Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
| Messages 1 - 60 of total 60 in this topic |
Double D
climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 3, 2008 - 03:54pm PT
|
I know a lot of you have some pretty cool stories about who turned you on to climbing and what inspired you to do so.
Stories on a stormy day...please come forward with yours!
|
|
Ihateplastic
Trad climber
Lake Oswego, Oregon
|
|
Whillans... Scott... Bonnigton... Brown... I lived in the library and read 'em all. Actually had the opportunity to meet Doug Scott once to discuss his early work on Baffin.
The stories and the photos just took me away to a new dimension (or should I say New Dimensions.) Soon I convinced my dad to purchase some RD climbing shoes and I took a class at the local climbing store. As a 12 year old I had to be blindfolded and, using a hip belay, had to catch a full grown man who jumped from a beam across the ceiling. PAIN! Just about tore my skinny body in two.
Then my friend since nursery school, Mark (aka Blinny) and I walked up the local creek and started exploring a 40-fott high rock. We had maybe three 'biners, a prussick, some clothes line and a few knifeblades. Weird rack! I took my first fall a few weeks later on a crap rock when, while doing an "aid pitch" I leaned back on a runner "tied" by my friend that had exactly HALF of a grapevine/Fisherman knot in it. My first grounder!
Anyway, from there the rest was (and is) F U N !!!!
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
My parents said I was climbing before I was walking. In Boston and Chicago as a kid in the 50's and 60's I was always up in trees and on top of roofs. In the navy my photo lab and the signal radio room were boxes welded on opposite the stacks eleven stories over the main deck at the top of the superstructure under the antenna arrays and reached by a ladder of welded wrungs. It got pretty exciting climbing up to and inhabiting it during typhoons. On getting back from Vietnam and starting school, I was climbing around in Giant City down in Southern Illinois to photograph orchids and other plants in the highly pocketed rock. One day while just sitting in the sun studying at the base of the main cliff (it has a lawn up to it) a sport rappeller threw a hank of goldline down on top of me and I mistook him for real 'climber'. He had me suited up with a diaper sling gloves and a Budwieser before I could spit. I was rescued by some nascent climbers about a week later and the rest, as they say, is [a minor footnote in] history.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
The West
|
|
Have to cogitate.. Great unusual story, Khanom! mine is more along the lines of Healy-joes; cottonwoods in Cook County, then a family vacation in the tetons and an introduction to the CMC.
|
|
Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
|
|
Watching the movie "SOLO" as a young boy at the Ski Chalet in Point Loma, San Diego, when we went in there for some clothes for me for the snow.
Probably about the time the movie first came out, 1970?
I have a real soft spot for that movie as a result. Way ahead of it's time, for a fantastic all-around climbing experience and visionionary link-up, even if it was fake. Just the idea was awesome. I don't think I knew it was a fantasy climb until much later when I knew where all those different places were, then duh, I knew it couldn't be the same climb.
But the illusion was done real enough for the time. It inspired me as a young boy, and gave me dreams to dream.
|
|
Redwreck
Social climber
Los Angeles, CA
|
|
I was a whitewater kayaker for years and years. Paddling Seneca Creek and the New River Gorge in West Virginia, I'd see climbers up on the rocks and think they were nuts. Then, after 7 or 8 shoulder dislocations resulted in my not being able to maintain a reliable roll, I gave up boating and was looking for something else to give me that same level of excitement. One of my paddling buddies whom I met after moving to California had done a lot of climbing in Yosemite back in the day and took me under his wing and got me started. I started way too late in life to ever be worth a damn but am pretty much hooked at this point.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
Lemme see?
Inspired? I was inspired when I rapped down to Double D on half dome and gave him the radio to save me.
|
|
Double D
climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 3, 2008 - 07:05pm PT
|
Ahh come on Werner, if I remember right you told Bill & I prior to going up there to "get stuck on Big Sandy and call for a rescue...I need the cash."
We just followed your instructions but missed Big Sandy by about 600'. teeheehee.
Thanks for the many fine memories!
|
|
Double D
climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 3, 2008 - 07:26pm PT
|
Great posts dude and dudettte's!
As a kid I read tons of books about early American explorers, Indians and mountain men. My favorite character was Jim Bridger. Later, The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer got me totally stoked! I spent countless hours climbing all the large trees on our block, often in the dusk so as not to get caught. I made it a point to do ascents of all the greats, and repeated anything that didn’t get me in trouble. My buddies and I had a lineman’s phone hooked up to one of our tree perch’s that we spent countless hours making prank calls and calling girls. We especially like going up to the top of trees in high winds and getting whipped and tossed too and fro.
At age 12, my grandfather took us out to Vedauwoo for a family picnic where I first got turned onto the idea of rock climbing. Donning PF flyers I scrambled my way up to the summit through chimneys and gullies quickly to avoid the eyes of the family elders that might quickly squelch such a summit attempt.
My mom was way into spontaneous adventures and would drag my sister and I all over God’s creation. On spring vacation she announced that we were going on a road trip through the Sierra gold country with no particular agenda. This amazing week long journey ended up in Yosemite where we took the swan slab basic rock class. Although it would be years before I returned, I was hooked.
In Jr. high, my buddy’s sister had a boyfriend, Peter Churney, who was good friends with Rik Reider and took us up to Castle Rock for some 5.6 top roping (actually Goat Rock). From that day on I tried to weasel a ride whenever I could. Both Rik and Peter were agents of stoke and really gave me a vision for training and honing my skills. My first visit to camp 4 was with Rik Reider when you could drive in…imagine that! That weekend was when the first ascent of Stoner’s Highway was committed to with haul bags and bivi gear. Although I could climb trees like a monkey, physical training like pull-ups was a long, slow road.
