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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 9, 2007 - 09:27am PT
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Great to see you here, even if like others of us, if you were drawn in by the death of a friend.
As an adolescent hooked on climbing I devoured everything I could read about the climbing life. No writings inspired me more, helped to form my world view, and still come to mind almost daily as "The Climber as Visionary", "Running Talus", and "The Whole Art of Natural Protection". How lucky I was to meet and befriend my most soulful of heroes when I was a green young guide.
Welcome Doug! and thanks for being one of the most eloquent spokesmen for the soul and beauty of our sport.
Peter
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Doug is a wonderful author, climber and I have to think, a marvelous teacher too. Here is probably one of the funniest photos ever taken. It is Garden Trowel (as the Kiwis or Aussies called him when he was down there) and Dougie on the RR of Half Dome, with Galen having Doug take a highly pimped-up photo for his magazine client. Doug talks about this in his tremendous book, "A Night on the Ground a Day in the Open".
His (Doug's) site, www.movingoverstone.com is a great site too!
best, PH
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scuffy b
climber
Bates Creek
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Welcome, Doug.
I'm sure you'll like it here.
Steve
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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This is just terrific!
Another prime contributor to the vertical legacy.
Welcome Doug Robinson.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Yes, welcome - more poetry always nice to have in SuperTopia.
Is this the "DR" who's a trad climber from Santa Cruz? (aka Sharma Cruz)
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Thanks for the big welcome, Peter. And from so many others who I feel like I've gotten to know from your attitude and style while lurking hereabouts. We'll talk...
Even face-to-face, it seems. Ran into Steve Grossman, among others, in the Valley a week ago at the 50th anniversary of Half Dome's NW Face, and had to tell him how cool I thought were his contributions to the thread with the developers of the apron on Middle. Quicksilver and the rest. Best history there is of that cutting-edge, step-up-to-the-scary, before-sticky-rubber development. So there we were, at a real life event, drinking with living, breathing Royal and Mike Sherrick and Jerry Gallwas, and in the middle of the Valley itself. And we end up talking about ST. Life sure gets interesting, and this here Taco Stand is one good reason.
Yes, they let me live on the fringes of Sharma Cruz (tho missing the Eastside more than I can say...) along with other fond old friends who've hung here like one of ST's most brilliant raconteurs, Peter Haan. The Chris is very gracious with us here -- one of his special gifts -- always greeting with kind words on the steps of the gym.
This is going to be fun, and it's going to try my scanning skills. But will I ever again get any work done?
Fondly,
Doug
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sister mercy
Trad climber
Eastside
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Welcome, Uncle Doug!!
Here is the difference: both Sharma and Doug hail from Santa Cruz, both climb in the Buttermilk, but I bet Sharma couldn't do this Smoke Blanchard move...
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Welcome aboard, Doug.
I have to say that when I first started climbing I read a bunch of your stuff on the philosophy of climbing. The stuff that comes out of the Great Pacific Iron works catalog from the mid-70's was very inspirational for me. There's also the little section in Loughman's book on running talus that I found, at the time, to be a little out of the box.
Peace,
Doug
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phil
climber
eastside
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Hey Doug
It's Phil from the Foothill crowd, Mammoth Lakes and Bugaboo. It's been a long while, maybe summer 03 on the Post Pile bus out of Red's Meadow? Anyways, hope you're doing great. It's been too long since we've had an epic or a least a laugh. Welcome to the Taco.
Phil
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Welcome Doug, I am sure you don't remember me but I met you back in the early 1970s when I was at Smoke's Palisades School of Mountaineering one summer, as well as a couple of times in the Valley and once in the Ski Hut (longggg time agooooo).
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SamRoberts
climber
Bay Area
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Hey Doug,
Now that you've surfaced here, does this mean that next book of yours is going to be even further delayed?!?
Good to see you posting up!
Sam
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Hey Doug,
Welcome old brother of the stone! - see ya' at the crags soon?
Cheers, John
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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welcome Doug
good to have you here at the virtual campfire
most amazing actually
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Look, we just can't have you people worshipping a flasher in climbing videos... ;)
Moving Over Stone narrative - formative and reinforced my thoughts about Buttermilking, bouldering, and being outside.
Oh, and I agree with you Smoke Blanchard must have rambled all over those crags off to the side of 395 on the way up to Bridgeport all back in the day...
thx much Doug!!
munge
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Cool!
John, I still haunt the welded Tuff crags every time I drop over Tioga, including the boulders with your name on 'em. Sweet moves there. Slowed down a tad lately by a flared elbow tendon from too much gym climbing. But gettin' out enough to need a second pair of your superb and comfy new shoes. Chameleons again...can't find any of the B3s I liked at a demo. So glad you hung in there and held Acopa together after the crash. And so glad you have recovered and are hard at it again. Uh, I mean playing the sax, of course...
And for all the rest of you guys who I met once, or decades ago, I'll come flat out and admit that my memory sucks for names and faces. I love that my past is brimfull of deep conversations and meaningful meetings -- it's been better than nearly anything besides moving over stone. So it pains me, embarasses me, when we meet again and I don't place someone. Happens a lot.
So as we meet again, can I do a blanket apology here and say, truly, no offense? It's a little too tempting to blame it all on the Hippy Lettuce. You've heard, maybe, that the scientists who've found the hormone Anandamide that mimics THC in our brains -- yours as well as mine, and even while straight -- speculate that it's purpose is to help us forget. Wipe the daily chatter and chaff of the hard drive. Forgetting is useful. Necessary even. Do you really need to carry forever the snapshot of the inside of your front door from this morning as you left home?
No, I think this failure to link names and faces is some kinda specific disability that I have, and trace back before the smoke haze. So if you see me coming and I don't notice you, kindly be gentle. No offense.
Delaying the next book? The Alchemy of Action? Nope, wrote another bit of it last week. A wee bit, but crucial. No, I decided that's not really "delayed," but actually, well, taking its own necessarily sweet time. It's good too, and getting richer. I'll likely get excited and blow some chunks of it out right here. Just an excitable boy.
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James
climber
A tent in the redwoods
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Good to see you lurking.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Ah, so you're not just breezing through the taco for a moment. (Saw you posting to me on Christine's thread.)
Welcome!
How long's it been Doug? Ten years? Was it the trade show and you were with Mont-Bell?
cheers amigo, good luck on the work.
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Tony Puppo
climber
Bishop
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Howdy Doug, long time no see. Glad to here the book is morphing along.
