Discussion Topic |
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 23, 2007 - 04:40pm PT
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Long before I laid eyes on the place, Hugh Herr would fill many a lull in conversation with a grin and an enthusiastic "Steve, you will love the Gunks!" He was sooooo right. I love the Gunks!
So did the rather large (6'4") Richard Muhe, once he tagged the jug on Foops. I believe he was one of Wolfgang Gullich's cohorts.
Bob D - Don't say I never did nuthin' for ya! Harvey Arnold's excellent 1980 survey.
Gotta have a little Henry Barber, of course. FA of True Grip (5.10). I took a real hard look at this striking line and decided to get a better feel for the place first. Big roofs to finish!
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Gunkie
climber
East Coast US
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Sep 23, 2007 - 04:54pm PT
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I've been in every spot except for the roof on Mohonk Lake. That's not saying I pulled the roof on Foops totally free. I just got to the jug after pulling on a sling :) 5.10 A0.
Thanks for posting that article. I think I still have that issue of Mountain.
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Crimpergirl
Social climber
St. Looney
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Sep 23, 2007 - 05:00pm PT
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Super cool. I see my friend Laura Chaten (now Smith) in the article. Sweet!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2007 - 11:31am PT
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Also pictured (next to Bob) is David Rosenfeld, now an architect/builder here in Seattle.
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TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Sep 25, 2007 - 11:42am PT
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$1.50 a day!
Annual $20!
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Sep 25, 2007 - 11:54am PT
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Not to mention the gratuitous snide comment about the use of chalk, presumably added by the editor, for the caption to the cover shot. Ah, for the days when folks thought the Gunks were insufficiently traditional . . . .
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2007 - 12:06pm PT
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klk- can't find the snide chalk comment for either cover shot. I think the man's reach is the "unethical" part of his Foops experience.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Sep 25, 2007 - 12:33pm PT
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steve-- i can't recall it precisely, but i believe the caption was, "Unethical? Perhaps. Impressive? Certainly," or something similar. then something about whether or not it was difficult and how that depended on the "body dates" of the climber. mountain had been running an anti-chalk debate in those years so many of us read it as a comment on his dipping. i think having a chalk bag almost dead center on the cover was considered a bit of a provocation, at least in some british circles.
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Tomcat
Trad climber
Chatham N.H.
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Sep 25, 2007 - 12:51pm PT
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My first 5.9 was Never Never Land.Fresh on the heals of that we went to Mohonk and got on Ringwraith.Clueless about jamming I made it 2/3rd's or so to the worst of the butt crack and rattled in a nine hex,turned to talk to my belayer and gasp at the sight of the Mohonk Mountain House.Later sent the Ringwraith after servitude in NH.
A frigid day on Krapp's Last tape with Mel Hamel stands out....numb hands....EB's....Red Swami....all set !!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 25, 2007 - 12:54pm PT
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I love the 'Gunks, it is wonderful to go back and climb there whenever I get a chance... there are many changes but I think much is still a matter of personal choice. It is unfortunate in this time of impatience that climbers don't climb off the top and hike back to the Uberfall and solo down that bit of cliff above the spring's pipe. Then back out to collect the gear and get on another climb. Eating blueberries in the early summer.
Playing the game of accumulating pitch-points... add the rating of each of the pitches you did that day, 7 for a 5.7, 10 for a 5.10 (hey, no letter grades then), trying to get to 100. That was a 'Gunks game... and getting to 100 was an accomplishment, but not one compromised by rushing.
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BadInfluence
Mountain climber
Dak side
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Sep 25, 2007 - 12:57pm PT
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2007 - 01:04pm PT
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klk- the context is right but I have a feeling that Harvey simply watched Richard reach around the aerial moves and pulled out the gaff for the West German.
Jstan on Foops from Shawangunks Rock Climbs by Richard Dumais
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Sep 25, 2007 - 01:14pm PT
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That first post contains the best photo of the Foops roof I've ever seen. Thanks so much for that!
GO
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TKingsbury
Trad climber
MT
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Sep 25, 2007 - 03:39pm PT
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Cool post.
I actually almost bought the #73 issue today...but I'm broke. So at least I got to read the article.
Cheers
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ChoochCharlie
Trad climber
South East PA
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Sep 25, 2007 - 04:20pm PT
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Free Skytop !
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BadInfluence
Mountain climber
Dak side
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Sep 25, 2007 - 04:36pm PT
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did someone say Krapps Last Tape a Hot Henry route
being that i was busted up at skytop last weekend so yeah free skytop
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Sep 25, 2007 - 04:39pm PT
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I recall Henry once joking about Steve Wunsch, who had a boulder problem he called his "Psycho simulator" as training for the FFA of Psycho in Eldorado.
"That's just crazy!" Henry remarked, but then someone reminded him that Henry himself had a "Foops Machine."
Any of you gunkies got a photo of that?
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Sep 26, 2007 - 01:59am PT
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I like how Richie is demonstrating the world's most difficult way to do the Gill variation to the Brat.
Curt
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 26, 2007 - 12:07pm PT
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I wonder if Henry was trying to train for a free solo of Foops with his device? Getting up the thing wouldn't seem to have been a problem for a man of his abilities. Some pretty stiff routes have been done unroped at the Gunks including Kansas City and Supercrack!
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Sep 26, 2007 - 12:22pm PT
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Steve...that's a really funny shot of me in that article. My time in the Gunks was a wonderful period in my life. Lot's of life long friends and great memories.
That picture of John Bragg (climber) with Russ Raffa (belayer) and Mark Robinson (onlooker) on top of Skytop is really what the Gunks are all about. I remember that day like yesterday...beautiful fall day, vibrant colors on the trees and rolling farm land to east and south.
Larry wrote: Any of you gunkies got a photo of that?
Larry...do you mean the Andrew boulder problem? I have it somewhere.
The Gunks...it's all about love.
Can't wait to get back...13 days and counting.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Sep 26, 2007 - 12:31pm PT
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I meant a photo of Henry's Foops Machine. I've heard of it a few times but don't know what it was.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Sep 26, 2007 - 12:34pm PT
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That's how I did the Gill variation to The Brat. It worked great-- a heel-toe to avoid all those greasy crimps. The only Gill problem I managed to do that day.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 27, 2007 - 10:59am PT
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That looks to be The Gunks Wedding. Is it?
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Sep 28, 2007 - 12:54am PT
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"...That's how I did the Gill variation to The Brat. It worked great-- a heel-toe to avoid all those greasy crimps. The only Gill problem I managed to do that day..."
Probably only because you couldn't find some way to press it out as a mantle...
Curt
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Delhi Dog
Trad climber
Good Question...
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Sep 28, 2007 - 01:12am PT
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Steve thanks for posting, trip down memory lane for many of us seeing that cover and article!
Though the West is the Best ( slam me if you want but there you have it) there is so much of the East that remains special. From crisp fall days at the Gunks with colors radiating to the horizan to the whicked humdity that encourages the chalk to run in streams down the arms... its all good.
DD
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phillip mike revis
climber
snowbird, ut
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Sep 28, 2007 - 01:24am PT
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the gunks kick ass
MF is the best 5.9 in america
you get sh#t for even thinking about hangdoggin fall off or go home
today i soloed little face at sky top best 5.2+ ever tonite is the nite after the full moon maybe a pilgrim's progress is next i love the gunks
i have climbed all over the north america and i come back to the gunks every summer and nyc is so close
how could you not like it americas premier trad climbing area right next door to the most famous city on earth
if you haven't climbed there you are loosing money
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yo
climber
The Eye of the Snail
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Sep 28, 2007 - 10:35am PT
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I'm gonna need a little more background on the Gunks wedding please.
hahaha
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Sep 28, 2007 - 10:50am PT
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The happy couple in that picture are Lynn Hill and Russ Raffa, who were married in the Gunks in 1989. Perhaps somebody who was there can tell more about the story?
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Sep 28, 2007 - 11:14am PT
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So Curt, where's The Egg pix?
I went to the Gunks on a summer weekend in the early 1980s and it was my first experience of what could only be called an urban climbing experience. I had never seen so many people packed into a climbing area. Gumbies anchored to trees on one side of the path, their ropes running across the road like slack lines to the leader's first piece, four feet off the ground, with the leader suspended helplessly twenty feet out on a 5.2. fixed in place by fear and rope drag as the rest of us casually walked over and under the belay rope; people fighting like junkyard dogs over the prime parking spaces or any space at all; huge swarms of outing groups huddled around their lost leader, trying to make sense out of the guidebook; teams of women climbers in flat-tops and dog collars; and the occasional wasp's nest to keep things fun. I was actually quite horrified. In retrospect, I appreciate the place a bit more, for the ability of the locals and the landowners to keep it open and usable under an incredible amount of pressure. Most of all, I'd really like to go back on a cool off-day for miles of fun 5.2 + soloing.
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tinman
Trad climber
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Sep 28, 2007 - 11:41am PT
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"The happy couple in that picture are Lynn Hill and Russ Raffa, who were married in the Gunks in 1989. Perhaps somebody who was there can tell more about the story?"
Didn't Bob D take this photo? He should be able to supply all the info necessary.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Sep 28, 2007 - 12:21pm PT
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I was a usher in the wedding. Nice wedding and great times.
The photo is from my camera and I set the lighting and angle. I think Russ Clune took the shot.
I am on the far right next to Jim McCarthy (preacher). With Mark Robinson and his wife and a guy who name slip from my mind.
I am going to the Gunks in a little more than a week for a reunion with a most of the folks (and more) in the photo.
As we all know Russ and Lynn parted ways and Russ is married to a wonderful lady (Holly) and has a 2-year boy.
I also have a photo of Russ Clune and Chris Bonnington who were out at the cliff the same day as the shoot.
Really looking forward to it.
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Sep 29, 2007 - 12:24pm PT
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k.l.k. Egg pix for you...
...from 1981, I think.
Curt
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Sep 29, 2007 - 12:30pm PT
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Nice shorts Curt!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2007 - 03:19pm PT
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Most dramatic shot of a 5.2+ ever! Nice! Some more air for ya. From Richard DuMais' exquisite Shawangunk Rock Climbing 1985. All of the photos from the initial posted article appear in color within!
Jimmy Surette on Swing Time.
Just wouldn't be a Gunks thread without my main man Fritz. Rock solid....
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TwistedCrank
climber
Caution: Filling may be hot.
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Sep 29, 2007 - 03:59pm PT
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Nice slippers, Fritz!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2007 - 05:02pm PT
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Original School, all the way!
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tradcragrat
Trad climber
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Sep 29, 2007 - 06:36pm PT
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Ha! the dangler used to be rated 5.8?!
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Sep 29, 2007 - 07:42pm PT
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Steve...that is Jeff Achey on Fat City and Bill Shanaman on Three Pines Direct.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 29, 2007 - 11:55pm PT
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The picture of Fritz is on Never-Never Land (5.10a). The crux is just above. Fritz was, I think, in his mid-seventies at the time, and was climbing in his K2 slippers, as you can see. The belayer up out of sight is me. I did not wear mountaineering boots.
Fritz was really something else.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 30, 2007 - 04:47am PT
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What, no early Hardy Truesdale shots? Hmmm. Will have to dig around.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 30, 2007 - 01:46pm PT
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This would be you on the sharp end then, Rich?
How about the personnel in this shot?
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Sep 30, 2007 - 02:16pm PT
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Steve Jones, Kevin Bein, John Bragg, Dave Rosenfeld with Bob Murray climbing out of picture.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 30, 2007 - 02:25pm PT
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I have seen pictures of Bob Murray leading at the Gunks before he became a dedicated boulderer. How much roped climbing did you guys do with Bob?
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 30, 2007 - 04:51pm PT
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"This would be you on the sharp end then, Rich?
Yup. The piton hammer, knickers, and swami place it pre-seventies, probably late sixties. Looks like I'm wearing Robbins shoes, which weren't that different from the mountaineering boots I just claimed to be avoiding.
Climbed a summer or two in the Bugaboos in Robbins Shoes. Smeared 'em in SnoSeal each the morning for the glacier.
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Tan Slacks
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Sep 30, 2007 - 08:34pm PT
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Hey, I remember that place...
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TwistedCrank
climber
Caution: Filling may be hot.
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Who here has done Directidelic Times?
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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What a wonderful lthread!!!
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Hardie was one of first climbing partners in the Gunks...he also caught one of the longest falls I ever took in the Gunks...close to 50-60 feet off Birdie Party.
How and why I took the fall is another story.
He is a wonderful person and a great artist.
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jstan
climber
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Somewhere I have a print of a photo Fritz took of Horseman
around the time of the Second War. I really do have to find it.
It is in one of my "nostalgia drawers".
I understand we all are primarily interested in climbing, but
there is much interesting stuff going on.. Had he been less
focused on making sure the "Shongums" were protected
and yet remain available to benefit people, I suspect Dan
Smiley would have had the time, himself, to become an
excellent climber. I believe it was no accident he was so
interested inhaving Hans and Fritz climb in the area. Most of
us are mere shooting stars lasting but a moment compared
to Dan.
Early on in the period when I had begun to make a nuisance
of myself I got an invitation to visit LaVerne Thompson down
in NYC. She was most gracious but I thought it probable the
Smiley's had tasked her to find out if there was anything
there. There was not of course. But they chanced it anyway.
Just this evening I am back from Facelift 4 at which the
spokesperson for the National Park Service stated that the
Superintendent views Ken Yager as a "resource" critical to
the success of the Park and to the success of all the Park's
users. (Don't miss the fact Yosemite is arguably the lead
National Park in the US.) An opportunity for very big
advances for all the parks and for all users may now be
forming.
Think about it.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 2, 2007 - 11:25am PT
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Welcome back from Ken's wonderful service gathering, Jstan. I hope that finding this thread was a pleasant surprise. Any tales from battling with this one?
Out of curiousity, what were some other contenders for the 5.11 title at the time or was Persistent a clear cut above the existing standards?
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jstan
climber
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Bob:
I am sorry if I implied other organizations have not been active. For that matter the Appies were an important organization in the Gunks beginning, I believe in the 50’s but had seriously weakened by the sixties. About 1970 or so when the effort in the Gunks was beginning to gain momentum I was invited down to the mountains north of Atlanta to talk to the group forming what is called the Southeastern Climbers Coalition.
Organizations wax and wane but the modern ideas appear to involve inclusion independent of diversity of thought, creativity in regards to developing projects that immediately help the land and the land management, and getting people of all kinds working side by side in the field. I used trash collection back then and it works as well or better still today. It is so immediate.
Steve:
Oh, yes there were many facets to that one. It was my first attempt at a half-way decent first ascent. On my honeymoon in 1969 I had my new wife getting flipped around catching me on it. This may even have contributed to later unfortunate developments. I already knew pitons had to go but the peck crackers I put in the overhung rock kept sliding to the front and out. Feeling as I did, I was wrong to use pitons and leaving fixed pins in place did not right the wrong. What can I say? Once I knew pitons had to go, the fact others were using pins actively in no way excused me.
When a person has just started climbing they go at it in a particular frame of mind. Later, for one reason or another, that mindset changes. Having never really learned how to do cracks( the Gunks don’t have very many) this climb took too long to figure out. I did not learn fast enough to suit me. I wanted to do roped climbing not roped bouldering. On the successful try when I got to the wide knee jam I stopped, knowing I had arrived at an end. I knew I was through and wanted to enjoy the moment of completion. It had been a fun four years. Let’s face it. At 30 I was already no spring chicken.
When I got down I wondered, “What now?” I thought, “Maybe I can do something helpful?” I did climb afterward. But everything was done for a reason. Without doubt I had less talent for being helpful than I had for climbing. But I thought I might be able to make up for it by being persistent.
You will have to ask others about ratings. As long as a climb is fun and if to do it I have to be better this weekend than I was last weekend, I know everything I need to know.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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John wrote: Organizations wax and wane but the modern ideas appear to involve inclusion independent of diversity of thought, creativity in regards to developing projects that immediately help the land and the land management, and getting people of all kinds working side by side in the field. I used trash collection back then and it works as well or better still today. It is so immediate.
John...the problem with climbers is their lack of vision to keep area opens and access for all users. They are so splintered...they worry more about where a bolt is place while areas are getting shut down or have limited access.
All the work I done on trails and such at certain climbing areas...you rarely see an "elite climber" lending a hand. It's the middle range climbers who have no problem giving time and sweat.
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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Dick Williams heads the trail crew at the Gunks and is there every Sunday; if there's volunteers, he's there.
He told me that back in the day, one day someone who was quite a known name - was it you, JStan? - started the trail work ethic at the Gunks by moving a big boulder to ease a trail, and then someone stopped to lend a hand,and then another did, and so on...
When we had a recent bouldering cleanup day, Joe Iurto(spelled wrong, I'm sure), the editor for Urban climber magazine was there.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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happie...thanks for making my point.
I said rarely...
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BadInfluence
Mountain climber
Dak side
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I was told JStan had Saturday morning clean up crew.
Happie too bad the next day the trapps boulders were all chalked up
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ghand
Sport climber
Golden,Colorado
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Go get em jstan!
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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I remember that caption regarding the chalk bag on the front cover of Mountain - I think klk has it more or less correct.
Is that variation to Three Pines Modern Times? I remember doing that one, pretty rad indeed!
And there is only one "n" in the first part of "Bonington"! Sheesh.
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jstan
climber
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So much to which to respond I don’t know where to start:
TRAILS:
When I unilaterally put the ribbons up to see where trails might possibly go and which Richie P. quite rightly took down immediately, I learned no individual should attempt to change in any way the lands we share. All trail work in which I was involved was done under the supervision of Thom Scheuer and a couple of his people. There were a number of very important salutary effects.
First, the work was done with the Preserve’s knowledge and direction. I am confident Dick has this all prearranged in his work.
Second, we wanted trails that would not unnecessarily impact the area visually. There is a natural tendency for a person to build a visible trail so people can appreciate what they have done. We wanted trails that work as trails but leave you feeling you were the one who decided where to step. Thom and the rangers had much better knowledge of such things than did we. Better than did I at least.
Third, it got climbers digging and moving rock side by side with Preserve people. Cooperative physical work is the surest and best way to strengthen the relationship between people. It is quite simply invaluable.
As an aside, we saw something like this working at Facelift4 for building relationships. Ken had provided for liquid refreshments at the final party but he was worried that people would have trouble getting back to their campsites. Now listen up to what the terribly bureaucratic and horrible National Park Service suggested. They suggested their park rangers use the paddy wagon to take people wherever they needed to go. I heard that some of the climbers also wanted hand cuffs used but I don’t know what all came out of that. Pretty funny.
Another thread is currently and unproductively (I think) addressing the issue of relationships of this sort. Once relationships have been established people on both sides can come down off their reactive pedestals and become real people. Ken and Jesse have done wonderfully creative work on this critical area.
THE ROCK
Ah yes, there is a story with regard to the rock near Handy Andy.
We needed to move this big flat boulder up the slope so that people belaying would have a place other than beaten down dirt on which to stand. Something natural. Mind you, I had been working really hard on this for several years; I was wearing down, and may have even discovered that I was pregnant. In any event I was coming, once more to an end. I had to know whether we had managed to help people or whether we had just caused problems. You can never tell this by the way. The moment to find out came. I got down with my face and shoulder into the rock and said to my friend who had spent many Sundays picking up trash with me, "Let’s see if we can move this." He gave me an incredulous look but got down beside me anyway. The boulder, weighing a ton or more, was still half buried and I knew we had no chance of moving it. I could see nothing from my position but I immediately heard racks hitting the ground all up and down the carriage road. Soon there was not room left for even one more finger under that rock. The rock rose up as if by magic and was settled into the hole prepared for it.
By this we learned all of the work by so many people had created something that would live on after we were gone. The people had come together. For me that moment when the rock rose up was like no other. It is with me even today.
LEADERSHIP
I will admit I originally thought the fact a number of people thought well of me, for some unknown reason, might help me in my effort. But I don’t think so now. It was just my ego talking. You don’t have to be a leading climber at all to make a contribution. It can even be a hindrance because people will then imagine reasons to explain what you are doing.
You really need only three things.
You need always to be willing to give of yourself.
You need always to be willing to listen to people.
You need always to be willing to include people who do not agree with you.
Most critically, you can never have a moment when you are unwilling.
NEVER.
The goal is to engage people and to include them. So projects have to be created, supported, and publicized. Getting a thing done is not the goal. Getting people involved in doing the thing – is the goal.
When you succeed, you will receive a moment like no other, and you will hold it close the rest of your life.
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TradIsGood
Half fast climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Nice, JStan. Excellent points.
Now are you really sure there aren't that many cracks to climb at the Gunks.
I said that once here, and Aya K disagreed. LOL.
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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DAMMIT!!!
don't.
make.
me.
warm.
up.
my.
SCANNER!!!!
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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Thanks JStan. Pretty cool story about the rock. You are right that the projects Dick works on are with the Preserve knowledge and no doubt there's more that goes on behind the scenes than one realizes. There are some things only the rangers are allowed to do, like cut down dead trees with the chainsaw.
You might not have heard, and BVB - maybe this will get you out back to the Gunks.... But there is, in the works, the acquisition for a parcel of land(Rosendale Water Works) which will become a part of the Preserve. It is purported to have world class bouldering, and if all goes well, should be opened sometime in 2008. The Open Space Institute is to buy the land, and then give it to MP.
I don't know anything at all about the land, but am assuming that there will be big amounts of volunteerism needed to develop trails fairly quickly(in order to preserve ground plants and lessen impact of foot traffic).
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2007 - 11:17am PT
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Jstan- Thanks for the recollections of Persistence and your well considered perspective on group activism and land use issues. I couldn't agree more strongly that we are entering an exciting and potentially very productive period as a user group. Ken's inclusive approach in Yosemite is a great indication of what may be possible on a much broader scale once the adversarial nature of past interaction is let go. Too much anarchistic self image can be a difficult habit to break but we all need to question the character of the actual freedom that ultimately results from habitually throwing off or avoiding cooperation or external constraints. Attitude in isolation will not open a closed crag or further our collective position. Thanks again for sharing your mind and process. You do a lot of good with your contributions to the ST and I always enjoy your thoughts and reflections.
And now a little more eyecandy.....from DuMais.
Wish I was turning a roof right now!
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jstan
climber
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I always thought the freeing of Coexistence never caused the stir it merited. After getting over the supposed crux you still had only those little damn things with which to work. And knowing Richard as I do, I would bet money he was merrily humming the whole time.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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The humming you heard was my clothes flapping in the breeze caused by falling. I fell off two or three times (which seemed really radical in 1967, at least to me) before making it. I also contrived to miss the best hold, just for added adventure. Wow, that was forty years ago, pretty much to the day.
By the way, the posted picture of Coex is of Barbara Devine, our beloved Kevin Bein's wife. She was one of the first women in the country to lead 5.11. (She's still around in the Hudson Valley area...not climbing as far as I know.)
The climber on Retribution is Joe Bridges.
Retribution was my first 5.10. I climbed it around 1964, give or take a year or two, seconded by none other than Yvon Chouinard, who was East for a visit.
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Harv
Trad climber
Nederland, CO
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Hi fellow Gunkies; Laura (Chaiten) Smith turned me onto this site and the display of some of my photos and story. First Richard was not a friend (maybe he was but they came to the Gunks at different timres) of Wolfgang. Richard came with the Editor of Alpinismus Magazine out of Austria and I was taking photos for his article on the Gunks. Second, that was Hardie Truesdale belaying off the bench at the Mohonk lake. And lastly, if any of you are coming out to the Boulder area that I knew back in the 70s in the Gunks, be sure to look me up. I now live in Nederland after 20 some odd years in Boulder.
Harv Arnold
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2007 - 04:23pm PT
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Welcome Harvey,
I hope that you enjoy revisiting past work as much as the rest of us! Lots of tales and images from direct participants make the ST a living history treasure. Perhaps you can quell the dispute over the meaning of "unethical" in the Foops cover caption. Some say chalk, but I think reach was clearly at the heart of the humor.
"Unethical? Maybe. Impressive? Certainly. Richard Muhe (West German) who is 6ft4ins high and weighs 180lbs, prepares to finish Foops (5.11). Shawangunks. Muhe says,"the climb is 5.11 if not harder; that depends very strongly on the individual 'body dates' of the climber."
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2007 - 10:24pm PT
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More classic shots from Richard DuMais' Shawangunk Rock Climbing, 1985.
Any stories about climbing with Fritz, Harvey? Great shot of him up there with a chest harness, same as when I had a chance to get out with him and John Rupley in Tucson in the early seventies. He is the only one I ever saw in one of those items.
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Crimpergirl
Social climber
St. Looney
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Welcome Harv. I think you are going to like it here.
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redpt
Trad climber
nj
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Can some of the locals from the era comment on the accuracy of the following, this description was given to me by a local Gunks climber. Disclaimer: I don't know what period in Gunks development (my guess is somewhere 70's-80's) he was talking about exactly AND it's also possible that I misunderstood his description - it is a bit hard to believe.
I'm not trying to start any dispute here, just get things clarified.
Supposedly the "tactic" for getting the FA of a route was that the first member of the team started up the route, on lead, placing whatever pro they could, if they fell/hung they were lowered and the next person got their chance - but the gear and rope were left up so they were TR'ing some of it, this "process" would continue in rotation and the person to reach the top (and I suppose they could decide where that is on an FA) without a fall, who may have only lead/placed pro on a small section of the route would be named as having the FA.
Thanks
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jstan
climber
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I can’t speak with regards to any climb other than those I was a party to. Some of this will be background to better define the answer.
Any FA I was on caused me to write a name in my guide. But no one ever looked at my guide. I have no idea how the name going into the next guide was selected. On Fat City I put Gary Brown as first because putting the pin in was harder than doing the move. He did a superb job. I don’t know how it is listed in the guides. I have not looked at any of them. The truth is none of us were hung up on FA credits. The fun lay in figuring out the problems.
First and foremost we need to understand that most Gunks climbs involve a short section substantially harder than the rest. That illuminates several aspects of your question.
Typically the first person would go up until encountering difficulty. If there was a fall we got back on the rock at the earliest opportunity – no matter how tired we were. No resting on the rope or on any protection. Part of the fun was learning how to rest on the rock enough to make the next try. We did not pull the rope down and start over. In the context of the Gunks I thought that was kind of synthetic. Other places it may be needed to produce whatever satisfaction one is seeking.
When the leader got tired they were lowered off or down climbed and the second would have a go. I usually noted the name of the person who first surmounted the main problem. But as I said, no one ever looked at my guide.
Bottom line? We really didn’t care who got any “credits”. They have nothing to do with climbing.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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"Supposedly the "tactic" for getting the FA of a route was that the first member of the team started up the route, on lead, placing whatever pro they could, if they fell/hung they were lowered and the next person got their chance - but the gear and rope were left up so they were TR'ing some of it, this "process" would continue in rotation and the person to reach the top (and I suppose they could decide where that is on an FA) without a fall, who may have only lead/placed pro on a small section of the route would be named as having the FA."
This practice certainly occurred in the era following the tremendous achievements of Barber, Bragg, Stannard, and Wunsch, none of whom used this tactic. In fact, there was a time when Henry used to pull his rope and all but the top piece if he fell, so that the next attempt required not only reclimbing the moves up to the high point but also replacing all the gear. This never caught on.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 23, 2007 - 12:43pm PT
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I am a little surprised that Henry didn't make it to the Gunks reunion to join the other luminaries. Great to see a picture of John Reppy, who did.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 28, 2007 - 02:55am PT
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Speaking of Rich Romano in his prime... The first issue of N A Climber circa 1975 showing Rich on the left and Spaff Ackerly on the right on Persistent, rated 5.10+ at the time.
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TwistedCrank
climber
Caution: Filling may be hot.
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Oct 28, 2007 - 11:20am PT
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Spaff Ackerly - there's a name I haven't heard in a while. Last I heard he was teaching at an outdoor prep school in Carbondale after he finished a paleontoloty PhD.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 7, 2008 - 12:11am PT
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Old Gunks bump for Roy K!
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SteveW
Trad climber
Denver, CO
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Mr. Grossman
You've just got to stop these historical links. . .
my work is suffering whilst I'm browsing and dreaming. . .
But thanks anyway!
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Any week now, the weather window could open just enough for a Gunks trip. Not today, crampons advisable on our driveway.
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AbeFrohman
Trad climber
new york, NY
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Yay Gunks.