We got to choose high schools and I was fortunate enough to have Ravenswood, an experimental integration school, as an option. They had a mountaineering club of sorts headed by an incredibly dedicated teacher’s aid, Dave Lund, who took us out at least a couple of times a week to local crags like Castle and Henly’s rock. I had bought a used pair of PA’s and was in heaven (EB’s weren’t out yet). On weekends we went on trips to Yosemite, Mt. Shasta, the Minaret’s, North Palisades and numerous other way cool climbing places. By the time I was a sophomore, I scarcely saw my family as we had a daily routine of riding the school bus to our local crag, Rattlesnake rock and we were always gone to the Sierra’s on weekends. We finagled our way to get P.E. credit for climbing and had a bunch of very talented climbers that came from there; Kathy (KB) Besio, Augie Klein, Kurt Reider (Rik’s brother), Kevin Ludwig, Bill Price, Annie Whitehouse and Dave Yerian just to name a few. Dave Lund schooled us in the art of belays, anchors, self rescue and so much more. I can remember he tested our belaying prowess by hooking up a 150 lb. weight with 15 feet of slack and throwing it off the bleachers while we belayed from below. At 115 lbs and on a gold line rope, I got thrusted up in the air and severely burnt (no belay devices then) but had the confidence that I could catch a leader fall.
We pretty much had our local crag, Rattlesnake rock, to ourselves and developed some awesome bouldering problems there but my true inspiration came from the talent at Castle rock in those days namely, Barry Bates, Ron Kauk, Ed Barry, Rik Reider and many others who had pioneered many fine problems and were always encouraging to us young pups. We also did a lot of buildering…particularly at Stanford and this 100 year old building in Palo Alto called the Ross & Wilson building. We got way honed on vertical face climbing on thin edges. I remember taking Yabo there and being really pumped up by his positive reaction to these obscure areas.
Eventually we graduated to the Valley and groveled our way from being 5.8 climbers, up the food chain. I remember Fred East, Ed Berry, Tobin S., Kevin W. the Bird, Werner, and Mike G. being very cool to us. When Kurt, Bill and I first attempted the Nose, Fred took us over to Kevin’s famed VW van and explained that this was the “basic equipment unit.” In those days, if you were in the loop, you could borrow equipment for walls by signing it out like a library book. Leaving racks or equipment at the base of routes wasn’t a big deal and theft was either rare or non-existent. Beta for routes came from Ropers green guide, the register in the box in camp 4 or from hanging out with the boys. Sandbagging was prevalent and secrets where next to impossible to keep.
Many fine memories and highly stoked friends!
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
Just so you all know.
Double D is a bad ass aid and free climber. This guy climbed some really serious sh'it in his day.
|
|
Ihateplastic
Trad climber
Lake Oswego, Oregon
|
|
First, my dad, who is now 89, STILL remembers watching SOLO with me. We both saw it as beautiful, interesting and poetic. So easy to be drawn in.
Second, Mark (Blinny) and I were sleeping in the rain on Dinner Ledge when we started hearing cries (not crying) from the NW Face. Knowing we were hosed (literally... rivers of mud flowing into our bivi sacs) on the South Face we rapped off and ran into rescue to report what we heard. That began the BP/DD rescue. I also remember a story from Werner telling people about how he almost dropped his radio on the rescue. Something about it wasn't much use to him at the time...
|
|
EP
Social climber
Way Out There
|
|
I had a choice of learning to surf or climb in the early 80's. Given the horrid OC localism at that time, I went with climbing.I buildered warehouses in an industrial park that were covered with stone, got the Hunk's Guide and scoped out every crag in the county, then moved to Berkeley and climbed every day after work at Indian Rock, Cragmont, or Remillard.
|
|
mrtropy
Trad climber
Nor Cal
|
|
Watching the movie Solo in Middle School on a rainy day in PE class was one the seeds for me. Must of been about 1970. But I had already been backing and skking skiing for years.
|
|
AbeFrohman
Trad climber
new york, NY
|
|
The wife took me to the gym!
|
|
Cracko
Trad climber
Quartz Hill, California
|
|
Almost too old to remember, but the book, "Vertical World of Yosmemite", to this day, motivates me to seek out the next vertical adventure. Harding's recollection of the use of the call "Lock!!" for "Rock" on Leaning Tower will have me in stitches well into my 70's !!!
|
|
Anastasia
Trad climber
|
|
Marvin the Marvel...
Didn't want to go, too scared to go, and had no interest in climbing.
He kept asking and one day on an impulse I gave in.
Thanks Marvin for everything! You gave me a gift I never stopped receiving.
AF
P.S.
I did climb trees, roofs, etc. all throughout my childhood. I just didn't connect the rush to mountains until that day...
|
|
G_Gnome
Trad climber
In the mountains... somewhere...
|
|
Like Locker I was sucked in by Spencer Tracy on The Mountain. Now that was a REAL man! The first time I watched it shown in 10 minute increments on The Mickey Mouse Show in about 1957. I was fascinated but it was many years until I was exposed to climbing at Stoney Point and have been hooked for 35 years now.
|
|
TwistedCrank
climber
Ideeho
|
|
I couldn't think of anything else to do when I dropped out of college. I knew people were climbing in Yosemite but I didn't know the exact nature of the scene. I hitchhiked there with some PAs, a swami belt, a couple of nuts and a couple of carabiners I bought at REI in Seattle after working a job in the mountains. C4 was full so I walked to the other walk-in campground across the river (can't recall the name of it - it's long closed). The first guy I saw there was sorting gear so I went up and asked him if he wanted to go climbing. The next day we went to Manure Pile Buttress and did After Six. How many people do all the pitches of After Six? We did.
|
|
Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
|
|
Kent Maiden, working for Challenge/Discovery program out of Presscott College, Ariz. (Outward Bound type program)....I was sent on this program by my father to " give me leadership and responsibility."......too bad I became addicted to the dirty sport of climbing and all the nasty things that go with it.............It was Summer 1972.............36 years later, ....still slumming around the crags every weekend........
|
|
ec
climber
ca
|
|
I never intended to go ever go climbing. However, after a few exposed escapades during some cross-country backpacking trips, a climbing class was offered at the local outdoor shop and it sounded like a good idea, only from a 'survival' standpoint.
