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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 15, 2017 - 01:39pm PT
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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Feb 15, 2017 - 01:42pm PT
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In 1961, my Dad, brother, and I went to a place in Pasadena whose name I can't recall just now to buy our first hiking-mountaineering boots as well as some pitons, a hammer, and carabiners. We probably got some of our gear at Sport Chalet in La Canada. We also found Army biners at local (Canoga Park) Army-Navy surplus stores.
By '62, I began going to Stoney Point with my friend from junior high school and Canoga Park High School, Dennis Hennek. It was at Canoga High, that we met Russ McLean, and we 3 joined the "regulars" (Kamps, Powell, Higgins, Couch, Cohen, and more at Stoney nearly every weekend. There we also met Robbins, Chouinard, and others who came less regularly.
Also, in '62, my Dad, brother, and I went to Washington to the Seattle World's Fair when we climbed Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier. While in Seattle, Dad joined REI and we bought gear there and from a shop owned by Dick McGowan.
Having met Yvon while he was still living in Burbank, we began working for him grinding pitons and carabiners and other tasks, sometimes getting paid by the piece and sometimes in trade for our hardware.
After Yvon moved to Ventura, on some rainy weekends we'd go spend the weekend at Yvon's, and we also attended the "Raves" that were held at his first beach house where California climbers would gather for music and slides. Dennis eventually moved to Ventura and worked full-time for Chouinard Equipment Co. for several years.
I remember clearly that the motivation that Don Lauria, Tom Limp, and Don Nagy had in starting West Ridge was so that Don L, especially, could get boots and outdoor clothing, etc. for his growing kids. I also remember that they chose the location in the L.A. area by plotting on a map the residences of all of the Sierra Club's trip leaders' addresses which could be found in a small directory that they published and gave out to their L.A. area members.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 15, 2017 - 02:01pm PT
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Lots of good stuff here, bringing back long-buried memories.
Bill--I don't have any memory of Veterans, but do recall the other 2 very well. The Ski Hut (Connecticut version not the Berkeley one) started, as its name implies, as a ski shop in Wilton,Ct owned by the Maxwell family. I don't know if the Wilton store initially carried any climbing gear. The New Haven (later moved to Hampden) store opened in the fall of '70 (a big year for climbing store openings it seems) and was managed by the late Rocky Keeler. That store focused more on general outdoors and climbing with skiing being secondary and it quickly became the gathering place for climbers in that part of Connecticut and eventually 'gave birth' to the Mud and Slush Club--such stores were often much more than merely places to buy gear (as also seen in the West Ridge thread). I think Clapp and Treat didn't start carrying climbing gear until a good bit later.
Reilly--I think I was in that same REI basement store in the summer of '66. I was a hiker then but wanted to become a climber. I was on a 'teen tour' that summer--the highlight for me being a hike up Mt. Whitney and we visited Seattle and stopped in REI (whatever it was then called)where I bought my first item of climbing gear--an ice axe.
Gnome--While I remember Hermans, I forgot or never knew that they carried climbing gear.
Ed H.--The store in Amherst was called Whitewater Outfitters back then--later changed to Adventure Outfitters. They closed about 2 years ago when the owner retired--kind of a funky store!!! When were you in western MA? Did we cross paths or just miss each other--I moved out here in the summer of '88? EMS in North Conway (now IME)opened in (I think) 1969, though the original store was in either Natick or Framingham MA. and itself was a combination of 2 earlier stores. This occurred, I believe, sometime in the mid-60s when they also opened a store on Commonwealth Ave. in Boston and the North Conway store followed not too long after. I now recall that there was an even earlier and quite 'eccentric' store in Boston that sold climbing gear--Wilderness Outfitters I think it was called. As rgold said Rock and Snow was another store that opened in 1970--after Ranger Donahue's back-of-the-truck operation was terminated by Mohonk.
Ed B.--I'd forgotten Helmut--yes he was definitely an early east coast supplier.
Divad--you are still young. Haven't seen you in quite a while. Come out to Farley when the weather warms up.
Todd--yes, "long timer" is better than "old timer"!!!!