YAY!
yes parking can be an issue.
yes, the first 1/4 mile of 1 of the 4 (trapps, near trapps, millbrook, and peters kill) cliffs gets a bit crowded with gumbies.
but beyond that 1/4 mile there is PLENTY of good climbing.
just walk.
you can handle an "approach", can't you?
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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A buddy was up there last week.
He said that not only was there no waterfall at Ken's Crack, but that the crack was dry!
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Me on Kama Sutra...some upstart named Scott Franklin belaying back in 1982.
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SteveW
Trad climber
Denver, CO
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Lookit that head of hair. Boy, those were the good ole
days! :-)
(Bob, I'm hair challenged, just like you, pun intended).
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Wormly81
Trad climber
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Mar 25, 2008 - 12:22pm PT
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Bump to celebrate March at the Gunks....
The forecast is for a high of 45 degrees, partly cloudy, and a significant wind. Your in the car early.
As you wander down the carraige road the cliffs major features take on whole new perspectives as your view is unencumbered by leaves. At the first belay you throw your feet over the ledge and relax. The sky is perfect blue and the sun feels close; like it has detoured closer to New Paltz just to make your day. If you were to drop a feather, it would flutter straight down as there isnt a breeze to speak of. The long winter of water ice climbing has made you strong and you are flooded with the unbridled optimism that starts another rock season in one of the most sacred of places this world has to offer.
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Harv
Trad climber
Nederland, CO
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Apr 26, 2008 - 05:32pm PT
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I will be returning to the Gunks in September of 2008 for a long awaited visit (27 years). As to unethical, I don't recall what that refered to as chalk was in everyone's bag (and some had the chalk mouse that John Stannard had suggested - chalk in an old sock tip that was tied into a ball). But hight had a definte effect on how one could get out to the bucket on Foops. Richard could do one movw under the roof and it was in his reach, but Kevin and Barbara would have to do a dance including a layback on the back of their thumbs to finally get within reach.
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LittlePinkTricam
Trad climber
Providence, RI
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Apr 26, 2008 - 05:59pm PT
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Despite living in NJ/RI, I've tried very hard to make the Gunks my local crag because, as a young climber, I'm in desperate need of a place with strong ethics and a deep history. As one of my many attempts to get closer to the roots of climbing, I did a recent all-nude ascent of Shockley's Ceiling (the first time I'd done the route). You have to love a location with a history like that...
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Apr 26, 2008 - 08:11pm PT
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LPT - Was that a daylight ascent?
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LittlePinkTricam
Trad climber
Providence, RI
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Apr 27, 2008 - 12:32am PT
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TradIsGood-
It was indeed, on a weekday when very few people were around. I think we only ran into two parties--one before we got off the ground, and one we shared a rap station with at the top.
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Apr 27, 2008 - 07:57am PT
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Ah, in the style of the FNA! Excellent. TR worthy.
I saw a TR once of a headlamp ascent of Shockley's. That seemed a little weak - the whole point being that Shockley's is above the hairpin turn where all the cars have to slow down. Hardly matters which climb if it is done covertly.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 27, 2008 - 01:24pm PT
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There is a great shot of Mr Shockley at his shockleyest in Climbing in North America. My copy is at large. A couple of size sensitive shots of Foops from States of the Art.
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TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
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Apr 27, 2008 - 01:46pm PT
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Not the Gunks so maybe OT but...
I always loved that image of Bard on Slipstream.
A big dude playing Baryshnikov. The left foot back step and could he put his right foot any higher please ?
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the idle rich
climber
Estes Park, CO
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Apr 28, 2008 - 05:57pm PT
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rgold
I really hate to correct my elders, but there are fewer and fewer of them left so I can't pass up the opportunity. The photo of Coexistence isn't of Barb Devine...it's Spaff Ackerly. (I took the pic from the crux of Star Action) If you're in need of stronger eyeglasses, I think I have an old set that you're welcome to have. Just have to sign the obligatory liability waiver. Better men than you have lost their eyesight looking through these things.
rich
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 29, 2008 - 09:43am PT
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Ditto on that photo of Bard.
One of the better sequence of photos from that time.
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Harv
Trad climber
Nederland, CO
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Jul 14, 2008 - 01:29am PT
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Ah, climbing with Fritz. Only once. I was with a new girl friend and we ran into Fritz on the carriage road and he (always having an eye for the girls) suggested we partner up for a climb. He suggested he lead so I gave him my rack which he hardly used. He would use the trees sticking out of the cliff as his saftey points and made every pitch very short so he could look down at the girl between us.
Once, where there was a sharp left traverse in the climb after a straight up section, he tried to place a nut with a long sling to cut down on the rope drag. When I got up to it, the nut almost fell out into my hand. Bottom line, I got to climb with the original discoverer of climbing in the Gunks and still got to retain my girlfriend no matter how much he flirted. LOL
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jstan
climber
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Jul 14, 2008 - 01:51am PT
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A point possibly of interest. I still have the original chalk sock. This shows a single pair of worn out socks can give between 100 and 150 years of service inside a chalk bag. It was not knotted however. I used a wire tie from a loaf of Wonder Bread. The tie is also the original.
The day I thought that up was probably one of my better moments.
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horst
Trad climber
Lancaster, PA
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Jul 14, 2008 - 08:38am PT
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I learned to lead climb at the Gunks in the late 70s...modeling after my heroes of that era...Goldstone, Bragg, D'Antonio, et al...the classic outfit of white painter pants and red swami belt. Here's a pic of me (back then, I was the scrawny teenager with a big fro moving hyperactively from one climb to the next) leading Foops in 1981.
Here's to all my Gunks heroes of the 1970s!
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 16, 2008 - 04:00pm PT
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Thanks Eric...Quite the group you put me in with. Hope all is well.
Kevin Bein...Skytop...
The Throne
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jstan
climber
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Jul 16, 2008 - 09:48pm PT
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After a good bicycle ride and some wine I see a photo of Kevin. There is no alternative but to think.
I have never met a person who lived so completely in each moment as did Kevin.
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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Jul 16, 2008 - 09:52pm PT
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Or more accurately...
"The Gunks - Cornerstone of Eastern Traditional Frigging"
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Griff
Social climber
Felton, PA
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Jul 16, 2008 - 11:45pm PT
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The number of horizontal cracks makes placing pro an added mental challenge for the leader new to the area.
They do some different stuff there.
It's a beautiful place to climb.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 17, 2008 - 12:49am PT
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Jstan...here is another one for you.
Kevin on Open Cockpit...1977
Jstan wrote: I have never met a person who lived so completely in each moment as did Kevin.
To this day and over 30 years later I can honestly say that some of my best days ever climbing were spend with Kevin and Barbara in the Gunks and SD.
I miss him dearly.
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Jul 17, 2008 - 01:19am PT
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Best thread here, for sure.
Curt
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Rokrover
Trad climber
SB, CA
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Jul 17, 2008 - 11:43am PT
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Here’s Ivan Rezucha airing his pits on Matinee back in 1975. This was my first year at the Gunks after specializing in crack climbing at Frog Buttress in Queensland, Australia. I had to relearn face climbing quickly and leading this traverse onsight in clunky stiff Chouinard boots was quite stimulating. Ivan was quite active at the Gunks over the ensuing years - I wonder where he is now?
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 17, 2008 - 11:58am PT
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Ivan lives in Boulder and still climbing a lot.
Here is another shot of Kevin...
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Jul 17, 2008 - 01:28pm PT
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that pic of skytop in full color way, way upthread. brings back so many bittersweet memories. there is something so tangible across the decades, the gunks in the fall, memories you can practically reach out and touch. the smell of autumn and the cool crisp sunlight. so much sweet melancholy. more than the climbing, i remember the people, so many years ago.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 19, 2008 - 05:02pm PT
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Great stuff guys!
Wasn't Kevin known as the Mayor of the Gunks?
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hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
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Jul 19, 2008 - 09:10pm PT
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Thanks everyone for the great stories and photos. This really captures the spirit of how it felt back in the day- I never went East but I can recall many of these photos from Mountain and Climbing. I can smeel the lichen and the rock when I read the story.
I used to to sign summit registers with the joke that I thought the route was easier than Open Cockpit- this came from a humorous article on one upmanship- I forget the title
Really really great
murf
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N0_ONE
Social climber
Utah
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Jul 19, 2008 - 10:16pm PT
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Good Stuff!!!
Thanks for the pics and stories.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 19, 2008 - 10:55pm PT
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I'm trying to figure out how to get back there this fall... I miss climbing there, it's been too long
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jul 19, 2008 - 11:50pm PT
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Miscellaneous Gunks pictures, some old, some new...
Todd Mummert on Beatle Brow Bulge
Bragg on Coex
Feast of Fools
Alphonse
Oblique Twique
Sound and Fury
Arrow
Tim Keenan on Trapped Like a Rat
Joe Bridges on Westward Ha!
Laura Kosbar on Groovy
Myriam Bouchard on CCK
...and on Hans' Puss
Kevin Bein on Matinee
Yellow Wall
Bragg on link-up to Yellow Ridge
Todd Mummert on Cruise Contol
Top of Annie O
Mellow Yellow
Added in edit: High Exposure
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 20, 2008 - 12:10am PT
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Wonderful shots Rich..looking forward to seeing everyone again in the fall.
PS...what are you doing hanging out with Romano woman??? :)
Mark Robinson on some roof.
Rich G on PR
Bob D on Land of Milk and Honey
That Romano Guy
Bob D on the Throne
John M on Fissure Ramins
Gary Garrit bouldering
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jul 20, 2008 - 12:22am PT
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Thanks Bob.
Romano woman sometimes is climb with beta males.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 20, 2008 - 12:44am PT
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Perch...is that you lurking out there??
RGold...what happened to Bragg's blonde hair??
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the idle rich
climber
Estes Park, CO
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Jul 20, 2008 - 01:16am PT
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Bob...Just trying to figure out how to post photos, but with limited success. Here goes another attempt. Here's Henry's answer to climbing Matinee in the clunky green Shoenards. He was just back from his trip to Dresden.
Rich
That pic of Land of Milk and Honey looks suspiciously like Frustration Syndrome?
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 20, 2008 - 05:41am PT
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Fellahs,
Those are some great, great pics. Laura and I just got a decent scanner so we are going to post some new old stuff soon. Out of a box of 3000, I don't think we have any photos of the quality that TIR, Rgold and BobbyD just submitted though.
RichP those pics of Barber are incredible.
Rgold:
-classic photo of you on Yellow Wall!
-we love that shot of you climbing with with the lightning bolt head scarf.
Bob D-thanks for kick starting this. So what year was that shot of you on the Throne? That's a tough one for sure. Great photos Bob. I don't know how you caught Romano relaxing.
RichP your screen name is hilarious. It fits too.
Look forward to October.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Jul 20, 2008 - 09:31am PT
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These photos convey how dynamic and character-ful the climbs are, across all the grades.
They especially make me want to come back in the fall.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 20, 2008 - 10:13am PT
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Oakie...you are right...I was on my second vodka lemonade by that time.
Perch...cool shots of Henry.
Geno..funny about Richie...all the years I have know him he seems like he is always in motion.
How is Laura??
Russ Raffa on Scary Area
Bob Jahn on Wishbone Overhang 1977
One of the 20 people sieging the route that day..No Comment
Nick Morrel on Resistance
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 20, 2008 - 11:24am PT
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A really handsome fella on "The Fall".
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jul 20, 2008 - 11:26am PT
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RGold...what happened to Bragg's blonde hair??
Uh, Bob, if we're gonna start down the "what happened to" road, we're gonna need a whole new thread...
Meanwhile, this just in (from 7/19/08)
Recently septegeneric Dick Williams leading one of his many new routes in the Near Trapps (protection so far consists of a micronut in a vertical seam and a pair of Ballnuts in a horizontal fracture).
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 20, 2008 - 04:11pm PT
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Howie Doyle...one of us (Gunkie) and always will be.
In the Black Canyon just before heading down to do the Scenic Cruise.
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the idle rich
climber
Estes Park, CO
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Jul 20, 2008 - 05:48pm PT
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Everything I knew about rangering, I learned from this man...a very scary thought! Thom Scheuer was a friend to many, many climbers in the east and was as much a part of the Gunks as the rocks and lichen.
And who could forget the bus that tried to shortcut the switchback at the hairpin turn. The caption in the local paper was titled, "The Precarious Perch".
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 20, 2008 - 05:53pm PT
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Rich P ...nice shot of Tom...Kevin was the first person I met in the Gunks and believe Tom was the second. Sunday morning at the Uberfall is not the same without Tom, his NY times and doughnuts.
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the idle rich
climber
Estes Park, CO
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Jul 20, 2008 - 06:01pm PT
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Yeah Bob...I don't think a day goes by that I don't think about Thom and Kevin. Hope to see you this fall in the Gunks.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 22, 2008 - 05:52am PT
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Shots of the Trapps from Eagle Cliff. Some from the early 1970s. Some recent. All taken by Laura Chaiten Smith.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 22, 2008 - 06:04am PT
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Skytop from Lenape lane.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 22, 2008 - 06:06am PT
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Another picture of Tom for everyone.
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horst
Trad climber
Lancaster, PA
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Jul 22, 2008 - 09:19am PT
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Jim Ewing on Ridiculissima...
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 22, 2008 - 09:57am PT
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Geno and laura...nice shots.
Good shot Eric...almost looks like he is ropeless.
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Crimpergirl
Social climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Jul 22, 2008 - 11:51am PT
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I'm glad this thread is still thriving. Can't wait to see the next photos!
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the idle rich
climber
Estes Park, CO
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Jul 22, 2008 - 02:06pm PT
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This isn't nearly as cool a shot of Ridiculissima as Eric's but it is more historic. Kevin Bein and Vern Clevinger on the first ascent in 1977?
Dana Bartlett and Bill Ravitch on Jack Sh#t,
and Open Cockpit
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 22, 2008 - 07:46pm PT
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Superb and inspiring photos! Go Dick Williams!
Who was called the "mayor of the Gunks?"
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scuffy b
climber
Sartre's No Exit 1/32 mile
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Jul 22, 2008 - 08:09pm PT
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Kevin
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 22, 2008 - 08:36pm PT
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Bobby, I loved that shot of you on the Fall. What's it like at that point?
Here is a scan of Kevin on the cover of CLIMBING.
BobbyD, Kevin and Elrod at the Uberfall.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 22, 2008 - 08:41pm PT
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Maury pouring for one and all.
A young Clune. The Idle Rich.
Jeff Gruenberg and me.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 22, 2008 - 08:44pm PT
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Rich thanks for mentioning Dana Bartlett. I forgot his last name until you did. Here are a couple shots from Summer of 81.
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Double D
climber
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Jul 22, 2008 - 08:47pm PT
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The East Coast...Climbing??? Dude, isn't that like past the 395 or something?
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 22, 2008 - 08:50pm PT
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Retribution in Summer of 80.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 23, 2008 - 12:16am PT
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Geno...it get easier as you go higher...I think you get in a good 4 RP...fecking Gunks...what a place.
The cover photo of kevin looks just like the one I took...I think the whole crew was out there that day.
Bob Jahn (he freed Doug's Roof) on Comedy in Three Acts.
Mike Freeman on the Sting.
Three months and counting...Eric H...you coming to the reunion??
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Jul 23, 2008 - 01:27am PT
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That's how I remember Open Cockpit, Bob--lots of good face holds off to the right side of the crack. I think I first did it with Mike Freeman in '82 or '83. Great pic.
Curt
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 23, 2008 - 06:59am PT
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Bob, Nice shots from your archives. Great to see them. It's amazing the memories old pictures invoke.
Here are a couple of Dan McMillan. We climbed Crack'n Up that day. Dan fought hard and did it. I can't remember where we are in these pics. I think we are nearby on another climb.
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veryveryoldman
Social climber
The Bronx
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Jul 23, 2008 - 03:02pm PT
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Geno-
I think you were on Exit Stage Left in those pics, a 5.9 next to Modern Times.
Jstan-
Do you have any recollections you would share about Stannard's Roof? It's one of my favorites, although I find it intimidating and difficult.
When did you first climb it? Who were you with? What did you use to protect it?
Here are two shots of it:
-Denis
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 23, 2008 - 09:42pm PT
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Denis, Roger. You are right. Gene
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jstan
climber
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Jul 23, 2008 - 10:05pm PT
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Roof:
Must have been early 70's or there abouts. I remember getting a good
nut well out there, most probably a large stopper. No risk of cratering
against the wall. Absolutely best part came when I got to the lip. Reached
up for the its-over-hold and grabbed onto a 150# loose block. Could not
use it so you had to find an alternative. I was told someone trundled it.
So it's not the climb it was originally. Didn't give it a name. Since no
marks were left on it, it was there undamaged ready to be discovered again.
Best laid plans gang aft aglae.
Edit
The nut was in that good place. The reach to the block was blind so it
must have been sitting in what you see as a V at the skyline. The roof
used to be a bit longer. Must be an awful route to follow. Fall off and
you finish up in the trees.
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veryveryoldman
Social climber
The Bronx
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Jul 24, 2008 - 10:23am PT
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Thanks, John. That's interesting. I can't imagine where that block was resting--but I'm sort of happy I don't have to deal with it.
One day I'll try doing it with only stoppers for the full experience, but it'll be tough forgoing that perfect #2 camalot in the rail before the lip. That placement always fills me with a sense of joy and contentment.
Here's the roof as it looks before you get horizontal, and a view of Clove Valley from the top of the route in late October:
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steveA
Trad climber
bedford,massachusetts
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Jul 24, 2008 - 10:39am PT
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First time posting on Supertopo. I sprained my ankle a few days, ago (bouldering), and am killing time on the Web. I am enjoying this thread. Kevin Bein was a good friend of mine-brings back fond memories. Looking forward to the Oct. reunion, (HenryB invited me). JohnS-nice to see you here. It will be fun seeing many old faces.
Cheers Steve Arsenault
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jstan
climber
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Jul 24, 2008 - 10:55am PT
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Steve:
I am still using that same junk sling. Shall I bring it or mail it?
John
I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
No. As a matter of fact I do still have it.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 24, 2008 - 11:33am PT
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Barbara Devine on Open Cockpit...1977
Hardie Truedale on On Any Monday...I think.
Mike Freeman on Wasp Stop.
Bob D on Climb and Punishment.
I hope I not boring you guys with these photos?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2008 - 11:40am PT
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Welcome Steve Arsenault!
Then and now on the VMC Direct. From Mark Kroese Fifty Favorite Climbs
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 24, 2008 - 11:42am PT
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Lynn on Iron Curtain...Skytop
She lead it... wasn't pumped enough so she did another run.
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veryveryoldman
Social climber
The Bronx
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Jul 24, 2008 - 11:44am PT
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You're certainly not boring me.
I think Hardie Truesdale is on Never Never Land.
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emac
climber
New Hampshire
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Jul 24, 2008 - 11:48am PT
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I've not been down to the Gunks in a couple of years, but it's one of my favorite place for sure.
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veryveryoldman
Social climber
The Bronx
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Jul 24, 2008 - 11:52am PT
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Here is how Never Never Land looked last week:
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 24, 2008 - 12:13pm PT
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My son Jeremy (just getting done doing his duty) and me at the Gunks in 1978.
This shot also shows how pitiful and defective my left arm (bicep) is. LOL
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the idle rich
climber
Estes Park, CO
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Jul 24, 2008 - 01:14pm PT
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jstan...you used to be just eccentric but at least your memory was intact. I'm not so sure anymore. Here's my story and I'm sticking to it!
In the fall of 1975 I made plans to climb at Lost City with Steve Wunsch. Steve talked about a roof that he was interested in checking out and related this story. He and John Stannard were walking along the base of Lost City one day when they noticed a huge roof at the top of the cliff. Steve wondered aloud if the thing would possibly go free and John answered, "Oh, sure, it looks like it's about 5.9." John later climbed it with Pete Ramins (I think) and called it "Surprise Overhang". When Wunsch asked him how hard the roof was, Stannard answered, "Oh...about 5.9". Wunsch assumed that the surprise was that the roof was so much easier than it looked.
It was a stellar day in October when Steve and I made the hike to Lost City with Lucy Greenberg and her young children, Ted and Emily. Lucy sunbathed topless (at least that's how I like to remember it and it's my story) and prepared a picnic lunch. The kids played in the talus at the base of the cliff.
I haven't climbed there in years, but at that time the local ethic was not to advertise or even report routes that had been done at Lost City. Any route information was passed on word of mouth and most climbers were loathe to ask for any beta. The intent was to have an area where everyone was free to have the adventure of a first ascent even if the climb had been done many times before. The running joke was that Stannard had climbed all of these routes at some time in the past...hence the phrase Done By Stannard Years Ago (DBSYA).
After looking at the roof, I couldn't imagine it going at anywhere near 5.9. Wunsch allowed me to have the roof lead which immediately raised a red flag. Upon reflection, I think his plan was to have me place the pro, work the moves and then take the free ride to the lip after I blew out. This was not the first time he used that ploy (rather effectively I might add) which made me all the more determined to lead it without falling. You had to respect the man's strategy but it wouldn't work this time.
I was able to place gear and then somehow reverse the moves each time and climb back to a rest at the belay. This involved much swinging and circus-like maneuvers in order to place the feet back on the holds. I endured a constant stream of heckling from Wunsch until I reminded him that he would only have one chance to clean the roof when he followed. Though not very speedy, all went well until I reached the lip and saw a large block that didn't quite look attached to the cliff. As I reached out to gently test the block, it came loose and began to fall off of its perch. That's when I remembered that Ted and Emily were playing in the talus somewhere below. I was able to hold the block in place, at the same time screaming for Lucy to get the kids to a safe place. Steve had finally ceased his heckling, probably more interested in the drama that was enfolding. After what seemed like an eternity, they told me that the children were safe. I relaxed slightly and the block sailed through my arms and smashed into the rocks below. On the positive side, it left a good hold in its wake that allowed me to finish the last moves to the top.
I couldn't imagine any way to climb past the death block other than doing a series of one-arm pullups. The next time I saw Stannard, I told him about the near-disaster and asked why he left the block on the climb. He gave his silly laugh and complained, "Oh no...you ruined the surprise!" He then demanded that I return to the climb and replace the rock. John wandered off down the carriage road shaking his head and mourning the loss. If the intent was to preserve the sense of adventure for future climbers, the goal was well met.
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veryveryoldman
Social climber
The Bronx
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Jul 24, 2008 - 02:56pm PT
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That's a great story, Rich--thank you.
Here's the lip (with no loose block in sight):
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 30, 2008 - 10:36am PT
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Oakie wrote: Bob D, i mentioned to Barb that I thought you posted a couple photos of her on Supertopo. She had the biggest smile on her face when when she heard your name.
She is by far one the sweetest people that I know. I had so many wonderful times with her and Kevin....I miss seeing both of them...they added so much sunshine to my life.
I saw he last year at for the first time in 20 years and tears came to both our eyes.
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Jul 30, 2008 - 12:02pm PT
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With the name of this post, along with all the great photos that have turned up already, we ought to have one anyway of trad climbing the way it was: hammer in the back pocket, rack of 3 slings/biners, hiking boots with no friction at all, maybe a swami of 2 or 3 wraps of 1 inch.
(First try at posting an image; will it work?)
High E, a few years back
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horst
Trad climber
Lancaster, PA
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Jul 30, 2008 - 04:01pm PT
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OK Bobby D....here's a classic for you to name...
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 30, 2008 - 04:54pm PT
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Sling Time 5.11+
or
Kansas City 5.12
Nice shots Eric.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 30, 2008 - 05:00pm PT
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You can't be serious.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 30, 2008 - 06:05pm PT
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Eric, Incredible shots! Geno
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horst
Trad climber
Lancaster, PA
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Jul 30, 2008 - 07:02pm PT
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DaDing! BobbyD wins...
Sling Time - One of the many stout roof routes at the gunks, though very unique in that the crux is managing your way through funky, sharp jams. I was psyched to onsight the route a number of years ago...only to have a photog show up as I'm turning the lip onto easy rock. So, of course, I was talked into leading it again...thus, the pix you see above.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 30, 2008 - 07:35pm PT
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Eric...I first did it in 79 and then again with Mike McGill in the late 80's.
Great route.
Are you coming to the reunion??
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horst
Trad climber
Lancaster, PA
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Jul 30, 2008 - 08:25pm PT
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Is the reunion the weekend of Oct 11 or 18?
I was just out climbing with Mark Robinson in Mammoth a few weeks back, and I believe he'll be coming in for the event.
Sounds like a good time!
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 30, 2008 - 09:16pm PT
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Jstan wrote: You can't be serious.
About what??
Eric...it is on the weekend of the 18...it's going to be a blast. We need a young ropegun.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 30, 2008 - 09:58pm PT
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Slingtime 5.10+
or
Kansas City 5.10+
Slingtime is the Gunks equivalent of an overlap but on the vertical. It is the only one. You can't confuse it with any other climb. Not any other climb that existed in 1974 certainly.
"Surely you are joking, Mr. Feynman?"
That's a great read by the by.
Still trying to decide on the reunion. Will entail six(6) days of train travel. That's a bunch.
Do transcontinental trains provide wireless service? Anybody?
Airplanes are not going to be part of our future. They no longer exist.
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Jul 30, 2008 - 11:21pm PT
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Slingtime.
:-)
Good guess!
Shows up in the picture properties.
Could it be in the Nears?
Looks a little stiff. I know a guy who blew a bicep not far from there. Inverted Layback. Just a plain old Gunks 10, mostly easier except for a couple moves.
Edit: jstan, AT&T provides wireless - 3G - iPhone. Will you be repeating some of your FA's? Been on a couple of them lately.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 31, 2008 - 01:00am PT
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TIG:
Slingtime is in the Nears right near an easy climb which I can't remember. I really have to bring one of my books out of JT. Not something to which I refer often.
There is one repeat I really would like to do, if I come. I used to pick up trash early in the morning and then climb with whomever jumped in to help. We did that every weekend more than thirty years ago. Much of the climbing is a bit faded in my memory. The trash picking is still as clear as a bell. People got the place so clean there was not one cigarette butt to be found on the carriage road between the steel bridge and Skytop. 5.19
Take that back. 5.19d
If the trains are internet cafe type hot spots I could get an old Apple laptop and while away the time on the train. Have to be doing something. You've watched Rich Romano? He's much more able but the disease is the same.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Jul 31, 2008 - 05:56am PT
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Jstan,
This is from Gene Smith. I was one of those guys hanging in the Uberfall that you hooked up with to climb back in 1980. I don't remember that we picked up litter. Maybe there wasn't any that morning or you had already done it. Anyway, you led Nose Dive and set only a single nut at the crux. I led Never Never Land (you soloed up a ways on Never Say Never and gave me some encouragement). Then you led us up Balrog. On another day we walked to Sky Top and did No Exit. I really appreciated that you'd climb with us. Thank you. I learned a lot from you on just those few climbs.
We really hope you come to the Gunks II Reunion. A number of people are combing through their archives (closets, garages and storage bins)to find long lost pictures for the event on Saturday evening 18 October at the Preserve. A lot of folks will also be in the Gunks climbing, hiking and hanging out the week before.
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redpt
Trad climber
nj
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Jul 31, 2008 - 09:28am PT
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> jstan: near an easy climb
Sling Time is just right of Swing Time (11a?) and just left of Disneyland (5.5/6). I've got to get on it some day.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 31, 2008 - 11:06am PT
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Gene:
I certainly do remember you. At the time you were teaching at the Point.
Except for the traffic I expect you find the capitol a very interesting
place. Great museums.
We usually tried to do the roads like 299 right after dawn on Sunday
morning. The hairpins got a bit exciting once traffic had picked up.
Red:
To give you an idea of how memorable I found Slingtime I remember it in
some detail. I can't seem to pull up even an image of Swingtime. Slingtime
must have taken stoppers as that was about all I was using. It was a
little hard on the fingers too.
This brings up my all time favorite made up but true story. Mac was
sitting under April Showers tieing has shoes when he looked up. He said
to Claude, "Do you suppose that roof has gone? Thumbing through the
guide Claude says, "Yeah, Jim. It has gone. Jim says, "Who did it?" Claude
replies after a pause, "Jim. You did it." After a somewhat longer pause
Jim says, "Does it say how hard it is?"
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jul 31, 2008 - 12:07pm PT
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Bob D on Maria Redirect....1977
The blond god on Sling Time....1978.