The instructor was Tex Bossier from Chouinard Equipment. There were about twenty of us in the class (surprising for Bakersfield, eh?) and the outdoor portion was divided over the weekend. It was cool, but I wasn't really focused in on climbing right away. 'Still didn't interest me much...I went out with a few of my former classmates begrudgingly. Being the least enthused, I am the only one out of the 20 that is still climbing.
What inspired me to climb was my realization that there was so much unclimbed rock out there in the Southern Sierra and adventure (or epic?) in every trip. However, it was difficult at times to find partners willing to suffer the rewards. LOL. I even used to keep a whole extra set of harness, shoes and the works (backpack and rain gear) so a potential partner could not use lack of gear as an excuse to back out.
'Still some more adventures to be had...gotta go.
 ec
|
|
Bill
climber
San Francisco
|
|
As soon as I knew what mountains were, I wanted to climb them. I drove my parents crazy begging for trips to the mountains when my dad was a professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana (about as far from rock as it gets). I heard climbers traversed on a rock wall in a stairwell at the student union, so I went there and traversed, but it wasn't on the side of a mountain, so I didn't really see the point.
Then we passed through Yosemite in '77 when I was 15. I scared myself half to death soloing up Lembert Dome, and seriously considered running away and living with the hippy climbers in Camp 4. Unfortunately I moved to Hawaii instead, and spent 15 years as a surf bum.
Then I went to Nepal, and when I saw those mountains, I knew I had to learn whatever it took to go up there. So I took a mountaineering class at AAI in the Cascades, and after the class my instructor suggested I hitchhike up to Squamish and climb there for a while. I did, and it was good: real good. This was what I was supposed to do with my life. As far as I knew Yosemite was the center of the climbing universe, so I moved home to the bay area, posted "looking for a partner" on this newfangled internet thing that had just started up, and the rest, as they say, is history.
|
|
Watusi
Social climber
Newport, OR
|
|
After reading Maurice Herzog's "Annapurna" at the age of nine, I had developed an interest in mountaineering at a very early age...On my daily route home from junior high school, at twelve or so, I would pass daily by a mountaineering equipment store in my home town of Pacific Beach, San Diego...It was called, "A Striving After Wind," and it held, among things, the wildest looking posters of people, hanging it out on aid walls, colourful equipment, and all the trappings of a most fabulous adventure. Being an eager lad, I persisted in belonging my stays in hopes of gaining the favour of one, Roger Wilson, who was working there at the time. Beleaguering him with an incessant query of questions pertaining to this pursuit, I slowly worried him down to the point that he finally conceded. He ultimately allowed me to accompany him, and his compatriots,on an expedition to to Wilds of Joshua Tree... In 1973...I never left...
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
"when my dad was a professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana (about as far from rock as it gets)"
Bummer, a short drive down I-57 to Carbondale would have put you on plenty of rock back then. There was even a small, but fairly active scene at the time. Sounds like you made your way to it eventually regardless.
|
|
TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
|
|
Young teens and avoiding authority got me into hiking and backpacking.
Soon I was upping the ante with winter skills.
I am sure the kicker for me was 'The vertical world of Yosemite'.
|
|
d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
|
|
musta been about 5th grade when
i read this.
convinced my folks to take me to
watch the 1st climbing comp. on
the cliff lodge wall at snowbird.
didn't know sh#t about technical
rock climbing, but i did know
that i had to, just had to do what
they were doing and could and still
am, and will 'till i can't no more!
those little books by royal robbins
were my mentors.
dino
|
|
KuntryKlimber
Mountain climber
Rock Hill, SC
|
|
Kelly Cordes wrote an article in Alpinist 3 called "painted blue".
|
|
doughnutnational
Gym climber
hell
|
|
I was inspired by seeing climber in Yosemite and Pinnacles while on trips with my parents. In high school I actually began climbing with the Zaccor brothers and others while at Woodside High. I saw Augie Kline, Double D, Bill Price and others while climbing at Ratttlesnake Rock and Castle Rock. They were my real inspiration becauuse they were so much better than me (and very cool too!). My sister was going to Ravenswood High and one of the heroesaid "tell your brother if he ever wants to be a real climber he needs to go to school at Ravenswood" I transferred there and improved much thanks to being around many climbers. I remember catching weights thrown from the bleachers with a hip belay and climbing a difficult fist crack above the pole vault pads during pe (the orignal bouldering pad?).
|
|
Double D
climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 4, 2008 - 11:58am PT
|
RIGHT ON! Very cool stories!
eKat: “that fascinating, fragrant, tinkling, brightly colored, WEIRDASS STUFF.”
Was it combustable??? (-:
Werner: If I haven’t thanked you, Simon, Blinny, Ricky A, Mike G, Ron, Bev J (RIP) and the pilot (Rick The x ‘Nam Vet???) Ranger Tim S.? and all others who helped us young pups off that rock…THANKS!!! Werner, thanks to you I always carried a hammer on walls from that day on, even on clean ascents!
Ihateplastic: The PAIN! Nuff said, you brought back similar memories. I remember spraying Bactine right afterwards...OUCH!
khanom Thailand??? How cool is that?
healyje Hanging from welded rungs in a typhoon? Yikes!
Klimmer Somehow I’ve never seen “Solo”…gotta put that on my bucket list for sure.
Redwreck My all time favorite climbing pictures come from New River Gorge…that place must be incredible as pictures rarely do justice to the stone. Another bucket list item.
