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Crimpergirl
Social climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 20, 2009 - 02:58pm PT
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I'm enjoying Hankster's stories on the other thread (see: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=809769);. In this thread, Hankster tells the story of Alan Lester's great catch of a 200' vertical flying Hank and a multi-mile carrying out of a crunched Hankster.
Wow!
Does anyone else have any information or stories of Alan Lester? I searched and didn't see a previous post devoted to Alan and I'd love to hear more stories...
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Mar 20, 2009 - 03:04pm PT
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I'm with Crimpie
MORE MORE MORE!!!
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Crimpergirl
Social climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 20, 2009 - 08:09pm PT
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Alan Lester stories??? Anyone? :)
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Mar 20, 2009 - 08:58pm PT
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Isn't he still a neighbor of yours, back there in Boullder? if not, look uo Henry Lester, pretty sure he still lives there and still gets tired of being asked if they are related, and so probably has an approximate bead on where Alan is, now.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Mar 21, 2009 - 01:39am PT
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hey there hankster... say, i was hoping for some neat stories, too....
but i was at your thread a mite early.... (waiting in the seat of the marque with popcorn, only for the show)....
say, so i heard you showed now... wow... i will have to go check it all out...
:)
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
climber
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Jul 27, 2010 - 05:05pm PT
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Instead of bumping , I copied this from the original thread . . .
(Hankster) " South Face of Half Dome. 94'. Alan Lester and I are in the prime of life. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Scott Cosgrove said that this was the most state of the art thing he'd ever done. If he did it, that means that if I want to be "state of the art", I gotta do it. 12DX no problem.So Alan and I get this plan together to repeat the Southern Belle. Not try, repeat. We drive all the way from Boulder with one thing in mind, 2nd ascent, PERIOD! All this under the gaze of Valley big shots like Croft and Cosgrove and God whoelse?
And yeah, I had visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. I just did the BY, Midnight Lightning, Astroman blah blah. In Yosemite, those folks don't care about who you think you are and what you just climbed. Kinda hard from a Texas/Colorado hybrid like me to understand.
We drove in one straight shot to Yosemite(get a globe, it's a long way). Marched straight up to the Southern Belle, camped, drank nothing and tried to fire. CRAP!
We had a deal, I do all the freaky runout face pitches and Alan gets the cracks, that's his thing. Alan floats the 1st 5.9 pitch, cruises the shorty 5.12 2nd pitch and then HIKED the12C 3rd pitch with 2 #2cams. He just left one halfway up and milked the second for 60feet. I just pooed myself.
The 4th pitch is the "crux", 12DX, I work the 5 bolts and do what we considered an, A0? followed by a 100foot 12a runout. The scariest climbing moment of my life(in the 90's), almost so far. I tried to put in nests of RPs and just left them hanging cuz' they were crap! Who's foolin' who? I nail the runout and Alan does the 5th pitch in excellent style, 12A.
Alan blows through the 6th pitch, that's right, 1 bolt in a 150' 5.10.
So Alan nails the 6th pitch and it's all me from here on up, his crack duties(funny) are through at this point. 2 mindless unprotected 5.11 pitches with almost no bolts go by, AND If you've ever had to climb 40' to get to within' seeing distance of the bolt. When I say the bolt, I mean the only bolt.!
Here's where I screwed up. The topo only sez' where the one bolt is and 1 bolt is hard to see. I missed, not hard to do on Half Dome.
I just could not find the bolt. There was a garbage drawing Coz gave over but dangit. 14 bolts on the back half of Half Dome does not register in the heat of battle.
). Crap I thought, where is the bolt. I already climbed 40 feet longer than Coz's(I love him) crappy topo said.
And there the bolt was, 30' to the right of where I was climbing. I had already done way too many moves to downclimb.
Once again, I've said before, this is where I thought you separate the "men from the boys". The Cali boys from the Boulder boys! If you've ever been that far off route, yet so close.What a mind f*#k. A BASE rig wouldn't help you. Largo couldn't help you.
Any partner affiliation that has to do with death routes is well discussed before hand between the partners. Alan and I did not even broach this subject. We were studs from Boulder and arrived in Yosemite to steal the 2nd ascent of the Southern Belle.
The 3rd worst moment of my climbing life was on the Belle. I had climbed to far to the left to ever get to the 1 bolt. 40' of 5.11 that I just could not downclimb. I yelled my ass off to Alan, get me the bolt kit!
Seriously people, I was wearing a baseball cap. I leaned in a little too far and the brim of the ballcap clicked on the rock and chucked me off. Alan needed 150' feet of rope, we didn't, have to send up a bolt kit. I started sketching as much as you can halfway up Half Dome. Mentally, I had a meltdown. Seriously, Alan was 100' below me separated by a #2 TCU and a tiny Lowe Ball Nut. If those two pieces blow, ugly factor 2 straight onto Alan.
This brings up a situation I've always fancied. Do you wanna take a 200' fall and blow out your legs, or do you wanna hold a 200 foot fall as the belayer? Behind every earthquaking leader is a bold unheralded person holding the other end of the line. The belayer of freaks should be recognized!
So 1 pitched, I knew I was going to pitch. The mental process of pitching the kind of pitch that Doug Robinson would write about and make Coz cringe is a many splendered thing. Getting so far up all the rad sh#t on Half Dome, and then tossing so far was unthinkable.So yeah I fell(you wanted to hear it and there it is) .
Anyhoo, I went 40' into a dike (the kind that runs all over the S. Face of the Dome). I knew I broke my ankles very quickly. Actually, I knew they were toast way before. I then skidded like a dog dragged by a truck for another 40'.