"Just an excitable boy", now aint't that the truth, I'm sure the same could be said for quite a of the few boys on this channel.
Tony
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WBraun
climber
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Hi Doug
Where is Peanut McCoy now a days?
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Boy! I knew guys had strange names for their penis but,...
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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One of my fond memories was working with you, Doug, when you contributed that story for my anthology "Climber's Choice," getting to know your true spirit. And then working with you, as we wrote about Chuck Pratt, right after his passing. I'm on the west edge of Colorado now (probably subconsciously inching toward my second beloved home, California). We should get together and laugh, or cry, or something, or take a walk up into the petroglyphs of the Monument here. There are some mysteries you would appreciate...
Pat Ament
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Werner, you win the memory award for thinking of Peanut McCoy.
Last I talked to him he was living out in the sticks where he likes it, Anahim Lake, BC, raising his two kids, putting up hay for his horses, packing dudes into the mountains while packing a .357 on his hip and kinda hoping he could use it to tangle with a Griz. Just as ornery as ever, but with his body more busted up and creaky than when he blew off the downhill course at Aspen and shattered his leg. He is one tough sucker true throwback kind of mountain man. A few years back his paranoid rants about the government and big corporations sounded certifiable; today they seem kinda mild. Wish I could see him, but it's a long haul up there.
I kinda forget what winters you were in Mammoth, Werner, but Peanut started running away from the Eastside soon after we skied the Muir Trail in '70. All his life he felt like he was the one shouldering the environmental guilt for his family carving the Mammoth Mountain lifts out of the wilderness. It drove him away, tainted his existence. He moved up to Hailey, Idaho, just south of Sun Valley, and made major first ski traverses of the Lemhi Range, the White Clouds, and one other range. Epics happened, of course. Avalanches, lost in whiteouts, out of food -- the usual backcountry ski predicaments. I have this mental snapshot from visiting him up there, of galloping, bareback, full-tilt over mine tailings. Terrified, because I don't really ride.
I haven't seen Peanut in awhile, though two weeks ago I got near enough to his dad Dave to trade waves. Dave McCoy is the one who started Mammoth Mountain with just a rope tow. His genius, after 17 years as a ski-in, ski-out snow surveyor, went into choosing just that peak. He's pushing 90 now and recently got all busted up crashing his motocross bike. He looked pretty damn good.
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Crimpergirl
Social climber
St. Looney
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Welcome Doug! Good news - you can't remember me because we've not met before. Still, it's always nice to have another good soul posting here at the taco. Hopefully we can cross paths soon...
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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you know crimpie, if he had met you, my guess is you'd be one of the few he didn't forget :-)
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Doug Robinson! This joint just keeps getting better!
You've always been one of my favorite alpine thinkers. Over the years I've enjoyed our occasional meetings - you always leave me with some gems to ponder.
Your writing is some of the best, too. I especially like that Climbing Ice book you wrote...
Welcome to Taco Time, my friend, hope all's well with you and yours.
-Jeff
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maldaly
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Doug,
Welcome to the Taco. I haven't seen you since we bumped up in Lander during one of those party/fest things. Loved your book...one of the few that is able to celebrate the crazy sh#t we do without making anyone, anyone, feel small. Then I went and loaned to to someone and never got it back. Maybe it's good for the karma to "loan" books. Some how I never feel bad about it, especially when it's a book like your that has the ability to change a life.
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Crimpergirl
Social climber
St. Looney
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Awwww, Nature - thanks. That was sweet and as pleasing as gentle head scratching...purr....
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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[url="http://home.comcast.net/~e.hartouni/doc/Climber_as_Visionary.txt"] Climber as Visionary by Doug Robinson[/url]
others by others here
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WBraun
climber
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Thanks Doug for the update on Peanut.
You guys were the cable binding Kings in those days before the craze ever started. You guys were the leaders back then.
Man that Peanut McCoy could ski in them leather lace up boots and cable bindings. He was world class.
Dave McCoy was a good man. He put up with me for 7 winters. He could have easily fired me a 100 times.
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TYeary
Mountain climber
Calif.
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Welcome Doug,
I know I speak for many when I say that 'The Whole Natural Art of Protection" changed our worlds dramaticaly.
Thanks. BTW, is there a second offering following " A Night on the Ground..." Surely there are more petals to be picked from that flower.
Nice to see you here.
Tony
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Jude Bischoff
Ice climber
Palm Springs
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The Legs of Doug Robinson
Bear King Strong
Thick as an oak tree
Paleontologists will someday wonder what super human passed this way?
"Doug", whispers the critter in the forest, "it was Doug".
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10b4me
climber
bitd
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welcome Doug. you are the one that got me interested in going to the Buttermilks.
thanks.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jul 10, 2007 - 12:11am PT
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Hey, it's gettin kinda hot here sandwiched between Crimpie and Nature, so I'm jumping out of my own thread to go feed my kids...
I owe direct reply to a bunch more of you when I return, but for now just thanks so much for the big welcome. Someone up-string said I'd like it here, and I already do ('course among you lot I know this is just the honeymoon...)
Tony asked if I was collecting another book of articles. Not yet; too busy filming. But here's a newer piece that's perfect for this group:
PRATT
© by Doug Robinson
Chuck Pratt was the finest human being I ever met.
What does that mean? I’m not sure, and so begins the stammering and the silence. It’s hard to say much about the “little round man,” as he called himself, at least to me because we looked enough alike that sometimes we were mistaken for brothers. And it was impossible to say very much while he lived without offending Chuck’s privacy. Now the words come haltingly in these first days after his death. Here and there a sparkle of understanding in the middle of the night, extinguished by dawn.
During the magical Sixties in Yosemite, Chuck was the pivotal character. The climbing scene revolved around his presence like a kingpin. If Robbins and Harding propelled the vision of those fruitful times, Pratt was its moral force, or maybe its strength of character. He was like the calm at the center of that whirlwind of creativity, a little quieter than the rest, withdrawn even. The rest of us were drawn to him, to his picnic table in Camp 4, and not just because he tended the notebook of beta.
I carried his friendship like a badge, because he was such a leader in the thing we were all trying to do, climb rocks, and deeper than that I carried it like a beacon because I admired him so. His life informed mine in the kind of way that a guru seems to, by example, by osmosis. He was no saint in the usual ways; he lived an earthy life, drank too much and knew his way to the red light district. So then, what? He inspired by a great questing integrity. He was deeply curious about the way of the universe and the meanderings of men. He was pretty unflinching about what he saw, cynical even, as a habit or a general viewpoint. Surely from that you could sense the scars on his psyche, though he wore them so lightly and with the same ironic humor that he treated everything, evenly, that I could not know what they were.