One of the other gods (Stewe Wunsch) on Kligfield's Follies...1978
Sorry about the quality of the slides.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 31, 2008 - 01:53pm PT
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Part way up Kliegfields you encounter a cramped belay below a roof going
into an inside corner with no protection for awhile. When Bragg and I did
the route we considered a plan to get Steve belaying below that roof and
then have the leader smile and wave as they fall past the belay and go
down below yet another roof. I don't know whether Bragg ever put that
plan into action. I certainly did not.
At least among the routes known in 1974, Kliegfield's Follies holds a very
special place. It has ambiance up the wing wang, IMO.
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cliffmama
Trad climber
Noo Jerzee
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Jul 31, 2008 - 01:57pm PT
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"I met Barbara at the Long Distance swimming area in Minnewaska. Barbara is in incredible shape and I mentioned that it would be great to get her back out climbing. Barb's answer was maybe.
...
I hope to see Barbara back out climbing again."
About 3 or 4 years ago, I did a little climbing with Barbara after she moved back to the area. We brought our kids out to climb one day and she did a little top roping. Despite not climbing in many years she still could gracefully tiptoe up a 5.10a. Then we got out for an afternoon without the kids and she followed me up Classic. Haven't climbed with her since, but I heard she climbed during last year's reunion.
So how do I get myself an invitation to the reunion? I have no "Gunks legend" credentials, I just like to hang out with them. Jstan - it was great to climb and hike with you at JTree in March - will you be coming to the Gunks this fall?
I did my first climb at the Gunks the weekend the bus went over the hairpin turn (Feb 1981). Remembering the sound of the people in the bus screaming still sends chills down my spine. Seems like no one walks down anymore, everyone raps and so many people carelessly throw their ropes down on other climbers. I miss the cow-bell sound of hexes clinking down the carriage road as climbers walked back to their packs.
Recently, there have been efforts to maintain good relations and get climbers to participate. We started the Gunks Climbers' Coalition back in 2002 (I'm the secretary and webmaster). We're working on opening more areas to climbing, fund raising for rescue equipment, annual clean-ups, and we put on climber events (slideshows by Henry Barber, Eric Horst, John Bragg, Russ Clune, Al DeMaria, and others). We are currently organizing a letter-writing campaign to open climbing up in Minnewaska, beyond the Peter's Kill area. See our website http://gunksclimbers.org for information about who to write to (they are accepting comments until August 11th), and send me a message if you'd like to get on our mailing list.
Great thread, fun pictures!
Jannette
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jstan
climber
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Jul 31, 2008 - 02:02pm PT
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J:
You guys are plenty gnarly. You don't need no stinking credentials.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Jul 31, 2008 - 02:10pm PT
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I remember picking trash up on the road back
in the early to mid 70's. (I think Jstan lured us
poor climbers by dropping change on the road--
I always picked up at least a dollar's worth doing
trash duty)!
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jstan
climber
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Jul 31, 2008 - 02:48pm PT
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Steve:
Weren't you the one who got the ten spot? I remember that.
Two of us picked up $20 apiece on Route 120 at the last Facelift. Well that is not strictly correct. Hollywood found the twenty but the TV crew gave me twenty for some reason. We stuck both bills in the wallet I had just found and gave it to Ed to give to Ken. That same day I found the bungee cord I am still using on my bicycle.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Geno...start posting pictures.
Russ Raffa On Scary Aria.
Rich G on first pitch of Endro Man.
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TomMc
Trad climber
Massachusetts
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My oh my, what a wonderful thread. The Gunks hold a very special place in my heart, as do all the friends and climbing partners from those days. Both the rock and the people are the very best, it was good to see pictures of both.
My favorite "good old days" story of the Gunks comes from my first visit, Labor Day weekend 1967. I have a photo of us eating lunch down below the Uberfall along the road. There were 6 cars there! Thats all! The fee was 50 cents a day, and Joe Donahue (remember him?) was the Mohonk ranger before Tom Scheuer.
The names and photos urged me to dig out my old guidebooks (Art Gran '64 and Dick Williams '72) to recall some of my past. I was fortunate to have climbed lots of 5.9's and 10's in the early/mid-1970's with some of the best; Kevin and Barbara Bien, John Bragg, Steve Arsenault, Steve Wunsch, Bob Jahn, Spaff Ackerly, Howie Doyle, and others. What a pleasure to see their names and pictures.
Does anyone know what happened to Bob Richardson or Harvey Goldstein? I see Al Rubin occasionally here in western Mass., and actually got to the Gunks to climb last summer for the first time in 12 years.
I'd love to come down for the reunion in October. Can anyone provide me with any details? E-mail me direct at: tom@southfacefarm.com.
John Stannard: You were a very important integral part of the the Gunks climbing history, not only for pushing the limits but also for your clean climbing ethics and community work spirit. Train or plane or flying carpet, y'gotta come east in October for the reunion.
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wombat
Trad climber
NY, NY
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wow - the tree at the base of enduro man has grown quite alot!
we were over there a little while back (on TR) and discussing the merits and tactics for protecting the pitch on lead. plan 1 was to jump for the tree, plan 2 was to pre-sling the tree with a stick to hold out the sling towards the rock to make it easier to reach. barring that, solo seemed to be the most likely option. we have not yet availed ourselves of any of those yet. great moves, proud lead.
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DanaB
climber
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I'm pretty sure in that group photo with Bragg, Rosenfeld, et al, it's actually Bill Ravitch that's hiding behind the tree. Rick Cronk is also in the picture, and I believe it's Barbara Devine who is being belayed on To Have or Have Not.
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Rickster
Trad climber
Pine Bush,NY
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Thank you Dana, we've been trying to fathom who was behind the tree. I'm pretty sure this was a day spent on and around "To Have and Have Not". At some time while Barb was up top, a toaster sized rock came off and slammed in not few feet from the belay. Everyone goes diving left and right and all David can do is stand there tied short to the tree. Being a good man on a rope, he stayed the course and held on. RC
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DanaB
climber
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Gene,
Thanks for posting those photos. At last, there is some photographic evidence that I really do climb. I had a lot of fun climbing with you that summer, and I still haunt the 'Gunks - I was up there yesterday. Remember Roger's Rock with Todd and Patty? I just went back there a week ago, the paddle out and the climbing are still a blast. Take care.
Dana Bartlett
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Hey Dana, I just top-roped evidence that you really do climb---Night Fall. Holy crap, I thought 5.10 X would be a fair grade. How the hell did you protect that thing?
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Bob Jahn on April Showers...I think....1977.
Rich G again on Endro Man
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DanaB
climber
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Hi Rich,
There was no protection, and I thought that it was solid to hard 5.10; I've climbed enough at the 'Gunks to know that. I have no idea why Dick downrated it to 5.9. It's definitely much harder.
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DanaB
climber
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Gene,
Those photos of Balrog made me think of something else we did in that area. Remember doing Nurdland?
Dana
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DanaB
climber
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Someone has to live here . . .
Dana
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Wow! What a trip down the memory carriage road. Thanks to all for the pics and comments.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Dana...you dissing my hometown?? Look me up if you make it out this way.
Todd...long time no see. Hope all is well?
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Dana,
Great to hear from you.
Of course I remember that June of 81. I just got out of an Army school and had 30 days off. I was so psyched to climb! I met up you and we climbed a bunch of B-side and other classics:
Nerdland
Nemisis
Welcome to the Gunks
Midnight Cowboy
October Country
Shake and Bake
Jean
Maria Direct
No existence
This Petty Pace
and we also climbed Two Bits on Rogers Rock with Todd Swain and Patty Lanzetta.
I picked up a lot watching you climb thin face. I remember you had this minimalist rack: all hollow biners and couple wires. You didn't waste time putting in much of it either! I searched for more pics of you, but those were the only ones I had.
Look forward to climbing with you this October at the Reunion! Also Laura and I will be climbing in the Gunks 10-12 Aug and 16-23 Aug if you'd like to meet us. PM me.
Geno
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Here are a couple scans:
Mike Freeman on No Exit:
A climber moving out on Modern Times:
Rosie Andrews on No Comment:
[img]
Rosie on Fissure Ramin:
Jeff Gruenberg on Square Meal:
Jeff on Welcome to the Gunks:
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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A few shots of my struggles on Foops back in 82:
I always thought it would be easy once I got the bucket at the lip but it wasn't for me. I fell pretty far at this point.
Here is another climber trying:
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Here are a few shots of people from the late 70s/early 80s:
Rick Cronk:
Rick who is the guy to the right?
Harvey Arnold:
Manny on the left. Mike Sawicky on the right.
Bobby do you know this guy?
Gary Garret and Steve Jones.
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Bobby D, I just snapped my achilles while bouldering last week and am now perfecting my armchair routine. I'm living in Bellingham and doing well though not climbing much due to the crazy long ski seasons. I'll be back!
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jstan
climber
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If asked why that climb gets so much attention I would have to guess it
is because of the bucket at the lip. You can see where you have to get
to. The roof I really regret our doing was all slopey and roundy out there.
Once on the face it was most definitely not all over.
If no one had done it people could still look up and wonder. Answers don't
keep you awake at night wondering.
Only questions do that.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Great shots everyone. Keep them flowing.
Geno...the guy with Gary is Steve Jones...his brother Cory use to a ranger.
This is me trying my best to break my neck on Generation Gap...maybe the biggest sandbag in the Gunks.
Todd...sorry about the ankle...weren't you just in town climbing with Dan?
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Bones (AKA as Jersey Jeff) on Lotus Flower...1982?
Mike Freeman on...
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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What does the word Foops mean, and/or how was it derived? Is it just a play on "Oops!"?
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Rickster
Trad climber
Pine Bush,NY
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Geno, I haven't a clue who the first fellow is . I'm pretty sure that is Manny with Sawicky. RC
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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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From Swain:
Legend has it that John Salathe was rappeling in Yosemite and found his rope too short to reach a ledge. The disgruntled Salathe was heard to exclaim in a heavy Swiss accent "Foops (whoops), no more rope!" He then cut off the ends of his rope and prussiked back up to the anchor.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Our dear Kevin on Supercrack.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Divad, if Swain repeated that story about Foops, he ought to have used it with attribution, because it comes from Art Gran's original 1964 guide to the Gunks.
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Kligfield
Mountain climber
Boulder, CO
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And the "Foops" story is initially discussed in the 1959 (?) cover article on the Gunks in Sports Illustrated--the one in which Jim McCarthy is shown aiding across the Foops roof on the second ascent.
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Yes, "Up Against the Wall" is the route Mike is on.
Curt
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 8, 2008 - 01:40am PT
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Well, it just wouldn't a proper Gunks thread without a Vulgarian gross-out! Got my Jones back and had to post this shot of Dick Williams on Shockley's Cieling. Art Gran photo courtesy of Ed Cooper in Climbing in North America, 1976.
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david r
climber
WA now NY then
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Hello All,
Hi Steve! Hi Bob D, Hello Rick, stay seated Idle Rich...
This will be my first post..
I thought that some of you might find this interesting...
The cover of Vulgarian Digest (Spring 1972):
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david r
climber
WA now NY then
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and another...
Kevin And Barbara in a classic pose from a memorable trip to Boulder in the summer of '77
Many Gunks climbers were there including Romano, The Idle Rich, and many others...
Many of us slept in the (vacated for summer) rooms of a very animal house-like
CU fraternity where jumping off the roof and out of windows into the swimming pool
was a frequent occurance...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 10, 2008 - 08:12pm PT
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Welcome maestro Rosenfeld!
Now I actually have a way to contact you! Where is the other pair for the Milton Boulder chicken fight?!?
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LCS
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Aug 11, 2008 - 07:13am PT
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David R, Remember our hike out to Lost City and our trip "out west" in 1975??
From left to right are Russ Raffa, Rich Ross, Mike Robbins, David Feinberg and David Rosenfeld
Here's a young David R and Feinberg
Rich Ross
Harvey Arnold, David R and Matt Munchnik in Eldorado 1975
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david r
climber
Seattle now NY then
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Aug 11, 2008 - 11:32am PT
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L,
Great to see those photos... Though it is sometimes a bit difficult to separate
out which trip was which!
Still feeling a huge impact from last fall and looking forward to Gunks II
an attempt at Crack of Bizarre Delights, late 70s... in the end Kevin led and others followed:
note: original image which was backward has been flipped
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Aug 11, 2008 - 11:47am PT
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Not shots of climbers back in the day but rather shots of back-in-the-day climbers climbing (still). This post just ain't gettin' any love---almost off page 2 without even a heckle, so I thought I'd give it a chance at life here.
Septuagenarians on Parade
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Aug 11, 2008 - 11:47am PT
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Not shots of climbers back in the day but rather shots of back-in-the-day climbers climbing (still). This post just ain't gettin' any love---almost off page 2 without even a heckle, so I thought I'd give it a chance at life here.
Septuagenarians on Parade
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david r
climber
Seattle now NY then
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Aug 11, 2008 - 12:46pm PT
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RIch,
The pics of Williams are great...
Having turned 50 last year and thinking about climbing and aging, his example is truly inspiring...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 12, 2008 - 10:29am PT
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Sweeeeeeeeet Shot!
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scuffy b
climber
Zeno's Paradise
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Aug 12, 2008 - 12:31pm PT
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This must be the first sighting of Munchnik on ST
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Aug 12, 2008 - 12:56pm PT
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Lovely shot, John!
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david r
climber
Seattle now NY then
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Aug 12, 2008 - 05:22pm PT
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guys, it is Matt Muchnick (only one "n")
cheers...
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Rickster
Trad climber
Pine Bush,NY
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Aug 13, 2008 - 07:50am PT
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Davey, The shot of CBD is backwards dude! I've got the last in the series of you at the lip. I think Joan was on camera that day. Good to see you've been scanning. We had a scanning frenzy going on last evening. There will be big surprises going way, way, way back. And, more to come for Gunks II. LCS is in dyno mode.
On a related note, 2010 will be the 75th anniversary of Gunks climbing. RC
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david r
climber
Seattle now NY then
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Aug 13, 2008 - 10:02am PT
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rick,
ok.. image has been flipped..
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Aug 18, 2008 - 04:43pm PT
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Skytop and Open Cockpit....simply beautiful. If my memory serve me well that is Mark Robinson leading.
Oakie...love that image of your at Skytop.
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Gunksgoer
Trad climber
nj
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Aug 18, 2008 - 09:07pm PT
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Skytop probably has the best rock ive seen anywhere.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Aug 19, 2008 - 07:37pm PT
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Welcome to the Gunks...1977
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Aug 19, 2008 - 11:28pm PT
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Good morning Geno and Laura....two months and counting.
Skytop...again.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Aug 20, 2008 - 10:00am PT
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Sandy Stewart...PR...1978
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Aug 25, 2008 - 11:00pm PT
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Richie Romano on the Winter...
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Aug 26, 2008 - 11:50am PT
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Geno on Simple Suff
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Aug 28, 2008 - 10:38am PT
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Stemming through Simple Suff is not the best way for a 50 year old to wake up. Thanks Bob
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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This is a photo of Rosie Andrews, one of the great Gunks climbers from the 70s-early 80s. I learned a lot climbing with her. She had incredible technique and nerves of steel. Rosie is climbing Kevin Bein's test piece: No Comment 5.11+ PG in this photo:
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Harv
Trad climber
Nederland, CO
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For those of you who have asked about the "reunion" at the Gunks this fall, the main day is going to be October 18th where I will be giving a slide show centering on the people and climbing in the seventies. There will be a lot of people coming early to recapture the feeling on being on good rock and Bob D told me that there would be some top ropes in the Slime area for those who have lost the penchant of leading hard climbs.
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Sep 21, 2008 - 12:08pm PT
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To me "Gunks" and "Vulgarians" are inseparable. For a little history I refer you to www.bardini.org and the anecdote "Who created the Vulgarians?"
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Rickster
Trad climber
Pine Bush,NY
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Oct 14, 2008 - 06:17pm PT
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Keeping the thread alive. Gunks II has begun. Folks are slowly arriving in town. This past weekend the place was packed out as usual. Parking lots were near full by 9 am with normal climbing traffic as well as leaf peepers, dog walkers, runners, bikers, and many others. Many climbs had continuous activity from sunrise to sunset and beyond. It looks to be a great week of memories revisited and some new ones to come. RC
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Jim E
climber
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Oct 15, 2008 - 11:49am PT
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mega bump!
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Rickster
Trad climber
Pine Bush,NY
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Oct 15, 2008 - 04:54pm PT
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Sorry, but someone had to do it. RC
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 16, 2008 - 12:36am PT
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more nostalgia
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Anastasia
climber
Not there
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Oct 16, 2008 - 02:03am PT
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Bumping
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cliffmama
Trad climber
Noo Jerzee
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Oct 17, 2008 - 11:26am PT
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Does anyone know if the party starts some time before the slide show, or at the same time as the slide show on Saturday? Don't know what time to arrive...
Jannette
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Rickster
Trad climber
Pine Bush,NY
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Oct 17, 2008 - 11:12pm PT
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7pm. Slides are a side show in adjacent room.RC
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cliffmama
Trad climber
Noo Jerzee
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Oct 22, 2008 - 01:34pm PT
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Anyone have pictures to post from the events this weekend? I have a few, will post in a day or two.
Jannette
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Oct 22, 2008 - 01:39pm PT
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Nice pix, Oakie!
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Oct 22, 2008 - 04:55pm PT
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Note shots on Gunks Reunion 2008 thread.
Keep 'em comin' (and leave a comment to keep the thread alive...)
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Oct 23, 2008 - 10:07am PT
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The guy in the fifth photo is Doug Fosdick. In the 201-220 section with the caption "Bobby D do you know this guy?"
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Oct 25, 2008 - 09:35am PT
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Rich Ross, Thanks for input on the Fosdick photo. Laura had a that slide. We couldn't figure who it was. Geno
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Oct 25, 2008 - 09:37am PT
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Oakie, You take brilliant photos. Can you provide some information on that last one? Geno
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Oct 26, 2008 - 09:24am PT
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Damn, Oakie, that photo with the ink colored sky is superb.
Bobby D, Your shots are awesome too. Did you get a good one of the sky from the parking overlook after it was raining in the Nears last Thursday?
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Oct 27, 2008 - 09:11pm PT
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Anyone know who these guys are? This is one of earliest pictures of a group that would make a name for themselves first in the Shawangunks and then in American Mountaineering. There's a lot of clues in the photo.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Oct 27, 2008 - 10:34pm PT
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I'm guessing here. The guy leaning on the car looks like he could be the young McCarthy. Next from L to R is, I think, Roman Sadowy, then Dick Williams. I'm not sure who the next guy is, and then last on the right is Al DeMaria.
If any stills can be extracted from Steve's video of the visit with the Vulgarians on that day during the reunion that they let them out of the Bide-a-Wee Old Climbers Rest Home, you can see just what age has done to some of these studs.
On the other hand, the fact that they're all still pullin' down (ever so much more gently) fifty plus years later oughta count fer somethin'.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 28, 2008 - 01:00am PT
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Them studs may be old but they sure ain't rusty or unreliable! Must be that they are solid gold on the inside.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Oct 29, 2008 - 06:15am PT
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The photo I posted above was given to me last summer by Claude Suhl, one of the great Gunks climbers and a central Vulgarian figure. Claude provided introductory remarks as a member of the Vulgarian panel at Rock and Snow last Friday couched in what calls “mega-mystical cosmology.” Claude has a unique sense of humor that he uses to poke fun at science, psychology, and politics. He and his wife Alice have been strong supporters of the last two Gunks Reunions. They also have a son who is a U.S. Army Ranger. Getting to know them both has been one of the great experiences of attending the reunions these last couple years.
Anyway, I called Claude yesterday and he provided details on the picture.
These guys were members of the NY City College Outing Club (CCOC). It is March 1958 and they are in West Virginia looking for adventure (it is likely their School House Cave trip). The guy leaning on the car is Horst something (Claude couldn't remember his last name). But the rest of the gang will form the core of the Vulgarians in a few years:
-Roman Sadowy is tying the knot.
 The guy holding red licorice is Claude Suhl himself.
-Pete Geiser is wearing the red hat.
-Al DeMaria is wearing the red sweat shirt.
Rgold may have to advise us on a few details I may miss but from what Claude tells me at this point in time (1958):
-Dick Williams is in the US Navy in the Submarine Service (Claude reckons Dick may even be under the artic ice cap). Dick had been to the Gunks in 1957 but he won't link up with these guys until 1961.
-Jim McCarthy is already a leading Gunks activist. He started climbing in 1951.
-Art Gran is also a top Gunks climber who has met the CCOC guys and will put them under his wing at the Gunks and on trips out West.
-Dave Craft comes into the picture in Summer 1958 and is a very important catalyst in the eventual formation of the Vulgarians.
-Jim Andress is another important mentor to the CCOC guys. Jim served in WWII in the 10th Mountain Division and starts climbing in the Gunks in 1950.
-Rich Goldstone is 14 years old and starts climbing in the Summer of 1958 by climbing the Grand Teton.
Claude Suhl gave me a rough draft of the early Vulgarian history and what follows is an excerpt of what the CCOC boys did in their first few years. It’s important to realize that these climbs were being accomplished in boots/sneakers using Army ropes, slings and a few pitons. This is learning to climb during the “Iron Age.”
“Vulgarian Chronicals jugernaught
[author unknown but it could be Al DeMaria]
1957
Sept. - Oct : First meetings of CCOC. Attended by Suhl and Geiser meet Sadowy, [George] Bloom, Al D, others?. Suhl and Geiser excited to learn that CCOC members doing rock climbing, an area that both have serious interest in. See learning opportunity also possibilities of getting to "the mtns.", the ultimate goal.
Nov. - Dec?
1958
March? First rock climbing trip to Breakneck Ridge, with Art [Gran]?. Gunks seen in distance.
First time to Gunks. Climbing with Gran. Yellow Belly [5.7] free is maximum climb.
April (Al D)
School house cave trip. Rappeling climbing in cave requires prior knowledge of climbing therefore climbing already begun. "Terse Wiry" term coined from "terse wiry leader" reference in climbing book.
June (Al D)
Crag Camp/White Mtns trip followed by climbing at Pocomoonshine, 2nd ascent of Catharsis.
Summer:
Every weekends climbing at cliffs independent of AMC. Probably up to and including 5.7 (Yellow Belly). Craft goes to Bugaboos with Dave Isles and party do East Ridge of Bugaboo. Meet [Jim] Craft,[Jim] Andress, {Jim] McCarthy; Gran "adopts" CCOC climbers. Craft, Andress become regular partners with CCOC climbers. CCOC climbers leading probably including 5.7 (Yellow Belly). An "Independent" group starts to form.
September (Al D)
Kathadin trip. Suhl and Geiser do first alpine type climb of new route on Kathadin headwall. Bushwack to base was hardest part.
Fall
Birdland [5.9] put in [by Mccarthy, Andress and Ruppley]. climbing breakthrough. Some friction developing between "independents" and AMC for not following AMC climbing guidelines.re leading and following (i.e. all the 4's before the 5's, etc.). A number of the CCOC'ers who had started climbing that spring begin leading. This particularly aggravates the AMC.”
Al DeMaria leading in the Gunks with hammer and pitons:
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Oct 29, 2008 - 09:43am PT
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Great photo!!!!! Rich's mis-ID of the fellow leaning against the car as the "young McCarthy", made me realize that I don't recall ever seeing a picture of "the young Mac", or the young Art Gran, either. So if anyone has such photos, or similar ones of other local characters in their younger days, please post 'em. As for the VMC chronology---more great stuff. Is a book actually in the works? If so, I'll place my order now!!!!!
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Oct 31, 2008 - 09:06am PT
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Al and all,
There is a guy writing a book about Gunks climbing that will no doubt include previously unpublished stories about the Vulgarians. I am sure it'll be a great read. In the meantime, here are a few more details and pictures from Claude Suhl's archives.
The year is 1959. The City College Outing Club guys have met Dave Craft and others. They are climbing with Jim Mccarthy, Art Gran as well as coming in contact with other great climbers of this era. The pictures and text that follows is mostly of climbing in the Bugaboos. Claude tells me they took few pictures of themselves climbing in the Gunks. Although they were Gunks climbers what they really wanted to do was climb mountains.
"Vulgarian Chronicals jugernaught[unknown author-could be Al DeMaria] (continued).
1959
Spring: Weekend climbing trips to Gunks
Birth of the Vulgarians
Sometime in June at an early proto-rave, Dick William’s good buddy Jack Hansen, looking around a firelit circle of carousing Independent climbers exclaimed "why you guys are a bunch of Vulgarians". The name seemed somehow appropriate and began to be used by the independents to describe themselves. It also became used by the AMC but with very different intent. The "boys" were becoming a problem for the tightly structured AMC climbing environment that had become the unofficial "controlling authority" for climbing in the Gunks. The independents discovered that their outlandish and irreverent behavior on the rocks was a potent weapon in keeping the AMC at bay. After all, how to handle a bunch of young, loud, foul mouthed hooligans who were also excellent climbers was a daunting problem for the rather strait-laced Appies.
July:
Begining of "sport" climbing - First placement of bolt while on top rope: McCarthy and Suhl on Turdland.
August:
The Vulgarians meet the Bugaboos
and
the Bugaboos meet the Vulgarians
This particular adventure was probably really Dave Craft’s fault.
Picture of Dave Craft:
The previous summer Dave had disappeared from the Gunks to purportedly visit a fabled range of “real” mountains that the Vulgarians had never heard of; the Bugaboos. Dave returned with great tales of gleaming granite spires, rising gloriously out of glaciers. Most of the peaks had only a single route and were therefore virtually unclimbed; tales of Snowpatch Spire, the mountain with the hardest “normal” route in North America climbed only a handful of times; of Bugaboo Spire and the of the even more challenging Howsers with it’s South Tower which had only been climbed once. What was even more enticing was that this climbing Shangri-La was a mere 2500 miles away and on the same continent!
By the time the summer of 59 rolled around a Vulgarian raiding party had formed with plans for an assault on this fabulous treasure. The fact that this would be the first time that any of them except for Craft had even been in an alpine environment was considered a mere bagatelle.
Anyway with all the overweening overconfidence of youth, plans were made, gear assembled and an assault team consisting of Gran, Craft, Geiser, Sadowy and Suhl formed. The only thing that now stood in their way was a little problem of money.
Only two people in this group, Craft and Gran, had regular paying jobs. Geiser, Sadowy and Suhl consequently had to spend the first part of the summer working in the south Bronx for Senator Frozen Products, a tiny mom and pop ice cream manufacturer that was coincidently about to give rise to an ice cream revolution.
Because Senator was a Teamster union shop, and because manual labor actually got a living wage in those days, they managed to accumulate sufficient boodle to finance their planned venture. Not only did they get the boodle, but they also intersected with an historic moment in the ice cream business, the birth of Hagen-Dazs. At the time, Senator Frozen Products, a family affair, was under a lot of rather hard ball pressure from it’s much larger competitors, so in the summer of 1959, in a last ditch effort to stave off bankruptcy they decided to create a product that they were pretty sure their competitors couldn’t match, namely the first commercially available super-premium ice cream. Boy did they get that one right!
Although the “boys” didn’t know that they were witness to ice cream history, they did know when they’d accumulated the necessary funds for the western adventure. Consequently, towards the end of July, the necessary $ in hand, the five man assault team with all its gear, squeezed into Art's 57 Olds and headed west.
NY, NY to Spilamacheen, BC; two and a half 24 hour days of driving across pre-interstate America. Eternal 2 lane arrow straight blacktops leading to the tiny town of Spilamacheen and Jim Pauls(?) gas station. $25/person got you a place in his jeep/trailer combo. 3 or 4 hours of four wheeling in the long Canadian evening through the still, semi-virginal BC wilderness, got you to the so-called trailhead; an abandoned lumber camp.
There the party met John Rupley and Hans Krause already climbing for a week or so and come out for more supplies. Morning comes and staggeringly heavy packs are mounted for the 4.5 mile ascent to Boulder camp. A network of game trails leads to the foot of the moraine along which there's a fairly well beaten path which unfortunately dissolves into a maze of boulders, scree and shrubbery protecting the final (steep, really MF'ing steep) hump into Boulder camp:
Boulder Camp is pretty crowded, Ed Cooper is camped under the "Boulder", Fred Becky and his climbing partner are hacking away at the first ascent of Snowpatch East face, while off away from all the hurly burly of Boulder Camp, Krause and Rupley have pitched camp up in the Pigeon - Hauser col.
A day or so of "acclimatization" and the Vulgarian party makes the 32nd ascent of Snowpatch; feels great, running around these hills. Various day ascents are made of Anniversary and Pigeon peaks, and a visit to the Krause - Rupley camp while Gran and Cooper start to work on the East face of Bugaboo.
