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Mimi
climber
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Jun 25, 2007 - 01:34am PT
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The crack is pretty continuous and thin and wasn't very scarred since it was put up fairly late in the game, 1979. He needed the narrow pockets for finger jams and situated the pins so they weren't in the way and easier to clip.
I should add that hangdogging was still controversial in Yosemite back then too. I gave the handful of booty pitons over to the steering committee and they were supposed to have been returned to Todd.
Todd, being Todd, put them right back in and didn't miss a beat, pardon the pun, and a good time was had by all.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jun 25, 2007 - 10:32am PT
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Yeah the 3rd climber was a Crump not a Head. And nickd's interpretation of Todd's troubles being a result of rivalry and vindictiveness from the locals is utter BS! The locals did not have a free ride they followed the rules. Todd showed up and started rap bolting routes. That was WAY out of character for the established ethics and pissed off the park officials big time. Todd caused his own problems!
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jun 25, 2007 - 11:09am PT
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In the mid to late Seventies and to a lesser degree into the Eighties there was a substantial rivalry between the Colorado Springs climbers and the Gunnison climbers. We Gunny-bunsters thought the Black Canyon belonged to US and that the Springs-tateers were invaders. It would just frost us that they always seemed to get the route a day or a week ahead of us. We would go down to do the new line we had been planning only to find that they had just done it. Part of the irritation for us was that while we were quiet about what we were doing they seemed to be media whores. We were afraid they would cause a stampede of the great unwashed proletariat to choke up OUR walls. Things drew to a crescendo when they had the unmitigated gall to rename the classic Kor-Dahlke route with the lame moniker of the Cruise. Sure they freed it about three days before us but to feel they were entitled to re-title pissed us off BIG TIME! Finally the embittered impasse was broken by Chuck Grossman. Chuck was a student at WSC in Gunnison who had connections with the Springs climbers. Chuck was the primary reason that the wall of begrudging respect came down and collaboration became the new scene,
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Jun 25, 2007 - 11:22am PT
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philo,
the rangers were pissed that Todd was rap-bolting?
Could it be that the locals were pissed at the rap-bolting, and pointed out the bolts to the rangers who just didn't like the idea of bolts?
Just asking.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jun 25, 2007 - 01:32pm PT
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Piton Ron, I think it was more of a case of visibility. The locals were pretty low key and the ground up approach kept bolting to a minimum. Yea I am sure the locals were really annoyed by the rap bolting. But I don't think Todds problems were a result of their having ratted him to the man. The bigger issue was how much more visible it is to be hangin' n bangin' even to the tourists. And when the tourons start asking questions about them shiny thangs you know the man is gonna get involved. By the time Todd got rolling in Hueco the hey days of Warren as the Supe were over and Big Bad Bob had come to town Climbers were about to get stomped.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 25, 2007 - 01:49pm PT
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Yosemite has often seemed like the place where "outsiders" were held to a different standard than the locals.
Of course, it IS true that there are regional rivalries and ethical rivalries and Skinner was king of crossing both lines. The treatment he got after the Salathe was sewage treatment.
Nowadays, the rules at Camp 4 are so strict it's hard to say Yosemite has locals anymore. Folks are more used to climbing around the country and world and few can stay.
Well, we have locals but they rarely set the standards because to be a local you pretty much have to have a J O B which makes you S O L for pressing the hardest routes.
Peace
Karl
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jun 25, 2007 - 01:56pm PT
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Peter...I remember that day like it was yesterday. You were a really cool kid with a great amount of talent for one that was so young.
The sandbag backfired that day...I still can see myself rolling back through the bushes and you picking up your shoes and heading back to the Uberfall. It was a great time to be in the Gunks and a great time to a climber.
Bob
On Hueco...My first trip was in 83 with Catherine Freer. We pulled right through the ranger station and headed for the rocks. About 30 seconds later came Ranger Bob...a big man with a fat Texas draw asking us just what the F&%$# we were doing. I said climbing...His face turns cherry red and he then asked us to pay the fee or leave the park. I got the feeling that he didn't care for us at all.
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Jun 25, 2007 - 02:05pm PT
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Bob, those were great times!
