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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Aug 24, 2008 - 10:01pm PT
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Very, very cool John Hansen. I am going to try and get that book.
Was that bachar in the straw hat ?
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MisterE
Social climber
My Inner Nut
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Aug 25, 2008 - 12:08am PT
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Bump for my first sense of true awe in climbing - the little white arrow...
Unmitigated failure is the taste.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Aug 25, 2008 - 12:47am PT
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Thanks Flashlite,
So he has not written this or put the pics in book form if I understand you correctly. Too bad, I'm trying to collect as many climbing related books by people like J. Gill etc. as I can for my families future gen. and our library.
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Flashlight
climber
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Aug 25, 2008 - 01:13am PT
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No, he hasn't and I am not sure he ever will. He does put a lot of time into his site though.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Aug 25, 2008 - 01:16am PT
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Well, thanks for the info. I will let my family know to check his site out. Always appreciate the great info on the history of climbing... Great Night, Lynne
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MisterE
Social climber
My Inner Nut
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Aug 25, 2008 - 01:17am PT
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Our own Jstan captured this moment of early anti-gravity sequencing:
jaw drops
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horst
Trad climber
Lancaster, PA
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Aug 25, 2008 - 12:24pm PT
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Yes, John's site is fascinating...IMO, one of the best climbing history resources on the web. I had the pleasure to climb with John a couple years ago...he's still fit, strong, and moves like a master. At age 70, ironically, he eschews dynamic moves, lest he risk another bicep tear or shoulder injury.
Here are a few recent pix of the Master...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 25, 2008 - 12:52pm PT
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70?
He don't look a day over 52.
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Aug 25, 2008 - 03:54pm PT
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I've got to say there must be something to climbing and staying physically and mentally fit into the later years.
John Gill case in point.
Bouldering and doing math problems must be the answer, and relating what you've learned to others. Fantastic. Inspirational.
I'm sure he even gets younger women checking him out. Now, that is the true measure whether you have found the fountain of youth.
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Flashlight
climber
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Aug 26, 2008 - 01:40am PT
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Dad and John around the campfire at Rock Creek near Bishop. One of the few times I have just sat there and listened. :)
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MisterE
Social climber
My Inner Nut
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Sep 15, 2008 - 12:28am PT
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Bump for a true legend of climbing
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
ne'er–do–well
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Maybe dumb question, but did Gill climb those campground boulders in Rock Creek Canyon?
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skywalker1
Trad climber
co
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Sep 10, 2018 - 12:21am PT
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Ya know, I can't really understand V12 or V15 for that matter. I've played with the holds and it is incredible that folks have had the skill to pull off these feats. Pre "good rubber" whatever.
Understanding how to use the body in such a way that really negates the need really for modern shoes and the feeling that I need this shoe or that is remarkable (I have no other way to say it).
I wish that I had these gifts or I can learn these gifts which the later I can't. I can only challenge myself in the endless quest to match or come close to something I know is beyond reach.
S......
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Sep 10, 2018 - 12:45pm PT
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John was the best climber anywhere, in his day. Injuries and perhaps also that he already had climbed so much, and he did not ever much push or approach his limits afterward. Nor did he feel the need to. People often talk about bouldering with Gill in later years (after about 1978), but that would not give them a clue as to what his ability was. In his fit days, the early, mid, and later 1960's, he was truly incredible. I will also add, however, that I don't believe John ever even then really pushed his limits. He climbed quite comfortably on most things that would thoroughly challenge the best of the best. Once in a while he pushed, in order to get some problem or rock face that captured his interest, often with a bad landing (no pads). It wasn't too often he went beyond himself, so to speak, if he ever did. Had he pushed harder, taken as many falls, made as many attempts, as many do now, the standard he set would have been much higher. People also don't realize how good his technique, balance, and footwork were. He was always a true artist. He did no-hand routes the best climbers couldn't do using feet and hands. If you think you're the new wave, try doing one-finger pulls on any of the first two fingers of either hand. Try doing a one-finger, one-arm front lever. Sit on the floor and climb a 20 feet rope in 3.4 seconds. His technique was something else, in addition to his strength, and it's hard to give anyone an idea. For quite a few years I watched and learned from that technique. It was the best of any climber I knew. I'm sure John will argue some of this, because he has always been very humble and always given other good climbers their due.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Sep 10, 2018 - 12:49pm PT
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He did no-hand routes the best climbers couldn't do using feet and hands.
I have no doubt about John Gill being ahead of his time, but there's limits even to legend to be believable... ^^^^
There's only one way those words can give sense to me, that's if you're talking about a free-running/parkour way of climbing...
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 10, 2018 - 02:03pm PT
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John had a no-hands route on Falling Ant Slab at Jenny Lake that I thought was about 5.10b with hands (I couldn't come close to doing it no-hands).