Pictured from left to right is Claude Suhl, Art Gran and possibly Ed Cooper:
Geiser and Sadowy join forces with Becky and under Fred's tutelage, and a long day, knock off the first ascent of the west face of Bugaboo.
Picture of Roman Sadowy:
Picture of Al DeMaria:
Picture of Claude Suhl:
At the end of the first week there are a few more arrivals, Bill Kemsley(?), following the directions left with Jim Paul to " Don't bring food, bring beer " actually packs in two cases of beer instead of food and declares himself a ward of the camp. About this same time Roger Chorley of Himalayan fame, where he also contracted polio leaving him with only one fully functioning leg, showed up as well.
After about two weeks of escapading about the Bugs,with the weather deteriorating, the VMC party departed for the Tetons. Without knowing it many US climbers had fallen in the ways of the old trapper parties who used to rendezvous annually in Jackson Hole at summers end. So the "boys", although initially side tracked into the Jenny Lake camp ground, soon discovered that the party was in full swing at the old CCOC camp. There, a bunch of hard core California climbers including Yvon Chouinard and Ken Weeks were living in the old abandoned ovens and pushing the envelope with new difficult rock routes. In fact Chouinard was just recovering from a rather nasty fall off a new line he and Weeks (?) had been pushing on the Broken thumb. He'd zippered a bunch of pins on an overhanging section of the route kissing the rock with his knee when he swung into the wall as Weeks caught him off the last pin. They then proceeded to self rescue, bushwacking down in the dark, a particularly painful experience for Yvon when the occasional branch would whack him on his newly insulted knee. Needless to say the Vulgarians were impressed.
Although there wasn't a lot of climbing that got done, a couple of rock climbs on Disappointment and Black Tail Butte, the Climbers camp was great. There, there was much partying and palavering as well as trips into Jackson Hole. Jackson in those days of yore was still a sleepy western town. A place where at noon you could practically go to sleep on Main street and not have to worry about getting hit by a car; old dogs moseying along, the occasional cowboy, the odd citizen and almost no tourists.
Art Gran leading in the Tetons:
In addition to the Yosemite crew, the Vulgarians also met the climbing Rangers who manned the Jenny Lake ranger station and saved the odd climber and/or lost hiker. Pete Sinclair, Dave Dornan, Sterling Neal, etc. were a bunch of very decent guys and outstanding climbers with a "live and let live" attitude towards the goings on at Climbers camp. Ultimately it was time to leave. Time to get back to school."
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Bill Hutchins
Trad climber
Maryland
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Oct 31, 2008 - 09:57am PT
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This thread is just wonderful! Geno, please post more of the Vulgarian notes. I started climbing in the Gunks back in the 60s and find the notes a treat to read. How cool it must have been for a bunch of kids from NYC to climb in a car, drive to the Bugaboos and encounter Becky and Kraus and then meet up with Chouinard in the Tetons.
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Oct 31, 2008 - 10:16am PT
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Amazing Geno....way to go.
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Oct 31, 2008 - 10:45am PT
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Very cool!
Geno (or others who know) - would Kraus have been on friendly terms with the Vulgarian crew by then, after they'd been climbing in the Gunks for a full season or two?
Would they even likely have known the other party was going to be a the Bugaboos?
GO
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Oct 31, 2008 - 12:50pm PT
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I'm reading Claude's wonderful account of the early Vulgarian days with interest and delight. I was still a teenager just getting into climbing as the Vulgarians were forming and was certainly not a part of the group. My first encounter with them occurred in the old climber's camp in the Tetons, a place that used to be at the epicenter of Americian climbing, not so much because of the Teton climbs themselves but because over the course of a summer, nearly every active climber in the country seemed to pass through the climber's camp on the way to or from adventures in other ranges.
Except for what one would nowadays call minimal instruction from a few Exum-guided climbs, I learned about climbing on my own, primarily from books. (And hoo boy, there were some doosies back then. The AAC published a handbook by Kenneth Henderson that recommended such bombproof techniques as the knee belay---don't ask...and the there was Charles Wilts' book called, I think, "On Climbing," that expounded still on the virtues of nailed boots over "rubbers" and included such tie-in esoterica as the Tarbuck Knot.) Anyway, my impressionable adolescent psyche had been deeply influenced by the purple pro---uh, the lyrical writing---of Gaston Rebuffat. From his books I learned about the beauty of the mountaineering experience, the brotherhood of the rope, the necessity of being fashionably attired at all times, and the imperative that under no circumstances was the leader ever to allow the perfect geometrically vertical lines of his rope to be broken by pictorially distracting protection points.
Thusly stuffed to the gills with matching-patterned-sweater-and-knicker-socks idealism, I made my way to the climbers' camp. Oh, the horror! The place was infested with badly dressed, apparently unwashed, and thoroughly unkempt vermin, drinking, copulating, disrupting Teton Tea parties, roaring around the loop road in their Triumphs, sounding the Vulgaraphone, and indulging in all manner of activities impossible to carry out in woolen knickers. I feverishly consulted my copies of Neige et Roc and Etoiles et Tempetes (you don't think I would deign to read bad English translations of The Master, do you?) for protective incantations against these alpine demons, no doubt the same ones feared by the early peasants venturing into the heights for the first time, now somehow transplanted from Chamonix to Jackson, screaming like the hounds of hell in the throes of the feverish blood lust stimulated by the scent of my dry-cleaned climbing outfits.
As I cowered behind Orrin Bonney's teepee, watching the End of Days in progress before me, I realized that the apocalypse had arrived, probably during my AP Calculus class, and that from now on Fire and Brimstone would be replacing Starlight and Storm. Still, I managed to cling to one eternal verity: these were not Real Climbers.
No way.
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jstan
climber
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Oct 31, 2008 - 01:11pm PT
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We all choose different things that we allow to affect us. Many were much affected by the "White Spider", a book I never encountered. The French ascent of Annapurna alpine style affected me.
When you get into marginal situations, invariably the dangers begin to roll up and multiply. When your fingers get too cold to button your coat you have to choose to let core temperature drop long enough to get your hands working. When you have not got the strength to remove your crampons, you know you are sacrificing your feet to frostbite.
If you choose to visualize it this way, climbing can be nothing other than you and your relationship with a rock. The rock has no feelings. It is neutral. You own it all. if you manage it properly and think ahead things don't tend to roll up.
The rock and you both come out ahead.
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rbob
climber
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Oct 31, 2008 - 01:13pm PT
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wow! makes the bugaboos these days seem like a a fully-furnished alpine crag... oh wait...
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Oct 31, 2008 - 01:25pm PT
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It should be noted that rgold's incantations to The Master had little long term effect, as soon enough he too was "corrupted" by the Vulgarian ethos---and spread it to Devil's Lake where he infected a yet newer generation of innocents---such as myself----must've been the Teton Tea!!!!
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Oct 31, 2008 - 04:09pm PT
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Yes, as Al mentions, only a few years later I went over to the Dark Side. But it should be noted that, as was the case with so many of the 60's revolutionaries, the Vulgarians almost universally ended up as conventionally successful members of society. I remember Dave Craft, owner-manager of The North Light restaurant, shaking his head incredulously and saying, "I just threw out a bunch of guys acting just the way we used to act!"
One can't help wondering whether the Vulgarians weren't, in some sense, the creation of the conservative forces that fueled their rebellion, and that when they eventually ``won,'' they extinguished the foil required for their outlaw identities and so simultaneously lost both the context and pretext for their activities.
A few historical observations about Claude's account. I'm fairly sure it was Bob Kamps, not Ken Weeks, who caught Chouinard's 160' fall on the North Face of the Crooked Thumb. It was many years before the route was completed, I think by Pete Cleveland and Don Storjohann. Ken Weeks was, I think, hiding out from the FBI in the climbers' campground. He was AWOL from the US Army and had no intention of going back. The climbing rangers knew about this and looked the other way, but the FBI tracked him to the climbers' camp anyway and Weeks was arrested by supervisory ranger personnel.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Oct 31, 2008 - 04:33pm PT
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It was Cleveland and Storjohn who finally finished the Crooked Thumb route in 1966. One other factoid about Chouinard's fall is that he was wearing a swami belt (a few wraps of 1" tubular webbing around the waist usually knotted with a bowline on a coil--with no leg-loops--the rope was then either tied -in directly to the swami or clipped on with a locking biner), which was at the time an avant garde technique--most climbers simply tied-in by wrapping the rope directly around the waist. Chouinard attributed his lack of internal injuries to this system--appropriately, it seems--so that this eventually became the normal method of tying-in for a number of years (with various modifications to add leg-loops to the system for some)until decent harnesses became available in the early '70s.
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jstan
climber
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Oct 31, 2008 - 04:39pm PT
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Now I never heard of tying a swami with a bowline on a coil. The rope yes, not the swami. After we started using a swami we used what looked like a follow-thru fisherman's.
Still do.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Oct 31, 2008 - 07:57pm PT
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Glad you all enjoyed Claude's stash of pictures and the journal. It may be a rough draft but it's enjoyable to read what those college boys dared to do. Thanks to Rgold, Al Rubin and Jstan for filling in some of the blanks. Here's another couple pages:
"Vulgarian Chronicles jugernaught [continued]
Fall: The fall of 59 saw the first climbing death in the Shawangunks. A fall on High Corner. It was pretty shocking, but even more shocking was the use that the AMC attempted to make of it. Apparently increasingly unhappy with the activities of the "independents (e.g. Vulgarians primarily)", the AMC saw this as an opportunity to regain the power that they seemed to feel slipping away. On the other hand the Vulgarians were feeling rather feisty as they now included many of the best climbers and they had also survived their first encounter with "serious" climbing, i.e. the "mountains".
Here's an early bouldering photo.
Claude Suhl
Uberfall crowd.
In addition to ignoring the strictures that the AMC attempted to place on them, a new weapon now emerged, the "Rave". The Rave, a term probably coined by Craft who sort of used it as his "War cry" at the very loud drunken Saturday night parties that began to take place. These parties, often accompanied by makeshift musical instruments, such as metal guard railing, logs and an assortment of plumbing remnants, were used to drive the AMC crazy and out of their traditional nesting ground at the Wickie -Wackie camping area, which the Vulgarians then took over as a sort of war trophy. Not content with driving the AMC from Wickie-Wackie, the Vulgarians continued to occasionally harass the poor buggers at whatever place they chose to camp. It was unconventional and asymmetric warfare at it’s best.
December: Winter attempt on Wall Face Al D, Gran, Geiser, Suhl. Packing in on snow shoes to sleep in a lean-to in the artic cold. Upon awakening in the morning with the temperature about -10F and a snow covered wall in front of them, discretion seemed the better part of valor, so they backed off and spent the remainder of the day in the New Paltz bars.
1960
Craft moves to California
1961
Summer:
Yosemite Climbing Camp 4, Arches, Washington Column. Lost Arrow with Chouinard.
Suhl on Lost Arrow:
[note: This photo may actually be Dick Williams who was known for his gymnastic athleticism and for doing handstands in improbable places. I will ask Claude].
Suhl and Geiser go to tetons via Rail (Death) and Preacher Jim. Climbers camp and return.
Fall: Chouinard makes the eastern scene. Arriving without any visible means of support other than a chest full of his new chromoly pins, Yvon sells them like hot-cakes to the local climbers. Holy cow! And Great Gugamuga! A piton that you can use more than 2 or 3 times and that doesn’t take 15 minutes of pounding to remove! It was a whole new world. Whoever said the “East is the east and the West is the west and never the twain shall meet.” Couldn’t have had it more wrong. The west bringing high technology to the east and the east recriprocating with some classically steep climbs, Vulgarianism and several great Raves including one that that culminated with one of the most spectacular Aurora’s that anyone had seen, and Yvon was made an ex-officio member of the VMC. "
More to follow...
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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All,
The "Vulgarian Chronology jugernaught" from Claude Suhl I have been posting is slightly different than Dick Williams' Climbing History that is published in his: The Climber's Guide to The Shawangunks. One must really read Dick's history along side this rough draft. Dick Williams does a fabulous job describing the Vulgarian Era in the context of climbing in the Gunks and in American mountaineering.
So if you can, review: The Cimber's Guide to The Shawangunks, The Trapps, by Dick Williams, p 15-22. 2004.
The best price I found is at the Rock and Snow site:
http://www.rockandsnow.com/store/product/2987/THE-CLIMBER%27S-GUIDE-TO-THE-SHAWANGUNKS%3A-THE-TRAPPS/
It is also contained in his earlier guides.
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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The Original Vulgarian
John Hansen
1937-2005
By Don Lauria
I met John Hansen in the fall of 1961. We were both working as engineers at North American Aviation in El Segundo, California. I had just returned from vacation and my first excursion to the summit of a Sierra peak. The traditional routine was to pass around any photos from one’s trip for all to see. One of my colleagues, upon returning my box of slides, mentioned he knew a guy in the Computer Department who was an avid mountaineer and asked if he could show the slides to him. I said okay and a little later he returned with John Hansen.
Hansen was not too tall, maybe 5’ 9”, but very wide, very fit, built like an ape. He had a New York accent, a cauliflower ear, a mischievous laugh, and a great gift of gab. He immediately needed to know of my entire personal mountaineering history (which at that moment involved a single non-technical Sierra peak). He asked if I was interested in learning to climb. I asked if he meant with ropes and stuff. He answered that, of course, ropes, pitons, ice axes, crampons - all that stuff! I replied that he must be kidding – I was definitely not interested. He insisted I go with him to Stoney Point and do some bouldering. Bouldering? I politely said no. He insisted. I said no again. He questioned my sense of adventure and suggested the coming weekend would be ideal for my introduction to rock climbing. For more than 15 minutes he parried my refusals. His persistence won out. That weekend would change my life.
I drove 35 miles to the San Fernando Valley where John lived with his wife and infant son and arrived at 7:00 AM, as agreed, to find him still in bed. He came to the door naked. “Oh man, sorry. I overslept. Come on in. I’ll be ready in a minute.” He returned to the bedroom. I could hear an infant crying and his wife’s complaining. He had obviously forgotten to tell her of his plans. He immerged from the bedroom wearing a beige wool sweater, brown corduroy knickers, mountain boots, and a navy blue beret. “Come on, let’s get something to eat.”
We stopped at an IHOP for pancakes. John’s beret and knickers got a few looks as we entered, but I was so absorbed in interesting and enthusiastic conversation about rock climbing, I soon forgot the stares.
I spent the entire Saturday climbing at Stoney in a pair of John’s mountain boots two sizes too small for me. He took me around the entire area, climbing everything in sight. By the end of the day I could barely lift my arms. I was exhausted - but was I stoked!
That evening at John’s apartment, he found a “not-so-dear-John” note from his wife – she had packed up and left with child. Seemingly unperturbed, John filled me with Gerwurztraminer and tales from his Vulgarian Shawangunks days. Well into the evening he talked about mountaineering – famous European and American climbers and climbing history. He pulled six mountaineering books off his shelf and insisted I take them home and read them. By the time I got home I was already planning my next weekend at Stoney Point.
I climbed four more times with John at Stoney Point, and then, on New Year’s Day 1962, he took me out to the Devil’s Backbone on Mt. San Antonio with my brand-new boots, brand-new ice axe, and brand-new crampons. He tied me into a 9mm rope and told me to take a running leap off the ridge down the steep north face to practice a self-arrest. My first attempt ended abruptly at the end of the rope. I had not only failed to slow my descent, I had forgotten to put on my brand-new leather gloves which left all the knuckles on both my hands bereft of skin. My second descent, with gloves, was successful and I figured that I had mastered the art – no need to do that again. My life as a mountaineer had begun.
John was a gregarious sort and he introduced me to many well known climbers including Yvon Chouinard, Bob Kamps, and several of his Vulgarian buddies like Jim McCarthy and Art Gran.
One November evening in 1961, we visited Chouinard in his little room in back of his parent’s home in Burbank. It was Yvon’s 23rd birthday. The evening could have been a bit more cheerful, but Yvon was due to report for his pre-induction physical the next morning and was not happy about it. However, Yvon had a plan. He heard that a sufficient amount of soy sauce consumed prior to a physical exam could raise one’s blood pressure to 4F levels. So John and I went out and bought a six pack of eight-ounce bottles of soy sauce and returned to watch Chouinard down as many as he could stand. The birthday party ended and later that week a very sick Yvon was inducted into the U.S. Army. The experiment had failed and Yvon ended up in Korea for two years. Yvon mentions this happening in his new book Let My People Go Surfing.
John and I climbed together just a few more times at Tahquitz Rock and in Yosemite through 1964 and then saw each other on mostly social occasions, some of which were memorable - and somewhat Vulgarian. Like the night he and Dave Huntsman went out in Dave’s VW to try out John’s new small caliber pistol. After attempting to shoot out a few street lights, John accidentally fired a round into his calf and refused to go to the emergency hospital fearing the required police report. Later, Dave forced him to seek treatment. Then there was the night at a small gathering in Dave’s home. John was challenged to an arm wrestling contest with a complete stranger at the kitchen table. After many seated minutes of stress and strain without an apparent winner, the two adversaries, still locked in combat, rose to their feet and fell across the kitchen table breaking the table’s legs and careened into the matching chairs doing irreparable damage to them also. It took three of us to pry them apart and three years for Mary Huntsman to forgive him.
It was in the early 70s that John’s profession became more important than his passion and after his second marriage to an assistant district attorney, he quit engineering and the sciences to become lawyer himself. A few years of individual practice tending to needy clientele and he realized he could not afford the profession. He quit law and returned to science. We remained distant friends for the next 41 years until his death in 2005.
Though not an exceptional climber, John was an exceptional person. He was an engineering physics graduate from Columbia University, a champion collegiate Greco-Roman wrestler, and a fierce liberal - politically and socially. He had the strength of an ox and intelligence bordering on genius. He could overhaul automobile engines as casually as he discussed celestial mechanics. He was conversant in the calculus of variations, a connoisseur of fine wines, and generous to a fault.
I’m relating this to you because, although few people have heard the name John (Jack) Hansen in connection with climbing or mountaineering, after all these years, I discovered something about John that he never shared with me – something that should be known. Something that should be part of climbing history.
Most of us that climb, or have climbed, have heard of the “Vulgarians” – the outrageous Shawangunk climbing cabal of the late 50s and early 60s. Here’s a little history from the gunks.com website - an excerpt from a conversation in August of 2004 with Dick Williams, one of the early Vulgarians and one of the many reputable climbers to come out of the Gunks:
Dick Williams - So, that particular morning we were all at the base of Never Never Land and [Jim] McCarthy is trying to do the direct finish. So anyway he’s up there - I don’t think I’d ever belayed anybody before - it was my first time, so I’d been watching some people belay and they’d belay over the shoulder with the rope under your armpit, like this, you know.
Interviewer - Wow.
Dick Williams - And Jim’s about to do this final bit and he looks down and he sees how I’m belaying. And he says, “You don’t belay someone my weight like that.” I said, “Ok.” and just dropped the rope. “If you don’t like it, get somebody else to do it.” Everyone goes racing to the rope. Jack Hansen gets a hold of the rope and puts him on belay. Jack Hansen was the guy who coined the phrase, “the Vulgarians” - he gave us that name.
Interviewer- He puts him on hip belay, right?
Dick Williams - Body belay, yeah. So Jim goes up, sure enough he falls and that big tree that’s there now was just a little sapling and the rope was behind it and it really broke the thing. John didn’t let any rope go through his hand - he probably [held] about a 30-footer.
So now you know what it took me 41 years to find out. Not only was Hansen a Vulgarian, John Hansen was the “original” Vulgarian.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Don, Thanks very much for your post! It is a really fine contribution to this thread and to our understanding of the history of the Vulgarians. Jack Hansen was quite a unique and interesting individual. Geno
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Steven Amter
climber
Washington, DC
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Wow, its really great, and important, that the pieces of the early gunks history/Vulgarians are being perserved and posted. Facinating! Hats off to Grossman for starting the thread, and all the great posters, particularly those who lived it. Big thanks to Geno for keeping it going.
way to go!
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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More Shawangunks stories and photos, please!
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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For THE IDLE RICH, In earlier sections of this thread is a photo you took of a climber leading Coexistence scanned from the Dick Dumais Shawangunk Rock Climbing book. Everyone thinks the person is Barbara Devine. For twenty plus years I have wondered if that was correct. I always thought it could be Spaff Ackerly? Can you shed any light on the subject? From another Rich.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Uh, Rich, Rich has already said it was Ackerly.
---Rich
The Gunks has, for some time, had an embarrassment of Riches.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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One year, McCarthy went out on a 90 degree 90% humidity windless summer day to do what anyone seeking a break from the oven-like conditions would do: burn the brush around his house. So he takes a can of gasoline, saturates a large area of brush, waits a bit for the fumes to fully envelop the area, and then, standing in the middle of it, lights a match.
Measurements taken later of the take-off footprints and landing butt-print suggest that Jim was then and probably still is the world's record-holder for the standing backwards broad jump.
After weeks of non-stop celebration of this feat of athletic prowess, hosted by the Columbia Presbyterian burn unit, Jim emerged, somewhat pinker than before, and also, thanks to enforced incactivity and hospital cuisine, just a tad on the heavy side. For his rehabilitation activity, he decided to join a group of us in the Needles in South Dakota.
Unfortunately, the Great Designer had not considered, when drawing up the Needles nubbin-load specifications, that anyone of Jim's post burn-unit avoirdupois would be entrusting their considerable heft to those tiny crystals. And so it was that the pine forests of Custer echoed with the snap, crackle, and pop of nubbins giving way under Jim's attempts at upward progress. Entire faces were left glassy smooth by his repeated efforts, mostly in vain, to find something to stand on that would hold him up long enough to take the next step.
And let us now speak of those who undertook to belay Jim on these forays into the realm of pinnacle-polishing. Imagine them seated on top of the spire du jour, sitting on a cushion of ever-so-unpolished Needles granite, like mystics on their bed of nails, awaiting that hemorroidal impact as Jim's footholds sheared, eyes beseeching the heavens for a quick end to the suffering they were about to endure.
Both the Needles and his partners were saved from extinction by the fact that the rehabilitation effort was successful, Jim's weight melted away, the nubbins stayed under foot, Jim rose up as in the days before, and all was right with the world again.
And yes, his brush problem was, at least for a while, solved.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Rgold, you are a master of visual imagery in telling the story of Jim McCarthy burning bush around his house. Jim was certainly a survivor of many harrowing adventures, some of which as you confirm were of his own doing.
Those who know Jim McCarthy will attest that he has many admirable traits that are revealed in his climbing as well as in his relations with others. Jim McCarthy was at the fore front of free climbing and mountaineering in America. He actually started climbing years earlier than the independents. Although he embraced them and is widely known as a member of the Vulgarians, Jim McCarthy’s climbing career actually spans from his association with Hans Kraus in the early 1950s to his present day leadership in access and other climbing causes. Here are a few notes that Art Gran wrote about Jim McCarthy in the first Climbing Guide to the Shawangunks, American Alpine Club Press, 1964, pages 17-18.
“The year was 1951, and a small group from Princeton arrived at the cliffs. One of the beginners mistakenly got paired with a much better climber; they set out to do Baby and, of course, the beginner would had to be “hauled up.” The leader never realized that the beginner would take this as a personal challenge. Jim McCarthy was there to stay. Jim worked his way up the scale with his close friend, Jim Ewing. While climbing at Sleeping Giant in Connecticut, Ewing took a leader fall, dislodging a rock which struck and killed him as the second was checking his fall. Jim was on another climb and did not see the accident. Crushed by the death of his close friend, he was forced to decide just how much climbing meant to him. The news of this reached Hans Kraus, and it reminded him so much of a similar catastrophe which had happened to his closest friend when they were climbing together in Austria, that he went out of his way to befriend Jim.
Jim, who had little, if any, equipment, started using the best, which Hans readily supplied. But Hans gave him much more than pitons and Karabiners; he taught him climbing lessons gained from years of climbing in the mountains under all conditions. This was the start of the golden age in the Shawangunks. In the a relatively short time, Jim became the best climber in the area and, together with Hans and their small group of friends he put in many of the prettiest routes on the cliffs. His small band made him a legend by convincing the AMC’s best climbers that he was climbing at a much higher level than they could ever reach. Actually his climbing was a shade higher; however, he was putting in the bulk of new routes.
The fall of 1958 saw the next major milestone: Retribution was put in on lead, using one stirrup., and a new higher standard was reached, heralding in the modern age of the Shawangunks. Never Never Land advanced the standard even further. Then Jim McCarthy put in his greatest classic, M.F. which achieved the top of the scale and stood at the dawn of a still higher standard. This new higher standard was reached in 1962 with the climbing of Retribution [5.10] without aid, and soon after that other very difficult climbs were done free.”
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Thanks RGOLD, That info from THE IDLE RICH must be on some other page. (Coexistence photo)
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the idle rich
climber
Estes Park, CO
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Good eyes rich...you're probably the first person that picked out that climber as spaff ackerly and not barb devine.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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I'd just like to add a few additional comments on Jim McCarthy's significant role in US climbing. For us old-timers it is often easy to forget that newer generations of climbers, or even those from other regions, might not be aware of the contributions of those figures who played important roles in the history and development of our sport. In the Gunks, Mac played a (and often "the") key role in the advance in standards of every grade from 5.8 to 5.10+(read would be 5.11 in alot of areas). And much of this was done during a time and in a place, where even the idea of advancing standards was viewed by many in the then local climbing establishment as almost subversive. He was also one of the first to train in the gym specifically for climbing. His climbing achievements weren't limited to the Gunks as he claimed important new routes in other east coast areas such as the Adirondacks and Seneca Rocks. In the west, relatively early in his career he made the first ascents (with aid) of the North and West Faces of Devil's Tower, and with Hans Kraus and John Rupley made the first ascent of the West Face of the then legendary Snowpatch Spire amongst other significant climbs. At a later stage of his career he organized an expedition, at the behest of the American Alpine Club, to bring the then-new Yosemite bigwall techniques to a remote alpine area resulting in the first ascent of the East Face of Mt. Proboscis in the Cirque of the Unclimbables in Canada, following this up a few years later with the first ascent of the classic line on Lotus Flower Tower in the same area. During the same time period he participated in the now much-discussed, but then top-secret, CIA expedition to Nanda Devi in India. He has long been very active in the American Alpine Club, serving as its president during an important period of transition, and always working to make the club to be truely representative of and of service to American mountaineers. Existing alongside these (and other) accomplishments, he also has somewhat of a reputation for being accident-prone. In addition to the fire "mishap" described by Rich, he is well-known for certain dramatic leader falls. The most famous occurred in the Gunks, when he was caught by the rope just as he touched the ground at the feet of a newly-arrived, for his first visit to the Gunks, Yvon Chouinard. Mac's first comment upon regaining his breath was to say to Yvon "Welcome to the Gunks". Oh, and with all this he had a highly successful career as a civil trial attorney in Manhattan. For those of us climbing in the Gunks in the 60s and early 70s (and those of the 50s generation as well)Mac was The Man. It was great to see and chat with him during the reunion last month and I look forward to seeing him at future gatherings.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Al,
Thanks much for the eloquent summary of Jim McCarthy's climbing career. He was and is a leader in every way. As you said, besides his accomplishments in climbing, he also had a very successful professional life as a trial lawyer in New York. He was a great example to all of us of how to balance a career with climbing. Jim was a significant mentor to several generations of Gunks climbers. And Jim is a giver. He is always willing to help a friend (or a friend of a friend). He is still very active in the American Alpine Club giving his time. He has committed his life to climbing.
I wish I had a few pictures of Jim McCarthy from the 1950s and 60s. Here is one I like from the late 1970s showing a very fit McCarthy in the Sawtooths. From left to right:
John Ross, Unkown, Laura McCarthy and Jim McCarthy:
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Art Gran authored a Climbing Guide in 1964. It was the first guide book for the Shawangunks. Imagine climbing in the 1950s and early 1960s at this rather large climbing area and the names and descriptions of climbs were passed around mostly through word of mouth. There were likely some notebooks that were passed back and forth among Appalacian Mountain Club and college mountaineering club members. But in those early days, being able to find your way around and to lead climb in the Gunks must have been a big deal indeed.
Art Gran was the first mentor to the CCOC climbers (Claude Suhl, Roman Sadowy, Pete Geiser, and Al DeMaria). He had an important influence on the group and early on Art helped them buck prevailing AMC certification requirements. Before I continue with Claude's manuscript, I thought I'd insert a couple more paragraphs from Art Gran's, A Climber's Guide to the Shawangunks, Published by the American Alpine Club, 1964, pp 18.