Look me up if you ever get out here to Tahoe/Donner Summit. I would love to show you around the middle aged climber circuit, safe and sound I promise! Of course we got some good mt. biking as well.
Peter
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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Jun 25, 2007 - 09:03pm PT
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Hey Philo and Hankster, You are right on about the 3rd guy being James Crump. I remember we called him Head as a joke, part of the Head Mafia. But I don't think I am so wrong about them getting the rangers after Todd. Philo is correct in saying that Todd made his own problems by not sticking to the style dictated by the locals, and they in turn were very adamant in their complaints about him to the rangers. Who did you think filled in the rangers on climbing ethics? As I recall, it wasn't really legal to drill at all there, but the locals were allowed to drill all the bolts they wanted to, which to be honest,was not many! They put up some incredibly scary routes. I liked all those guys as people, but I was (and still am) totally against rap bolting. When I first met Todd at Hueco I was prepared not to like him at all because of his climbing ethics, but he turned out to be a really great guy. I liked him a lot and had some great times with him. I still have more respect for the ground up, totally risking your life ethic. I was always very impressed with the courage shown in developing those routes at Hueco. I always thought Mike Head was one of the nerviest guys I ever met. Please don't think I am bad rapping anyone I mentioned because I have great respect for all of them. I'm just another old guy reminiscing.
Michael
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jun 26, 2007 - 12:31am PT
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Karl said "Yosemite has often seemed like the place where "outsiders" were held to a different standard than the locals."
Maybe the operative word should be "sometimes" rather than "often." I think Robbins & Co. viewed Harding as an outsider, and the young guys who rolled in and climbed the Heart Route were certainly given scant respect. But Squamish locals seemed always welcome. Hugh Burton and Steve Sutton, for example, put up several lines on El Cap and I don't recall anybody whining about "outsiders stealing our routes."
D
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 26, 2007 - 03:25am PT
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Climbers, especially in their "youth," seem to bear the burden of a great deal of insecurity and, at times, a lack of generosity.
Royal, you know, took me under his wing, and I was incredibly young and dumb, and all that. I watched his every move. Already as a gymnast at age 17, in 1964, I was stronger than he, yet he had that special mastery, that granite-honed technique, from which I could learn. Imagine traveling with him for a month, climbing every day, then having the master as your own personal tour guide for your first trip to Yosemite. Anyway, he was soon after invited to be editor of Summit Magazine. He promptly (and not so subtly) revealed his desire to lord over the climbing community, in terms of its ethical practices on rock. He was like some kind of Darth Vader, with that deep forbidding voice. He invited me to write an article for Summit, which I did. It was my first published article, and there was a good spirit to it all. Then, a year or two later, he invited me to contribute to "Scree" (I think that's what he called that little section of debate/commentary, in Summit). So I wrote and mailed in a piece about how I had returned to Yosemite and done something like twenty-five 5.10 cracks in a week's time. Mind you, that was a lot for those days. I had recently read his write-up of the no-hands descent of the cable route on Half Dome, where he had written, "Even one man went down without touching his hands." So trying in my naive way to be modest the way he was, I wrote, "One man did 25 5.10 crack routes in one week's time." By the way, 5.10 was the top of the standard at the time, and I was repeating all the 5.10 off-widths and Sacherer cracks and Pratt routes I could find. I believe to this day Royal felt threatened by those accomplishments, as this was his territory, and he didn't want even a good friend, but especially not from outside California, even his own protege, coming along and doing TOO well. But he was miffed by the false modesty, in writing "One man... etc." He published a follow up column rebuking me, saying, "Of course everyone knows who that one man is," and raking me over the coals. I wrote him a letter reminding him of his own, "Even one man went down without touching his hands," and he saw then where I got my model. He wrote me an apology, and we were friends again. But Royal, almost more than anyone, was at once very generous when someone showed undeniable skill but jealous in an insidious way at times of people who were good but perhaps lacked some kind of coolness. I very much lacked any sort of cool, in those days, being wildly immature and uneducated in the proper nuances of social etiquette, etc.
