Discussion Topic |
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dickcilley
Social climber
A cova Dos Nenos
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 9, 2008 - 09:29am PT
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Who and when?Thats first not fist.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Redlands
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You'd need a pretty big fist, no?
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rick d
climber
tucson, az
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F.a. Bob Scarpelli as a finger and hand crack c. 1955 when he was 3 years old.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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here's a reference to the "infamous" Generator Crack in 1973...
Generator Crack Area. In April 1971, Jerry Coe and I explored a hitherto hidden small 200-foot cliff band directly above the generator building of Generator Crack infamy. This cliff, characterized by knobs, has thus far yielded four fine short routes: The Electric Gully, Chimney for Two, Chickie Pie, and New Diversions (Claude Wreford-Brown also in ascent party). The latter two are exceptionally fine. All are in the F8 range.
RICK SYLVESTER [url="http://www.americanalpineclub.org/AAJO/pdfs/1973/usa1973_403-433.pdf"]AAJ 1973 p416[/url]
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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I remember sacrificing many hours and much skin, on top-rope, in the fall of '70 to the Generator in an effort to learn the "ritual secrets' of Yosemite climbing.Even then it seemed to be a well-established climb. My efforts there, and similar ones on climbs such as Church Bowl Chimney Right (done wrong!!!!)had only temporary success, since when I next climbed in the Valley 2 years later, I had to start all over again, and still get stopped cold most of the time on the wide and the flared!!!!!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Haven't we just done this subject? Anyway, Generator Crack already was a toprope climb when I started climbing in 1963. It is likely it already was a "climb" for 3-5 years.
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DJS
Trad climber
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Mar 19, 2009 - 08:50pm PT
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Bump
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Mar 19, 2009 - 08:51pm PT
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Psst, RickD Scarpelli was 6 in 1955...
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Mar 19, 2009 - 08:57pm PT
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I wonder if I was the first to fall from it without a rope and break my back? Might as well own some record.
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DJS
Trad climber
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Mar 19, 2009 - 09:00pm PT
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DBL BMP
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Mar 19, 2009 - 09:04pm PT
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Prolly, eeyonkee, but I tell ya, the Scarpelli version has more drama than 'merely' grounding and braking your back. He's more objective, as he wasn't personally involved...
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Mar 19, 2009 - 11:30pm PT
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I remember doing Generator Crack in 1967 or so, with
Barry Bates, but it had been done before that,
and possibly by Barry or Jim Bridwell, maybe Mark Klemens...
couldn't say for sure.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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bump for pix.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Just call it nasty. Severe nasty, even. Ratings suck,Tut.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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It’s clearly not 5.10c but who gives a f*#k...it’s GC the best place to hone your ow skills in the Valley. How many here have done it....how many still can?
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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Her Tuttle, I recall going there with you and others BITD.
Thanks for inspiring a visit to Doggie Do too . . . pretty stout for 10a.
Good times!
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Risk
Mountain climber
Marooned, 855 miles from Tuolumne Meadows
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I tried it repeatedly, and proudly failed.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
from Poofters Froth, Wyoming
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10C max... do you guys even climb? or remember when you could?
Probably done in the '50's in big boots and with sh#t technique. Ya'll should be embarrassed trying to uprate this thing.
nawmean?
cheers,
BMT
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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John Muir frequently soloed down it as a shortcut to the Merced.
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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Probably done in the '50's in big boots and with sh#t technique. Ya'll should be embarrassed trying to uprate this thing.
nawmean?
Genious and f*#king funny as sh#t.
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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now that is a line that makes a man want to travel clear out that californee-way.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 10, 2019 - 12:02am PT
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When Muir was around, there were no oak trees preventing a running leap into the river from the top of the boulder.
He would never have needed to downclimb the crack.
For that matter, there was no road down into the gorge until the earliest part of the last century.
Back then, everyone had big old leather boots, too.
Tricouni nails don't help a bit with technique.