Kevin W: You crack me up! Not much changed when you grew up, huh? I’ll bet you’re still talking friends into climbing stuff…only now it’s their wives that are PISSED!
d-know Banner in the Sky…YES!
Todd Gordon Sounds like the ‘ol mans plan kinda backfired?
Kevin L…Big HOWDY to you and your sister Kia!
Keep um coming!
(-:
|
|
salad
climber
San Diego
|
|
My wife got me rolling. She took me on my first backpacking trip in the Desolation Wilderness. I loved it and was planning our next trip, which was to be over Mono Pass into Pioneer Basin out of Rock Creek. My boss was an avid backpacker and recommened that trip.
So I roll into Western Mountaineering in San Ho to get some water bottles or something for the trip and notice a pamphlet for ASI. I picked it up and started thumbing through it. Holy sh*t there were pictures of guys climbing frozen waterfalls! With crazy picks! This I gotta try! So I signed up for an intro course, Shasta via Avi Gulch.
I obviously knew of mountain climbing, but at the time I didnt really new rock climbing existed. ASI suggested some familiarty with ropes and knots, etc, so I sniffed around and found a climbing gym in the area and learned a couple of basics.
We got thwarted on Shasta due to weather, so I went back the next weekend and soloed it.
I then found a guy, Bill Lim, who agreed to take me out on rock and the rest is history, I guess.
Not long after, I got benighted on Bear Creek Spire. Full on noob fiasco. Couldnt find the summit block or the descent so we rapped the Northeast Ridge. I was totally freaked out and vowed if I got down ok that I would propose to my girl somewhere in Little Lakes Valley.
So on New Years Eve she and I ski in and I pop the question on New Years Day ahead of a big ass storm. Just so happens that my daughter was conceived in Rock Creek a few years later, and then two years after that my wife got her first wave of morning sickness in Rock Creek and we found out my son was on the way. Special place that is for me...
|
|
ydpl8s
Trad climber
Denver, Colorado
|
|
I was a skinny kid that didn't do too well at team sports. I had already taken up skiing and found I was pretty good at that (became instructor at 17) and I was looking for another non-team sport. The summer after my senior year in high school (Golden, Co) a friend (Chuck Tolton) took me for my first rock climbs in Eldorado and Boulder Canyon. I got dragged up a slew of 5.5 to 5.7's (Wind Ridge, Calypso, Bastille, The Owl, East Slab, Cozy Hang, Empor) and I was hooked. The next fall I moved to Gunnison to go to Wasted State and met all of the soon to be famous climbers there, (I even met, Jello through Chuck Tolton and actually ended up with the camera that he sold to Chuck: he claims it is the one Jello used to take the pics on the first ascent of the Black Ice Couloir). I was inexorably Hooked!!!
|
|
scuffy b
climber
Stump with a backrest
|
|
Seems like whenever this question comes up, I come up with a
different memory.
I was pretty puny as a kid, but our family was outdoorsy. My dad
had backpacked in his teens (born 1920) and even made packframes
in the 40's.
So, woods, mountains, dirt, camping...
Out of my friends and the bigger kids, I seemed to be pretty
inferior at climbing trees and things. The most popular ways to
climb on top of our school were too hard for me. So I looked
around and found a new line. There was a big screened panel with
parallel boards covering it. I found I could stick my hands into
the gaps. Didn't quite make the leap to handjamming, because I
could get my fingertips behind the boards. Foot jams were
mandatory, though. I didn't have to jam both feet in the same
crack, which was nice.
Then, way off the deck for a 9 or 10 year old squirt, grab the
roof and belly flop. There was a different descent which was not
bad (but impossible to climb).
When I started going out and backpacking on my own I realized I
was doing some unusual stuff just going around looking for fire
wood and shortcuts, going up to some summits for the view.
Then Harding and Caldwell did their big thing on El Cap, and I
saw Ullman's biography of John Harlin. That's the book that had
the biggest impact on me.
Next Summer, 1971, while backpacking in the Trinity Alps, I
realized I was doing the kind of stuff that would get me killed,
so I went out and got lessons and Robbins Boots.
|
|
Rockin' Gal
Trad climber
Boulder
|
|
In the mid-70s, I was staying with a friend in Bezerkley, looking for a job. I survived by giving plasma and getting food stamps. An ad in the Chron advertised “Seasonal Employment,” so I went to the Oakland Unemployment Department for an interview and got hired to work in Yosemite. I hadn’t been there, but it was a national park so I figured it would be OK for the summer.
My last $50 went for a new pair of hiking boots at the Ski Hut. After arriving in the park, I was assigned housing in L Dorm and became a busperson at the Ahwahnee. Sometime that summer I was taken climbing, to the first pitch of Bishop’s Balcony by Randy Lydon and Tom Sweeney, two waiters at the hotel. I remember running in place on the rock and getting a foot off the ground, not surprising for an overweight, out-of-shape, cigarette-smoking girl from Wisconsin.
L Dorm was right across from the climbers’ campground and there were always guys in the dorm bathroom at midnight or 1 am taking showers. As the days grew shorter, the same guys were hitting on the girls in the dorm as they were looking for a warm place to stay for the winter. I really didn't like climbers.
Summer became fall. I stayed on, for years as it turned out. Eventually I went climbing again. The first climb I actually made it up was Cathedral Peak in Tuolumne. That was the starting point. I was (and still am) hooked.
|
|
bonin_in_the_boneyard
Trad climber
Up the 'Creek w/out a Prada
|
|
A bad breakup.
I had been stuck in an engineering school with a 4:1 male:female ratio for 4 years. Moreover, it was in a post-industrial wasteland of a New England town with no culture and no life.