My two pieces of gear held. I asked Dean and he never saw them on his ascent. This was easily the biggest fall Alan ever held. He lowered me down 8 gruesome pitches(thank you Coz). Anybody who knows about the South Face of Half Dome knows what a train wreck it is to get there. A freakish rescue is unbelievable. I begged and pleaded for a YOSAR rescue, a helicopter or whatever. Alan then looked me straight in the eyes and said "dude, were from Boulder and we won't be rescued in Yosemite". Alan literally carried me on his back to Little Yosemite Valley, a coupla miles. I then took a horse ride down to the bottom. Another crazed experience . "
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pc
climber
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Jul 27, 2010 - 05:17pm PT
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That is KickAss! What came next?
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Prod
Trad climber
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Jul 27, 2010 - 05:20pm PT
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Wow, Great read, I think I read it before too? I knew Alan from the early 90's. He was alway a nice quiet guy. I thought he was a geology major?
Prod.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Jul 27, 2010 - 05:22pm PT
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Greenies can do that? Oh, right he's a transplant...
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Watusi
Social climber
Newport, OR
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Jul 28, 2010 - 03:59am PT
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Wow! "Little Mo" what a cool guy! I knew him back in the '80's but haven't seen him in eons, if anyone talks to him tell him Michael Paul gives his best!
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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May 21, 2011 - 11:07pm PT
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Today, being the last day of the planet, I went climbing with Alan Lester......
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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May 21, 2011 - 11:22pm PT
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Todd does his special little magic act again.
Have never met Alan in person, I remember when he and Steve Hong were legendary, mythical super crack climbers from Colorado.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Topic Author's Reply - May 22, 2011 - 12:52am PT
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Cool beans. Thanks!
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wayne burleson
climber
Amherst, MA (currently in Lutry, CH)
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May 22, 2011 - 01:15am PT
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In the late 80's I remember Alan and Pat Adams were known for
doing fast laps on a tour of 5.12's in Eldo. Can anyone come up
with that list of 12's? Do people still do such things?
Alan would arrive in Eldo with only a harness and manage to get
in many laps in a few hours before heading off to work at CU.
He was always very efficient and cheerful.
I always respected his ascent of the old aid nightmare
on Twin Owls at Lumpy... What was the called?
It seemed he could get up pretty much anything that had
a crack in it...
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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May 22, 2011 - 01:40am PT
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Kinda looks like Don Adams in that pic...
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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May 22, 2011 - 01:44am PT
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Sorry, the only Alan Lester story I have is not about climbing and he probably doesn't want me to tell it so all I can say is that he is one cool, fun dude and I am glad to see that he is still climbing and enjoying himself.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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May 22, 2011 - 09:47am PT
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Here's an Alan Lester story. This is more of an "I'm a pussy" than an Alan story. Back in the 80's before I'd developed manboobs and gotten old, Alan, after we'd done a few climbs together, enlisted me to go take a shot at freeing the fearsome aid route up the North Face of Monkey Face. We drove over and slept on Alan Watts apartment floor, and at breakfast I saw both those dudes order flapjacks and then proceeded to eat them with NO butter and NO syrup. Watts went his way to do his thing and Lester and I headed to Smith. We took his line and as we are digging and cobbling gear together in the parking lot I made the mistake of asking how old his rope was.
Bad idea as I had not brought my new Mammut.
Alan casually replies that he doesn't know, some guy had retired it and given it to him. Hmmm, well, how many falls did it have I respond? In those days, a 5 fall rope was the best you could get, 5 falls defined as FF2 by the UIAA. "Oh, couple hundred or so I'd expect....I'm mean, that I put on it anyway, don't know how many before that".
"Jesus Christ Alan I sputter, totally dumbfounded!" (I'd earlier seen a kid almost die when his rope, an Edelrid Classic, fell apart on rappel, so I was getting a queezy feeling here: the feeling you get when your testicles suck up inside of your body so hard that they lodge up in your throat and proceed to start pressing your eyeballs.)
"Nah, no big deal, Alan replies, they were all small falls with lots of rope out....."
But it was a big deal to me, and any attempts to forget the rope age and condition were soon immediately brought to the surface like a shotgun blast to the head as we walked under the East Face line on the Monkey and faced the exposure of the North Face. Alan says "your lead first"....but I've all but filled my pants at this point and the unseen elves have cemented my shoes to the rock and I'm all but unable to move or speak. "uhhh, I don't know man...."
Alan tries to coax me: come on Bill, you're getting the easy pitch, I'll take the hard one up high". It was true, it was true, I'd get a sh#t load of bolts to clip and some obvious face holds leading to a solid finger sized crack, while I'd remembered a buddies zipper on aid up high on the marginal pro and steep thin crack where Alan would be leading. Alan would really be doing the hard part for sure as that was small marginal RP territory.....but the elves that had cemented my feet earlier had gotten up in my mouth and dried it so thoroughly that my swollen tongue would not form any words....
..so I pussed out, and to this day still owe Alan an apology I suppose although Alan did bag the first free ascent of the stout North Face later. Alan was very gracious and kind in the face of my reticence and immobility, and I owe him big props and thanks for that. I was already feeling pretty small.
Sorry for f*#king your weekend plans Alan!
Good guy to hang with, works his ass off to stay in shape (ie, nothing on your pancakes?! Almost barbaric, but that's the will power and focus that gets the guy up hard routes). Dudes a damned inspiration and if any of you get a chance to tie in with him, read Hanks story again and just do it. But bring your own damn rope.....LOLZ
That's my best Alan story Crimpergirl. I think Gary Rall, who owns the Portland Rock Gym, has one that tops it X3, but I'm not telling others stories cause it's hard enough remembering the details of the ones I was in.
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