Or did I learn the outline of some of those scars after all, glimpsed in the depths of those whirling nights of drink? And might I have absolved him the hurt, as he seemed to do for others, just by some moments of clear-eyed acceptance that burned themselves clean then vanished from memory? My time with Pratt had more of that sense to it than the drunken revel it probably appeared from the outside.
The end of one of those nights clings oddly to memory. We came out of a bar in Wilson, Wyoming, at the foot of the Tetons, headed back to Chuck’s hut in the Exum guides camp. Except that he drove off the wrong way without knowing it. Lost in the valley where he lived. And I the outsider had to take the wheel and find our way out the back roads. Chuck half-reclined; there was a bed in his VW where the passenger seat might have been. Up the gravel road, the long way home, the flow of his words lubricated to a magic pitch, laughing out at ironies made clear. “Where are we?” he raved, “And why is it so dark?” Safe at any unspeed, and crossed by no Moose, we made it clear to throttle down and stepped out into a night of Teton stars.
I recall another evening at Roper’s house in Berkeley. Cozy at a table in the big kitchen. Chuck’s latest enthusiasm is to become a Volkswagen mechanic. This is no great trick for a guy who had been a promising physics student at the University of California. But as usual he is mostly milking the situation for ironies. “I know it’s bad when I go to bed with the Snap-On tools catalog instead of Playboy.” He’s warmed up now, and going for the big one: “I used to think it was this,” he said, tilting his head to one side and tapping lightly with a finger on his skull. “But now,” and that half smile is spreading with wicked delight under his twinkly gaze, the one that says we’re all the butt of the same joke here, “I know it’s this.” The tool man is slowly flexing his opposable thumb.
The first time I climbed with him was in 1966. The Kor-Beck route on Middle Cathedral Rock had just been freed, and Chuck invited me along to have a look. I struggled with the 5.9 free climbing—cutting edge then, it sounds pretty moderate now. But so-called “old 5.9” has become one of the most feared and respected of grades, especially in Yosemite. This comment is typical, from a modern master of 5.14, Tommy Caldwell: after making a free ascent of Chuck’s magnificent Salathe Wall on El Cap, he sounded surprised to notice that Valley 5.9 and 5.10 are so often harder than rated. Anyway, on our second free ascent of the Kor-Beck, after a while Chuck did most of the leading.
His climbing had a quality of quiet assurance…Let’s try that again: Chuck was so understated and devoid of flash or flair, making it impossible to tell whether he was on something easy or pushing the edge of what anyone had ever climbed. He wasn’t even so flamboyant as to be offhanded, but was always humbly attentive to the rock. Hard or easy, every stretch of stone got Chuck’s full attention and care. He seemed to squeeze delight out of 5.5. It was all climbing. And climbing, somehow, was the one thing that made sense.
And the harder stuff: I watched him work the east face of Higher Cathedral Spire for a first ascent. An inside corner, steep and smooth, he was getting some purchase from not much of a crack, but mostly chimneying the dihedral. Trying to find moves that would keep him from being forcibly ejected into space. I had clambered over talus all the way up from the Valley to witness this, but now it seemed like there was nothing much to see. Here was maybe ninety feet of rock, vertical and smooth, and starkly unmarked by features. It was as if the climbing were not before my eyes but somehow internal, like Chuck’s private musings, revealed to us only if he chose to point them out. He would make a move, positive but modest, then there would be a long pause. Examining the rock. At intervals he pounded a pin, which looked awkward even though he was truly ambidexterous and made the most of it. Once in a long while there was a laconic comment, some bit of trivia about rope handling that belied no effort, let alone strain. This went on steadily for a good hour. Then he was up.
A couple of years later I found an 800-foot buttress in an obscure canyon near Tuolumne Meadows, and invited Chuck to do the first ascent. There was one interesting section right off the deck to gain a huge chimney, which we followed to the top. We named it Crowley Buttress, for the satanist, magician—and climber—Aleister Crowley. Chuck was fascinated with Crowley, who set an altitude record on K2 in 1902, but seems to have pulled a revolver during a dispute with team mates, then came home to defy most of the Victorian conventions in a quest for knowledge that swept through sex, drugs and the occult. Pratt quoted out of Crowley’s text on Magick: “Every intentional act is a magical act,” and “Every man and every woman is a star.” Although scrupulously honest, Chuck had liberated from the Denver Public Library a rare copy of Crowley’s most serious and difficult work, a slim volume entitled 777 that contained charts showing interrelationships among all branches of arcane knowledge. In it you could follow threads between, say, Tarot and the Cabala, or the I Ching and numerology. Chuck just figured that this key to knowledge was more useful in his hands than in the collection of a frontier oil town.
In the spring of 1969 we took a classic trip to climb in the desert. California climbers had been making that pilgrimage since David Brower’s first ascent of Shiprock back in the thirties, and for Chuck it had become an annual spring ritual between renting skis at the Ski Hut in Berkeley and taking up residence in the Valley. We camped, alone in the campground, at the end of the road in the Arches. A battery powered record player—the boom box of the sixties—sat on the end of our camp table. I played John Mayall and the Rolling Stones; Chuck played Mahler. We climbed a scary and unprotected line on the end of one of the Courthouse Towers. Hiked further out to make the second ascent of Dark Angel tower. One day we drove up the Colorado River to a tower Chuck remembered, only to find Layton Kor’s car parked under it. We hiked up to say hi, celebrated with Kor that night, then went back the next day for the second ascent of Dolomite Tower.
Then we went to Indian Creek. Its walls were not a destination then; this was still the era of reaching summits, so we hiked out to North Six Shooter Peak. That had already been climbed, and Chuck was beginning to nudge us beyond summits by going back for an enticing offwidth crack. After an hour’s walk across the desert and scrambling up the talus fan we found ourselves staring up at a flawless six-inch slot, rising thirty or forty dead-vertical feet off the deck with no compromising features. “Oh well,” Chuck said with a shrug, and we turned our back to the wall to eat lunch. The master had rejected it, but I was curious and began bouldering the crack. At first I could get only enough purchase to lift a foot off the ground. Then, scrape a few moves upward. Chuck put his shoes on too. Soon he was twelve feet up. “Throw me the rope,” he said, and pumped out the rest of the crux. Abruptly the crack widened into a chimney, where Chuck could finally pause to haul his swami and hammer and the rack.