All together around the same time shin splints were ending my running career, I was on the rocks with a loser of a girlfriend, who nonetheless was about the best I could do under the circumstances, the company I worked for was closing, and the economy was crashing (late '01) making engineering jobs very hard to get.
I signed up for a grad program at the school I hated in the city I hated, broke up with my girlfriend, and started putting on weight from not being able to run. I knew I had to introduce something new to my life or I was going to lose my @#$%ing mind.
So I started taking dance lessons at the YWCA and climbing regularly at the YMCA.
Fast-forward 6 years and I'm a three-hour drive from Yosemite and engaged to a competitive dancer. Things are better now.
|
|
SamRoberts
climber
Bay Area
|
|
My parents loved to camp in the eastern Sierra, especially at the upper sites on Big Pine Creek. One time my brother and I went to Glacier Lodge and saw a couple of guys sitting out front. One of them was real old and the other, younger guy introduced him as Norman and said that he had climbed "about every mountain in the Sierra". I sat there with them and listened to story after story until Norman asked Bruce, the younger guy, to take him back home in Big Pine. After hearing those stories, I wanted to experience that so when I got back home I bought a climbers guide to the Sierra. When I started looking through the guide, I realized the old guy was none other than Norman Clyde! That was in 1970 (or maybe '69).
|
|
Beatrix Kiddo
Mountain climber
Denver
|
|
I started climbing because someone told me that skinny people make great climbers. I was skinny. They were wrong. So I decided to shift my focus and do it to meet men. That failed because I started climbing in places where I only saw mountain goats. Oye vey. Now I'm just inspired to climb for reasons that I can't explain. Its just what I do and I LOVE IT.
|
|
Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
|
|
there were rocks all over the places we - at 16 - would drive to and hike and smoke bunkweed, to get away from town, parents. we started climbing the rocks because they were there - then we could justify driving there, being there more "going rock climbing" and blowing more weed. just that simple.
|
|
Double D
climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 9, 2008 - 04:46pm PT
|
RIGHT ON! Those are some rad stories...the stuff is addicting.
SamRoberts Norman Clyde...how cool is that! He's one of my all time heros!
|
|
bringmedeath
climber
la la land
|
|
While it looks like most of you have mentioned other climbers as being your inspiration, mine is far from a climber. In fact maybe as far from it as anyone else I know!
My MOM, she showed me pics of climbing and took me to the gym. She drove me to the cliffs so I could stare at them. My mom has never climbed but probably knows more about wall climbing than some of you on this board. It is with her belief in me that I made itup the things I've done. While I've seen others my age have unsupportive parents mine were nothing but fully supportive.
The first time I went to yosemite my DAD was maybe more excited for me to climb than I was myself. He drove down there with me and stayed till I was halfway up or so. The next year him and my mom drove down to visit me and again got to watch us up on the wall. Once again I think they were more excited for me than I was, even though I had just completed something I'd thought about for several years. My parents time was my time and I thank them for that. I never would have done it without them...
|
|
Moof
Big Wall climber
A cube at my soul sucking job in Oregon
|
|
Two dudes at work who climbed and caved dragged me out to TR a couple times, then dragged me out to tyrolean across the Potomac between VA and MD by headlamp.
One dude from the week before's "practice" session.
Other dude, the night of the whole affair:
Me before owning anything but climbing shoes (if even those by then):
|
|
hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
|
|
I was the smallest guy in my high school class and I wasn't able to get the attention I wanted through the usual sports opportunities.
I had made a wood and canvas kayak for the Minneapolis lakes, and from that I stumbled into whitwater boating. I joined the local club and there I met a family who had immigrated from Austria-they had a beautiful daughter and I was definitely interested in what she had to offer. While visiting, (and striking out) they showed me photos of the Nose. The mom did the first female ascent, she and the dad were guided by Royal Robbins.
So I started climbing with them and they were very safety conscious. I eventually wore out my welcome but the climbing bug stayed in me. I never felt confident enough climbing with the Minnesota folks-so I would wander out to the valley by thumb or freight train and meet people to climb with from California.
The best people i've ever met have been climbers- how is that for a strange reflection?
murf
|
|
Paulina
Trad climber
|
|
The original inspiration were the Russian mountaineering songs from the 70s. Painted a very romantic picture of beauty and struggle and camaraderie and a higher (geddit?) purpose.
As a kid, I listened and wanted to go backpacking but my mother said a heavy pack would break my back... She still tries to tell me that...
|
|
Crimpergirl
Social climber
St. Looney
|
|
I had finished grad school in Houston TX (aka flatlands, swampland). And like many before me, I was really depressed having managed to survive the Ph.D.
While in grad school, a fellow grad student had been bugging me to go climbing saying I had a climber's body (whatever that is). I always said no. In hindsight, I'm not exactly sure why.
Anyway, after finishing, I was bummed enough to pick up the phone and call him and say "take me climbing." He did and instantly, I had something to look forward to. No more looking back second-guessing everything I'd done, sacrificed, lost, etc. Instead, I was looking forward to going to the gym (it's Houston!), to solving that boulder problem, to a trip to Austin on real rock, and even a trip the Holy Grail of Hueco.
I was hooked instantly. Something to live for!
Thank goodness for that moment. And thank goodness for him, even if he is a cephlopodic twerp. Haha - you reading this Gummy Bear, JuJu Bead, Silly Putty or whatever it is you post here as?!?!?!
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
My grandfather had a huge lot with some Sycamore trees that seemed of infinite height to a 7 year old.
When we were over for a family gathering the uncles would urge us boys on in a contest to see who would climb up the highest.
the crux was the bear hug and footwork on the massive trunk to get to the first limbs. once there it was only a matter of how small a branch you were willing to continue up on.
The highest branches swayed with the weight of a small child and the wind.
It seemed like you could see forever from up there swaying gently in the wind, an incredibly peacefull place.