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Sep 10, 2018 - 04:34pm PT
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Thank you, Pat, for the kind comments (and those of you too young, Pat would float up his masterpieces BITD!)
I was no better at no-hands problems that my bouldering companions of that time: Pat, Rich, Kamps, Cleveland, Higgins, Rearick, Robbins, Chouinard, Beckey and others. And I had to jump off that Falling Ant thing on first attempt - a painful experience that almost ended in Jenny Lake.
When Yvon and I would go to the local rocks in the Tetons in the 1950s he would tell me I was "bouldering", an expression I assumed Californians had come up with. It wasn't until I started researching the origins of the sport in the early 2000s that I came across the word bouldering in literature from Great Britain from the 1880s.
For several years I researched aspects of rock climbing history, focusing on bouldering, ordering books from obscure sellers and visiting the AAC library in Golden once a month. Kerwin (Klein) gave me a few ideas and links, but my efforts were those of an amateur, and not having an historian's perspective I chose to let climbers from those distant times speak for themselves.
It was great fun.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
ne'er–do–well
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Sep 10, 2018 - 09:46pm PT
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Sep 10, 2018 - 10:23pm PT
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When John did Falling Ant Slab without hands it was, with hands, about a grade harder than most of the best climbers were doing at the time, I think. Soon enough the grade ceiling would rise, as it always does, and Rich says the slab is 5.10c? That's pretty impressive that one could do such a climb of that difficulty without hands back then. I think my statement is pretty accurate, although time always likes to deceive us all so that we think we are getting better and greater and that what someone did once isn't so wild after all. It's being there at the time that one tends to get the correct perspective. Before I knew Gill, everyone came bearing stories, and I mean individuals such as Royal and Layton and others, who told me they couldn't touch John Gill's little play things at Jenny Lake. Like others, I suppose, I was determined to be the measure. What a dreamer.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 11, 2018 - 09:47am PT
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rgold, I made it up that with hands. No-hands wasn't too bad, I made it up about 3-4'. Probably could have made it the rest of the way if I had tried. :)
Well done Jody! But are we speaking of the same route? Gill had two no-hands routes on FAS, and the one I'm speaking of was harder than the other. I eventually managed to teeter up the easier one.
John is very kind to include me in the ranks of no-handed boulderers of equivalent ability, but I never came close to making the high step on the hard route on FAS, and I never saw anyone else make it either. If I had to guess, I imagine Kamps might have repeated it, as he was an absolute master of such things, and of course Jody as well.
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okay, whatever
climber
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Sep 11, 2018 - 09:48am PT
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While I had my moments as a climber when I lived in Colorado in the 1970's(though I was really just a solid 5.10 climber when I was young and fit, not a 5.11 climber, though I managed to scrape up a few), I was NEVER able to do many of the fingery Gill and Ament boulder problems on Flagstaff or at Horsetooth. Things like King Conquer, and the Monkey Traverse, I could do, after I figured out the sequence that worked for me, but that fingernail hold stuff I just never mastered. But I think it's great that others have been able to do it!
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Sep 11, 2018 - 10:23am PT
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Right Jody. The hard Gill no-hands route was in the center (lake side) of FAS. About half-way up was a very high step onto a very small edge. It seemed like you had to "spring" into it, but the position was tenuous, the lower foot wasn't on much, and so there didn't seem to be anything to "spring" from.
I watched Gill do it more than once. He did seem to spring up. Each time, I thought, "oh, now I see what to do!" But the pudding, and hence the proof, never materialized for me.
Falling Ant Slab was not tall, but the high step was enough above the uneven ground sloping down to Jenny Lake to make a broken ankle a distinct possibility, as well as an ignominious soaking and subsequent drenched walk of shame back to the car and dry clothes.
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splitclimber
climber
Sonoma County
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Sep 11, 2018 - 10:58am PT
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Good stuff here.
I had the pleasure of bouldering at Jenny Lake a couple weeks ago. You could feel the history there.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Sep 11, 2018 - 11:59am PT
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The semi tongue-in-cheek bouldering guide that John and Chouinard wrote for the Jenny Lake boulders is a true classic, though the satire was best appreciated by those familiar with Ortenberger's Teton Guidebooks--"these are big boulders, they make their own weather". A copy, actually probably the one and only original, used to live in the Jenny Lake Ranger station and was available to be looked at if one asked 'nicely'. I hope it is still there--or at least has a good home in a climbing museum/archive somewhere. I had many humbling experiences on those pebbles.
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splitclimber
climber
Sonoma County
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Sep 11, 2018 - 12:09pm PT
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the jenny lake ranger gave me a simple single page topo to the boulders. Would have been cool to see the "guidebook". :)
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FRUMY
Trad climber
Bishop,CA
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May 15, 2019 - 11:15am PT
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Bump for the best.
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