"When I started climbing in the Shawangunks, the AMC had reached the high point of its training program by the introduction of qualified seconds training. At this time, the AMC would have sixty people registered on a weekend, the colleges would have about eight and there would be three independents. These figures soon rose to 100 AMC, fifteen college and four independents. Although I had experience, I started from the bottom working my way up the scale with the Club. However, the Club did not have enough leaders who were willing to participate in its elaborate training program, the whole thing was starting to bog down, and my progress was so slow that I decided to come up in the late winter on my own. I first came with Lester Germer and later with my new friend, Howard Friedman. Although I continued on the Club's program and eventually became an unlimited leader (which meant I could pass other people as leaders for the Club).
In 1957 I started bringing up a number of beginners from the City College Outdoor Club. When we climbed together, we did not do so as part of the AMC trip; this more or less started the growth of the independent movement, and it soon mushroomed to gigantic proportions. The original group, known as “The Vulgarians,” did not discourage outsiders from participating, but welcomed anyone who could take it. Thus, the independent climbers eventually became the largest single group in the area, which very much changed the entire atmosphere.”
Here is a picture of Art Gran from Shawangunk Rock Climbing, Richard Dumais, Chockstone Press, Denver, CO, 1985, page 54
The Gran guide published in 1964:
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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The Vulgarians are legendary for more than just their climbing prowess. They were committed to having fun at night. From the accounts shared with us by the members of the Vulgarian Panel at Rock and Snow last month, most evenings at the 'Wickie Wackie' Campsite ended in the wee morning hours. The Vulgarians also had a fascination with cars and driving them fast. Here is another account from Claude Suhl's material:
"The Vulgarian Chronicles jugernaught [continued]
[Summer 1959]
Another element that got introduced here was night time "tower climbing". The most exciting tower climbing was at Minnewaska as this would involve running the gate (which was generally unmanned at night) with a car containing the climbing party. The party would be dropped off in the general vicinity of Minnewaska water tower and then the driver would speed back down the mountain before the guards could get themselves organized. Meanwhile the climbing party, often with a sixpack or two as supplies, would whisk themselves up the metal ladder of the tower.
Typically this could all be done with little fear of detection as Minnewaska and Mohonk had fallen on hard times and there were very few guests, particularly at Minnewaska. The first couple of times this was done, simply getting up and out undetected was satisfying enough. However after a while it began to seem that being completely undetected was taking much of the sport out the venture. Consequently after everyone was on the catwalk at the top of the tower it would become irresistible not to make some sort of noise that would bring out the gendarmes. This produced even better entertainment as from the ground it was quite difficult to tell where these strange seemingly inhuman sounds were coming from. The result was that the watchers on the tower got to see the confused wandering lights of the guards futilely looking for someone or something on the ground. It seemed to beggar the imagination that these night noises might be coming from the top of the tower, but they were.
Tower climbing was becoming a regular source of nightime fun until one fine night one of guards did figure out from whence the noise came and lo and behold found a bunch of strange people hanging out on the top of the water tower. This might have had something to do with the presence of Gary Hemming among the tower party. Hemming liked to keep his life as exciting as possible and as I recall was in particularly fine fettle that night. When the tower climbers heard that the state police had been called, it was decided that now was a good time to be leaving. Despite the kind invitation extended by the Minnewaska guards to hang with them until the police arrived, the climbing party of some 7 or 8 semi-drunken individuals figured that the cops weren't going to see all the humor in the situation that they did and so they bid a fond adieu to the tower guardians. Actually it wasn't too fond as the carbinieri made some minor physical attempts to detain the miscreants.
A rapid descent of the mountain now seemed to be in order. There was also the matter of the pickup car as no one wanted to walk the 4 or 5 miles back to Wickie-Wackie. The pick-up car would be cruising around looking for us within the next 20 to 30 minutes. To further add to the fun, the tower guardians had gotten into their guard-mobile and taken off after the tower climbing party. This seemed to make the hotel access road a poor descent choice. So it was into the woods for some night time bush wacking. Eventually the party reached the highway, now all that they had to do was somehow remain undetected by their pursuers, who by this time included the state police, and hail the pick-up car whose driver of course had no knowledge of how entertaining the evening had become.
As walking along the highway was no longer an option due to the presence of both the Statz Polizei and the Minnewaska gendarmes, it was decided to take to the woods. This seemed to be working out alright as the ascent party managed to elude the searchers initial passes along the road. Then salvation suddenly appeared imminent with the arrival of the pick up vehicle. There was a quick dash from the bush to the road to hail the car and then a quick dash back into the woods when the law suddenly appeared, still cruising to locate the miscreants. The stopped pick up car was a dead giveaway of course. And while the ascent party had made it back to the woody shelter, they hadn't made it very far back. So that when the searchers started sweeping the woods with search lights, the jig was up despite some attempts by one or two of party members to try and convince the investigators that we were just fagged out party goers resting innocently in the woods on the way home. The affair actually ended fairly amicably, the driver of the get away car who was of course unlicensed, got a ticket and everyone else got some sort of warning. Then on the other hand what was a State Cop going to do with eight or nine guys that he found in the woods at one o-clock in the morning? Tower? What tower?"
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 5, 2008 - 11:16am PT
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This is THE STUFF!!!!! Thanks for posting it, Geno. I was going to post the material from Chris Jones Climbing in North America on the Vulgarians but I have been buried lately. This is the history that makes the ST a magical place and Duke Geno has the wizard's touch! Awesome work everyone! I can't wait to soak it all in!
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jstan
climber
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The climbing environment in an area can be created or changed in an instant. One
moment that helped form my perception of the Gunks was a comment by a climbing
lawyer, whom I will not name, just after winning a tort case.
He said, "Once more, justice has been defeated."
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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I feel like I'm doing a history tag-team with Geno and Rich G., but it is worth supplementing the info Geno posted on Art Gran. Gran was another very significant Gunks character during the 50s and 60s, but always seemed to be something of an "also-ran" to more famous contemporaries. He was very much a stereotypical New Yorker--complete with heavy accent and a pushy perhaps somewhat abrasive personality. He established numerous new routes in the Gunks, many of them of considerable difficulty and quality but not quite at the same level as those being established by McCarthy and, later, Williams.Like most climbers of that era Gran still viewed the Gunks as training for the "real mountains", and focused considerable energy into establishing new routes in mountain environments. He was the driving force in the first ascent of the VMC Direct on Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire (the first "big-wall" route in the east), and also made significant climbs in the west and in Canada. Routes such as the North Face of Monolith in the Wind Rivers, the East Face of Bugaboo Spire, and the West Face of Mt. Brussels and his route (Mt. Geike?)in the Ramparts, both in the Canadian Rockies, were early examples of difficult technical climbs in alpine environments, but as in the Gunks, these routes were unfortunately overshadowed by those established during the same time period by contemporaries such as Becky and Chouinard.What is particularly interesting about Gran's mountain routes is that he established most of them with various Vulgarian partners (particularly the youthful John Hudson, sadly lost much too young in the Andes), basically weekend climbers from New York climbing during vacations from work and school, in contrast to his 'rivals" who were then virtually full-time climbers living within easy reach of the mountains. Gran had an interesting relationship with the Vulgarians, as he was to some extent one of their early mentors but was also often the butt of their jokes(find,if you can, some of Joe Kelsey's classic satires--accident reports, Gunks guide, Vulgarian Digest--for examples of this). Perhaps Gran's most significant accomplishment, as Geno stated, was the first published guidebook to the Gunks. This slim red book is now a collector's item, full of idiosyncratic writing, poor puns, transparently disguised Vulgarian route names (the book was published by the American Alpine Club, so proper decorum had to be observed), as well as essential information for the onslaught of new climbers who arrived at the cliffs in the mid-60s. Gran abruptly dropped out of the climbing scene in the late 60s or early 70s, rumor had it that he became the guru of a hippy commune someplace in the Catskills. Someone I spoke to at the Reunion, I think it was Barb Devine, reported running into Gran in a supermarket a number of years ago, and that he reported that he was doing carpentry at that time. I'd love to hear if anyone has more up-to-date information. He surely deserves more recognition by the climbing-community at large than he has received to date.
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Yes, Art Gran took his share of kidding about his famous descriptions of “hard” moves on his latest climbs. Always with animation – and total re-enactment , sans rock.
I first met Art at Stoney Point in Southern California - a bright Sunday afternoon with a large Sierra Club contingent in attendance. I was there with Jack Hansen (the “original Vulgarian”) and Yvon Chouinard.
We were bouldering at Boulder #2 and Gran and I had just climbed a steep route on the west side. We dropped the rope to Yvon and he tied in. For whatever reason (it was a very nice day), Yvon was wearing a full length heavy wool overcoat – a thrift store bargain. It was buttoned closed from bottom to top. When he signaled that he was ready to climb, Gran whispered to me, “Grab the rope. Let’s pull him up.” So, the second Yvon yelled, “Climbing”, the two of us hauled. In a matter of seconds Chouinard was on top gasping for breath and laughing nervously. He literally had not used any of his extremities in the ascent. His overcoat had spared his body from abrasion, but in the dynamic contact with the sandstone the coat had lost all of its buttons.
Gran was in stitches. Yvon had stopped his nervous chuckling. He was untying and seriously inspecting his damaged coat. I quickly explained that it was all Gran’s idea – sorry about the buttons, Yvon. Chouinard was no longer amused, but Art, still laughing uncontrollably, had dropped to his knees and began rolling around the top of the boulder. Yvon and I left Art with his rope and downclimbed to the road.
As we trudged toward our next objective, Chouinard was mumbling and staring down at the front of his coat, feeling the texture of the abraded material. Glancing back at Boulder #2 - Art was still on top coiling the rope and still laughing. Chouinard looked back and mumbled something about hyenas and burros – or was it jackasses?
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jstan
climber
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Probably a prank that, in the long term, had unintended consequences.
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Don, that is too funny!
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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I'd described Gran's personality as "somewhat abrasive", Don's story shows that it was literally so!!!!!
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Here is a contribution from Claude Suhl on Art Gran:
"As Al DeMaria stated @ R&S [Rock and Snow Panel Discussion on 17 Oct 08], Art was instrumental and our fearless leader and mentor- not only because he had a car but because he really relished and honored that role.
In fact he used to call us his "boys" - like as if he was Jesse James and we were his "boys" - his gang. He liked being referred to as "dad" - in what was then a prevalent kind of Jazz hip formalism.
There existed in those times a bunch from Pittsburgh - the Pittsburgh climbers aka "Gebhardt and his boys". One of them was a girl (actually a woman who was an MD - I think - Kay was her name) who was quite possibly the most adept climber of them. The "boys" from Pittsburgh, an explosive and competent bunch, whom we frequently met at Seneca Rocks were a unique and rowdy clan who favored using dynamite in their 4th of July celebrations! Now that was a real treat - dear to my heart - but that is another story for some other time.
I still, to this day , when faced with some fearful consternation in the midst of a climb will find some of his [Gran’s] sound byte admonitions running through my mind - such as "always have at least 3 points of support" or "the leader never falls " or others that are more appropriate and effective, and not passe - even to this day and that are not easily verbalized but are more of an attitude that is always valid.
My first western trip and also that of Roman, and Pete Geiser was in Art's light-green and white Rocket 88 Oldsmobile with western veterans Art and Dave Craft.
No Interstates yet - we switched off driving - gear filled part of the back seat and all of the trunk - three sat abreast up front -one of the two in the back had to sit on the floor part of the time. As we Rocketed down two lane empty highways towards the setting sun at 85 mph we could actually observe the gas gauge needle dropping!
7 miles to the gallon. The tank was big AND the car felt like a tank - but high speed. As each 'newbie' took the wheel a tirade of harassment, directions to follow and 'advice' was leveled by those still able to stay awake. After a brief stop to repair some minor thing in a sleepy South Dakota town , where we waited and rested in the parking lot of a garage until it opened at 8AM - we headed out to the prairie. We were very tired all so decided to pull off the road and catch an hour or two of sleep. As we spilled out of the car and tossed our sleeping bags on the edge of an infinite grassland some local cops pulled up in their black and white. They rolled down the window and slowly, in the manner of the west, prepared to elicit some signals from us that might aid their comprehension-or perhaps to inquire were we OK.
Art quickly moved into his position as diplomat, negotiator and maker of all things well:
he walked over to the cop car and earnestly petitioned in his Brooklyn accent "hey, is it alright if we sleep on YOUR LAWN ?".
He had a need to inflate or promote himself when in the presence of others whom I guess he felt the need to impress such that he was a setup fall guy for all kinds of mockery BUT whenever anyone actually climbed with him, particularly if it became serious , Art was just the greatest - he was right there - proving himself in a low key manner with his actions and being self effacingly exuberant when things went well - and always super supportive of anyone having difficulty keeping up with him.
Art and I once tackled the North Ridge of the Grand Teton { I now refer to this route as the North Ridge of THE GRAN } We got caught in a freezing sleeze storm that coated the rock with a thin layer of frozen snow and ice - right at the crux-which is just a few hundred feet from the top. He lead up comfortably and competently - I managed to follow over a bulging chockstone in a big chimney by hanging on some old pins - the pins had sharp burrs from many eons of ball peen hammering (Art was a tool and die maker machinist mechanical engineer ). The burrs cut my hands and blood was freezing to the rocks. Frozen hands stop bleeding real quickly and we groveled on happily to the summit and down.
Later when we exhorted to climbing ranger Pete Sinclair he said "you had a REAL alpine adventure, eh?". Yeah, we were proud.
Eventually , I think, Art felt ostracized and drifted away from climbing concurrently with those feelings. He started an ultimately very successful high end contracting company.
He lives and has lived for many years on Ashokan Road in the town of Olive Bridge or Marbletown, within 10 miles of the Gunks. I frequently ride my bike past his house. I last saw him and spoke to him perhaps 15 years ago. If he re-emerged now, I am sure he would find himself very comfortable with all of his old acquaintances but then again- I don't know."
Claude Suhl with Art Gran in the Bugaboos, 1959. [Suhl collection]
Photo as the boys approached the Tetons in 1960.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Here is another email from Claude that adds some color to the City College Outing Club (proto Vulgarians) first forays to West Virginia in 1958:
"last night Pete Geiser called , we are going over to one of his famous dinners at his New Paltz house tonight- he is here from Boulder.
I told him about those West Va pictures that look like a movie from the '30s.
Turns out Pete recalls that we were with that car in a WVa junkyard because:
as we started our trip in NYC and began to drive to various neighborhoods and accumulate our personnel, at one stop we all jumped out the door to greet the latest person being picked up. Unfortunately, Horst, the driver and car owner , did not realize the doors were open. (In those days cars did not have those dashboard lights indicating such things) He commenced to backup AND
he tore one of the doors OFF !!!!!!
So we drove to WesT VA , I guess with the door tied on with clothes line or something.
After Pete reminded me of this factor , I began to reformulate an image of us driving around WVa with a dark dusty blue car with one prominent light TAN door."
CCOC members (Suhl, Horst, Sadowy, DeMaria) looking for a new door in WV in 1958 [Suhl Collection].
Making a deal with the Man at the Junkyard [Suhl collection].
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there geno... say, i thought this was a post with lots of pics, which it may well be--and that being wonderful, in itself... but
i started at the back this time, and found these great shares you just did... (the article on art, first off, and the rest)...
i really appreciate hearing stuff on climbers of the past, as they are such inspirations and mentors, the likes of which we will not see again---being that climbing was not as common then, or perhaps accepted? and yet, they pressed onward, going by their heart, and fed many, in the process... as with any great mentor, they did HAVE to... it was just part of their passion, and who they were...
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Claude Suhl pens his take on The Vulgarians:
"The Vulgarians, even prior to naming ourselves in New York street gang fashion [ name supplied by Jack Hansen - now deceased who brought Dick Williams up to the Gunks first in 1957 and drove a Triumph and moved to California in the late 60's]
the vulgarians were ULTRA-ALL-INCLUSIVE !!! our stated and enacted mission was to provide a safe haven for all and any Fraternity(or Sorority) rejects in particular-
although one could also be welcome if one had such affiliations [for example succesful lawyer McCarthy of Princeton - but McCarthy publically rejected membership in a Princeton eating club because a good friend of his who was Jewish was denied membership. Apparently at Princeton these "eating clubs" - I believe that is what they were called - were much more important than frats at other schools because if you didn't belong you had to cook your own food on a candle lantern in your dorm I guess] so we had nerdiest geeks like Bill Goldner from RPI and Yonkers, charismatic local natural baseball athlete descended from the former producer of the Hudson Valley's best apples - Dave Craft, local Gardiner lady Lynn Tosti , many visitors from Britain-Mike and Judy Yeats, Nick Pott,....- we had grade school dropouts - a person who earned his PhD in math from MIT before he was 21 [Jim Geiser]- future multi-millionaires and guy who skied with Jean-Claude Killy and sold a bikini to Joan Baez' sister from his North Face store in north Beach, CA- Doug Tompkins,
too many eternal dirt bags to count - many veterans of scarfing food from the Yosemite Lodge cafeteria as a way of life and sustenance- Army veterans like Ralph Worsfold- West Point grad Army drop-outs like Garry Garret- communist sympathizers, civil rights activists, anti-Vietnam war protesters who after burning all their draft cards tried to lead a brigade to burn down a draft board, an arch traditional conservative who was an MIT Civil Engineer then Lawyer-Bill Ryan( although he originally was a very curious anti-Vulgarian - we co-opted him eventually I think he would confess) ...................................
to earn membership one merely had to be able to survive in the environment - if you kept coming back, why you were still there-thus you were one of us
the Vulgarians were and still are Egalitarians [i hope] - egalitarians with dirt bag roots [or dirt bag wannabe rub off patina] and a grubby grumpy edge
who had a lot of fun and have made a commitment to keep it up, eh? [perhaps some having had occasional lapses into seriosity and conformity]
why , Vulgarians pioneered stone UN-washed jeans
with holes in the ass and knees
way before Ralph Lauren was born
Vulgarians prowled the lower east side streets in big puffy orange down jackets beneath the towering walls of the steaming, huffing and puffing ConEdison powerplant on east 14th street
before Vulgarian protoge Doug Tompkins pioneered the North Face and now wealthy ghetto chic -lettes board the subways in their prominently North Face labelled down accoutrements.
some - like Bill Goldner and much later Don Whillans - tried to extend the Ultra-All -Inclusive aspect to cadging FREE drinks. At the recent dinner at the Mountain Brauhaus, Joe Kelsey at our table was having a little problem with the check, because of some mix up about that Mark Robinson had payed for him but from another table - joe earnestly stated that "hey, I'll just pay for it again - I don't want to be a Bill Goldner" - it all worked out fine BUT note the Goldner reference - Goldner's fame survives - he has a bill paying avoidance mechanism named after him with people still using this appellation to describe such behavior to this day.
Now Whillans is a whole other order of magnitude - he liked to be a bar fighter- he would face people down and gruffly insist they buy him beers - BUT Dave Craft - master of corrective coercion- stood Whillans down - [so did Gerd Thuestad, while naked, about some wool socks - but you will have to ask Burt about that story]-
anyway Whillans had to buy his share of beer - at least when craft was around.
Quite frequently besides night gatherings there were collective engagements at the base of climbs - lots of harrassment was manifested at times - whereby as someone was leading - particularly if they were starting to have trouble - those on the ground might start chanting and beating their piton hammers on the rocks in unison - it was frequently not a very quiet time. But there was also often a rope of two or three going off to just do a climb but , as you mentioned recently, there was always a huge gathering at the Uberfall to come back to.
..... what does it all mean?
I dunno - but it sure was fun"
VMC Gathering in the 1960s [Suhl Collection]
VMC at Pocomoonshine. Left to Right: Claude Suhl, John Weichsel, Dick Williams, Al DeMaria, Brian Carey, and Roman Sadowy. [Suhl Collection]
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there geno.. say, as to one of your share bits here:
"Art Gran authored a Climbing Guide in 1964. It was the first guide book for the Shawangunks. Imagine climbing in the 1950s and early 1960s at this rather large climbing area and the names and descriptions of climbs were passed around mostly through word of mouth. There were likely some notebooks that were passed back and forth among Appalacian Mountain Club and college mountaineering club members. But in those early days, being able to find your way around and to lead climb in the Gunks must have been a big deal indeed."
i just learned some more... will come back and do far more reading, when i can...
god bless to all, thanks for all the neat shares...
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Neebee,
As always, you appreciate the guiding spirit and wisdom of those who came first. These mentors like Kraus, Gran, and McCarthy led the way. There's a lot of stories that must be shared around the camp fire while they still can be. Someone may make sense out of it all someday, but for now they should be told.
I love what you write on ST. God bless you too Neebee.
Geno
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hossjulia
Trad climber
Eastside
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I scanned through this and saw no mention of Dick Shockley (sr.)
can anyone tell us of his role in the Gunks scene, if at all.
I worked for Paul Ramer for a bit in the 90's. He came from the east and did some climbing there. Unless my memory is way off, he indicated he was part of the Vulgarians, probably in the mid to late 60's. By the time I knew him, he had quit climbing, focusing on his ski gear and family.
Anyway, does anyone have any good stories about Shockley's Lunge?
If I missed it in this thread, I'll look harder, thanks.
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jstan
climber
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My apologies: HJ's question about Bill Shockley somehow got transposed to a question about Lester Germer in my mind. That shows how huge an effect Lester had on us. Since my post is out of context I deleted it. But yes, I had been climbing with Goldstone that morning and he was there on the ground also.
I think our loss has helped us to value the life we have even more.
Each day is a gift.
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MH2
climber
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"MH2, Nice old photo of climber on CCK. There is no caption of who it is? If the climber is MH2 I will take a wild guess at Matt Hale? If Matt took the photo my second guess is Dave Roberts."
The climb is Moonlight. The year is 1969. The photographer is Mike Warburton.
The climber was once mistaken for John Dill at an AAC affair in Manhattan, a talk by Doug Scott and Ken Wilson.
The climber also once house-sat for a Vassar Brothers Hosp ob-gyn whose wife remembered climbing with Roman Sadowy and he, the climber, drove a gravel road one day and the next morning entered the MD's garage to a smell of gasoline and discovered that the gas tank of his car had acquired a small hole. Rather than make McCarthy's blow-up look minor, the climber carefully hoisted the garage door and rolled his car out on to the driveway to await the dissipation of the spill.
I wonder why I never got an answer to those letters addressed to: Rich Perch, tent?
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Dick Williams on the back cover of North American Climber on the summit of Devil's Tower.The sign reads "No climbing above this point".
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Nov 10, 2008 - 07:44am PT
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Kevin Bein on the bottom and me on top. Uberfall. 1975.
Rich Romano, 1975.
Dave Rosenfeld and Matt Muchnick 1975.
Rich Ross 1975.
Rich Romano at Lake Awosting in 1976.
Mike Sawicky and Geoff Ohland at the Mohonk Mountain House, Late 70's.
Gunks crew in Eldorado Canyon 1977. Gary Garret,Kevin Bein,Dave Rosenfeld,Barbara Devine and Mike Sawicky.
Rich Romano bouldering mid 80's.
The same spot this year.
Rich Ross on Adair by the Sea. Acadia National Park,Maine 1985.
Another back cover of North American Climber.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Nov 10, 2008 - 01:39pm PT
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The handstand on the Gnomon is by (of course) Dick Williams.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Nov 11, 2008 - 07:02am PT
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Rich Ross,
Those are fabulous scans from the great 1975-80 era. You, and the other top Gunks climbers in your generation (Kevin Bein, Rich Romano, Bob D'Antonio, Russ Raffa, Mark Robinson, Mike Sawicky,...and others)were again pushing the limits of difficulty and risk. Amazing how young you guys look! The other great thing is that you actually took some pictures! Thanks to Harvey Arnold, Bobby D and others there is a photographic record. Some of these photos as you revealed were published in Mountain and other magazines. I know when I started climbing in 1980 I was inspired by those early pictures of Henry Barber, Rich Romano and others climbing hard rock.
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Nov 11, 2008 - 10:32am PT
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Regarding this pic:
>> "MH2, Nice old photo of climber on CCK. There is no caption of
>> who it is? If the climber is MH2 I will take a wild guess at
>> Matt Hale? If Matt took the photo my second guess is Dave Roberts."
> The climb is Moonlight.
You're certain of that? It looks a hell of a lot like the middle of the flake on CCK.
GO
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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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Nov 11, 2008 - 11:15am PT
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I also think it's CCK, especially with the roof above. I also matched some features with another picture. Sorry, I don't have a scanner.
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Nov 11, 2008 - 12:23pm PT
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CCK 1975. Climber is me.
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scuffy b
climber
On the dock in the dark
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Nov 11, 2008 - 01:54pm PT
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But MH2 has already been outed!
Mighty Hoax from tiny A. Cairns grow
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Nov 11, 2008 - 02:25pm PT
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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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Nov 11, 2008 - 03:01pm PT
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That little bushy thing shows up in all the CCK pics as it does in MH2s'.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Nov 11, 2008 - 03:49pm PT
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MH2 = Andy C. All clear? He lives in Vancouver, and no doubt can tell you himself about his connection with the Gowannashunks.
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MH2
climber
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Nov 11, 2008 - 05:32pm PT
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>> The climb is Moonlight.
> You're certain of that? It looks a hell of a lot like the middle > of the flake on CCK.
> GO
The thing at the top of the photo is a tree, perhaps no longer there.
Thanks to Rich Ross for a great series of pictures.
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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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Nov 11, 2008 - 06:25pm PT
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OK, if that is a tree, Moonlight it is. There are remains of a tree there, or was a couple of years ago.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 15, 2008 - 03:29am PT
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A little Gunks history compliments of Chris Jones Climbing in North America, 1976.
I had the pleasure of meeting Chris at the Nose reunion and what a fine man and lover of climbing history he is.
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Nov 15, 2008 - 04:48pm PT
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Mark Robinson on Red Tape 1979. Climbing number 54.
Rich Ross on Red Tape 1980. Photos by Rich Romano.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Nov 16, 2008 - 08:48pm PT
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Bump
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Nov 16, 2008 - 08:56pm PT
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Rich Ross just posted some heirloom shots of Red Tape. For those who didn’t climb in the Gunks back in the mid to late 1970s, Rich Ross was one of the top Gunks climbers and personalities from that era. He is not as widely known as Russ Raffa or Rich Romano, but he is another guy with “RR” initials who could and did climb shoulder to shoulder with those stars. Rich Ross had a natural strength and grace. And, he had what we called back then a “good head.” Rich was one of those top 1% climbers who was able to keep it together when the moves were hard and protection difficult or absent.
Rich Ross in 1978:
Anyway Red Tape is a fabled hard route located on Mohonk land near Eagle Cliff. It is unusual for a Shawangunk Grit climb being it is an overhanging crack. At the time of the first ascent in 1978, Red Tape was one of the hardest, most pumping routes in the Gunks. A while back I asked Rich Ross about the first ascent of Red Tape. Here is what Ross wrote:
“Geno, I think you asked in one of your emails about the first ascent of Red Tape. It is a climb that I discovered in 1978. I brought Rich Romano there. We did not know the first time there that we required a lot adhesive tape to keep our hands from getting torn up. The climb starts as laybacks leading to finger jams leading to hand jams, leading to fist jams that go up this offset crack. There are quartz pebbles in the crack the whole way up. It is very painful. Richie got up to the hand jams on the first day and would have done it then if he had taped up. We both had bleeding hands. The next weekend we planned to meet there. I was supposed to bring the tape and he was supposed to bring the tincture of benzine. I brought this not so big roll of tape. We did not have enough to do a good job and ended up opening the scabs we had had acquired the week before. The next week we came fully prepared and Rich cruised it. I got two thirds the way out but could not do it then. I learned how to crack climb on Red Tape. I thought of the name. This was in the fall of 78. I did not do it until the following spring. A few other people did it before me. I have a few slides of me trying do it the first day. Our friend Fred Yaculic was there taking pictures. I also have slides of me and other people doing it. I think I have done it 8 or 9 times. I call it meat-grinder 5.11+ or harder. That is the short history of Red Tape.”