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Weenis
Trad climber
Tel Aviv
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Apr 10, 2019 - 09:00am PT
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I led it onsight with tube chocks. It's hard.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Apr 10, 2019 - 09:12am PT
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Donini, one has to have an interesting definition of short-cut to think of downclimbing that is faster than walking around :)
As for rating, I thought GC was the defining standard for 5.10c OW ? A challenge for any precise OW rating, as has been discussed to death but maybe not in the last few years, is the variable geometry of different people which makes different climbs relatively easier or harder for different people.
I only visited GC one time (edit: maybe I'm merging faulty memories of 2 times?), flailed at the bottom trying without the tree, then stemmed off the tree to get started and made it up no falls on top-rope. That was end of a day doing about 10 pitches of cragging in the lower valley. I seldom had cragging days because I was a weekend warrior seeking out the longest adventure climbs I could do during the little time I could get there.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
from Poofters Froth, Wyoming
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Apr 10, 2019 - 03:56pm PT
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As for rating, I thought GC was the defining standard for 5.10c OW ?
It is, and on the soft side of the grade.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 10, 2019 - 04:01pm PT
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In my day it was "hard 5.9."
And indeterminate grade, but that's what the rating was understood to be.
I knew of no one who either led it or did it as a boulder problem.
Always used the top rope and a spot off the ground.
Use the tree, it ain't free.
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mynameismud
climber
backseat
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Apr 10, 2019 - 05:48pm PT
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5.10C my ass!
5.9
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Apr 10, 2019 - 06:23pm PT
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It’s down to the old and very tiresome ST forum habit wherein a climb is defined by it’s grade and that alone. Give a climb an “old school grade” and it can wax in glory on the ST stage. Yeah...we were real bad asses bitd even if it took us multiple days to climb El Cap. I guess we can bask in the reflected glory of having today’s climbers comment on how hard the “old school 5.9” they just climbed was. Not really hard, mind you, but hard for the GRADE...damn, we were tough.
Now, grades have expanded greatly and, to the everlasting horror of some...softened. Keep in mind that the only ones that have “softened” are the ones low down in today’s grading system...the ones we could climb bitd.
GC was a big part of my progression in Yosemite. I developed my ow skills with repeated visits there one rainy Spring and I will always remember it for that and not for the arbitrary number someone attached to it. The “grade” dropped markedly for me with repeated visits from...damn, I can’t do it to...hey, I just soloed it with my running shoes. I visited GC again five years ago after turning 70 and found the new grade to be...phew, I can still do it, but just barely.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
from Poofters Froth, Wyoming
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Apr 10, 2019 - 06:52pm PT
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Some guys will just never get it....
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Apr 10, 2019 - 06:55pm PT
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I guess not...
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 10, 2019 - 07:39pm PT
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Some guys will just never get UP it...whatever the rating.
Fact.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 11, 2019 - 07:49am PT
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I never could get it.
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Barbarian
climber
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Apr 11, 2019 - 08:15am PT
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An assessment of grading of Generator Crack using the Barbarian Simplified Grading System:
GC used to be easy...I could climb it.
Now it is hard...I can't climb it.
Numbers are meaningless.
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Gnaw Mean
Trad climber
Manzaneeter
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Apr 11, 2019 - 08:41am PT
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At south woodson this would be the downclimb, nawmean?
Get that?
Chairs
Dangus
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Apr 11, 2019 - 09:35am PT
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So nobody knows who did the Fa?
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Apr 11, 2019 - 11:12am PT
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Donini, you dragged me down to the GC when I asked you how you got so good with cracks. That was about a hundred years ago.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Apr 11, 2019 - 11:34am PT
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Not quite a hundred Don but whose counting?
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KP Ariza
climber
SCC
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Apr 11, 2019 - 11:57am PT
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Went down there once. 3 1/2 decades ago. Climbed it on a top rope somewhat uneventfully. Yawn. Was able to sneak into the squeeze a move or two before most do I’d bet. I weighed a buck forty. Felt about the same as other wides of the grade at the time. I’d be hard-pressed to get my ass up it today though…
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Apr 11, 2019 - 12:41pm PT
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Jaybro for the win...