Keep 'em coming. I still hope to hear from some of the previous generation on here--Fossil Climber and BAA for example, about how they first got gear. I'm sure there was also a lot of personal creation going on in those days by folks in addition to Chouinard.
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mastadon
Trad climber
crack addict
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Feb 15, 2017 - 02:06pm PT
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Alpine Hut, University Village in Seattle.
The same REI that Reilly talks about. I remember Big Jim Everest being there.
Reilly, what's your REI number??
Those are GREAT pics, BooDawg! How's it in Mariposa right now? I'll be down there at my house next week. Lots of dead trees.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Feb 15, 2017 - 02:07pm PT
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Shawnee Trails...funny...I met a prospective climbing partner there for a foray unto Giant City. We grabbed pizza next door post climbing I dimly recall.
Good times gettin' So. Ill!
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lars johansen
Trad climber
West Marin, CA
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Feb 15, 2017 - 02:10pm PT
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The Mountain Shop on Grant Avenue in San Francisco. They were decent enough to trade gear for some of the etchings I was doing at the time.-lars
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Tom Patterson
Trad climber
Seattle
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Feb 15, 2017 - 02:17pm PT
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If starting in 1975 is old-timer, then here's where I got my stuff:
First rope: The Tackroom, Poway, CA (a store that sold ropes for use in rodeo, etc.).
Second rope (when it was clear we were going to die by using my first rope): a Plymouth Goldline from a surplus store in Escondido, CA.
'Biners: All three of them, from a surplus store in Escondido. They were solid steel, and gold-colored.
Nuts: Stanley Andrews in San Diego and Escondido.
Friends: A-16, San Diego (worked there for a while, too)
Shoes: PAs, and EBs, by mail order. Better than the Wells Fargo Wagon when they arrived.
Harness: Swami material from Stanley Andrews, Whillans and eventually Forrest Harnesses from A-16.
All parkas and down gear, made by Mom (Frostline and Holubar kits).
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slabbo
Trad climber
colo south
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Feb 15, 2017 - 02:17pm PT
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I'm not quite that old but....Hilton's Tent city in Boston had some crap and Wilderness House (near the original EMS)
I though us rookies should just take gear from the guys older than Us ?!
I do remember Hermans in braintree MA I bought a copy of Mountain mag #45 there...maybe 1976? as well as SMC stuff and I think a rope
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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Feb 15, 2017 - 02:23pm PT
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Dick Long made his own line of hardware, "LongWare" which I think was sold to friends and possibly wholesaled to outfits like Holubar, Ski Hut, Gerry, and REI, but I'm not sure of that.
Jerry Gallwas acquired a nice selection of pitons from John Salathe, and I believe he forged some of his own that were used on the 1957 FA of Half Dome.
Jerry and Dick both spoke at the 2012 Oakdale Climbers Festival. Steve Grossman recorded/filmed the whole festival, so the answers are probably in Steve's archives.
Later, Charlie Porter made much of his cutting edge hardware. How far it traveled, I don't know.
Guido, who climbed with BBA, was a Berkeley Ski Hut dude. I expect he'll chime in any moment, but he's in NZ, possibly sailing, so it may be a while.
I'll try to get in touch with George Whitmore who climbed the Nose with Harding and Fossil Climber, and see if he can add his perspective. It'd be great if he could say how much of the pitons they used were made by Dolt!
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the goat
climber
north central WA
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Feb 15, 2017 - 02:44pm PT
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This is the kind of thread the taco was made for.
In early 70's Seattle, REI at 11th and Pine or the downtown store on 6th was it. The Swallow's Nest at 55th and Roosevelt was the serious climber's hang starting around 1974?