Rich Ross on Red Tape, 5.11d/5.12a
Vern Clevinger on an early ascent sans mechanical friends of Red Tape, 5.11d/12a:
Rich Ross ranged far and wide on the Shawangunk Ridge and was always looking around in obscure places for fine lines like Red Tape. Many of his first ascents were off the grid in hidden areas where the ethic was and still is to keep things quiet. Rich Romano often climbed with Rich Ross then. Romano told me that Rich Ross was one of the few people who was always motivated to make the hour hike out to climb at Millbrook. Ross-Romano Incorporated did dozens of first ascents together. At Millbrook, the pair put up several “adventure routes” which at their time were state of the art for difficulty and risk. Here are a just a few:
Artistry in Rhythm, 5.10 R
Danger UXB, 5.10 PG
Brown Bomber, 5.10 G
Asteroid Belt, 5.10 X
Diaper Man, 5.10 X
(Note that at Millbrook the grades are only comparable to places like Seneca Rocks).
Rich Ross also established some well known Gunks routes during the late 1970s. One is Land of Milk and Honey, a three star 5.11- at Sky Top. He also climbed The V, 5.12 which is an amazing route that goes through a series of improbable overhangs also at Sky Top.
Rich Ross on The V, 5.12:
But one of the very best routes Rich Ross did was Grave Yard Shift, 5.11, PG. Grave Yard Shift is not an obscure line, but a mega classic that is front and center on the McCarthy Wall. Here again in the words of Rich Ross is how the first ascent went down:
“The funny thing about Graveyard Shift is that nobody knows how it got it's name. I was awake for over 24 hours when Russ Raffa and I climbed it. I was working for Cohen's Bakery in Ellenville at the time. I had worked the 12 midnight till 8 am (graveyard) shift. And then I drove straight to the cliffs that morning. I showed up at the Trapps and immediately ran into Russ. He said that he had tried a new route the day before on the McCarthy wall with Sandy Stewart. They had gotten up the first bulge and were working on the crux but had not done it. I don't know why Sandy was gone that day but Russ recruited me. I led the bulge and set up a belay below the crux. Me and Russ took turns trying the crux. We played around trying to get the nerve to go for it. At one point we got thirsty and took a break and went to the Brauhaus for some cold glasses of Pepsi. After that we returned and Russ did the lead of the crux overhang. I remember we had some other name we were considering for the route. But a few days later the name Graveyard Shift came to me. Raffa liked it too so we kept it. “
Some other Rich Ross FA's at the Gunks:
Skytop (all left of the crevass):
Inflatable Girl (right of Mechanical Boy) actually just right of Strawberry Yogurt.
Juggernaut
Tor and feathered
Blockparty
Kashmir
Mystery Woman
Amazon
Trapps:
Dogs in Heat (Nerdie Gerdie) most people call it Nerdie Gerdie.
Nevermore
High Times
Daydream
Dat Mantle
Kernmantle
Rich Ross in 1979 style attire with Bob D'Antonio after a session on Super Crack:
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Nov 18, 2008 - 09:27am PT
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Here is a photo of me on the very first attempt at climbing Red Tape in 1978. It was taken by Fred Yaculic.
Rich Romano leading Rhumba Mama, 1980 gunks hinterlands.
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Nov 19, 2008 - 02:17pm PT
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Oakie, My memory is fuzzy but I think that is Fail Safe in the very upper right of this picture. The corner leading through hangs.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Nov 19, 2008 - 07:32pm PT
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Rich,
That's a great pic of you on Red Tape from 1978.
The best so far.
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Nov 20, 2008 - 11:13am PT
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Sams Point, Shawangunk Ridge above Ellenville.
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Nov 22, 2008 - 03:55pm PT
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Ron Kauk on Supercrack, 1976. Photo by Paul Baird.
Rich Goldstone inside cover of North American Climber.
Neil Pothier, North American Climber ad.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2008 - 10:00pm PT
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Nice shot a few posts back of a dip into Enchantment Lake! And, arguably, the oldest artificial climbing wall in the USA.
Nice historical shots too, Richross. Where did you get them?
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Nov 23, 2008 - 07:51am PT
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Steve, I got the historical Gunks photos from my dad. He was into nature and the local history. Glad you liked them. Here are a few more.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Nov 23, 2008 - 12:24pm PT
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Harvey Arnold whose excellent photos started this thread allowed me to put up a few of Rich Ross in my previous post (see above).
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Nov 23, 2008 - 01:06pm PT
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Geno, Can you photoshop out that hat I am wearing in that one photo? I am afraid the fashion police might see it. That must be why Bobby D is smiling. Thanks to Harvey Arnold for the photos.
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MH2
climber
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Nov 23, 2008 - 01:08pm PT
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Thanks to oakie and Steve. I didn't notice first time through that Prussik and UW Rock are the scenery for the photos of Fred Y. Fred is doing either Left Hand Face or maybe Timson's Problem. Just to his right is the hand and fist crack that was a big part of my jamming education after all that face climbing at the Gunks and Devils' Lake. I'll have to put that learning to use if I ever end up in the vicinity of Red Tape, again.
Depending on when that Practice Rock picture was taken, about 30% of those foot impressions in the gravel could be mine.
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Nov 24, 2008 - 12:42pm PT
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Vern Clevenger on Mellow Yellow in 1980.
Vern Clevenger on Red Tape 1980.
Jim Damon on Supercrack early 90's.
Owen Silver leading Amazon and Michael Peters, right on top of Scare City. Early 90's.
Marco Fedrizzi on Blockparty, Mid 80's.
Rich Goldstone inside cover North American Climber.
Chuck Calef on Arms for the Poor, early 80's.
Rich Romano on Flashpoint. 80's.
Barbara Devine on Foops Trap. Mountain issue no. 97 Photo Harvey Arnold.
Jim Munson on Tuff Lady, FA late 80's.
My turn on Tuff Lady, 3rd. Photos Rich Romano.
Climb just left of Tuff Lady.
)
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 30, 2008 - 12:31pm PT
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This is the first photo of the fabled Supercrack that I can recall seeing in North American Climber November 1975.
The caption reads "Looks like a hand eating jam crack, but Mohonk's Super Crack, Shawangunks, New York rates out at 5.11 and has ahd only one free ascent by Steve Wuncsh last fall. Photo: Paul Baird."
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 4, 2008 - 12:42am PT
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A little historical nugget from Mountain 21, May 1972. Bring back any memories? This was likely the first Gunks survey that saw international coverage. Any major magazine article on the Gunks come out earlier?
Rich, DUDE!
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Steve, There was really no major magazine to do international coverage before Mountain appeared in the late '60s. It was the first climbing magazine that really sought the international market. Alpinismus (Germany) and Montage et Alpinisme (France)had somewhat earlier started a "glossy" modern-style format, but they were primarily focused on their national audiences. Mountain editor Ken Wilson very aggressively (and largely sussessfully) tried to establish it as the "magazine of record" in the climbing world. Ken was, and still is, very opinionated and out-spoken, viewing himself as the guardian of the purist British traditional approach to the sport. I remember him visiting the Gunks a few years after the article appeared and being very sarcastically critical of the number of fixed pitons then present on the cliff----though that didn't stop him from clipping each one he encountered!!!!!As for earlier articles about the Gunks, I presume that there must have been something in Summit---the only US magazine of the pre-Mountain era. It is also likely that one of the relatively frequent visitors from the UK wrote up something for one of the annual club journals that were/are a part of the climbing culture over there. But I agree that the posted Mountain articles were the first real international coverage of the Gunks and other New England areas. As a footnote, "my" article was actually written (and later published) as the historical introduction to Paul Ross's New Hampshire guidebook, which Paul then submitted to Mountain on his own without consulting me (not that I really minded).
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Edifying as it is to be the encaptioned one, a respect for the truth obliges me to report that the Rich Goldstone in the photo soloing High E is not the Rich Goldstone I have known for now a bit more than 65 years. In fact, the intrepid soloist is Matt Hale, and the faux Rich Goldstone is not the soloist, but rather the fully-grounded photographer.
Just to keep my street cred intact (as if soloing an exposed 5.6 entitled one to any kind of cred in todays climbing world) the real Rich Goldstone had just finished soloing High E and took up his position as photographer in order to immortalize Matt Hale.
And now that I've revealed this much, I might as well go all the way and mention that this particular conga line of soloists had at its head that Fall day the venerable Jim McCarthy, whose lustre is cetrtainly not dimmed by the fact that he is neither in the picture nor is entitled to any credit for taking it.
Finally, if all this unencumbered romping seems perhaps a bit too carefree, let's tip a glass to another frequent High E soloinst and dyed-in-the wool gunkie, Chuch Loucks, who, on the Southwest Ridge of Symmetry Spire, paid the ultimate price for his love of ropeless mountain travel.
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MH2
climber
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Are you sure Chuck was ropeless? I was told, "He ran it out 80 feet and then did a very un-Chuck-like thing. He fell."
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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"let's tip a glass to another frequent High E soloinst and dyed-in-the wool gunkie, Chuck Loucks"
Glass tipped!
In this case, an '89 Chateau Meyney Saint-Estephe.
Hopefully worthy of the man.
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Hmm. Interesting history.
Inverted Layback shot is especially interesting. I followed that once and the rope went to the right, not up and left. I wonder if that is just a question of where gear got placed or actually a difference of where the route is currently climbed.
I remember it being strenuous, but not exceedingly so, given the grade. But a buddy of mine blew out a bicep at that spot.
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jstan
climber
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http://www.americanalpineclub.org/AAJO/pdfs/1977/inmemoriam1977_306-315.pdf
CHARLES LOUCKS
1932-1976
“Chuck” was born in China, the son of American medical missionaries,
educated in the United States and taught in a Long Island school. For
the past fifteen years, climbing was his real vocation. Spring and fall
his habitat was the Shawangunks, though on long weekends he could be
found at Poco-Moonshine or the White Mountain cliffs. Come summer
he climbed mountains. He ranged from the Alps to the Brooks Range,
the Canadian Rockies to the Wind Rivers. He fed on gorp and glop and
could cook a one-pot feast under any conditions. He climbed gracefully,
smoothly, with a rhythm and balance always admired by onlookers. He
brought enthusiasm and puckish humor to every climb. On Easter he
was known to have climbed Bunny in the Gunks to distribute jelly beans
and a plastic rabbit. He shared his enthusiasm by introducing young
people to the sport and teaching them the wonder of the classic routes.
Essentially a private person, few people could say they knew him
well. Yet he was highly prized as a climbing, tenting, traveling or
bivouacking companion.
For several years he served as the New York representative of the
AAC and was a past member of the house committee. He was a serious
collector of Alpine literature and spent many evenings at the Club library
sharing his knowledge of the books and photographs.
Charles Loucks died of injuries sustained in a fall while climbing with
friends in the Tetons on August 27, 1976.
EARLYN CHURCH
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Thanks for that JStan.
He sounds like an outstanding fellow and now I know a little more about the man to whom I've raised a glass.
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cowpoke
climber
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In the very cool article posted from Mountain, there are references to "artificial" climbs, e.g., for Cathedral it notes that there are both free and artificial climbs. Is this a synonym for aid climbs that is no longer used? As someone who didn't start climbing until the early 90's, the term conjures up images of glued holds and the like, but it can't be that...can it? If it is a synonym, i would love to know why it was dropped from the lexicon? Sorry for my ignorance, but I'd never heard/read this term before.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Yes: artificial = direct aid.
It's natural to climb directly upon the rock using your hands and feet!
And a woeful unnatural act to bang in pitons and stand on them using wrunged ladders and stuff.
Unless you were Kor and those of like ilk, for whom the real climbing only started when it got nasty, steep and artificial.
I don't know why it was dropped; aid also used to rank as sixth class, fifth being free climbing.
But this is mostly inference on my part, based on some of the prevailing knowledge when I started in the 70s, so we'll get some good historically accurate detail from the real guys in a few more posts perhaps.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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The term comes from French for "artificial climbing," escalde artificielle. Probably in use since the 1930's, and still the common term today in France, ``artif'' for short.
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MH2
climber
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Yes, I do remember Mountain 21. It was the first climbing magazine I bought though I got a few earlier issues later on. Number 15 did not list Al Rubin among the contributors (United States) as many later issues did.
I also remeber Denny Merritt's modest reference to being the centerfold of Mountain Magazine. Good job including the staples in your image.
And wasn't Chuck Loucks the one who carried a record-player to the base of Cakewalk to climb it to the music?
I only had one interaction with Chuck but it was an intense one and his quiet strength came across clearly.
"an '89 Chateau Meyney Saint-Estephe.
Hopefully worthy of the man."
Cheers
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Chuck Loucks was one of the all-time nice guys in climbing----a gentle soul with a dry but excellent sense of humor. He was missing several fingers on one hand (don't know the reason), but climbed smoothly and solidly. My recollection is that he died in an unexplained, roped, but unprotected, fall on the Jensen Ridge of Symmetry Spire, a climb well within his ability.It was, and remains to those of us who knew him, a very sad loss.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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TB: "Glass tipped!
In this case, an '89 Chateau Meyney Saint-Estephe."
You're posting online while drinking that?
The French will be outraged. You'll be lucky to get them to sell you a jug of plonk after that admission.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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I stand corrected: Chuck died in a very long (80-100 ft) roped fall on easy ground on Symmetry Spire in 1976. Still not sure whether it was the Jensen Ridge or the SW Ridge.
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the idle rich
climber
Estes Park, CO
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Though before I worked in the Tetons, I'm pretty sure Chuck fell while leading on the Jensen Ridge on Symmetry Spire...well within his abilities. I think he was climbing with the Westmacott's (don't quote me on this) and was not feeling well before they began the climb. I recall that there was speculation that he had some sort of episode that caused him to fall. I didn't know Chuck well but I remember that he had quite a repertoire of old climbing songs and wasn't hesitant to perform. I also recall the jelly beans on climbs and the time it rained, leaving a sticky residue on all of the holds.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Rich, Thinking about that solo of High E pic, wasn't there an "almost" on that or a similar occasion that brought an end to that period of group soloing in the Gunks?
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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This thread - the whole thing, that is - currently takes me 4:18 to load, pictures included. Worth every second.
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Vulgarian Steve Larsen right. Building stone circle with Gunks stone at his farm. We could have used a few more druids that day.
The end result.
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sween345
climber
back east
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So...
These Gunks stone circles work as some kinda equestrian chick magnet?
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Al, I'm not aware of anything bringing an end to group soloing in the Gunks beyond the fading of the Vulgarians who used to practice it. It seems to be a tradition that passed as its practicioners left the scene---subsequent generations never took it up.
I certainly went on soloing for many years, but that day with Jim and Matt may have been one of the last times I went off for a group excursion, perhaps because I graduated to harder and harder stuff and such things are best done in isolation.
The group solos used to be a regular feature of the Vulgarian spring training, in which a large number of the easy routes were done in a day by a large and typically very jovial group who, the times being what they were, were not exactly buff from a winter in the climbing gym---there being no such thing.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 5, 2008 - 10:36pm PT
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The old lug a jug to offset the chug a lug in the off season, eh! Perfect place to solo.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 6, 2008 - 02:24pm PT
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Vulgarians, all in a line
Eschewed ropes to get fit, double time
I may wind up shorter
Eighth or a quarter
But climbing round here, I’ll be fine.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 6, 2008 - 04:11pm PT
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A little Gunks piece from Wolkgang Gullich's bio, A Life in the Vertical, 1994.
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Rickster
Trad climber
Pine Bush,NY
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Dec 14, 2008 - 08:10pm PT
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RR, do you need to book a room and procure a guide to take photos of the rock while on hotel grounds? RC
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Dec 14, 2008 - 10:08pm PT
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Nice photos, Rich!
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Bumpity Bumpity Bump, this thread's been in a bit of a slump.
1983.
Mid 70's
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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The ones I didn't lose.
Old Rock and Snow tee shirt after the fire.
.
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Old Gunks pins.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Rich Ross,
Great job keeping the fire burning! I will try to post some stuff this weekend.
Geno
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 9, 2009 - 09:22pm PT
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Great job of threadstoking! Is that Clune in the top shot?
Edit: How many fixed pins have outright snapped or had the eye fail in the Gunks?
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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It's Richie belaying me. I'm in the next three and then a young Romano age 17.
Who's this Clune?
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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There was an article in the New York Times on the Mohonk House as a weather station. Originally posted to http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=677446, including similar stuff about Thoreau and Walden.
The station has been in exactly the same place since January 1st, 1896, and since then only five volunteer observers have been responsible for taking all 41,152 daily readings. The current volunteer is in his 34th year.
The station and its environs are virtually unchanged since 1896, and many of the original instruments are still being used. That, and the stability and consistency of the observers, makes it very valuable in terms of climate change.
Added to that, an extraordinary collection of phenological observations - essentially observations of natural history in the area. First birds, first snow, etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/science/earth/16moho.html
Someday I hope to visit the Gunks, and will add a visit to the weather station to my list of things to do there.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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That's very nice RichRoss!
Your three photos upthread really showcase the elegance of Mohonk.
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Jan 11, 2009 - 06:06pm PT
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Out biking.
Kevin Bein and Rich Romano. Mid 80's
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Jan 11, 2009 - 09:13pm PT
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Foops,1976.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Jan 12, 2009 - 11:53am PT
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Rich, Great photos----keep it up. I really like the photo of Kevin and Rich with their bikes. Even as fairly distant silouettes they are each recognizable!!!! Wish I knew more about some of the "off the grid" routes that you posted photos of. Guess I'll have to get back down to the Gunks some more next year and nose around a bit.
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Jan 12, 2009 - 12:40pm PT
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THE IDLE RICH and Bobby D. Gunks reunion,Rock and Snow.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Jan 12, 2009 - 12:43pm PT
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We all do still miss Kevin. One of the high points of the Gunks Reunion last Oct. for me was the chance to see and chat with Barb---it had been much too long. I wish I had the know-how and equipment to scan in old slides as I have some decent ones of Kevin from the '60s and very early '70s.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Jan 12, 2009 - 12:46pm PT
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You were posting the Idle Rich and Bobby D' photo as I was posting my last comment. It is my balding head that also appears in that photo!!!!
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MH2
climber
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Jan 12, 2009 - 12:53pm PT
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Looks the same as he did 30 odd years ago, around the eyes.
(Al, why not take some slides to a photo processor and let them do it?)
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richross
Trad climber
gunks,ny
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Jan 12, 2009 - 05:40pm PT
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Harvey Arnold who took many great Gunks photos.Thanks Harv. Late 70's
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geiger
Trad climber
Doylestown pa
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Jan 12, 2009 - 08:59pm PT
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As an "old time climber" I started following this thread. I also remember climbing Ringwraith and looking over my shoulder to see the Mohonk house. Never finished the climb, but had my honeymoon there! Still wish I finished the climb!
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Tomcat
Trad climber
Chatham N.H.
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Feb 17, 2009 - 08:10am PT
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I remember that day Geiger.Did your nipple recover fully?
We had no idea how to crack climb.After a year in New Hampshire I went back and sailed up it.The cams didn't hurt either.It's sad to think others can only enjoy that climb by being guided there now.
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MH2
climber
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Feb 17, 2009 - 03:22pm PT
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Good pictures, oakie. I very much liked Mohonk in the evening when the sun was low. I fooled myself one time into thinking that Goethe's last words were "last light." A German-speaking woman from Poughkeepsie set me straight when she said that the pronounciation of that would be something like, 'leastest licht', whereas Goethe's supposed last words or word were/was, 'merlicht', or "more light", if I remember rightly. Probably could be a bit of debate over which last words would be more appropriate.
Roughly 1970
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2009 - 12:47am PT
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A few Gunks tidbits from Climbing December 1988.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 22, 2009 - 02:28am PT
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Great thread! That is the Harvey Arnold that I met in the Tetons in '79. Nice guy. We did the Exum together. I ran into him in Tuolumne years later. Anyone know how to drop him a line?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2009 - 02:33am PT
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He posts as Harv here on the ST if I remember correctly. Go back a few hundred posts on this thread! LOL
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 22, 2009 - 03:42am PT
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You're right, Steve. I sent him a message. That is funny.Thanks.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Mar 29, 2009 - 07:28pm PT
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Bump this !
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 31, 2009 - 11:28am PT
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The leaves are turning and I am given to pondering the Eternal Question. Where would you rather be on a balmy fall day than right here, dreaming along the carriage road?!?
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MH2
climber
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Aug 31, 2009 - 12:09pm PT
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Where would you rather be on a balmy fall day than right here, dreaming along the carriage road?!?
Carriage road? Dreamy.
Shawangunk quartzite? Crystalline purity.
Getting from the one to the other? Deer ticks GAAAAAAAHH!!!!!
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Aug 31, 2009 - 12:28pm PT
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I got to the Gunks just a couple of times this year, less than I'd hoped.
I'm 'sposed to be back Oct 24 for a slide show at Rock & Snow, plz save a few leaves.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 15, 2009 - 01:08am PT
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I hate the little suckers too! Fortunately there is very little brush between the road and the crags for them to hang in.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
climber
. . . not !
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Nov 15, 2009 - 01:57am PT
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I wonder if Jimmy S saw this .
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 15, 2009 - 02:14am PT
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This Jimmy S?
On Swingtime.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 27, 2009 - 12:03am PT
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A couple of Gunks articles from 1960. The first was written by Michael Borgoff (MisterE's dad)from Summit September 1960.
From Summit December 1960.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Nov 27, 2009 - 09:40am PT
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Those articles are a wonderful snap-shot of the attitudes of the times--that climbing at places like the Gunks was merely "practice" for the "real thing" in the mountains. One major error in Borgoff's article, it wasn't Kraus who opened the Gunks to climbing but Wiessner half a decade earlier.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Nov 27, 2009 - 04:55pm PT
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Ira Spring? Who let that glacier-slogging, view-camera-toting snow bunny loose on our quartzite?
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jstan
climber
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Nov 27, 2009 - 06:35pm PT
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Something to celebrate! The ultra precise, terribly careful, and oh so darned excellent rgold just loosened up a notch. Just a notch mind you.
Grab your socks! The ride of our lives has just become a prospect.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 27, 2009 - 06:46pm PT
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The giddiness of 66 is upon him!
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Nov 27, 2009 - 07:47pm PT
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Who let that glacier-slogging, view-camera-toting snow bunny loose on our quartzite? Shouldn't there be a "volcano-plodding" in there somewhere? :-)
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Nov 30, 2009 - 09:44am PT
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John, you are doing rgold--and yourself, less than justice. I remember evenings in New Paltz and Yosemite when the 2 of you had a number of us literally rolling on the ground in hysterics with your comedic exchanges.So maybe the "ride" is actually about to resume.
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Evel
Trad climber
Slartibartfasts Newest Fjiord
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Nov 30, 2009 - 02:30pm PT
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Just got back to CO after spending all of November at the Gunks. First time there in 16 years! Fantastic weather all month long, sunny days and low sixtys. Still the same scene, friendly folks [mucho thanks to Mark and staff at the Brauhaus] awesome routes in every grade. Soon as I figure out how to post photos I'll do a TR Berg heil!
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Nov 30, 2009 - 07:34pm PT
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Here is a photo of a few folks eating dinner in late Sep 09 at the Mountain Brauhaus. Lot of fun.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 6, 2009 - 05:25pm PT
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Nice shot, Geno.
How long has the Brauhaus been in business at that location?
Cheers
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jstan
climber
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Not a good sign. Jean and Trudy used to let climbers into the bar area only.
To what is this world coming?
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hagerty
Social climber
A Sandy Area South of a Salty Lake
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jstan wrote:
"Not a good sign. Jean and Trudy used to let climbers into the bar area only.
To what is this world coming?"
The descent into madness started some time ago. My partners and I ate in the main dining room many times from the late 80's onward.
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Jan 25, 2010 - 09:17pm PT
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Damn. I wish I did Foops before Skytop was closed to climbing. Oh well, at least I had a couple spectacular failures on it.
Curt
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jstan
climber
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Jan 25, 2010 - 09:53pm PT
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A pointless reminiscence. Getting old I guess.
The Eastern Trade and all took many hundreds of times the effort that I put into the climbing itself.
My priorities must have been all screwed up.
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Jan 25, 2010 - 10:57pm PT
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I think priorities have little to do with it, John. You, like Lisa, will always find a couple hours of work to fit into 15 minutes of spare time.
Curt
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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Can't wait for spring to come..... and get back climbing again.(bump)
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seth kovar
climber
Bay Area
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some - like Bill Goldner and much later Don Whillans - tried to extend the Ultra-All -Inclusive aspect to cadging FREE drinks. At the recent dinner at the Mountain Brauhaus, Joe Kelsey at our table was having a little problem with the check, because of some mix up about that Mark Robinson had payed for him but from another table - joe earnestly stated that "hey, I'll just pay for it again - I don't want to be a Bill Goldner" - it all worked out fine BUT note the Goldner reference - Goldner's fame survives - he has a bill paying avoidance mechanism named after him with people still using this appellation to describe such behavior to this day.
Now Whillans is a whole other order of magnitude - he liked to be a bar fighter- he would face people down and gruffly insist they buy him beers - BUT Dave Craft - master of corrective coercion- stood Whillans down - [so did Gerd Thuestad, while naked, about some wool socks - but you will have to ask Burt about that story]-
anyway Whillans had to buy his share of beer - at least when craft was around.
bump for Dave, love that guy...
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handsomegran
Trad climber
Stone Ridge, NY
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Dear all who are interested in Art Gran. My name is Josh Gran. I am Art's son. I have been reading some of the information that is posted above, and I must say that there is much to clarify. I grew up on my father's climbing stories. I know all of them like the back of my hand.
First off, somebody mentioned that my father was a bit of an "also ran," when compared to McCarthy and Williams. But if you look at the list of first ascents, Art Gran and Jim McCarthy are undoubtedly on the same level. Add to that my father's amazing contributions out west, especially in the Canadian Rockies, and I think the term "also ran" becomes not merely hyperbolic, but grossly incorrect, dare I even say slanderous. As far as Williams is concerned, he was the next generation, and indeed passed my father and McCarthy in Gunks climbing. My father had nothing but respect for Williams' abilities, as well as McCarthy's, on the cliffs, and I KNOW he would be the first to say that both of them were incredible. As far as Yvon Choinard is concerned, he and my father were friends. Choinard's reactions to a prank are no reason to make gross generalizations about the man.
Furthermore, Art Gran never became a guru of a hippie commune. He is far too much of a loner for that. Why did he stop hanging out with the climbing community? If you have to ask that question, you do not know my father very well. He prefers the solace of a peaceful evening with his dog Fergus. What ultimately became of him? He created a successful construction company --Gran Custom Builders, raised an amazing family, and because of his "somewhat abrasive" personality, I am proud to truly know what it means to be dedicated to pursuing what matters most in life. I think people who base their opinions of others on secondhand accounts ought to seek out instead the person in question; go to the source. Art will talk about climbing until the seventh seal is opened.
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MH2
climber
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Thanks for your perspective, Josh.
The Art Gran Gunk's guide seemed perfect for the time. It added a lot of value to the climbs, giving them a personality, perhaps. Those were great days in the late 60s and the Gran guide was vital to them, at least for me.
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Seth
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Jun 16, 2010 - 12:17am PT
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Hey, I never post here at supertopo, but I climb in the Gunks and this is my favorite thread ever-- so many legends in one place. I also love looking at Gunks climbing photos so I hope if I bump the thread maybe we'll get some more!
Here are a few of mine:
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lucander
Trad climber
New England
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Jun 16, 2010 - 07:33am PT
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Art Gran was present at a panel discussion about Gunks climbing in the 1960s and 1970s held at Rock and Snow in 2008. Jim McCarthy introduced Art as the oldest living person who has climbed at the Shawangunks. It seemed to me that his peers hold him in high regard as a climber and I am surprised that his groundbreaking use of aerial photography in a guidebook is not widely recognized.
D. Lucander
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steveA
Trad climber
bedford,massachusetts
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Jun 16, 2010 - 08:06am PT
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Josh
I'm glad to say I climbed with your father for a week, back in 1967. He cooked the supper and I did the dishes. For some reason I still remember how much he spiced up the eggs with some hot stuff.
I often wondered what happened to him.
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Seth
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Jun 16, 2010 - 08:17am PT
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Art Gran put up a ton of climbs, many of which are among the most popular Gunks routes today: Strictly From Nowhere, Thin Slabs Direct... if his son is still reading I think he can stop worrying about his father's place in history. It is secure.
A few more pics:
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Seth
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Jun 16, 2010 - 10:34am PT
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Pointing at the roofs atop Modern Times, of course.
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jstan
climber
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Jun 16, 2010 - 11:02am PT
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Art's guide was unusual not only for the photography. The book was an interesting read.
With regards to the possibility of being an also-ran. I have climbed with any number of people each of whom made tremendous long term contributions. All were out there for the joy you get from simply running.