When Erickson came to Colorado, I welcomed him. I could boulder circles around him, but he was a Devil's Lake Popeye, with bulging forearms, which were good for long tiring pitches. Instead of competing with him, as I easily could have done (I enjoyed humiliating him on short hard pitches, in a playful sort of way), I truly wanted to see him succeed and, as one example, literally gave him the Naked Edge. I told him to go do it, that I had no claim on anything anymore, and that was when that route became his dream. I could have stolen it at any time, but I liked him and wanted to see him have a great experience up there.
I felt no animosities from Pratt, Higgins, Kamps, and other Yosemite greats, who were utterly generous, when I did the first 5.11 in the Valley in 1967. They all sustained that route as the first 5.11, though others have tried to give the honor to later climbers, since the Slack was such a short little route. But I think a few at the time of the ascent resented it. People can debate this, and there's no proof, but I still think a jealous local (of a lesser variety than those various best climbers) pulled out the block that left it now so much easier. Higgins recently wrote me and said (to show his kind of generosity), "I flopped off of it once and thought to return and do it, but you got it. That was a mighty prize. Maybe the block is still there in the talus. We could put it back in the crack, and then climbers would know how hard that was back then." I greatly admired those Yosemite greats for the way they welcomed me. But certainly not everyone did. I think Kor might have been the only outsider absolutely no one in the Valley resented, because he was such a wonderful spirit and amusing character.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 26, 2007 - 03:42am PT
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A small P.S.
Someone above cited Billy Westbay as a Colorado climber. I would gladly claim him as one of ours, because he was one of the genuinenly phenomenal climbers of his time, as evidenced by his lead of that horrific offwidth on the Diamond (that Bachar told me was desperate even to follow). But in fact Billy was a California climber, and a hearalded one, before living in Colorado. I always viewed him as a kind of transplant to our state. His passing was a great loss for us all.
As for the Diamond. No one stole that route. All due respects to Kor and Northcutt, who could certainly have climbed the wall in good style, Rearick and Kamps simply presented indisputable credentials, having done such big walls as Half Dome and Sentinel, and the rangers could not refuse their application. For quite a time, the rangers had felt the deaths of Prince Willmon and friend in a snowstorm had brought bad notoriety to the mountain, and they were afraid of something like that occurring again. I don't defend the park service, but I know when they were approached by Rearick and Kamps they had to take a whole new look at things, and I belive Dave and Bob did the best job anyone could have done back then. Kor never really complained. Rather Dale Johnson expressed his disappointment in having been refused permission earlier. Though I deeply respect Dale, who was one of my first climbing teachers, he had a more liberal attitude then about bolts and was not practiced in the finer piton work of the Californians. He might have succeeded, but Rearick and Kamps did it the right way and were the right ones for the job at that moment in time. I was too young then to even know what rivalry was and was thrilled. The Californians were my heroes, and I had no idea Rearick would soon move to Colorado and become my main climbing partner, or that I would do so much climbing with Kamps, and have both of them as my eternal friends.
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ddriver
Trad climber
SLC, UT
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Jun 26, 2007 - 01:58pm PT
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philo said
"Yeah the 3rd climber was a Crump not a Head. And nickd's interpretation of Todd's troubles being a result of rivalry and vindictiveness from the locals is utter BS! The locals did not have a free ride they followed the rules. Todd showed up and started rap bolting routes. That was WAY out of character for the established ethics and pissed off the park officials big time. Todd caused his own problems!"
This is what I remember from hanging out with the Heads and Crump. Bolting of any kind was illegal at Hueco at the time, so new routes were often put in on windy days or when the Heads knew the ranger was away, and of course a lot of natural gear placements were used. The Hueco climbing ranger under Bob, Donnie Hardin, lived in park housing on-site so he knew when Bob was gone. It seems to me that Donnie would tip off Mike and Dave that the coast was clear for them to drill.
There's no doubt though about there being animosity towards Todd using rap-bolting and I remember there being other issues but I wasn't involved directly and don't remember or care. I wouldn't be surprised if James and the Heads had Donnie tip off Bob about what was going on, but however it came to be noticed, it was too much culture shock for old Bob to handle and Todd felt his wrath.
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aldude
climber
Monument Manor
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Jun 26, 2007 - 02:41pm PT
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Lloyd Price - Swan Slab Aid Route , 5.11 1965.
