."
And I chuckled out a quiet "ouch."
He went on from that phrase to to describe a cold bivy spooning Colin Haley where the North Face of Cerro Torre joins the West Face route, but at least one member of his audience had crossed over that exact spot in July 1999.
But at least he called me "an actual climber" on his Facebook page, so I've got that going for me.
Totally cool to be sitting next to my 15-year old son during the presentation, to give him a nudge as a couple of slide popped up, and point to specific features Honnold was talking about, and say, "see that _ [INSERT face, notch, summit, ridge or whatever}, I've been in that exact spot." The difference being that I am now a fat piece of sh#t who will likely never get back to those places. But you gotta take your dad cool points where you can get them. They don't come very often these days.
I just purchased China's Wings - looking forward to it
That is damn good news. I hope you enjoy it. Bob Banks started a thread about it when it released. http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1763532/Chinas-Wings-by-Gregory-Crouch-released-OT You might enjoy this large photo gallery as an on-line supplement to the art in the book. There's also a lot of China's Wings related content to be found if you click the China's Wings category of my website. Moon Chin is still going strong at 102 years of age. We should all be so lucky. I wouldn't have discovered that story if it weren't for Charlie Fowler, so there's a strong climbing connection. As there is to just about everything in my life.
|
|
Ney Grant
Trad climber
Pollock Pines
|
|
Sounds like a good time. It is easy to think otherwise, but Alex may not know about that deep history of alpinism from the bay area starting with John Muir. I remember reading stories of Galen Rowell averaging 90 mph from Oakland to the Sierras and wondering why he didn't just move there (and he did a few years before he died).
Thanks for the links on the books, I will check them out. The gallery sounds great as I read. As an active pilot I'm sure I'll enjoy the book! (my blog: http://www.westcoastflyingadventures.com )
Maybe you can't get to that same spot in Patagonia but there are many fantastic places to go, and there are still dad cool points to be had!
|
|
Spiny Norman
Social climber
Boring, Oregon
|
|
|
Dec 25, 2015 - 08:43pm PT
|
As one of the unworthy, I just wanted to pipe up and say that I got Barry Blanchard's memoir The Calling as a holiday gift, and it's tremendous.
|
|
Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2015 - 08:00am PT
|
Spiny, I reviewed The Calling for the WSJ, too. Barry's accomplishments are so impressive. And everyone's worthy. We're just on different paths.
|
|
Ney Grant
Trad climber
Pollock Pines
|
|
Just wanted to bump this thread and let Greg Couch know I finished his book China's Wings and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was not only a great aviation book but a engaging history of modern day China through its war with Japan, sliding into World War II and then into communism - through the eyes of an American aviator in China.
Definitely recommended for anyone interested in aviation (e.g. "flying the hump") and world war II history buffs.
Great job Greg!
|
|
couchmaster
climber
|
|
^^^Ditto what Ney said about Chinas Wings.^^^ X3 good. Holy sh#t I thought your book is world class good Greg. Engrossing, interesting, solid investigations and well put together. Congrats on the masterpiece. This is genuine praise, I'm not kidding around. I'm not an "Aviation" guy, but I'll note that Greg can spin such a good yarn that it could about shake a bunch of peach pits out of a dogs ass. (LOL, borrowed that one)
|
|
Leavittator
climber
san diego, ca.
|
|
China's Wings deserved to be on the Wall Street Journal list of best selling books. Crouch will be rewarded like that some day.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
Jstan,
I think those that are satisfied do the Making of Meaning in their lives not the act to Find Meaning.
This subtle rewording of the how meaning happens in one's life is from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Was't he one of your bygone climbing pals?
|
|
Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
|
|
Nice review Greg. I am not usually pulled into taking time to read climbing books (I have compared my life expectancy to the number of books I would like to read divided by my reading rate: choose well, read faster, live longer--I am working on all three), but Alex has a knack for engaging humanness juxtaposed against his wildly un-human capacity--I like and respect him very much. You have done a nice bit to bring this into focus.
Free-soloing is an existential bitch. The joy of climbing is tied up in the wilful, direct, and unimpeded flow of our brains to our physical skills. Hard free-soloing probably does not get any better at tapping that flow, the "flow" Csikszentmihalyi identifies, both for the purity and the quantity.
Those of us who know climbing well, know that all good climbers free solo at some level, some of the time, and are not free-soloists: their joy of climbing is not diminished; their skill and commitment are not questioned. We take as tragic a good climber lost to freakish combinations of events that spin them off. But the sense of tragedy (and consternation) projected onto a climber who 'becomes' a free-soloist occurs not at the thin-air end, but at the beginning, at the willful decision to take the Achilles Syndrome plunge--heroic, and tragic, in the oldest, fullest sense.
But we cannot reconcile it. We know that if the end comes, we cannot quite bring ourselves to say, "Nice try. Good effort."
|
|
Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 6, 2016 - 08:18am PT
|
Thanks Ney, Couchmaster, and Napoleo-Leavitt (on the assumption that your cat has hijacked your feed again). Those old CNAC flyers really were something. They lived large. Climbing is dangerous, but what would you have chosen to do if you were getting paid $2,500 per month (in 1943 money--worth more than $34,000 in today's money) and there was a 25% chance that you were going to get killed this year? Save or spend? Plan on having a future or plan on not having one?
Moon Chin is still ticking along at 102 years old. THE most amazing man. And Peter Goutiere is 101 and still flirts with every woman who crosses his path. Like Beckey. Where there's life, there's hope. Right?
From Dingus:
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Was't he one of your bygone climbing pals?
Looking at his pics, I feel like we met years ago and climbed together, but he was never one of my regulars. If we did, I'm a fool for not plumbing his research, because it's some interesting stuff and certainly jibes with my experience of existence, be it climbing, surfing, writing, building, or any other of life's endeavors.
[For others, Here's a Wiki article that summarizes his research.]
Dingus, was he one of the Needles regulars back in late 80s early 90s?
I'm glad you enjoyed the review, Roger. Alex is a fascinating character. My impression is that he's a pretty bookish guy. It'll be interesting to see if he writes another book in later years. I'd have liked him to have addressed "what I've learned doing it" more in Alone on the Wall, as I think you have to have an answer to that question--or at least to have thought a lot about it--to "justify" the extreme free soloing. (Note: I'm a firm believer that it's his life and he can do what he wants with it as long as he isn't actively harming anybody else.) At least to justify it to yourself. I certainly pondered "what am I learning" a lot during the decade or so that I was obsessed with alpine climbing. F*#king glad I lived through it. It wouldn't have been worth it otherwise.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
Got the book for xmas and I'm going through it at that leisurely bathroom pace.
The details of his life and climbs addresses curiosity about the man himself. As for the soloing aspect of the book (his or anyone's), I think that can pretty well be reduced down to just the second paragraph of the book.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!