I also always thought this was the gold standard for 10c OW. It nicely captures the dynamic range of off width from fist/hand stacks to squeeze chimney. If you got comfortable on this you were good to go on those OW sections that show up on some of the longer routes on Upper Rock, Middle Rock etc.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 11, 2019 - 12:55pm PT
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Yep, looks like none of us is interested in the actual FA, per the OP, how hard it is being the keynote, instead.
ST manages to do this way more than we should.
I suppose wrangling over grades is some class of fun, but it's harmless, I suppose, other than this sh#t affects the outlook of younger climbers who then become infected with "Gradiosis," a horrible affliction. :-(
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Apr 11, 2019 - 01:20pm PT
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> So nobody knows who did the Fa?
It seems the FA was never recorded in the guidebooks.
Unfortunately with the passing of Pratt and Robbins, we may never know,
unless someone else recalls the story of its FA.
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Apr 11, 2019 - 01:30pm PT
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Someone in contact with Roper? He might know.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 11, 2019 - 01:48pm PT
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If Roper knew, it should have been in the original YoGuides.
He's probably clueless, too.
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Apr 11, 2019 - 02:25pm PT
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For the record, all wide cracks are graded pass/fail.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
from Poofters Froth, Wyoming
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Apr 11, 2019 - 03:13pm PT
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Soooo much cupping!!!
Yaniro and Leavitt were both way better and stronger than Haan... just ask him. And them other guys, save for Pratt...pffft. Not even playing the same game.
And Tut, just because a slab King like yourself found it hard, then shook out a rest home to find some guys who thought it was hard does not change the grade, nor my opinion. 10c braj...
Even in the marshmallow land known as Mountain Project, where 5.8+ wide gets uprated to 11a on a daily basis, they call it 10c in the consensus grades. Explain that in your next WOT.
For true sandbagging, the GC would be about 5.7+ at Woodson.
Edit: the FA was probably George Anderson, who did not bother to report such fluff
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Apr 11, 2019 - 03:40pm PT
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Whoever did it first probably didn’t remember it after they sobered up the next day. 50 ft of thrutching.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Apr 11, 2019 - 03:55pm PT
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Went to Woodson once in 76....didn’t seem stiff at all.
But
I don’t remember the grades, just the quality of the climbs, which were excellent.
And
That is as it should be.
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Apr 11, 2019 - 06:08pm PT
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For the record, all wide cracks are graded pass/fail. (:
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Apr 11, 2019 - 06:33pm PT
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Pass/fail is the best rating system for any type of climbing...and lots of other things.
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KP Ariza
climber
SCC
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Apr 12, 2019 - 12:40pm PT
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then shook out a rest home to find some guys who thought it was hard
Russ for the win- That’s hilarious LMAO!
While we’re on the subject, sorta, I would be curious to know who did the FA’s of other mini wides in the park such as Badass Mama, Space Invaders, that wide roof crack on a boulder across the Merced from cookie cliff (blanking on the name)...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 12, 2019 - 12:51pm PT
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the FA attributions for those "boulder problems" is not known (or at least not reported)
for Generator Crack the information I have says pre-1963 FA, but no names
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Russ Walling
Social climber
from Poofters Froth, Wyoming
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Apr 12, 2019 - 01:06pm PT
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Space Invaders I hear was Falkenstein. Thought it was Cilley for years but he says is was not him.
Bad Ass Momma? hmmm.... no idea
You might be talking about River Boulder, and I'm guessing Chapman. Or the even better one is called Jaws. Up the hill from Steamboat in the Elephants Graveyard? Tried it with Werner a million years ago. Way hard. FA might have been Dale Bard or Bachar. Werner might know.
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KP Ariza
climber
SCC
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Apr 12, 2019 - 01:19pm PT
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Jaws is what I was thinking of. I remember Mike Paul recalling his throw down with it. Beef carpaccio comes to mind. Said his hands were ripped to shreds.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
from Poofters Froth, Wyoming
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Apr 12, 2019 - 01:21pm PT
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That was the day with me and Werner and Bachar... It was unholy. That Mike Paul ascent might have been one of the best and gnarliest climbing feats I've ever witnessed. He was a mess! Proud send!
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