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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 23, 2008 - 09:11pm PT
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Chappy salutes the obscure traveller within us all!
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Aug 23, 2008 - 09:14pm PT
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hey there tarbuster... say, thanks... i really like that... :) .... cheers.... and cheers to chappy, my brother, too! ... god bless! thanks again....
edit: ... that's how you find hidden treasure... :)
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 23, 2008 - 09:58pm PT
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From a time long ago,
In a galaxy far far away...
(or some such)
Photos borrowed from Chicken Skinner, once posted in a thread from Supertopo Past...
Dale in the 'Milks:
(Strawberry or Buttermilk Mountain Works chalk bag, leather paneled EB's with something like green dot Tiger's Paw soles)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 23, 2008 - 10:07pm PT
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those are the FAs for 1986...
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Aug 23, 2008 - 10:22pm PT
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hey there warbler.. say, thanks for the "punch line" history about my brother... and the route, etc....
thanks for the share... say, i had read some of that in an article somewhere, too...
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john hansen
climber
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Aug 23, 2008 - 10:56pm PT
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Just spent an hour reading those two stories.
Thanks Tarbuster.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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I'd say the last couple years of the 70's and the first couple of the 80's featured a discernible lull in the popularity of big wall aid climbing in the Valley. (Maybe Ed could track some FA data to look at that part of it...)
Long free routes were the rage for the common man; as noted upthread, Friends really helped that along. We, or Russ, really, dubbed the West Face of Rixon's the "Poor Man's Astroman".
By the mid 80's however, in no small way attributable to and signified by the ubiquitous Fish Products white vinyl, big wall aid kicked back into vogue.
I'm just sayin'...
From Mountain 79, June 1981,
A pair of uncommon men were popularizing long free routes:
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le_bruce
climber
Oakland: what's not to love?
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Great read. Thanks Tarbuster and Hudon.
How many years later did Piana and Skinner make their attempt?
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Skinner & Piana: that was in '88.
My client and I passed Todd & Paul while they were working on the Salathe. Anecdotally, as I topped out, I was confronted with the options for the final anchor, which initially drew one to the base of a large triangular block. I instead chose to anchor to a firmer horizontal crack nearby...
Later we heard the harrowing tell of that block having been unleashed by Skinner & Piana.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Nutsonthechin, Wisconsin
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I recall being on the Salathe mere minutes (ok.... coupla days) after the Hudon/Jones free attempt. I remember looking at the chalk on the Roof, and thinking, "jeebus! I bet McClenahan could do this".
Ok, the MCClenahan thing was a lie, but the chalk out there was pretty impressive. I do not think they got the roof free at that time. Mark? What's the scoop and what year was that?
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Dick Cilley wanted to head up there with porta ledges and work it, around '81.
So, dammit, if I'd jumped on that train, it coulda' shuda' been our chalk too.
(but we couldn't get out of the Ahwahnee Sweet Shop)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I'll look later tonight at the statistics...
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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how many times do you think the guy
wearing the balaclava wished he'd
taken it off before the pic?
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lars johansen
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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For a period of time in the late 70's and early 80's my old friend and big wall mentor Steve Bosque held the claim for most big wall first ascents. He was soon eclipsed by Charles Cole. Steve's record speaks for itself.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Raydog: "how many times do you think the guy
wearing the balaclava wished he'd
taken it off before the pic?"
given the bondage butt shot he's posing, i bet he's glad it was on.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Bosque is a cool dude with an understated and "normal guy" gameface.
One of the times I was up on Salathe, prolly '81 (might have been the time Russ was chalkin' the holds for Mark & Max, or just after), Bosque & company, which I think included Chuck Clantz (sp) and like 8 guys, in any case the usual suspects for FA nailing at the time, were camped on Mammoth Terrace attacking "Pacemaker" I think it was, during the FA. They were all drunk, at high noon -on a "rest" day.
My partner was Austrian, a loose member of the Swiss contigency (Russ could maybe pull his name out) and had just been on the Zodini with that hard driven kraut dude named Sonny or some such. After his tour with Sonny, he just wanted to relax, refusing to top out anything less than refreshed and well fed, so we took like 6 days, free climbed to maybe 11- here and there (might be fluffing that a tad), stopping around 2 or 3 in the afternoon every day. It was a cush ascent: tons of water, lots of extra food, bag o' weed, Playboy mag (no circle jerking tho, thanks)...I pulled up onto Mammoth, reached into the haul bag, rolled a joint, shared it with the Pacemaker team and played through with the Austrian, heading for some fist jamming in the the double cracks and on toward El Cap Spire.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Nutsonthechin, Wisconsin
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Shiit man..... that is going back.... I remember Big Sonny.... he was a train conductor in Munich or something. When we picked him up at the airport in Frisco he took us all to a steak house in the Gay part of town...... Anyway.... yeah, Big Sonny...... his partner was or could have been: Martin Scheel, aka the Swiss Bent, since Punk Roy stole his woman, the Swiss Miss.... or maybe Chris, an unassuming looking fellow with a very round head...... or Thom, the owner of the free Oldsmobile I eventually got (long story)...... or maybe Mattias, the guy I did the Lurking Fear with... wild hair and from Germany for sure.... it was not Paolo, the guy who as you described as being "very lips" when he talked..... and not Swiss Michi..... who I'll try to get over here to this thread...... or German Mike, who did acid and decided that he was the strongest man in the World and proved it by doing numerous one arms on the Camp 4 apparatus, and then perhaps tried to kill himself or someone else and then had to be subdued? hmmmmm.... maybe it will come to me.....
Edit: just emailed Michi.... hope he shows!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Ha!
Yer gettin' warm. I think Michi would remember my partner. He had long black hair; might have been "all lips" as you say, but more likely German Mike, because I recall the Acid bit.
Anyhow, jeepers, how 'bout that Sonny character eh? Clantz said, when he went up on lead, he went out there to either succeed or die. Like for the Fatherland & Feurer.
Remember when he went on to Excal, he cut helicopter landing skids into tube chocks??? "We need more materials" he would say. When Walt and I were ramping up for our aborted Tis-Sa-Ak bid, Sonny called me "Tis-Sa-Ak Man" ... shoot I just knew I was a WUSS when he said that. And I was.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Nutsonthechin, Wisconsin
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Sonny was a hard man..... cut from a coarse and worsted teutonic cloth....
I remember when you guys did that thing with the Playboys.... got a pic of the guy?
and they always called each other with a "d' " before their names... like d'Michi and d'Paolo.... who was an Italian Swiss.... and d'Jody, who I last heard was doing a physics thing at like SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator) or Berkeley or something.
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