Driving out later, afternoon sun highlighted an endlessly parade of vertical cracks in the warm sandstone walls along the road. Glancing up, Chuck gathered in the miles of cliff face with the sweeping gesture of a callused hand and pronounced, “The future home of crack climbing in America.”
“There is a time on every desert expedition when the end of the trip is signified by subtle changes either in our own temperament or in the environment.” So wrote Chuck Pratt in “The View from Deadhorse Point.” It is a brilliant piece about climbing in the desert; and, it is far from being just about climbing. “To gain any lasting worth from what the desert has to offer, we had to learn to put our pitons and ropes away and to go exploring in silence, keeping our eyes wide open. It wasn’t easy. We wasted a lot of time climbing before we got the knack.”
The part of Chuck’s article dealing with our trip didn’t even mention any of our climbs. We had reached that end point in our desert expedition, with one thing left to do: visit Deadhorse Point. “Approaching the edge of the world,” he wrote, “we separate to experience the view in solitude.” That solitude was crucial to him. He was very private. “He was basically a loner,” is the way Steve Roper put it. And Roper was, for awhile at least, probably Chuck’s best friend. But that very privateness highlights by contrast the things he chose to share with us. When he spoke, we were primed to listen. He published just four articles. They are all gems. “We all wish he had written more,” Roper said wistfully. It is nearly a response, and perhaps close to reproach, when Chuck writes, “For a while we stand on the summit, experiencing sensations that are nobody’s business but our own…”
For a stretch in the early Seventies Chuck joined a few of us to guide in the Palisades. It was a good time—he could make the most of almost any situation—and it offered an irresistible opportunity for many of his trademark raves against cold and snow. In Camp 4 he always had the biggest down jacket, and in the Palisades he usually found something else to do while the rest of us taught the Tuesday snow school. Over the weekends he often hiked down to Bishop, and a certain amount of partying ensued. A couple of incidents stand out.
One Sunday morning recovery took the form of a drive up Pine Creek, where Chuck suddenly spotted 200 feet of offwidth crack splitting a huge corner. With commanding directness he simply said, “Stop the car.” Headaches forgotten, Pratt’s Crack was born. Maybe at 5.8 it isn’t difficult enough to bear his name, but then again there was only one point of pro, a loose chockstone that later rolled to pin the arm of a less wary suitor.
Another time we had spent Saturday helping to frame Jay Jensen’s new house. In the evening with fiddle music we found ourselves with forearms locked, whirling like dervishes. The next thing I knew, Chuck was flying out of a newly-framed doorway into the darkness. I must have been the one to let go; Chuck’s balance and coordination were so good that he could juggle 4 balls—or flash 5—while walking a slack rope.
But after a couple of years, and without truly complaining, Chuck simply moved on for the summers to the Tetons. And for the winters he shifted too, from hovering around Berkeley to stretching out in Thailand. At least that choice was warm.
It was a living irony for him to go to the Tetons. With icier weather, he had more opportunity to voice a favorite mantra: “Clouds mean death.” I would go there to see him at the end of one of my guiding trips into the Wind Rivers. Once I hiked up nearly to the top of the Grand just to walk down with Chuck and his clients. He paced out his attention to the three of us, switchback after switchback that afternoon. Later he gravitated toward teaching daily rock climbing classes closer to the valley bottom in Cascade Canyon, where he wouldn’t have to go up into the snow zone. So on another visit I dropped in on that class. Beginners, or barely more than that, his students soaked up his focus and offhanded wisdom, with maybe just a glimmer of what a special man was their humble instructor.
It sometimes seemed strange that he did not return to guide in Yosemite, the crucible he had helped to mold and to give direction as a climbing center. He would certainly have liked the weather better. Maybe he had to leave to escape the adulation that would have bugged him there. Or the inevitable degradation of the art form he had molded, seeing the big walls opened into effete highways just by better tools and familiarity, or those stark and bold crack climbs of his trivialized by the mechanics of wide protection. Merely repeating the moves with an oversized cam sliding alongside for assurance, completely masks the startling boldness and steady mind that Chuck brought to those wide slots with the rope arcing free below him and the next move all of two inches gained with great quiet effort.
It is nearly impossible today for anyone to appreciate how little help Chuck had from gear, how much of the advance came straight out of him. About the only similarity with a modern climber racking at the base of the Twilight Zone, which was arguably his finest climb, is a nylon rope. Wider than a hand jam, steep and unrelenting it shoots upward. Hard to imagine now that offwidth was his choice for a frontier. Oddly he and those around him did not see the cracks thinner than a hand jam as a climbing challenge. That was a perceptual shift for the next generation. His rope was knotted with a classic bowline to a swami belt around his waist, a nearly trivial few loops of nylon webbing. Shod in Pivetta Cortinas, the exact same boot my mom chose for hiking, he started up into the fearsome unknown. Technique solid but totally without flash. He would climb with just as much care and respect on something as easy as the Royal Arches. And Smoke Blanchard loved to tell the story of the great Chuck Pratt humbly accepting a top rope on The Big Slab, a barely roped climb in the Buttermilk, simply because Smoke as the local expert had suggested it.
I did not see Chuck much in the last twenty years. Just five times, including a few moments and a bearhug at the Camp 4 gathering: two little round men, fit and balding, share a sweeping grin before being absorbed by the surge of the crowd. Someone said that he only reluctantly returned, which seems about right. He didn’t look that great, and missed the evening event with food poisoning. And he was missed at what there was of a campfire, way outside the Valley. I had been holding the dream that Chuck would be in the circle around a great fire, perhaps shoulder to shoulder with Peter Haan, Peter Croft and maybe Cedar Wright. I anticipated hearing what the lights of many Valley generations would share. But in the end the celebration had been organized for politics, and that part, at least, worked. But as our numbers and enthusiasm swelled in anticipation to six hundred, the organizers and the Park Service panicked. Neither of them was experienced with large gatherings, and both feared our collective power—or anarchy. In the end they splintered the venue, people were shuttling all over the Valley, and a millenial convergence of climbing never reached its climax.