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426
climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Jun 16, 2010 - 11:14am PT
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Neat stuff. Anyone have details about DanO soloing Yellow Wall? I remember vaguely after he'd come back from the east telling us about it but his tales of the Gun Club at NRG held us in a deeper rapture...
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seth kovar
climber
Bay Area
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Jun 18, 2010 - 01:02pm PT
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Les
Trad climber
Bahston
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Jun 18, 2010 - 04:18pm PT
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Late to this thread, but what an amazing one it is! SO many amazing memories from my many days there. Can't wait to get there again soon. Thanks for all the amazing contributions to this thread!
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sween345
climber
back east
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Jun 18, 2010 - 05:46pm PT
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Steve,
There's a couple of older pictures in the entry foyer to the Brauhaus which it says it was their 50th anniversary in 2005.
There is also a picture (likely from the 2008 reunion) there with head shots of about 100 of the attendees, all squeezed into the frame.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Jun 19, 2010 - 09:40pm PT
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Josh, I remember your dad with affection and admiration. Great sense of humor. Please say hello for me.
John
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handsomegran
Trad climber
Stone Ridge, NY
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For some reason, I keep thinking about the hilarious concept of my father being the supposed leader of a hippie commune in the late 60s and early 70s! He definitely took a far different route in life. He ended up marrying Linda, my mother, who already had a son, my brother Liam. He built us a beautiful house over near Stone Ridge, which served as a great place to grow up, as well as a large museum for my mother's paintings. My father is a guru, but his lessons were and are always taught by example.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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The first time I met Art Gran was in the Gunks in, I think, 1960. I had come up with another kid (Bud Lustenberger---what a name for a climbing enthusiast) who told me that there was climbing in the East; at that point I done a few climbs in the Tetons and thought that was the only place in America to climb.
The Gunks looked 1000 feet tall as we made our way along the base looking for someplace to climb up. It was a hot humid summer weekday and there appeared to be no one else there. Eventually we made our way to Three Pines (of course we had no idea what it was called), climbed it, and somehow found our way back to the Uberfall. There we encountered Art, who stunned us with a display of bouldering beyond our wildest imaginations at the time.
Then he offered to take us up a climb---Squiggles, as it turned out. Again, we were stunned by his smoothness and technique. This was a peek into a world of competence we had barely imagined.
A year later, I saw Art in the climber's campground at Jenny Lake. He was surrounded by Vulgarians who, to my high-school senior's eyes, were behaving scandalously. (I wrote about that encounter in this upthread post.) When I greeted him, his only reaction was, "who are you?"
Well, I had no idea who I was at that point. But a day later, I happened to have on the same clothes I had been climbing in at the Gunks a year earlier, and I approached Art one more time and stupidly asked, "do you know who I am now?" To which he replied, "You put on some knickers and you're walking around." Having now been thoroughly squashed, I crept off to my tent, embarrassed that I had even imagined that a pair of knickers would have made me recognizable to a man of his stature and accomplishment.
I returned to the Gunks for good a few years later. My experience with Art notwithstanding, the Vulgarians were an inclusive group and welcomed me into the fold. By the mid-sixties, the original hard-drinking culture had been replaced by sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, and Art was already really not part of that scene. Many of the original CCNY group were around but had already started to retreat from climbing.
There was never anything remotely like a hippie commune, with or without Art. For a while, Dave Craft, Claude Suhl, Elaine Mathews, myself and my wife at the time, Evy, shared a house in Tilson. The 1968 album by The Band, Music from Big Pink, was out and we called our house Big White. Evy and I had the third floor attic bedroom which we used on weekends. Claude and Elaine lived on the second floor and Dave on the first. The first two floors had their own kitchens. That's as close to a commune as things ever got, and Art had nothing to do with it.
Josh, my regards to your dad. I think I may have finally hung around long enough for him to remember me.
Richard Goldstone
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 1, 2010 - 01:10pm PT
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A curious blip on the radar screen...with guitars! From Climbing July/August 1982.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Great stories, great thread.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 12:39pm PT
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Would someone please scan Art Gran's guide and post the history section?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 11, 2010 - 03:22pm PT
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Thanks to Jim Phillips I can post this classic Paul Baird cover shot of Kauk working Super Crack.
Californian Ron Kauk on Super Crack, Shawangunks,N.Y. An area known more for its overhangs than for any other climbing feature, the Gunks has come up with quite possibly one of the hardest crack climbs in the country. Ron completed the second ascent of the route this past October.
As well as the news from Vern and Ron's excellent adventure!
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 13, 2010 - 10:44pm PT
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Phew! The humidity finally died down a bit. Here, some members of the Medicaid Climbing Team in enjoying one of those Gunks obscurities that they missed out on in their younger days.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Sep 13, 2010 - 10:46pm PT
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Is that Bragg?
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 14, 2010 - 12:21am PT
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Yup. I'm afraid I lied---they won't let him on the Medicaid Climbing Team just yet. It's up to me to carry the flag.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Sep 14, 2010 - 09:39am PT
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Rich, What "obscurity" are you and John on? It looks somewhat familiar but I can't quite place it. Alan
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 14, 2010 - 02:26pm PT
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Day Tripper. A very full-value 5.8 in the Nears just to the left of Eastertime Too.
Bring yer small gear...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 24, 2010 - 08:28pm PT
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Since we have Mike Sawicky around, now maybe I can get a response as to what a "Sawicky" is with regard to specialized technique?!?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 28, 2010 - 09:13pm PT
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Thanks to DanaB here is the history section of the 1964 Art Gran guidebook.
Of particular relevance is the discovery of the Gunks. 2010 marks the 75th anniversary of the Old Climb and the first season of Gunks climbing! We will be raising a glass to Fritz in short order!
..."The Vulgarians" did not discourage outsiders from participating, but welcomed anyone who could take it." Priceless!
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richross
Trad climber
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Sep 28, 2010 - 09:50pm PT
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Mike Sawicky.
Foops, 1976.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 28, 2010 - 10:24pm PT
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The Soon-To-Be-Eatin' Crows Nest or the Raptor's Perch?
Great shot! Really makes that roof look BIG!
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richross
Trad climber
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Sep 28, 2010 - 10:55pm PT
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Better luck a few weeks later.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 29, 2011 - 05:02pm PT
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Gunks bump looking for the Bob Murray shot on Slingtime if I remember correctly?
Anyone climb in the Gunks with Murray BITD?
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Jan 29, 2011 - 10:39pm PT
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I think BobD did.
Curt
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howlostami
Trad climber
Southern Tier, NY
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Spring fever bump.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 13, 2011 - 09:54pm PT
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Gunks Bump!
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Wei-Ming
Trad climber
Atlanta, GA
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Sep 18, 2011 - 01:19pm PT
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These photos and history are awesome... Glad I stumbled upon it.
I'm currently in New Paltz, working on a Gunks climbing documentary and am looking for archival film and photos! If any of you are willing to help out please let me know. Also, any tips or folks I should talk to, that is also a tremendous help.
Cheers,
Wei-Ming
WML230@gmail.com
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Auto-X Fil
Mountain climber
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Nov 26, 2011 - 02:58pm PT
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Bumping political garbage off the main page.
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A5scott
Trad climber
Chicago
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Nov 26, 2011 - 04:42pm PT
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great thread! love all the info and pics!
I love all the classic moderates at the gunks.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Nov 27, 2011 - 02:24am PT
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Nov 27, 2011 - 08:22pm PT
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Bump for some new Millbrook photos I just added.
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MH2
climber
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Nov 27, 2011 - 10:36pm PT
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^^^^ Glad I saw them.
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adam d
climber
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Nov 27, 2011 - 10:59pm PT
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I love Millbrook!
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seth kovar
climber
Reno, NV
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Dec 27, 2011 - 12:43pm PT
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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Sep 11, 2012 - 04:18pm PT
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Not sure why I've never made it down there bump.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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gunks bump with thanks to happiegrrrl for making the place understandable and user-friendly, and also her friend jared, for taking me & nick under his wing in lost city. i won't try to add anything here but gratitude for a look at a great area with a rich tradition, and also appreciation for the mohonk preserve and its unique approach to use and management.
i climbed the week before at devil's lake--two very different kinds of quartzite. the fun of the gunks lies in those spectacular overhangs and routefinding your way over them. pick a line and leave the guidebook behind. if you need a hint, look for old iron.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 17, 2012 - 09:46pm PT
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Brandon- You have to drive over and check it out!
It will blow your mind how friendly the climbing is if beyond intimidating at first.
Climb until you run out of something because it won't be routes.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2013 - 04:05pm PT
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Bump for the thaw...
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LilaBiene
Trad climber
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Feb 24, 2013 - 05:32pm PT
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Just how is it, exactly, that these places where I'm supposed to go take a look-see (GLEE, it does look awesome!) just seem to keep magically appearing on the first page of the Forum...starting to think I may just be being led around by the...er...nose.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2013 - 05:36pm PT
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All with a click of the Magic Mouse...
I really need to index this stuff and Chris has asked me to try and do so.
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lucander
Trad climber
Shawangunks, New York
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Feb 25, 2013 - 04:14am PT
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How do you make High E better? With a picnic!
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Feb 25, 2013 - 07:47am PT
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Considering the recent fecal catastrophes that have driven people from that very ledge, I'm not sure that promoting al fresco dining is wise. There's a fine line between picnicing and poopnicing, and if we end up with High Indigestion instead of High Exposure, there will be no winners.
That said, it looks yummy.
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lucander
Trad climber
Shawangunks, New York
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Feb 25, 2013 - 08:34am PT
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Why would anyone poop on that ledge? It's such a nice straight shot to the ground if one's heiney hangs over Double-Issima!
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lucander
Trad climber
Shawangunks, New York
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Feb 25, 2013 - 08:37am PT
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Modern Gunks icons.
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defective detective
Trad climber
da gunks
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Feb 25, 2013 - 09:28am PT
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Q: Why would anyone poop on that ledge?
A: Same reason people would bring boujie take-out food up there.
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Oldfattradguy2
Trad climber
Here and there
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We hauled kegs up there a couple of times......
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ruppell
climber
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lucander
Whiskey Mike is rad. Next time you run into him see if he wants to do Low Exposure. I was conned into doing it with him about eight years ago. He was all racked up and I was on my way home. How could I say no? He couldn't do it so I ended up leading it. I still have a scar on my right hand from that jam at the lip. Fun times.
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lucander
Trad climber
Shawangunks, New York
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Rupell,
I climbed with Whiskey Mike on Monday (before I read your post). As we walked into the Uberfall he mentioned Low Exposure! Seeing it wet, he chose Acronub instead.
He's coming over tonight for a potluck and to watch Higher Ground, I'll tell him you said hi.
Lucander
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
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Mar 20, 2013 - 01:50pm PT
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Folks, its finally warm enough to climb and I'm going crazy in Washington DC. Anyone want to make plans for a weekend in the gunks or let me tag along? I can get out of work at 2:30 on Fridays but would arrive late because of traffic no matter what. I can also stretch mondays a little - my employer only asks me to work 40 hours but is very flexible about when.
I have not climbed a lot in the last 20 years but used to be a fairly solid 11a trad leader. When I checked my guidebook, I ticked off about 20 5.10s there, and soloed about 30-40 routes in the 5.5 range, most onsight. I've also done a few walls, lived in both New Paltz and Boulder, and was way into climbing at one time.
Although I'm probably a 5.7 climber right now, I still think I'm a 5.10 climber and in good shape, running regularly for years. Unfortunately all my gear is in storage in Colorado except harness and shoes. I have a minivan and can pick you up if you're on the way.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 10, 2013 - 11:47pm PT
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A short while after I was born Jim McCarthy was showing the world how a Vulgarian gets around. A roof that is.
Classic old world technique!
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MH2
climber
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May 11, 2013 - 12:20am PT
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"Climbers are people who relax in thin positions."
I'll be looking for an opportunity to use that line.
Thanks for the post. I think I looked up that issue of SI in a library one time, but the pictures don't match. Maybe I am remembering an ad that McCarthy was in.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 12, 2013 - 01:01pm PT
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Old style Foops Bump...
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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May 12, 2013 - 01:30pm PT
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What a tangled web we weave . . .
But Jim looks pretty good up there. I kinda miss those days of naive adventure and exploration of style and accomplishment. A time before formality and paradigm triumphed and World Cups appeared.
Jim's still with us - a very accomplished retired lawyer who displayed a wonderful balance between profession and avocation.
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ruppell
climber
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May 12, 2013 - 01:52pm PT
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Open up Swains guide and go to any page. On those pages you will see Jim McCarthy as either the FA or FFA of at least one climb. Most impressive to me was the FFA of Retribution in 1961. 50 years later with modern gear it's still proud. In 1961 I can only imagine what people would have thought. I'd like to hear those stories from some of you that where there at the time. Like who got the second free ascent? There where some strong climbers there at the time so who was it?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 12, 2013 - 03:13pm PT
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Post it and they will come...Your question, that is.
Just a phone call away if not.
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Jimmer
Trad climber
Orland Park, IL
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May 14, 2013 - 03:31pm PT
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Don't forget the Vulgarians! They made the Gunks famous with their shenanigans.
I have these and several other Gunks guides for sale. Shoot me an email and I can send you lists. jimmerson@earthlink.net
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portent
climber
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May 14, 2013 - 03:35pm PT
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Email sent Jimmer
-kovar
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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May 14, 2013 - 07:06pm PT
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Can't wait, I'm going climbing in the Gunkz for the first time in two decades tomorrow!!!
Easy O, watch out!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 15, 2013 - 10:27am PT
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You are in for a TREAT my man.
Make sure to do Diretississima to start High Exposure if you have your eye on that classic.
Bring a healthy selection of wires too.
Grab a couple of jugs for me and don't pass by the Brauhaus.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Donini eastern bump!
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portent
Social climber
your mom's house
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From Vulgarian Digest #2
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 7, 2013 - 01:23pm PT
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Nice dose of VD, portent!
Thanks for spreading the love.
This post would fit in on the "Deli Days" thread nicely.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 31, 2013 - 08:06pm PT
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Laura Smith let me know recently that Harvey Arnold passed away this summer so I would like to thank him in absentia for sharing his wonderful photos with us and for being such an indelible character. I met him on my first visit to the Gunks back in 2008 after we had corresponded a bit about my posting his work.
I had filming equipment with me to record what I could of the proceedings and Harvey ran interference for me by whacking folks who were unlucky enough to stray into my line of sight with his weighty cane.
Rest in Peace Harvey and come on back when you get the existential itch again.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Harvey was a big part of the Gunks scene back in the late 70's and early 80's. Here are few shots that he took of me back in the days, brings back many great memories of some of the best climbing days I have ever had with some of the greatest people I have ever met.
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Left to right: Maury Jaffe, Renny Glover (I think), Bob D, Chuck Liff, Mike Freeman, Annie O' Neill, Ivan Rezucha, Laura Chaiten, and Don Hamilton. I don't recognize the person who is second from the right end.
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Oldfattradguy2
Trad climber
Here and there
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2nd to the right looks a bit like Rich Ross
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Dana, second on the right is Russ Raffa, second on the left is yo Doug.
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MH2
climber
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Nice for me to see a pic of Maury Jaffe. He had threadbare gear the times I climbed with him.
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Oldfattradguy2
Trad climber
Here and there
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Perhaps this thread needs a sister thread titled "shwangunks, cornerstone of eastern degeneracy climbing"
Uberfall wine tasting (an excellent cheap buzz for underage kids)
High exposure keg parties ( I learned how to jug and haul)
All night "spacewalks" (Nuff said...)
Commander Qualude....gunks button 714 holder (name withheld to protect the commander)
And
More vulgarian tales....
My 15 yo mind was certainly expended when I got there in '77. Got a Masters Degree out of Bonticue in the '80s!
My one question is: Am I a sandbagger if I still use Nosedive as the standard for 5.9?
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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My one question is: Am I a sandbagger if I still use Nosedive as the standard for 5.9?
Hell no! It was only 5.8 by Carderock standards...
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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My one question is: Am I a sandbagger if I still use Nosedive as the standard for 5.9?
I'd say such a claim is rather beyond mere sandbagging.
It may be that Retribution was 5.9 A1 when Art Gran and Pete Himot did it in 1958, but as far as I know it has always been 5.10 (nowadays 5.10b) once McCarthy freed it in 1961. In Art Gran's 1964 Guide, it is given as 5.10 and recognized as a "breakthrough to higher standards," which makes it unlikely that was ever thought to be 5.9 and pretty much guarantees it was never regarded as a "standard for 5.9."
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Uh Rich, not like you to mix up Retribution and Nosedive!!!! To respond to the original question---yes, that does make you a 'sandbagger"!!!! My recollection is that only one of the many generations of Gunks guidebooks rated Nosedive as a 5.9, and that the current ones have it firmly where it belongs in the 5.10 "camp". Retribution may have a technically harder sequence but Nosedive is an overall harder climb, especially for those of us who are genetically disadvantaged in the height department.Even with Nosedive as a 10, most Gunks 9s seem pretty stout in comparison to those in many other climbing areas.
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hagerty
Social climber
A Sandy Area South of a Salty Lake
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OMG. Bob D - thank you so much for posting those photos by Harvey, especially the group shot! I climbed with everyone in that photo at one point or another and certainly saw most everyone most weekends. Brings back lots of memories. Have to dig my old photos out of the basement this year.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Well, I didn't mix up Retribution and Nosedive in the sense of getting any information wrong, I just somehow decided the subject was Retribution. Senility works in mysterious ways.
Nosedive has indeed had a some grading oscillations. It was originally (and correctly via almost any comparison I know) 5.10 in Gran's guide. Then it went down to 5.9 in Blue Dick and Red Dick---who knows why---after which a chorus of protests brought it back to 5.10 in Black Dick and now 5.10b Grey Dick, which seems about right, i.e. it is neither 5.9 nor 5.10a and so was and would now be a major sandbag at 5.9.
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hagerty
Social climber
A Sandy Area South of a Salty Lake
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In some ways, Nosedive is the Reed's Pinnacle Direct of the Gunks. No single move is harder than maybe 9+, but there are ~5 of them back-to-back along with a few others here and there.
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lucander
Trad climber
Shawangunks, New York
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In this arctic front that's gripping the region, the Shawangunks are the cornerstone of eastern cross country skiing.
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Oldfattradguy2
Trad climber
Here and there
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RGold: I think I had one of the "5.9" guidebooks, must be why I've always been stuck at 5.8.....
Never take an art class because Dave F. says he will give you an "A" because he needs the enrollment.
Now back to the traditional nature:
Mike Robin, well before the folks at rifle invented kneebars....
Thesis, RIP and the pizza was never the same again.
The "Frog"
Jim Munson practicing traditional climbing.
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bamboo
Trad climber
pike co
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Oldfatradguy
that's robin --one b -no s!
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Oldfattradguy2
Trad climber
Here and there
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Thanks for the correction, happen to know where he wound up in the 30 years since the photo was taken?
We had to throw him out of the house one night, he tried to convince us to all to drive into New Paltz and join the army and show them how tough we were. Luckily for him, we let him back in to the party. Although, I assume the army has strict BAC limits for folks signing up....
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bamboo
Trad climber
pike co
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O2
I hear he's lurking on old gunks threads-
and I'm positive he's been thrown out of classier parties than yours!!
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A5scott
Trad climber
Chicago
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Was just there last week, my second home. I'm not as able bodied anymore so my friends climbed frogs head and tr'd something next to it, and did Horseman in the dark. It's almost as fun watching what I used to do
sorry for the first pic
Scott
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 24, 2014 - 11:34am PT
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Bump for Wiessner Routes.
Anyone ever find the "Frog's Head" that this route was named after? Dick Williams asked the same question long ago...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 24, 2014 - 12:34pm PT
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Anyone ever find the "Frog's Head" that this route was named after?
I last climbed it in August, 1982, so what, something like 32 years ago? aside from finding the route, I don't think I appreciated that I might have seen the eponymous "frog's head"
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Oldfattradguy2
Trad climber
Here and there
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Dec 10, 2014 - 02:56pm PT
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Millbrook
In the mid to late '80's I was the "law" at Minnewaska, actually pseudo law, I only carried a ticket book which I was told not to use. I came into work on a typical Saturday morning. The park manager had a specific task for me. I was to drive out to Millbrook and find the source of large rocks being thrown off of the cliff. Ivan R. had called the park to complain (he should have known exactly what was up). Oh sh#t I thought, Rich R. and some of the crew from Pennsylvania had gone out there for the weekend (perhaps driven by a not to be named ranger?). For those of you unfamiliar with Millbrook, there is some loose rock that needs to be cleaned during 1st ascents. I ran into Todd S. at the rappel tree. I asked if had seen the culprits. He said no and asked why. I explained, his female partner then asked "why would anyone do that" his reply (hold your nose to simulate a nasal voice) "because it could be a lot of fun". Later on, perhaps after a climb with them, I told the culprits they had to stop,. I went back to the park office and told my boss that a bunch of ne'er-do-wells had been drinking and trundling and that "climbers took care of the situation". The boss replied "Man, I like climbers, tell them thanks".
They used to make me put these signs up on top of the cliff:
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Beta Boy
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Mar 24, 2015 - 08:46pm PT
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Hey there ... I used to be a regular on Gunks.com years ago. I believe I posted this photo there quite a while ago. But I stumbled on this thread and was delighted to see so many Gunks pioneers and old time regs.
Reading all those wonderful posts and seeing the great archival photos reminded that I had this one that had been given to me by a friend.
I believe that's John S. and Kevin B., but I really don't have a clue who the other fella is.
I started climbing in 1986. I missed getting the chance to meet so many of the legends, but I did meet and climb with Kevin a few times ... also Jim Munson and Rich Ross.
12 years ago Rich G. hooked me up with Bragg to guide me in the Tetons. It was an extraordinary two days of climbing.
Here's the man on the top of the Grand.
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Seth
Trad climber
New York, NY
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How about a bump for the Gunks?
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jstan
climber
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Too bad that is a B/W photo up above. I was wearing a pair of sneakers I found in a seedy part of DC. They were white but with blue stars and red trimming. For some reason they cost only a dollar a pair. At first I considered buying all 70 pair. But instead decided first to see how long they lasted. The first pair lasted only one weekend while I had been getting two months out of $3 ladies deck shoes. The shoes produced considerable comment on the carriage road, but ultimately I decided I was not really into blue stars. And at $1/pair, they were simply too pricey for me.
With old age my intellect has improved enough to persuade me I should have periodically checked the contents of the dumpster in back of that store. I could have had all those carriage road comments at no cost. A deal!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 31, 2016 - 11:13am PT
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Bump for sneakers in the Gunks...aren't we all?
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Denver CO
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Jan 31, 2016 - 04:31pm PT
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I will always have an awe of this place, since it scared me so much when I was learning how to rock climb. Now, I find I can relive my early experiences by watching some of the Go Pro videos people are putting up on youtube. Not to pick on anyone in particular but it still gives me goosebumps watching people clip those old ring pitons.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Okay today it is a double post this thread and the Appreciation thread
This really belongs here too
Joe Fitschen
Rock climbing and the peripatetic theory of knowledge
Joe Fitschen SearchMain menu
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Goin’ to da Gunks
Posted on February 3, 2013
“Good morning. Today is history class.”
He pauses to rest his bones on a high stool and assess his charges. Some slouch in their seats and doodle on their desks, others stare vacantly out the window, a few girls pop their gum and twiddle their tresses. But telling tales of the past has its rewards, at least for the teller, in that while those who can, do, those who no longer can, can be comforted by the knowledge that once they could.
“Today’s lesson is the beginning of a quest story, although no dragons will be slain, no castles stormed, no cities razed and pillaged. Before the end, though, a fair maid will be wooed and won, albeit all too briefly.”
Noting that no one in his audience was yet asleep, he relinquishes his perch on the stool and begins leisurely pacing the head of the room, measuring his thoughts with his stride.
“September, 1960. After Royal, Chuck, Tom, and I climbed El Cap I got a job as a busboy and soda jerk at the Yosemite Lodge Coffee Shop. The plan was that Royal and I would save some money over the winter and then go to the Alps in the summer. In the spring, however, Royal confessed that he had decided not to go. But I was committed. I wanted to pace the paving stones of Paris and wander the back lanes of London, to essay a yodel or two in the Alps and take the summer sun on the Riviera. Also, a comely English girl was waiting for me. I had met her while she worked as a waitress in the coffee shop, and before she returned to England that fall I bussed her tables and she jerked my soda, if you catch my drift.”
As he looks out at the room in mid stride, it seems as if something has piqued his pupil’s interest.
“In early May I packed all I thought I might need for the journey into my Kelty pack and pinned a sign on the back that said, simply, “NY.” My mother drove me to a place beyond San Bernardino where it would be easier to catch a ride. I won’t go into the details of my journey’s first leg, but five days later and only eleven dollars poorer my last ride dropped me in downtown Manhattan at midnight. I took a cab up to Art Gran’s apartment near Columbia University, was admitted by sleepy Art, and shown the couch. Art and his two roommates were gone during the day, so I explored the city on my own, learning the subway system and eating mostly takeout from delis.
“Over the winter I had saved a finite amount of money for my adventure, so I was frugal. Twice, though, I splurged. One night I went to a concert at Carnegie Hall that featured Miles Davis and a large ensemble playing Gil Evens’ arrangements from the LP, “Miles Ahead.” Another night I found my way to Birdland to hear Gerry Mulligan’s nonet and Dizzy Gillespie’s quintet trade sets. Choirs of angels could not have been more exalting and exhilarating.
“On weekends, Art and I and a few others drove up to the Gunks (no expressway then, just a two-lane road) in his VW bug. Gary Hemming had visited the Gunks earlier, but I don’t think he climbed much, so I was essentially the first Californian to test the mettle of Eastern climbers and take the measure of New York rock.
“I won’t say I was sandbagged, but Art and Jim McCarthy were proud of having raised the standard on their local cliffs and wanted to see how I would fare on their test pieces. Not too badly as it turned out. It took me a while to get used to the steepness of the climbs, especially the overhangs that loomed over the top of many routes and that looked all but impregnable. I learned, though, that if there was a route, there was a way through, and it was best to keep moving so your arms and fingers wouldn’t flame out.
“By the time I arrived, the spirit of the Vulgarians was in full flower. They waged a running battle with the Appies ( hide-bound, staid members of the Appalachian Club) and usually won. One weekend they decided to stage a Vulgarian Grand Prix. Those taking part lined up their cars, then came on foot to the starting line to hear instructions about the route. It was also to be a Le Mans start. I jumped into the passenger seat of one car and we were off. It was night, much of the course was over dirt roads, there were few places where one could pass (although some drivers tried), and if you weren’t leading it was hard to see through the billowing dust. As I recall, a few fenders had benders, but no serious damage was done, surprising considering the wine and beer that was consumed before (and after) the race.
“Although there were over one hundred people at the Gunks each weekend, there were surprisingly few really good climbers. The first Saturday, Art had me lead “Retribution.” I think I did it all free, but I can’t be sure. Then McCarthy took me to “Birdland.” It was wet from rain, and I fell at the crux but then climbed through smoothly. Jim fell three times following. Then we went to “MF,” a climb Jim had put up the previous year. It hadn’t been repeated. I made the first hard move and then psyched out. Jim decided he wasn’t up to it that day either, so we went down.
“The following weekend, a fellow named John Turner, a hot climber from Montreal, led the first pitch, but his second fell repeatedly and unabashedly and was finally lowered to the ground. I had planned on leading the climb later, but no one wanted to follow Turner, so I tied in and floated through the first hard parts. Turner then led up to the three to four foot overhang, the crux, and then came down. I gave it a try, but John’s last piton below the overhang was driven straight up and didn’t look like it would hold much of a fall. On top of that, if you came off trying to get over the overhang, you would slam into the wall below even if the piton somehow held. Frankly, his piton selection was piss poor, and I couldn’t get in anything good. I came down, and he went up again, then traversed off before he even got to the overhang.
“The next day, someone lent him some Chouinard pitons which worked beautifully beneath the overhang, but he still didn’t make it. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to get back on the climb that year. Many years later, though, (forty-five?) John Thackray led me up the climb. I struggled on the overhang, but was surprised to see more fixed pins than you would ever need. Below the overhang you could just reach up and clip into a higher pin so that it was almost like doing the whole climb with a top rope (which I was glad to have in the autumn of my years, although John was older and bolder than I).