It would go on till the protestations of the mothers won out, scolding the men and ordering us down.
I almost always won.
And,
never wanted to come back down.
|
|
ty-s
climber
|
|
I swam for seventeen years without a break, and after college I found that I was a out of my element when I had nothing physically challenging to do. I went from working out around 35 hours per week to doing nothing, and got a little bit depressed, because I had nothing to push for - school was done, I wasn't killing myself for the sake of tenths of seconds in the pool, and I hated work.
I needed something to push myself with, after a long career in the pool. My brother is a climber, and asked me to come climb with him. I was hooked. I live a long way from any real rock, but on my first trip outdoors, two months after I started gym climbing, I broke my leg on my first lead fall. I liked the sport enough to get back on the wall the first day I got my cast off, and I've been at it since.
|
|
Buggs
Trad climber
Eagle River, Alaska
|
|
Started climbing unroped at Veedawoo when I was 8 or 9 years old, not knowing or fearing the dangers involved. Just seemed natural to go "up" and get as high as you could. Was it the quest for the view? I don't know.
Learned roped techniques in the US Air Force as a Survival Instructor in the early 80's. Bruce Birchell was one of my instructors, then he became the best friend I have ever had, teaching me to climb and showing me the ropes. I was hooked.
Met some awesome people through him in Bend, at Smith, and in the Valley. Met Mel Johnston and Keith(Royster)Stevens, climbed in the Yo, Mt Watkins 1992, and the four of us have met on and off over the years for climbing and debauchery in awesome places.
Inspiration comes from these three especially, yet others have inspired me as well,
Jim Bridwell
Ron Kauk
Mugs Stump (PBUH)
Mark Twight
Dean Potter
Arno Ilgner
Todd Skinner (PBUH)
Doug Macdonald
Ken Embree
Stan Justice
Keith Ecklemeyer
Don Whillans (PBUH)
Joe Brown (PBUH)
Tom Patey (PBUH)
Warren Harding (PBUH)
John Middendorf
YEAH!! The movie "Solo" in Jr High! Hell yeah!!
|
|
mark miller
Social climber
Reno
|
|
I've always loved hills and rooftops. In 4th grade a few feet of fresh snow had dumped and a friend an I decided to climb C Hill ( Carson City C). It was the most rewarding and suffering experience I've ever had. K Mart style Sorel boots on , cotton long under wear and 'Tough Skins" but we managed to crawl our way up that Snow covered sage brush, bit by bit and I haven't stopped since. Fortunately before we killed ourselves we stumbled into RR basic rockcraft, etc.... Specific individuals that have inspired me are the one's that have gotten my ass out of bed and headed towards the stone. Everything else is hardwired deep inside....Maybe there's a pill for this?
|
|
Domingo
Trad climber
El Portal, CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2008 - 12:37am PT
|
I've always been pretty outdoorsy... I can swim for miles and I like hiking around in the woods. As far as climbing goes, I climbed buildings a lot when I was little... it used to scare the hell out of my parents. Then we moved out of Detroit and I found some trees to climb, and at my grandparents' farms, I'd climb silos and barns too.
Ten years later, I started screwing a climber and the transition to climbing outdoor rock just made sense.
|
|
Fletcher
Trad climber
Varied locales along the time and space continuum
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2008 - 12:57am PT
|
I was always fascinated by The Vertical World of Yosemite for many years going back to my childhood, but it didn't make me want to climb. Instead, I'd moved to SF in the late 80's and began fulfilling a lifelong dream of backpacking into wild and untrailed places in the Sierra. My inspiration came from the writings of Colin Fletcher.
On these trips I'd often encounter terrain with exposure and perceived high sphincter factors: I was just too scared to feel comfortable on it, especially since I was going solo much of the time. I worked with a guy who wanted to try rock climbing in Yosemite and I thought this would be a good way to learn some skills and know-how that would allow me to be a better judge of those exposed places that I felt drawn toward.
We came up on cool weekend in late April. Rain was threatening. On Saturday we took the beginner class with some other friendly Griswolds. Our instructor was Doug Nidever and there was something magical in the way he spoke about climbing. It immediately went right under my skin. He showed us basic footwork on a boulder near Swan Slab. This boulder looked as smooth as glass to me that day, but he assured us that there were myriad "nubbins" for the feet and hands that we could use. And of course we discovered that they worked surprisingly well with our odd feeling shoes.
It rained that night with snow down to about a 1,000 feet above the valley floor. My pal and I were stoked for day two of instruction. This time, we were the only ones who showed up at the YMS. Dave Bengston was to be our instructor. He told us that climbers do not like wet rock... not good for climbing. But he saw the disappointment in our eyes and sensed our enthusiasm. He told us to come back around lunch, maybe things would dry out a bit.
It was good enough for us to go when we returned. Dave had as much magic as Doug. That day ended with a short two pitch climb up oak tree flake. At the first belay, I looked around and realized that this was something most of the millions who passed through Yosemite each year would never get to experience. It was ethereal and sublime. I was hooked from then on. What great teachers.
To make up for our foreshortened day, Dave offered to give us a discount of some kind on a guided climb later on. I returned that fall and he took the noob up the east buttress of middle Cathedral. There was no turning back now.
Fletch
|
|
Fletcher
Trad climber
Varied locales along the time and space continuum
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2008 - 01:02am PT
|
Hey Bonin':
I had been stuck in an engineering school with a 4:1 male:female ratio for 4 years. Moreover, it was in a post-industrial wasteland of a New England town with no culture and no life.
First isn't that ratio the definition of an engineering school? :-)
Also, would that school have happened to be WPI in Worcester, MA? I grew up there and in the area. My high school pals and I used to call it the gray city. It wasn't all bad, but still, for me, the west beckoned.