Yet without seeing Chuck, from a distance I continued to cherish his presence. There was a palpable kind of reassurance in just knowing he was there. I relied on it and often said so to friends. His presence on the planet was a support to me even in a ten-year stretch of not crossing paths. Surprisingly so, maybe. I considered him a best friend even though I never moved to go see him. Family and kids and distance, and I just never went to the Winds, which was always my springboard to drop by Jackson for an evening with Chuck. On his side, he never seemed to go out of his way to see anyone. That passivity was part of his game, to wait, to see what life brought to him. It was, at least, a sure test. Too late, I now wonder if I failed Chuck by my absence. Knowing he was there was enough for me, a great comfort, and still ever a beacon. But did it serve him? Or was I just another old friend who effectively disappeared?
In the end he chose not to return to Yosemite, and not to the Tetons. Some say asking emphatically that his ashes not be brought back here. On the morning he died, after a breakfast with laughter and stories of those very spots, and before excusing himself from a hike and going quietly to his room, he instructed again that his remains be thrown into the Mekong River.
Goodbye Chuck, Prince of the Valley. Besides our serious play on the granite itself, life was sweetest there when you held court at a campfire. Goodbye king of conundrums, master of stone, respectful cynic, delighted of riddles, fond enigma laughing at the darkness. We are ever grateful of your presence.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jul 10, 2007 - 02:08am PT
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Thanks, Kevin. What a great Pratt story!
Do you remember The Millis? He was working on a book of Camp 4 tales before he died, to become "The Horizontal World of Yosemite." I have a few that he'd polished up; one or two about Pratt. I've been moving, split up with my wife, and I'm kind of a packrat anyway. But when I find those tales I know Millis would want me to post them up.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Jul 10, 2007 - 06:57am PT
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Jeez Kevin, great story, somebody was sure smiling down on you.
Doug Robinson
Jeff Lowe
Werner Braun
Pat Ament
To name just a few…
EDIT
How could I overlook
John Stannard
Peter Haan
Wow, the Taco Stand just keeps getting better.
And of course Kevin Worral, Mark Chapman, John Bachar, John Long, Mike Graham, Roger Breedlove… some heavy hitters from the Brave New World era... to name just a few.
Where’s Ed Barry, Rik Reider, Lew Dawson, Chris Falkenstein, Donny Reid, Vern Clevenger, Ron Kauk, George Meyers, Dale Bard… to name just a few.
And I am editing a manuscript for an old climbing pal and housemate, Claude Fiddler, and he says that he is going to join the forum (but hasn’t yet).
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SteveW
Trad climber
Denver, CO
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Jul 10, 2007 - 08:26am PT
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Doug
You don't know me either, but I just wanted to say
how much I loved your essay about running on rocks in
the Chouinard catalog around '72-'73.
Great stuff!
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wildone
climber
The Astroman of 5.9
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Jul 10, 2007 - 09:40am PT
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Hey Doug, it's Ben from El Portal.
Thanks for showing up-you'll add a lot here.
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cm
Trad climber
The City, OK
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Jul 10, 2007 - 09:57am PT
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Hi Doug,
You dont know me, but you know many of my friends from Oklahoma. Is there any chance youre heading this way again? I know its been a while but the younger generations of climbers in the area feel somewhat connected to you after your article on OK Climbing. We have a gathering in october and Im sure Duane, Terry Andrews, Tony M. and everyone else would love to see you.
Anyway, thanks for the inspiration.
Chris from Oklahoma
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Jul 10, 2007 - 11:17am PT
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"Tuesday Morning on the Lyell Fork with Eliot's Shadow" has run through my mind since I read it almost (yikes!) four decades back.
I don't think we've met but my partner, Joe Herbst, shared your seasoned advice often enough to make you a third presence on our trip up the Nose in '71.
Welcome to the Taco!
LH
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scuffy b
climber
Bates Creek
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Jul 10, 2007 - 05:50pm PT
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I didn't see Millis at all from 1975 to 1995. He was living in
Teton County, Idaho, at the time of our reunion.
I said, "The last time I saw you, you were leading the last pitch
of Great White Book, naked."
He paused for only a second and replied,"I wonder which time
that was..."
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jul 10, 2007 - 06:07pm PT
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Hi Chiloe,
Joe Herbst was just the coolest kid when he came up the trail to be "wood and water boy" at the Palisades School of Mountaineering. Full of fire. What he did after returning to the Red Rocks has made him a legend of the boldest sort. Funny too. Did you read his intro to that fine new book of RR classics? Millis said Joe was easily the smoothest OW climber in the Valley after Pratt left. Soloed the...well I guess I was asked not to embarass him by mentioning which famous Valley OW with crux 400' off the deck...
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Jul 10, 2007 - 06:10pm PT
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After all these years, I just gotta say, I think that that, talus running, is hard on the knees.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Jul 10, 2007 - 06:19pm PT
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Joe Herbst was just the coolest kid when he came up the trail to be "wood and water boy" at the Palisades School of Mountaineering. Full of fire. What he did after returning to the Red Rocks has made him a legend of the boldest sort. Funny too. Did you read his intro to that fine new book of RR classics? Millis said Joe was easily the smoothest OW climber in the Valley after Pratt left. Soloed the...well I guess I was asked not to embarass him by mentioning which famous Valley OW with crux 400' off the deck...
Joe's an artist of life, it's been a gift to know him through the years. His intro to Red Rock Odyssey was beautifully remembered and written, worth getting the book for (though it’s a good book otherwise, too).
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 10, 2007 - 09:09pm PT
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Doug,
That was a truly wonderful piece on Pratt and a real joy to read!
We're not worthy, but of course we'd love some more...haha, hehe.
I worked at Tamarack Lodge for a few winters, at a time when one of your Oklahoma protege, Ricky "RT" Thomas worked there and he was honored to have been mentored by you.
Shoot, Millis, met him first at Clevenger's wedding. He had a stately, if eccentric, almost regal air about him and wore that so well, always in good humor and sometimes downright wacky.
Millis came knocking at my Tamarack cabin late one cold December night. "I'm going up into the woods to cut a christmas tree and you're coming with me". So off we went, tools in hand, post holing through the crisp snow under a maze of stars. Millis had a certain determination about him. He told me that night that he intended to live out his life in his own way, employing equal parts cunning, tenacity, and resolve to live the fullest life possible.
He was a jovial guy, but that statement sunk in, for life is not at all made of trivial stuff and there is a sacredness to it that he was imparting and I liked him, respected him for those words.
Once again, this is a real treat to have you on the forum Doug Robinson.