Jim Whittaker was GM at REI when I was hired on in 72.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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Feb 15, 2017 - 03:41pm PT
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I had a nice conversation with George Whitmore (now 86 years old). His view is that while the book, "Yosemite in the 50's, refers the decade as the "Iron Age," George calls it the "Age of Improvisation." He began climbing as a mountaineer in 1953. He said that by the time he got involved with the Nose, there were only 4 places they could get gear: The Coop (which became REI) the Ski Hut, Holubar, and Gerry. When he inquired about obtaining larger angle pitons, the Ski Hut folks told him that no one would pay as much as it would cost to make them. Frank Tarver made 3 Stoveleg pitons and they had to place three of them in a row then lower down to remove the lower 2, then place those above what had been the highest one of the 3. After quite a while, got spooked by the process and exposure. He said that that was why they retreated to the ground before reaching Dolt Tower on that push.
George, himself, made some "pitons" using crude steel I-beam extrusions, some from T-Shaped extrusions, and others from aluminum angle extrusions.
Because they needed heavier hammers, he also made a hammer head from a blacksmith's punch. But he reversed the head and attached it to a handle. While it was crude, he said it worked.
He also said that he made some wooden wedges with wire rings for attaching carabiners. Harding apparently didn't like them, but George knew they'd work for "Class 6" (aid) climbing.
About the time of the 50th anniversary of the Nose FA, he gave all of his stuff to Ken Yager.
He says that he doesn't like social media, so he doesn't post here or anywhere else.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 15, 2017 - 03:50pm PT
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Mid 1950s: Holubar, Sporthaus Schuster, and Jackson Hole Hardware (I think that was its name). White laid nylon rope was army surplus in 1954. First boots were J. C. Higgins from Sears, with Red rubber cleated soles attached later.
No 9 year-old girls cavorting on the rock those days!
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Feb 15, 2017 - 04:35pm PT
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My first climbing gear came to me by way of a family friend around 1973 whose husband had died the year before in a
P-51 racing plane accident while testing his aircraft over the desert at night. The accident was caused by an altimeter malfunction at 400 mph, really sad, for he left behind a widow and four children.
It was his climbing gear; a white Edelrid kernmantle rope, five oval carabiners, three lost arrow horizontals, and a 1 inch swami that she sold me for $100. She heard that I was getting into climbing and sold it to me with her blessing. I recall her telling me how he had taken her climbing with the gear, and I can't imagine, looking back on it now, how much that handful of equipment probably meant to her.
I probably used that rope for three or four years and took several long falls on it before retiring it. Funny, and a little sad in some cases, the memories a topic like this stirs up. I don't think I've shared that story with anyone for at least twenty five or thirty years.
PS
Her oldest boy, Kier, went on to become a climber as well.
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hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
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Feb 15, 2017 - 04:39pm PT
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I started climbing during the famous gear famine of 1977-no gear to be purchased anywhere in Minneapolis- anywhere- forcing me to purchase the orange anodized SMC ovals as the only 'biners available at EMS.
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Edge
Trad climber
Betwixt and Between Nederland & Boulder, CO
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Feb 15, 2017 - 05:37pm PT
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1977, as a sophomore in high school with no drivers license and living in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, I mail ordered from EMS: a 3/8" x 120' gold line rope, 40 feet of 1" tubular webbing for tying slings, and 10 steel oval biners. Total cost with shipping was around $80.
The next year, when a climbing friend and I got our licenses, we would drive 1 1/2 hour every weekend to North Conway, and every trip I would buy a new hex here, a pair of EBs there, a Whillans harness, all from either the North Conway EMS or from IME.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 15, 2017 - 05:42pm PT
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Stanley Andrews in San Diego and Escondido, like Tom Patterson.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Feb 15, 2017 - 05:49pm PT
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BooDawg, good stuff, Old Timer.
Your photos of Skunkworks made me think of a purchase of piton "seconds" from the GPIW in the winter of '70. Millis drove his Olds to the Valley that fall and when the snow hit in December, took Jeff Mathis and myself and his dog Spats to JT for a break.
His mother and brothers lived in Ventura so we stayed there one night. The next day we visited Chouinard's yard, where I spent some of the money we had made ($100 for packing in one load up to the rim from Tamarack and back down) from working with CBS News when they covered the Dawn Wall circus.
I remember limiting the purchase to angles, no flat pitons. Mostly, the seconds were larger angles with rivet problems. Meh. Such a deal.
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