Fletch
|
|
Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2008 - 08:58am PT
|
Like another post above, I was a very small kid with a lot of athletic energy, always picked last for the team sports. My adopted parents were totally sedentary, but very supportive and when I was 6 they hooked me up with some friends of theirs who were into skiing. Three years later the ski club I was excelling in sent us a brochure for a summer backpack trip program that took off out of Alpine Meadows. One of the days we spent climbing on some crags in the canyon between Alpine and Squaw, up above 5 lakes. I remember being really scared but loving it. A year later I went to Yosemite with the YMCA, and one of the councilors climbed, I told him I had learned how to belay and we went off and did the first pitch of Monday Morning Slab. The next year my dad moved to Berkeley and I went with him. His house was two blocks straight above Pinnacle rock, and I quickly fell in with the Sierra Club RCS, a great group of people who would drive me to the Valley and let me lead! I also started hanging around Indian Rock every day after school. I had the best of both worlds, learned ropecraft from some old Sierra Club masters, and was coached on technique by people like Chris Vandiver, Mike and Amy Loughman, and Fred Cook. With the athletic confidence gained on the stone, I became a pretty good soccer player, still small but no longer picked last!
Peter
|
|
survival
Big Wall climber
arlington, va
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2008 - 10:05am PT
|
My Dad was a pilot in WWII, flew everything from fighters to bombers, checked out on 15 different planes. After the war he finished an agriculture degree and a teaching degree. In the 1950's he moved his family to the Alaska bush. Pilot, teacher, gardener, the perfect combination for the govt. back in those days.
Anyway, he would take us kids on flights with him in small planes. I can remember looking down on such fantastic mountain ranges and wondering what they were like, but mostly I remember him flying me around these giant cloud formations and imagining what it would be like to climb up these huge fluffy "peaks"!
I had the good fortune to live up on the c. divide in NMex where there were fantastic cliffs and mesas and indian ruins to climb to. Then I had the better fortune to end up in Jr. High in Bend OR. By then I was sneak-reading the old Himalaya conquest books in the library when I was supposed to be doing school work. There are pretty much endless piles of rocks to play on around Bend, not even counting Smith Rocks. I would explore and get into exciting, dangerous spots. This was mid 70's pre-climbing explosion so nobody did this stuff (that I knew of) I got to be a real pioneer! I finally met Mark Wodtli-photographer, poet, visionary, wanna-be-climber, dope fiend and I was off. He introduced me to Scott Davis, a guy who had just moved from Portland who had some real equipment. (goldline, carabiners, slings, a few pins and nuts..) My first "real" partner. We happily climbed, pounded, dogged our way up many an undeveloped crag around Bend with the help of Robbins books.
Started our adventures at Smith Rocks and met Jeff Thomas, Jim Anglin, Mike Smeltzer, Jeff McGowan and many other "real" hardmen of the day. As a 15 yr old I met and climbed with Scott Davis, Keith Royster, Rob Lesher, Mel Johnston and Bryan Schult. Those were golden days, let me tell you. It wasn't long before we hatched our first trip to Yosemite. I stood under El Capitan and knew it was well and truly over for me......
Been a junky ever since...32 years..Thanks.
Bruce
Thanks Buggs for helping to keep it fresh for all of us lo these many years!
|
|
Double D
climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 10, 2008 - 02:33pm PT
|
Hey Peter (Maysho),
It's funny in all the years we hung together, I didn't realize you started out skiing! We share a similar start for the love of the mountains.
"With the athletic confidence gained on the stone, I became a pretty good soccer player, still small but no longer picked last!"...I tell you what, you would've been first round pick in my book! I can still remember when you first started leading the hard stuff. Your boldness blew me away. As far as I know, you were the first to onsite lead many of the routes on Snowshed wall. I also remember on more than one occasion some small manky peice popping out exposing you 15-20' off the boulder-strewn deck, and you calmly put the next piece in or confidently down climbed. You got my respect...that's for sure!
Dave
|
|
Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2008 - 06:05pm PT
|
Thanks my friend for the props from the old days, but to set the record straight... I was supposedly the first one to lead Manic without top rope rehearsal, but it took me two tries, fell off, lowered off, and sent it the next day. I lead that thing pretty often these days, when wired it is a cornerstone of the "office crack" training circuit.
And dude, I was good with the gear, so it was only once, on Babylon, you me and Victor, and was a rare but really stupid move, downclimbing from the crux, removing the directional cam, cause we did not have full racks of them back then - only a few, and in the micro-chance that I could fire the thing I would have wanted that up in the top handcrack, then going back up...Remembering that moment when the two "better" RP's lifted out right below me as I started to move up the short but really hard crux section, leaving me with the bad one, is making my hands drip sweat into my keyboard!
I will try to remember some old story to embarass you with! :)
Peter
|
|
Double D
climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 10, 2008 - 08:54pm PT
|
Hey hey...respect your elders!
|
|
Trusty Rusty
Social climber
Tahoe area
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2008 - 11:31pm PT
|
While doing some "recreational" time in J/Hall at 15, my Dad gave me Gaston Rebuffat's on Ice Snow & Rock. Read it twice. When I got out he turned me on to a class that Jim Wilson was teaching in the Bay Area Hills. I think that was 78. Read every book I could, bailed on my friends, bought a gold line and some alloy, and been trying to quit climbing ever since.
|
|
Ferretlegger
Trad climber
san Jose, CA
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2008 - 12:31am PT
|
In 1964, when I was about 14, I ran across an article in National Geographic about mountain climbing in Colorado. I can still clearly remember "the picture". It was a shot of someone ascending a knife edge ridge on some peak with miles of exposure all around. I was literally terrified by this image. I distinctly remember thinking "My god, that is ONE thing I will never do!!!". But the seed had been planted.