-Roy
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jul 10, 2007 - 09:26pm PT
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RT is now a ferrier up in northern Vermont. Or New Hampshire, I forget, at a small college with a really good environmental program. I think he also runs the organic garden. His wife Perry teaches english. I remember being late to their weding at Minaret Vista thanks to woman issues. Ferrier is the guy who shoes horses -- I had to look it up once. Tamarack Lodge rocked back then. Duane Raleigh was the dishwasher. Now he runs Rock & Ice.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 10, 2007 - 09:33pm PT
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Yes, I got the Ashers to hire Duane & Walt Shipley: boy, after they got bored with their jobs that produced some hilarious results...
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 10, 2007 - 09:43pm PT
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Welcome Doug...In my minds eye I can clearly see that picture of you hopping from boulder to boulder in the old Chouinard catalog.
Thanks for all you have done for climbimg.
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Jul 10, 2007 - 11:48pm PT
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Doug,
You got me pulling books and catalogs from my shelf to have another look. All of these articles and interviews are classic:
Ascent Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1974
"Swiftly & Surely" Yvon Chouinard & Doug Robinson (good article on Ice Climbing)
"The Guidebook Problem" Lito Tejada-flores. You sure had some very good things to say about keeping it mum about newer climbs done on the Eastside of the Sierra. Do you still feel the same way?
And of course as others mentioned already in the classic TGPIW catalogs:
"Running Talus" in 1977
"The Natural Art of Clean Protection" in 1978
I also enjoyed your book, especially the stories about the early days of Hang Gliding in Owens Valley (The Big "O") since free-flight is a big interest of mine. They were extrordinary brave pioneers just as the climbers in the golden-age in the valley.
Welcome to the SuperTaco.
Glenn
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wskish
Mountain climber
Saratoga, CA
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Jul 10, 2007 - 11:50pm PT
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Hi Doug -- great to see you online here. Thanks again for lending me your library of classic climbing books back in the summer of 1998 after I busted my leg. I will never forget my first trad outings under your expert guidance at Fresno Dome, Moro Rock, and of course finishing Cochise Dome in a surprise summer storm. Your writing and wisdom remains an inspiration!
-Bill
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Anne-Marie Rizzi
climber
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Jul 11, 2007 - 12:24am PT
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Hi Doug:
Fond memories of you.
Anne-Marie
(guess we're living history/herstory now.)
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jul 11, 2007 - 12:29am PT
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Guidebook Problem: I still like the idea of withholding information. Once wrote -- in the intro to a hiking guidebook -- that wilderness isn't just no bulldozers, it's also lack of information. The unknown. Like it, that is, as an idea.
But...over the years I noticed how much I actually use (and enjoy) guidebooks. Got probably an eight foot shelf of the suckers and even compare the info from one edition to the next. Realized I was a hypocrite. I mean, how namy times have I stood by the Palisades trail and given a detailed topo for some climb up there to someone I just met? So I've gradually dribbled out the info of most of my hidden FAs.
Short answer is I did a 180 about face on that one.
One I haven't IDed publicly yet is a classic 5.9 on the Hulk, done with Mike Farrell about '77. Because I'm not sure where it is. I have to go back and match up my slides of the climb with the wall. Then I'll topo it out for y'all. Great climbing on featured orange rock, right side of the wall, goes straight to the summit. Like the easiest cool line on the whole Hulk.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Jul 11, 2007 - 10:05am PT
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Jeez, in my list above how could I have overlooked Tom Higgins (LongAgo), I have never climbed with him but have bouldered at Indian Rock with him. A master, like the others.
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Jul 11, 2007 - 01:31pm PT
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The dude has showed up and now I will have to pay back that case of wine I snuck out of his attic one bottle at at time (or two or more..depending on the pain amplitude).
It was kinda the Great Escape, but with wine. I imagine that I owe him a lot with twenty plus year's interest.
I wonder if you will take a check?
That is a great story, by the way.
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Jul 11, 2007 - 02:06pm PT
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Hey DR, recently did DS. Great route..& wilkommen
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 11, 2007 - 02:11pm PT
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Dark Star?
Tom Carter & I did the first buttress a while back.
There's gold in them hills.
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Jul 11, 2007 - 02:15pm PT
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Yeah Tar, fantastic stuff eh?-got a few pics for a TR (later)....I got to swarm all the hard pitches on TR, hehe.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jul 11, 2007 - 02:24pm PT
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Hi BASE,
Like cm and Tony, another of the Okie Boys shows up. Thanks, man. You were one of the brightest lights living at my Home for Uncommitable Boys on the Eastside, along with Dale Bard and Bobbi Bensman and more.
I think we need a time re-payment plan for that wine. Say one bottle at a time (or maybe two..), different locations, progressive time zones... Maybe that'll help propel our friendship out of being stuck in this virtual warp -- way cool as this is -- and back to where it belongs: in the dirt by the fire.
Anne-Marie, good to see you here too. Fond memories likewise.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Jul 11, 2007 - 10:47pm PT
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Hi Doug. Welcome to ST. Great to 'see' you.
All the best, Roger
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Jul 12, 2007 - 02:12am PT
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Doug, on that other thread you mentioned our trip to Ama Dablam. What a good time that was, on the ABC dole. Tom was as you say, his always humble lovely exemplary self. But some of my fondest memories are of conversations with you in basecamp or higher, where we discussed even higher matters. You are an original thinker that has affected so many of us positively to ponder the myriad mysteries; and effected good changes in the attitudes and practice of the art of ascent.
Hope to see you sometime soon.
-Jeff
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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Jul 12, 2007 - 02:44am PT
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Doug;...Welcome. I don't know you well, but I remember a day we went climbing together about 15 (maybe 20...)years ago;...you were camping for a few weeks at Jumbo Rocks at Josh in that big Moss tent;....and you and I and two very lovey ladies went climbing;....it was such a pleasant day;...I very much remember thinking......" This is the life."....You seemed to be enjoying yourself as well;....it was a very fine day.......aint' climbing grand?...
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PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
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Jul 12, 2007 - 11:28am PT
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Hey Doug,
Welcome. It’s been several lifetimes since we sat at a real campfire together. The last one I remember was late fall in the Valley. Tim Harrison and I had just scored a free meal from the dish washers at the lodge. With full bellies and warm, we sat and listened to tales of adventure of being caught high on a wall in lightening and cold rain.
Kids! For those of you too young to know, Doug did as much (if not more) than anyone to start the clean climbing revolution that has preserved those wonderful cracks your jamming your hands into.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 12, 2007 - 11:57am PT
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Doug's focus lies at the core of what it is for many of us to sense & seek joy at the crags, in the hills, in the mountains.