“On a subsequent weekend, they put me on “Apoplexy” and “Never-Never Land,” and the next day they had me lead “Double Crack,” and then McCarthy gave me the rope for “Tough Shift.” The climbing was very delicate on small holds, like a boulder problem, although I was climbing in my beat up klettershue. I made it, though, but Jim couldn’t make it, although he had made the first ascent, so I came down.
“Then Art and I did “Never Again” and “Roseland” (it was the era of the “land’ climbs), and we added a pitch to each climb since they were originally only one pitch long. We then came across a route that Jim had started. He hadn’t gotten very far, so we finished it (if you think this was bad form, hear me out). The climb was unusual for the Gunks in that the first pitch was a genuine sixth class climb, just the thing for the old Yosemite hand: sixteen pitons, two knifeblades , 6.7 (on the old system), and three hours. Art led the second pitch, 5.7. Art named it “Transcontinental Nailway.” Four years later, McCarthy returned to the line he had first aspired to and climbed it free.
“I also did some bouldering along the carriage road. Bouldering wasn’t all that fashionable then, but I did one that was harder than any of the existing problems. It involved a fingertip mantle. No one mantled in the Gunks at the time even though opportunities for the technique abounded.”
Looking out in the room, he sees heads on desks, other heads thrown back with mouths agape, hands scribbling in notebooks. Oh, ye yet to be learned. Let me quote Aunt Gertrude. “Let me recite what history teaches. History teaches.”
“My last weekend in the Gunks (that almost-lost-to-memory season, last because I was soon to depart for England on a Dutch liner lined mostly with students [fare: $167.50, Heinekens: 14 cents a bottle]), I consummated a liaison with a lovely and adventurous (especially in those days before the pill) Norwegian woman in an abandoned (as were we) house while the rain rained, and the night seemed it would never end, and then it did all too soon.
“The next day, several climbers and I were having lunch at the Uberfall when one mentioned that the face to the right of “Boston” had been top-roped once but never led. “Would someone give me a belay?” I asked. From the base I could see that there wouldn’t be much opportunity for protection, but I figured I would just go up, and if I felt too uncomfortable I could back off. It was a short climb, so I was soon at the crux, 5.8 they say. I found that I could surpass it by mantling. I liked mantling because it is usually a very secure move, at least until the problem of getting the foot up next to the mantling hand and then stepping on up. If the wall is steep and there is a paucity of holds to keep you in balance the last move can be delicate. Sometimes, as in the present case as I recall, you just have to balance up very carefully. A little higher I came to some cracks and thought I could get a piton in. The cracks were formed by loose blocks, however, which have since become part of the talus. I did manage to place a pin, thinking that if something happened the piton might be good enough to slow me down. Wishful thinking is not a good habit in climbing, but sometimes there isn’t a lot you can do about it. Getting past the loose blocks was a little tricky, no longer a problem for the modern climber. In any case, it wasn’t too hard from the piton up to the tree at the top of the climb, and my “protection” seemed superfluous. I anchored and then asked who wanted to follow. The answer was no one. So I guess it was a solo ascent. I rapped off, removing the pin on the way down. I was right. If I had fallen, it would have slowed me down, a bit. If you really want to take the measure of the climb you should climb it in Kronhoffers, except that they aren’t available lo these many years. Tennis shoes anyone?”
Enough history. The captive audience thought so, too, as they filed out, eager to get on with life, with living in the here and now. Someday, may they also have stories to tell.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized by Joe Fitschen.
Bookmark the permalink.
3 ~ THOUGHTS ON “GOIN’ TO DA GUNKS”
Hans Florine on February 8, 2013 at 2:06 pm said:
another great read. Since I was a California climber and also ended up in The Gunks with a reputation, the locals wanted to test me on their hard routes. Although I didn’t fair too badly it was clear that the “Yosemite Skills” I had were not readily transferable to the cliffs at the Gunks. Great to hear your telling of it. Especially with the connection that my girlfriend and later wife was the one who got me to NY and she was Sponsored into the AAC by the Jim McCarthy in your story.
Cheers,
Hans
Reply ↓
William Rice on March 13, 2013 at 7:14 pm said:
Good one Joe! I had no point of reference on the climbing part and not much more on the consummating with the Norwegian woman, but the quick hitch across the country rang a bell. A friend of mine deserted from the Air Force and I drove him to the edge of Great Falls, so he could start his trip to God knows where. Our good-bye was a final one and therefore solemn. Two days later, I flew home to Michigan and when I walked into my house, he was having coffee with my mother.
Reply ↓
Ganhar muito dinheito on December 7, 2015 at 3:58 pm said:
Hi there to every single one, it’s genuinely a good for me to pay a visit this web
page, it contains valuable Information.
Reply ↓
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c_vultaggio
Trad climber
new york
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Gunks bump for East Coast climbing season...
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jstan
climber
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Typical Gunks Onlookers
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 9, 2016 - 05:47pm PT
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Free soloed Kansas City, Kansas City yes he did.
They got a crazy way of climbin' there and he's blown off the lid.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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A fine gentle vid. More powerful to me after tuning out the music.*
*obligatory provocation
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
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Typical Gunks Onlookers
You didn't get 'em all, JStan.
Some folks love to watch demise.
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jstan
climber
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Larry Geib:
As you know that Life photo was taken at a puppet show in Holland shortly after WWII just as a puppet dragon was being killed.
I know that if I had been in Holland during WWII and had seen neighbors in the next apartment being taken out in the street and there being shot to death, the chance of death returning to my world would have my attention. The responses of different people to those memories would of course vary considerably. Certainly testosterone is a factor. I saw a few things at the Gunks that put me in the same frame of mind possessed by her.
I have the feeling that little lady grew up into a wonderful and kind mother. And an incredibly powerful one.
John
PS:
You moved to Portland. I have a cousin near Portland. If I go up again I will have to get your address.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Mar 10, 2016 - 04:16am PT
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Re-post:
Typical , but no where near as quotable as you sir b^D, What are we? chopped liva? heres this guy,[Click to View YouTube Video]
I'm not sure if Steve G, in his post is talking about J Bragg, or Rich G?
(perhaps it is poetry?)
If I'm sure of anything it its that,
I was there the day that a pregnant Terri Gottlieb got seriously Angry when her big dufus soloed that thing in the picture above,- Fat City - reachy 5.10,
Edit: To reflect , that Steve G says yes also Rich G solo'd
the sequential 5.12, Kansas City,
I think and do not claim to know, that Clune, Franklin, & Gruenberg,
to name three of 6 or 7 who crossed that roof sans cord . . .
There were only a few who 3rd classed into the .12's
Soloing in the Gunks in the 80s, just climbing on a rope back in those days were good to have survived
for example, FOOPS (above) saw many solos, so did Open Coxk Pit,(below) both 11's
Other than R Clune's who did, a solo of
Super Crack at .12d or .13 , I'm not sure,
there may have been a few others too who solo'd that one.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Mar 10, 2016 - 12:44pm PT
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Johnokner, what is this that you say to me?
Hey Mark or Gnome whatever you go by. why are you posting the same thing twice? Your posts depict yourself of a gunks busy body who has done this & that. People like you are why the gunks are called "as the cliff turns"
Mark not - my deeds or words
No doubt, that when I was a local, I was a busy body,
some called me CNN. I could turn up anywhere, and did so again and again,
You seem almost as bitter as I!
We should get together and climb,
it would be no fun, .. . . . just the way you like it.
Is screaming at the cruxes the way you get it done?
That is how many of my memories of ..... Oh no name dropping?
That's fine
as the cliff turns,
Carry on.
.#howmuchperclimb?, #xtrfxxdat. . .
total BS, on Foops,the crux has a fixe'd piece with a 'biner on it too[photoid
Seriously,
Johnokner, I have to thank you, for bringing the sad state of the cliffs to my attention.
The crap that has been added,
that it costs a thousand bucks( minimum 2 night stay+ guide fee+incidentals . . .)
to climb, for a day - just one time!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 10, 2016 - 05:22pm PT
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Rich G free soloed the short but stout Kansas City.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Mar 24, 2016 - 11:43am PT
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fortuitous bump:
For the - 'Hey I know that guy'- file,
Chuck Calef !!
*I'm sorry, but I can't resist telling about my friend, Chuck Calef, (69 on Friday) (3/25/16? sic.)
who yesterday completed his project of climbing the "Fab Four"
(as he calls them)
without clipping any bolts.
[ Click to View YouTube Video]
This is at Below the Old New Place and the climbs are:
Scandanavian airlines` - http://www.mountainproject.com/v/scandanavian-airlines/105981739
` flesh-eating-gnats` - http://www.mountainproject.com/v/flesh-eating-gnats/105981756
` Wailing Banshees` - http://www.mountainproject.com/v/wailing-banshees/105948287 `
` monsterpiece-theatre` - http://www.mountainproject.com/v/monsterpiece-theatre/105946964
He used wires and small cams in pockets and he did rehearse the placements….but still…!
(He doesn't know I've written this. ) (* Darien Raistrick)
By Chuck Calef from, Apr 25, 2013 "Wailing Banshees,(among other various, comments)
In 1989, my first summer in Los Alamos,
I learned to climb this route with Miki Enoeda, a visiting Japanese chemist at the lab.
I immediately realized the climb's abundant pockets would provide ample natural protection for a clean ascent;
indeed, if the route was at an area with strong ground-up traditional ethics (like the Gunks)
it would have been sent back in the seventies.
But it was not till 24 years later, on March 18, 2013, my sixty-sixth birthday, that I finally got it together to accomplish this ascent.
I'm a poor face climber who always struggles with this route, and not wanting to die in case of a tumble I rehearsed placing the pro on top rope.
On my ground-up ascent I placed twelve pieces of gear (and of course ignored the bolts).
I climbed on two 9 mm ropes, one for placements left of the arete and one for those right of the arete.
The sketchiest pieces, unfortunately, are just before the first crux section between the first and second big ledges.
I had a #3 orange Metolius wire in the large flared pocket right of the arete a few feet above the first ledge, a blue Metolius TCU in a horizontal slit about 1 foot left of the arete, and a black "tri-sham" in the same slit.
Half way up the route is the second good ledge where one can get a two-hands-off rest by clever body positioning. At this ledge I placed four bomber pieces -- a red trisham, two wires, and a green alien.
They had to be good because there was no way I was going to stop while climbing that last 15 overhanging feet of rock to fiddle with gear.
If I plopped off from the final move of the climb I would take a long fall but not hit the ground.
I messed up the final crux section somewhat by stepping too high and thus putting more force on my tired fingers, but it all ended well.
A ground-up, on-sight, clean ascent of this route would be a proud achievement.
You get a great buzz from accomplishing a climb like this even if it's not a birthday present to yourself.
It makes you think, what next
… Flesh-eating Ants?, Scandinavian Airlines?, Monsterpiece Theatre??
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Curt
climber
Gold Canyon, AZ
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Mar 24, 2016 - 01:47pm PT
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Just arrived today. Every year I look forward to getting my temporary life membership cards in the mail :-)
Curt
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
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Mar 24, 2016 - 08:25pm PT
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. Jstan wrote:
You moved to Portland. I have a cousin near Portland. If I go up again I will have to get your address.
We look forward to a visit. Lots of good food and drink up here.
I sent you contact info by the "send an email" function on the website.
Just do it before we are all dead.
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jstan
climber
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Mar 24, 2016 - 10:02pm PT
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Verizon is going out of the email and ISP business so I have once again lost my email. When I get a new computer and newer system I should be back on.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Oct 23, 2016 - 08:33am PT
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Swami days bump
This link takes one back to '08 in this thread as the talk turns to Big Jim
And Art Gran,
The picture of my guide and party mentor who drove like an Indy racer in his Nova, we hit 110 mph! I was 10! Thnx I hope that hearing aside Jon Ross is well & it is All Good..
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=454584&msg=714800#msg714800
Be sure to click back a page to see the two guys who played dwarf toss with the very small gung-ho Gnome ofthe Diabase, later I dated his brothers daughter, took her up stuff and trundled blocks , tons of rock to create a rock climb in their honor.
As for Craft? If I lasted one week washing dishes at his Northern lights bar, restaurant,at the most, that alone, would have run me afoul of his bad temper. - it was always - 'ever getting worse'
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 15, 2017 - 12:11pm PT
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Beauty Bump...
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CheyenneWills
Trad climber
Jamestown, Co
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Mar 30, 2017 - 07:02am PT
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Just came across this thread. Thanks for the memories. I spent the last part of the 70's and the 80's climbing at the Gunks before moving out to Colorado.
The following are from some old slides I had scanned years ago.
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CheyenneWills
Trad climber
Jamestown, Co
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Mar 30, 2017 - 12:37pm PT
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A couple old random memories... many of which are no longer possible... It's been years since I last visited the area.
--
One time Thom Scheuer asking a couple of us to tag along with him when he needed to chase out some bikers that had set up a camp out near Skytop. He wanted us for "backup" I guess. We just stood there as he woke the group up, kicking their tents and chased them out. Never saw that side of Thom before....
--
Sleeping on the ground at camp slime, a raccoon tried to steal some food from my pack (that I was using as a pillow). Waking up and just "punching". The raccoon let out a blood curdling scream that woke the whole camp up.
--
Drinking water from the spring at the Uberfall.
--
Some of my favorite spots to sleep: the ledge under Doug's roof near Horseman, there was a little "scoop" on the ground to right of Boston that made a nice spot if the weather was good. There were a couple of other spots that I have forgotten that were pretty good if the weather was bad.
I understand now that there are some "official" camp areas, camp slime is "closed", the camping along the road below the hairpin curve is gone.
--
Thom Scheuer sitting on the Toyota reading the NY Times.
Watching Kevin Bein doing the NY Times crossword puzzle (in pen).
--
Doing outrageous moves on a climb to grab a couple of blue berries that were growing out of a crack.
--
Getting a parking spot in the pull off right below the Uberfall.
--
Clipping the Leaper Z pin that protected the start of Classic
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Mar 30, 2017 - 05:48pm PT
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Mar 30, 2017 - 09:07pm PT
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Swami Rich?
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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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Mar 31, 2017 - 06:49am PT
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Jon Clark
climber
philadelphia
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Jun 26, 2017 - 06:13am PT
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Ribbit, ribbit
Psyched on the Gunks
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Jun 26, 2017 - 09:20am PT
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Bullfrog.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Jun 26, 2017 - 11:37am PT
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Looks almost as good as Lake Louise!
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Jun 26, 2017 - 12:05pm PT
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Wow. Pround send. I've never seen anyone even TR'ing bullfrog let alone actually leading it. How bad was the gear?
Balrog gives me enough fits....
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Jon Clark
climber
philadelphia
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Jun 26, 2017 - 02:00pm PT
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Wow. Pround send. I've never seen anyone even TR'ing bullfrog let alone actually leading it. How bad was the gear?
The gear is small and creative in spots, but adequate. On my onsight attempt and two subsequent redpoint attempts before I was able to put it together, I took 20+ foot falls off the crux in the overhanging corner. There are places you wouldn't want to fall though.
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Jun 26, 2017 - 02:22pm PT
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There are places you wouldn't want to fall though.
True of many 'Gunks routes that are harder than easy 5.11.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jun 26, 2017 - 05:11pm PT
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Awesome, mr Clark!
That's a real 'fly catcher'
( dropping past the slab, landing standing, (?) on the lower one 20+feet ? ,from before that heel-hook?!)
Now -Suppers Ready-
Have you tried that onsight?
Flash?
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Jun 26, 2017 - 07:35pm PT
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Nice work! I bet even Alex H. couldn't downclimb that onsite...
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Bolted anchors just at the top or additional bolts and hangers on the actual climb?
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jstan
climber
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I don't know who took that photo. The original picture was taken by Hallam Murray who was at MIT. Don Morton from Princeton volunteered for the unpleasant task of seconding.
Hal led my first climb at the Gunks. I was one of four newbies he was leading up Hawk. At the time I thought his decision to park four newbies on a ledge six feet long by three inches deep, odd. But now I suppose he was trying to find out if there was anyone with talent in the group. When we started to act up on that three inch deep belay ledge he mused,
"Be careful now. You too can be replaced by a nonlinear servomechanism."
It must have been evident to him not one of us possessed ability.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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John was Hawk your first climb ever, or just your first at the Gunks? I remember Hal--also one of the first people I climbed with at the Gunks with the IOCA crew.
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jstan
climber
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Al:
In 59-60 an unusual number of climbers condensed on Chicago. Rich Goldstone was even in the same dorm with me. Just about every person I was to meet later in life was also there, it seems. Before Hawk I did a couple TR routes at the Lake. That Baraboo quartzite struck me as being a substance with unequalled Rockwell hardness.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Appreciating the commentary
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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On the Throne, maybe 1983. Not to be a jerk but 5.12 was established in the Gunks in the early 70's and the place has been pretty much stagnant for years.
John Okner, you do understand that bolted anchors especially in the Gunks preserved the integrity of many trees?
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Wow John, I never realized that you, too, started at D.L.!!! Yep, not much rock is harder than Baraboo quartzite and it sure has been a 'teacher' of many a great climber over the years.
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jstan
climber
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I belayed Wunsch on Supercrack and up to 74 I got a chance to see Goldstone, Bragg and Romano in action. I thought that a pretty potent crew.
An idea though. If you insist on no prior inspection on a top rope, hanging around on steep nearly holdless rock to get small pieces of protection, the difficulty rises exponentially. In that case to continue the historical experience in development, you just about have to do without the protection. There the inadvisability of taking long falls in the Gunks begins to weigh on one. You aren't climbing on smooth 80 degree slabs. There are sharp edges everywhere.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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"Plus It's a 5 minute walk off. "
Really...climbed before you were born little guy.
"Leave it to Bob aka the Lorax to defend the bolts."
WTF John...got issues.
Grow up. the freaking car you drive does way more impact then two bolts on a rock wall.
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jstan
climber
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I first spotted the line of No Exit while climbing with Howie Davis. I thought the route would make a very nice first ascent for him. So I left it for him to do. When he never got the chance to go back and do it, I named it "No Exit."
There really had been no exit.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Not crying about trees and what road are you talking about? You have an opinion and I'm trying to tell you a fact.
The Fall
"t's not about impact it's about history and respect of original ascents.
little guy lmao!!!
Well then you just might to ask JS, JMac and the land owners about that...you have an opinion you spoke it. As to the little guy comment what with your Lorax comment?
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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No I don't, must not been that big of deal to me, just like climbing.
Thanks for the concern and back at you. :-)
Do you volunteer your time to the trust to do trail work or gear replacement?
Speaking of Howie, really miss him, like a big brother to me. Here he is following Topnotch 5.11c in RMNP.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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John...I have climbed at Millbrook...What is your point?
Looks like Project X
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Kevin Bein on Supercrack. A shining star he was.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Apr 20, 2018 - 09:11pm PT
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PROUD LITTLE GUY,
Screaming into the wind!
Alright you two stfu!
1st, I was Friends & climbed a lot with both Kevin & Mike!
The day before they flew to Europe,KB & I spent his last afternoon/evening,till past dark, At the ubber,(Still haunts me) & Mike, carried be out slung over his shoulder, like a sad, torn sack of 'tatters, (I had auger'd in, sticking the landing, exploded my heels)
So, Its great to see those 2 pix,together, thnx
Bob, I luv ya mhan, but come on??!
This has nothing to do with conservation!
What J okner says is truth
you Should stand for more adherence to maintaining some things,
like the -Bastion of Traditional Clean climbing- this is not Shickashiny or Tillberry!
The climbing above the lake is some of the
best DWS climbs . . .Traverses
once every 20 years or so the comer/center chimney gets blue!
The lower angle lichen covered face freezes much more often.
There was a lot of back & forth with climbers. People were climbing, opening grades,
If you wanted to bolt climbs, you left.
Everybody left, & look what they let happen/talkrd into so to make coin from sitting on a rock.
Bob You are one of the hardest working people I have ever met,
this should stir some resentment in you, they get like $500.00 a day plus tip? for sitting on a rock.
& Still no protection on many hard routes? Id be happier to see that,
then Top ropes, wrecking, polishing, all time historic classics likes of foops!
They deserve to be made to clean up that mess! every time,(not be allowed to leave an "attractive nuisance",fix'd & hanging)
When we sent, you solo'd off or jumped back off, or rapp'd off on that scary, stuff'd, wrapped tat!
Now they dont climb past the crux,
Fixed nut for gumby trys they do not climb
Foops, they get hauled up! those are top rope convenience bolts & are an abomination! RRRr really a terrible development at the lake
It goes beyond saying that while bolting over my childhood they have wrecked the place. All to make a buck.
While I cleaned & wire brushed; I regret not bolting
EVERY THING I TOP ROPED (@least Anchors,as noted, that rock is hard)
Now this puts the patina on things
MH2, (A Cairns) photo
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=3081029&tn=0
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jul 26, 2018 - 12:49pm PT
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Sneaky move to add a bump, so more eyes might see it & weep a bit, Oh' where youth has flown
[Click to View YouTube Video]
oh man are those young kids really us?
Opening scene is Scott F, Probably Cyberentic wall
then further in,
on the belay,for Rich G's Foops, is Paul Hubb(rip)
Al D, in the rugby shirt,(here & later 2:59) The Sting, at the Trapps
I cant tell who the 2-3 others are, and don't want to guess
I think it is all from Double & Triple, (but maybe @3:43 Birdcage, in the Nears?)5:50 The Sting again
But for sure, At the end,starting around 8:00 min, in,
Is James Munson who we all called Jimmy or Jim.
Jimmy & Richie R, the two of them together and individually changed the top end in big ways.
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Oldfattradguy2
Trad climber
Here and there
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Jul 26, 2018 - 07:30pm PT
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He used whatever part of his body he needed to, including one that almost resulted in a rescue because its use resulted in some rather loud screams and moans from a female partner on a ledge......
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jul 26, 2018 - 07:52pm PT
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right,wow ! no talking old school out of school! - but still!!
pretty cool to see , I was guessing Morris H in red?, who had a Jfro/
anyone else ?
(it dosent look like, 'Howey' D, or Jordan M @4:00,no way to tell who is in blue,belaying @4:03)
1st I don't have book so I cant spell, Mike C/Seacaca, or Sawickey ? I shouldn't try. Any guess, FTdadII ?
!Wow, remember those guys, some wild wild times !!
The little trip haha!, like I was saying, no talking out, scole!another
nickname,
Social climber, Yazoo Ms
Jul 26, 2018 - 11:29am PT
Following LSD party at Split Rock: In New Paltz
As he approached the village, he met a number of people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this gesture, induced Rip, involuntarily, to do, the same, when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long!
that had been posted here after I posted the video, and /i switched places, kinda bad form, so thanks for that share.
For some the question is always Why, for some the answer is always why not?
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jstan
climber
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Jul 26, 2018 - 08:02pm PT
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Been 51 years now. More and more life seems to be a process in which we reach blindly into a sack of goodies, but are limited to pulling out only one thing at a time.
And you never know what you are going to get.
Edit:
Andy:
What did the post say? Have no idea. My connection seems to work now so it may be something from long ago.
edit2:
And you never know what you are going to get.
That's weird.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 26, 2018 - 08:17pm PT
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I just got a John Stannard post. Whatever a 'post' is.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 26, 2018 - 08:53pm PT
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I am posting now just to avoid working on my end of life paper work. Have many years ahead but.... Endings are a pain!
Going all nostalgic. When I was around three I was lying out on our field chewing on orchard grass. The ground itself began to shake as a flight of 200 B17's went over on the way to Rome AFB and ultimately the UK and the Battle of Britain . They were only at a thousand feet or so, but look as I might, there weren't any rope ladders hanging down to the ground. The drama was absolutely riveting. The Merlins were better but oh those radials!
Current politics are presently circling around war as if it were just water going down a drain. Here is a discussion of the reasons the ME109-G could not fight at 24,000 feet as well as could the P51-D. Any ME109 that chose to hang on its prop would stall out long before the P51, and become low hanging fruit. By any logic the 109's needed to be cruising out of the sun above 27,000 feet and able to engage at 25,000 feet. They couldn't do it and still survive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTD7DqXfRno
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 26, 2018 - 09:44pm PT
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Andy:
What did the post say? Have no idea. My connection seems to work now so it may be something from long ago.
It said:
you never know what you are going to get
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Oct 10, 2018 - 12:40pm PT
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My bad, for not adding that @ least
The far ridge-The Smiley Road & Napanock pointWe got all over I do not have any way to confirm this I was told that Michael Siaca has passed on 9/15/18.
(he was said to have resided in Little Egypt NJ)
For those who gnow that name he was the real deal, cut from the same cloth as Warren Harding,(Chain Smoker, notso much a boozer) but a free & clean Ground up On-sight till there was blood type climber. Bold as they ever came till he resolved to only top rope. He'd led everything, no-falls, in a swami by then anyway.
But if you were lucky enough to have roped up with the younger version,
It always sounded like this;
"on no gear till where?! oh holy shjt Mike, Mike-Please- Please MIKE put something In.
we will not gnow his ilk again,
Red Swami Chime in!
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Oct 10, 2018 - 01:17pm PT
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Its not like there are armed guards or pill box defended trails,(maybe out by Napanock Point
go get some!
from a non-climbers description of the view from the "HighPoint" . . .
One could look 100+ feet down into the ravine or across the ravine to Napanoch Point, almost 1,000 feet higher.
There were typical Shawangunk cliff lines in view,
as well as the narrow gorge at the head of the Witches Hole ravine, pointing to the elusive Witches Hole waterfall. The sunny cliffs here are home to many rattlesnakes, . . .
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tradryan
Big Wall climber
San Diego
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Oct 10, 2018 - 02:08pm PT
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Wow, thanks for the probable news regarding Michael Siaca. Sad news. I remember him back when I had no facial hair and used to punch laps on slammin the salmon and some of those... thrashing around on survival of the fittest. We'd cross paths and compare beta and he'd tell me stories from back when he was a bold leader. Really nice friendly guy. He'd solo a line to gain a ledge and set up topropes and run solo laps all day. He was coaching high school wrestling at the time, so he said.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Nov 20, 2018 - 09:33pm PT
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I was wrong, the NJ state death notice was not for a NYS resident, which if I'd thought through, I would have realized. My sincere apologies
I am glad to be able to correct that, Michael Sciacca, Is reportedly
Very much still with us.
mid 90's Beverly K
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jock van patten
Sport climber
bishop ca
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Nov 21, 2018 - 09:26am PT
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Re; Mike Siacca (I think this is the correct spelling)
Are you sure Mike has past on?
I never saw him smoke but I moved from the area in 2002.
To be sure the Mike Siacca I knew baked bread and muffins,
climbed in blue baggy pants, top rope soloed a lot and
was "intense". Also he would hitch rides to the Gunks by
standing alongside Rt 17 in NJ with a rope over his shoulder.
Is this the Mike we are posting about? I hope not.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Nov 21, 2018 - 12:11pm PT
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As you say, That same Mike -different Spelling? Sciacca.
but for sure
that individual.
Glad I am wrong, my apologies, so sorry
05:40pm PST
jock van patten
Heard from a Gunks local. He saw Mike today....
EDIT; GREAT!
re:/ The question arose from a death notice, I was asked, I thought it was from a reliable source.
Peace and blessings,
sO GLAD TO HEAR
Happy Thanksgiving
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Nov 21, 2018 - 12:47pm PT
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Is Mike(the baker) the same Mike who would visit his mom at the old folks home very frequently and was like a son to so many of the people there who didn't have visitors?
If so, that's very sad, as he sacrificed many years of his life to be that good son. I'd see him often when he'd come to climb (rope solo) at Lost City and got to know him just a bit. I know that man's mom did pass away a few years ago, and he was now "free," to travel as he'd wanted. But that he got so little time to do that - we just never know, do we?
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jock van patten
Sport climber
bishop ca
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Nov 21, 2018 - 02:15pm PT
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Rich (Rock & Snow) said he saw Mike "recently" at a climbing gym.
Said he was rail thin but climbing.
Still hoping for the best.
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jock van patten
Sport climber
bishop ca
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Nov 21, 2018 - 05:40pm PT
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Heard from a Gunks local. He saw Mike today.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Nov 21, 2018 - 05:57pm PT
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Good to know that rumors of his demise were slightly exaggerated!
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steveA
Trad climber
Wolfeboro, NH
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Nov 22, 2018 - 06:00am PT
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Does anybody here know the status/whereabouts of Art Gran, and Dave Craft-just curious.
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DanaB
climber
CO
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Nov 22, 2018 - 08:43am PT
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Art Gran lives in Kingston, NY.
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