Several years ago, doing some therapy after my mother's death, I learned that I am, in the parlance of the Enneagram, a personality classification system, a "Type 6, counterphobic". This is a personality type that is hyper-aware of danger but compelled to master the things it fears. Thus it was that in the summer of 1968, a gullible friend and I sat in Tuolomne meadows with a topo map looking for rock climbs. Completely oblivious to the vast climbing rising directly above our heads or the early guidebooks, we gleefully noted closely spaced contour lines on the North Face of Ragged Peak and saddled up to go dancing. Armed with a detailed study of "Freedom of the Hills", a 3/8" Goldline rope, a 1" Swami belt each, 3 pitons, 6 carabiners, a knotted sling, my mom's claw hammer, and my guitar, we sallied forth to become real rock climbers. We blasted up the trail to the Young lakes, and spotted our line- an obvious "directissima" ascending the north face. Although we had never BEEN rock climbing, nor had we ever MET a real rock climber, we had eagerly consumed the stories of Walter Bonatti, Ghastly Rabbitfat, and the like, and lusted for a "first ascent". So off we went, "jamming", and "liebacking", and "chimneying" away as if our lives depended on it, which in retrospect, they probably did, as our belaying technique was less than ideal. The crux came when we found ourselves marooned on a crumbling chockstone in a rotten chimney. With no anchors, and no obvious way to free climb out, we were delighted to conclude that we would have to use "AID!!!". I pounded in a 3/4" angle, clipped in our sling, and stepped into it. I was immediately 3 feet above the chockstone! This was GREAT!! REAL CLIMBING as Salathe would have said. I pounded in another piton, clipped in the rope and my partner held me as I switched the sling to the upper pin. A few desperate pulls on dubious flakes and I had surmounted the "Chimney of Death" (we were still greatly enamored of the French style "romance of climbing" ethic at that time...). My partner soon followed, but I was aghast to see that he was chimneying, with my precious guitar in a soft case strapped on his back. I can still hear the dreadful scraping and thumping noises as the rough rock wore through the case and into the wood. Stifling my desire to strangle him, I learned a lesson that undoubtedly countless other climbers have learned- namely that a dependable, gullible partner who you can trust with your life is worth swallowing many indignities, insults, and the occasional bizarre outbreak for. Anyway, the climb at this point realized that it had been "conquered" (more French doctrine here...) and the difficulties eased to mere scrambling. In minutes we were perched on the summit rocks, and I played my guitar for my partner, who had INSISTED that we bring it in the first place. It sounded fine, in spite of the hole in the side, later repaired with fiberglass and epoxy. We then prepared for an epic descent, but were horribly disappointed to find that we could walk off the summit and down a low angle snow gully directly to our packs at the base. None-the-less, for a first climb it was a hugely satisfying experience. Not only had we lived through it, but it was the first shot across the bow for me as I declared war on the fear that that National Geographic article had spawned in me, a process that has continued unabated to this day. So, to close the loop and respond to the original thread question, what inspired me to climb was my fear.
|
|
Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2008 - 12:36am PT
|
FL, that's a great story. I wonder if you are the first person ever to have carried a guitar up a technical climb?
|
|
Ferretlegger
Trad climber
san Jose, CA
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2008 - 01:06am PT
|
MH,
Well technically it was my partner Dave who carried it. He was absolutely ADAMANT that we take it. Nothing I could say would dissuade him, so I finally realized it was either take the guitar and play for him on the summit or forgo the glory of the ascent. Over the years I came to realize that he was an incurable romantic. I could talk him into anything, no matter how hare-brained. A year or so later we had progressed to real climbing in the Valley, and I was leading a new variation of the El Cap tree route. It was some sort of A3-A4 roof to the right, and I was moving VERY slowly. I had been up there for hours, and Dave got tired and decided to take a nap. I was dangling from the roof about 50 feet over his head, so in spite of my protests, he simply wrapped the rope 3 times around his waist, lay down, and dozed off. When I finally got a placement in and needed slack to move up, I would yell at him and yank on the rope. He would roll over once or twice, rolling out a few feet of rope and rolling in the same amount in the other direction, all without even breaking his snoring.
Dave and I had many splendid adventures, such as the time we rappelled off a single rurp when the ledge we were on started to fall off the face when we pounded some anchor pitons into the crack behind it. It was a really GOOD RURP, though. Eventually school and other interests led him in other directions. I have been climbing with my current partner for 37 years. It sure has been fun.
|
|
pleinair
climber
frontrange
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2008 - 02:47pm PT
|
My father loved the CO outdoors, he later lived in Alaska. Our family went to the mountains most weekends. We had a four wheel drive, camping trailer, fishing poles and hiking boots. I didn’t think anything then of sleeping outdoors when it was below freezing, even in a cotton army bag that frosted up with condensed breath.
Dad fished while my siblings and I picked peaks to ascend. Once, we had a guide book but didn’t make much sense of it. We looked at the guide and its featured routes; thinking, that gully doesn’t look like 5.4 ‘miles’ (we supplied the word ‘miles’!). We probably scrambled a bit of fifth class here and there, but the best part was unstructured roaming.
Then I went to college in LA. Going to college in LA was a culture/environment shock after a wild childhood in CO. When a sparkly-eyed classmate talked about climbing at Taqhitz, J.T., and Yosemite, I wanted to go along to get out of town. Thanks Charles Cole 3 for introducing me to those places, and I still love Scrabble too!
Thank you Jon Frericks for a classic trad summer in Toulumne, Alison Sheets for a long climbing friendship, and Mark Timms for letting me lead in England.
|
|
hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2008 - 03:51pm PT
|
Detective Murphy at work here. The coolest photo ever of rockclimbing was DoubleD leading Seperate Reality in Yosemite Climber.
The best expression and the reach for the dangling biner is priceless. How great. That photo inspired me to get to it.
|
|
| Messages 1 - 60 of total 60 in this topic |
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!