He's played a bit of the piper for us in this regard.
There is a 5.10 ad out right now that says something like "Thank You Mr Robinson" and it is set in the Buttermilks. I thought, hey, what a perfect homage! Alas it seems the ad tributes not DR but a young lad who rips it up in the 'Milks and thats OK too -and also part of my point and yours too PhilG.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jul 12, 2007 - 02:36pm PT
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Phil,
Long time, bro!... Thanks for bringing up our campfire with Tim Harrison. Last fall I got to meet his Mom and his sister and spend a couple of hours with them. I took them each a gift of this photo, but they already knew it! Filled me in on the secret garden and the guy his sister had been dating who took the photo. Which just goes to show that, no matter what, MOM ALWAYS KNOWS.
Tim's sister, btw, had lived in Vegas and known Randall Granstaff. She remembered his rat-shack house off the end of the runway down by the airport. The one where a little sand dune always blew in under the kitchen door. I stayed there a couple of nights when Largo lived there with a 19-yer-old Lynn Hill. She would put on Bob Marley's "Jammin'" -- loud of course -- and dance around the living room miming jam moves.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Jul 12, 2007 - 02:40pm PT
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Doug, that is such a deep photo, Mona Lisa-esque.
Let's go climbing!
:- kelly
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jul 13, 2007 - 05:08am PT
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Wow, it just hit me. That's reefer he's holding.
Doug, when you say Chuck was the finest person you knew, I realize that's the kind of thing I want to hear. That's the message the world is looking for, to see a person in a celestial light, to get beyond the superficial realities that so cloud our daily judgments, to see into the heart, to love. That's when I begin to think climbing is progressing, not by any rising number grades but rather, when I hear such words as you have spoken, when I hear people sing your praises, as well, or others are given tribute, or when so rare a spirit as Higgins whispers something poetically toward me. In the final light, the last day as we look back at the incomprehensibly beautiful, complex, enigmatic, mysterious, and sometimes very tough path we have traveled, if we are at all worthy of the experience we will thank whatever spirits that govern things for our having been able to meet so many marvelous spirits, so many good souls, so many creative fellow creatures who shared our lot in the dream...
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PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
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Jul 13, 2007 - 12:39pm PT
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Doug:
That is such a beautiful and wonderful photo of Tim. That photo brings back a whole flood of great memories and stories. Tim was a great climber and an even greater free spirit. That story (unbelievable but true) of him hitch-hiking with a trailer is so classic. Much to the envy of the other bums in camp four, Tim had that same kind of luck with women.
Also, Doug, that’s a great piece on Chuck Pratt. Of my many climbing heroes, then and now, Chuck Pratt still tops the list.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jul 13, 2007 - 04:09pm PT
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...such a deep photo, Mona Lisa-esque.
Nice line, Kelly. Says something I've always thought, never crystallized. Yes! Let's go climbing.
Pat,
You said a fine thing very well. Me too:
Came for the stone,
Stayed for crack!
(Brit-icism for conversation.)
And in speaking of people meeting, building connection, increasing understanding -- it's not only the best of climbing, but kinda the main hope for holding together and even patching up this creaky old civilization.
But...don't dare drift away from our roots on the rock. Keeps us grounded, offers ceaseless opportunities for humility, cranks up that floaty, don't-call-it-adrenaline feeling, sharpens thoughts, helps access our feelings. Focuses the self and, thanks to shared strong experience, drives our selves toward those connections with each other.
Kinda grateful we stumbled onto the stone.
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tonym
climber
Oklahoma
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Jul 13, 2007 - 05:03pm PT
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Howdy Doug!
Glad you're on the taco!!
Hey just a quick heads up... Lori and I along with a friend will be valley bound in a couple months, if you can make it we would love to share some Oklahoma hospitality with you over a nice bottle of wine in C4.
Cheers,
Tony
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Jul 13, 2007 - 07:21pm PT
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A very aesthetic photo, but the bunk he's holding would make better rope than reefer.lol
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Anne-Marie Rizzi
climber
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Jul 13, 2007 - 10:39pm PT
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Another sorrowful event in my young climbing days was Tim's death.
I have this great photo, with him as the central figure, of the climbers vs. rangers baseball game. 1971? I think Gene Foley took it. Anybody have a postable copy?
Wow, Doug, great that you were able to visit with his family after all these years.
Anne-Marie
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Enzo
climber
California
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Jul 16, 2007 - 08:07pm PT
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"One I haven't IDed publicly yet is a classic 5.9 on the Hulk, done with Mike Farrell about '77. Because I'm not sure where it is. I have to go back and match up my slides of the climb with the wall. Then I'll topo it out for y'all. Great climbing on featured orange rock, right side of the wall, goes straight to the summit. Like the easiest cool line on the whole Hulk."
But you didn't lead the OW.
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scuffy b
climber
Bates Creek
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Jul 16, 2007 - 08:14pm PT
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Hey, long time no see. Still on Arch?
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Enzo
climber
California
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Jul 16, 2007 - 08:33pm PT
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Yes- And you?
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scuffy b
climber
Bates Creek
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Jul 16, 2007 - 08:48pm PT
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Soquel now. Was in Jackson Hole for the 90s.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jul 17, 2007 - 12:51am PT
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Enzo,
I don't remember an offwidth?? Tell me more. Did you lead it? You recall where the route goes, or do we have to go back and find it again?
One moment I do remember is you coming up to my belay, pausing a pregnant moment, then pointing out that while I had built an anchor, I forgot to clip into it! "Good thing I didn't fall," was your dry comment.
The photos I have show stellar rock...
Doug
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Jul 17, 2007 - 12:55am PT
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Doug you may not remember me but we met when I was working at Chouinard Equipment in the mid 80's helping out w/ pack development and stuff - it would be great to see some pics man!
Cheers!
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Enzo
climber
California
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Jul 17, 2007 - 06:40am PT
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Doug-
I remember most of the line, and certainly the OW.
I'll write up a Beta and hide it at the base of the climb.
Like to see your pics sometime.
M
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Jul 18, 2007 - 04:05pm PT
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Doug,
Your tribute to Pratt is superb. May I suggest you post it as a separate thread titled "Pratt"? It deserves to stand alone and get direct attention. Or is it already standing alone somewhere else in cyberspace or on paper or will it be soon? I have sent links to this thread to several I know who loved Pratt as you did. Thank you.