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Jefe'
Boulder climber
Bishop
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Jun 26, 2007 - 03:45pm PT
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Bouldering with Al Harris at Baldy, after I did the left side of chuco boulder, he downclimbed it, slipped and fell, broke his ankle, then recovered with Mergatroyd at Goodykoontz' apartment.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 26, 2007 - 04:35pm PT
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Lloyd Price? 5.11 in '65? Where would the evidence be for that? I think we all would have known. If it happened, I'm suspecting it did later.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 26, 2007 - 04:47pm PT
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All the Meyers and Reid Yosemite guides show the FFA of Swan Slab Aid Route as being "Loyd Price and friends, 1967".
The Roper green book (1971) doesn't record it as having been freed.
The spelling "Loyd" is unusual.
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Tahoe climber
Trad climber
a dark-green forester out west
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Jun 26, 2007 - 05:10pm PT
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Skinner did more than just rap bolting, which was bad enough.
He was not low key AT ALL!!
In the rangers face, doing what he wanted - on one of the routes mentioned earlier (Gunfighter, I think), he even fixed a metal ladder to the route for multiple days for the bolting project! The Heads and Crump were reputed to be way more subtle about it - Mike Head and his free solo of, then ground-up bolting of Sea of Holes 5.10a was super inspiring!
It wasn't about a regional rivalry - it was about an ego-driven dude coming in and breaking all the rules in daylight and predictable consequences soon to follow!
You just can't flout authority so blatantly - especially in Texas!
I respect the hell out of Skinner, and he was an awesome dude, but he did more to put Hueco in it's current lock-down status than any other single climber, ever.
-A
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Jun 26, 2007 - 05:49pm PT
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Almost always I've been an outsider at famous climbing areas. And almost always the best climbers have been very welcoming and encouraging. My first trip to Camp 4. Chouinard comes up to me with a tin cup of tea in his hand. Points to me with his other hand: "I know you", he says "We went soloing together in Ogden Canyon". Yvon remembered me from two years earlier, when I'd been a nearly mute 14-year old disciple following him around on quartzite blocks and slabs. When he found out one of my objectives on this trip was to climb his route on Sentinel as my first Yosemite wall, he gave me key words of beta and encouragement.
On a first trip to Eldo in about 1973, local hardman, Kevin Donald was all good vibes and enthusiasm as he soloed just above my brother, Mike, and me on Hair City. It was almost too casual and friendly that day. I watched Kevin climb the good-sized roof on the last pitch as if it was just a big upside-down ladder, then he waited for me to come up, poised right at the lip. I tried to make the roof moves just as casually as Kevin had, but screwed up the sequence and had to grab a small, untested hold above the lip. In the middle of pulling over the lip, the hold broke, and I went for forty feet, being caught just a couple of feet above the ledge my brother was belaying on. Kevin quickly down-climbed to see if I was OK. Well, I was "Shaken - not stirred". After a moment to gather my wits, I went back up and more carefully climbed over the roof. On top, Kevin told me he'd really felt bad about almost killing me, and I believed him! It was all my fault, of course.
There were many stories of Americans going to Chamonix and being shunned by the French alpine aristocracy. My own experience was just the contrary, with famous climbers inviting me to do good new routes with them on first meeting. Thierry Renault, Franscois Damilano, Catherine Destivelle and many others were incredibly open and hospitable, and the several seasons I spent in the area yielded some of my fondest memories and lasting friendships.
Really it's mostly a matter of getting back what you project, in these kinds of social situations. But not always. I recall not quite so fondly, times when individuals from the northwest, Canada and England blindsided me with thier aggressive attacks. These were people I'd never met who seemed to have sized me up from hearsay and rumor and decided I was worthy only of contempt. It's water off a duck, though...none of them were very good climbers!
Oli, it was great to see and your family last Saturday night!
-Jello
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Jun 26, 2007 - 07:56pm PT
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Regarding Swan Slab, in addition to what Anders noted, the route was rated 5.10d in Bridwell's 1973 Brave New World article http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/yos/brave.htm . So perhaps it didn't become a 5.11 until further polishing of the footholds?
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