Once, long ago, I put together a little three act play with Pratt in the center displaying the characteristics you describe. It's somewhere in an old Ascent and entitled "In Due Time." He has a final line, "In the end, climbing is nothing, integrity everything," which seems a little hack to me now, but still true to who he was. He had a way of making you think about climbing and life as wonderful and absurd all at once, a message all the big egos of the day (including mine) much needed. As parents know, example is far more persuasive than lectures or rants, and Pratt provided the example for all of us flinging about with hormones, grand schemes and often inflated views of ourselves and the world of climbing. His loving, exacting climbing style, quiet, smart, humorous, and, yes, sometimes sad self brimming with passion and humility pulled us all toward him, calmed us down, made us laugh at ourselves and stand back from the hubbub.
I have few regrets in climbing, but one of them is how I never thanked Pratt for, well, being Pratt. But I will thank you, again, here, now: thanks.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jul 18, 2007 - 05:28pm PT
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Hi Tom,
Thanks very much for your appreciation of the Pratt piece. I'll post it up by itself, a good idea.
An abbreviated version of it was published in Mountain Gazette. By the time I emerged from shock, the climbing mags had both assigned stories. But I still had to write something. I shed more tears over Chuck dying than the recent breakup of my marriage. Something to do with integrity.
I've always admired your integrity too, man. Never had opportunity to get to know you well, but your writing and the silent example of your climbs spoke volumes to me. Thanks for that. I like feeling the warmth and sensibility coming out of your posting here since I joined. You seem more relaxed now.
Which reminds me for a moment of your old partner Bob Kamps. I never met him, but felt a similar respect for the simple directness and huge skill and even moral force of the man. So a few years ago I just cold called him. My excuse was asking for beta on his climb of Clouds Rest. As exppected he claimed not to recall anything. So I said, "I guess you're telling me to just take the proverbial rack of three knifeblades and go see for myself?" Think I caught a twinkle shooting back across the phone line.
I did get to tell him how much I admired his climbing. And now I've had a chance to tell you too.
Cheers,
Doug
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jul 19, 2007 - 04:15pm PT
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These aren't "strokes," as some young fellow described the way some of us speak to one another. My friend Tom, and Doug, thanks for that exchange.
Kamps, to my astonishment, phoned me the day he died, to say how much he liked my book (Everything That Matters). We spoke a good hour, laughed, remembered climbs and bouldering we had done together. I thought it was impossible when Gill contacted me and told me Kamps had died. No way.
These friendships we have are sacred, in any sense of the word you might wish to have.
When I last spoke to Pratt, it was for more than an hour, an unusually long time for Chuck to be answering questions. He was at his mother's house in the hills east of the Bay area. He was cleaning out her things, trying to figure out what to do with it all, settling her affairs, as she had recently passed away. She was a devout Mormon to the end. He seemed willing (and he wasn't always with everyone) to share details about his Yosemite ascents, including the Twilight Zone and other climbs, for my history. I also asked him if he would choose his best article, for my anthology Climber's Choice. He didn't hesitate to say, "The South Face of Mt. Watkins." He added the slight disclaimer, "Maybe because Deadhorse Point has already been used in several places." I was so glad to be able to have him and his work in that book. He said he was soon going to leave for Thailand. He explained to me how he had been in the habit of going there, as it was a lot cheaper to winter there... Soon after I got the bad news of his passing.
Will you be here tomorrow, Tom. And Doug? And will I? No man knows the hour of his death, the saying goes. So we must live it now, live the joy, the amazing miracle, of our various meetings, or times together in the sun, and in the dark, and marvel that any two spirits should find one another in an endless universe at a single place along the plane of infinity... Yes I am an incurable romantic, but if not love, respect, and appreciation, then what?
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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Aug 10, 2007 - 07:58pm PT
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Welcome Doug! We still have yet to really connect outside of email, but it's good to know you're joining us. My favorite memory related to you is from about fifteen years ago when a buddy naively asked you if it was possible to camp in the Buttermilks. Your response was priceless--"Not only is it possible, it's encouraged." That alone sent us over there, at the height of August heat and no-see-um death, to bivy, boulder, and shred a whole lot of fingertip. Thanks!
(both images from Ascent/Gordon Wiltsie)
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 10, 2007 - 08:57pm PT
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Nice job Marty(r)!
It's about time somebody posted up the two images.
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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Aug 10, 2007 - 09:02pm PT
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Tarbuster,
No kidding. Those shots are beyond classic. Apparently there's a Wiltsie book out now. Might be worth getting through inter-library loan.
m)))
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Cookie Addict
Trad climber
Hamburg, Germany
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Welcome Doug! Thank you again for the e-mails when I first started some research on Smoke Blanchard. It meant a lot!
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feelio Babar
Trad climber
Sneaking up behind you...
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Just wanted to say to Doug, that "A night on the ground, a day in the open" is one of my all time favorite climbing reads. I read it at least once a year to retune the machine, get psyched, and rember why I love moving over stone. It's timeless. I also make it mandatory reading for a few outdoor classes I teach. Anyway...it has always been very influential to me. Thanks!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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So glad you decided to jump in with us Doug. Pure ambrosia are your words. How did the Half Dome adventure resolve itself?
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Such a great contribution for so many years, shame on the Examiner for calling him an old man in 1989 at 43!!! Great photo, thanks Mr. E and many thanks to DR!
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Good bump
The photo of God rocks made me laugh and brought back many fond memories. Doug was a huge influence in my intro to the east side.
Cheers Doug if you are lurking.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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I believe Doug is largely without high speed internet access these days.
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Awesome guy in real life.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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if not love, respect, and appreciation, then what?
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Apologies to whomever I stole this picture from... but it's pretty awesome. I'd give credit but I lost the info.
Love ya Doug!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Skip Maid, that is a Jim Herrington photo. HIs best image of Robinson.
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MisterE
Gym climber
Being In Sierra Happy Of Place
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Apr 17, 2015 - 09:52am PT
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Bump!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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May 20, 2017 - 02:07pm PT
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Bump for the man who married Mimi and me with El Cap as our witness.
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Jim Herrington
Mountain climber
New York, NY
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May 20, 2017 - 03:32pm PT
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My most recent Doug sighting, 2 days of skiing at Kirkwood. Two days for me that is, he'd been up there digging his cabin out all winter.
He said all that snow got him in better climbing shape than skiing shape. From gripping the shovel, you know...
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