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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 16, 2009 - 02:50pm PT
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There has been an interesting development in understanding American passive protection history. It is kind of ironic. It turns out that perhaps the earliest climber in the Valley using man-made passive protection devices was a woman, Margaret Young, way back in the very early sixties according to Les Wilson just now in an email to me. Les says:
"She was a flier and licensed air plane mechanic (as well as PHD? from MIT). She used nuts that came from the hydraulic system of an airplane. They varied in size depending on the size of the hydraulic line. They were actually connectors, a thin ring of high alloy aluminum, very strong. They were threaded on the inside, suggesting they might cut the sling. But this did not seem to be the case. Could she have been the first to use nuts in the US?"
For references, Supertopo related links:
HISTORY OF CLEAN CLIMBING:
http://supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=784874&tn=0&mr=0
IT TAKES BALLS TO USE NUTS:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=282636&tn=0&mr=0
AND THE INCREDIBLE WORK AND MUSEUM OF STEPHANE PENNEQUIN:
http://www.needlesports.com/nutsmuseum/catalogues.htm
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jul 16, 2009 - 03:00pm PT
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On a somewhat related topic, another SuperTopian (mostly a lurker) recently asked when nuts first became commercially available in the US. That is, manufactured nuts that one could go into a store and buy, or perhaps mail order. What makes, and where could they be bought?
This seems something that Oli, Tom H, Guido, or Don L might help with.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Jul 16, 2009 - 03:00pm PT
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"So it took a woman to understand the utility of nuts?"
Women and Thomas Malthus
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 16, 2009 - 03:15pm PT
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Women have always understood the power of passive protection.
Their first line of defense is "Just say no"
Peace
Karl
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Jul 16, 2009 - 03:20pm PT
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Bought at REI about '72?
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jul 16, 2009 - 03:45pm PT
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Robbins first used 'em in in Eldorado '64, climbing with a Brit, Anthony Greenbank, so Margaret Young's ``early sixties'' usage would have to predate that. It took Robbins three years to become fully convinced and write ``Nuts to You'' in Summit magazine in 1967. At that point, nuts had developed in Britain beyond the odd machine nut picked up on the Cloggy cog rail tracks, which may have been where Margaret Young got her inspiration.
In '67, you sent off $15 to Joe Brown and back came a box of nuts with appropriate pieces of webbing to string them on. Dave Craft and I used such a set to climb Double Crack (then 5.9, now 5.8, but still 5.9 to me, dammit) in the Gunks entirely with nuts sometime in that year.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Jul 16, 2009 - 03:54pm PT
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So women ruined nailing forever? I knew it.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 16, 2009 - 04:02pm PT
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know anything about her, Peter?
i don't know the name. MIT-- so an NE local?
Rgold, does the name sound familiar?
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Jul 16, 2009 - 04:21pm PT
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In author Alan Kearney's Selected Climbs in the North Cascades guidebook, he alleges that a 1950's era climber in Washington used "plumbers helpers" (a section of pipe with a screw that is of adjustable length - something like a non-spring loaded Big Bro) to protect a wide crack. That is certainly earlier than the 1960s.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jul 16, 2009 - 04:28pm PT
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Barry Hagen, Leif Patterson and Glenn Woodsworth did Pipeline at Squamish in 1966, which involved use of prototype tube chocks - sections of aluminum pipe cut to fit a wide crack, and tapped so as to seat them. I don't know if they got the idea from developments elsewhere, or came up with it on their own. Leif certainly was well aware of what was happening elsewhere in the climbing world.
Rich mentions mail ordering nuts from Joe Brown in 1967. When did they become available in the stores in the US? What types?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Jul 16, 2009 - 04:41pm PT
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One of my friends climbed with her in the 60s/early 70s - I'll ask him if she's still around and interested in commenting.
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Chicken Skinner
Trad climber
Yosemite
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Jul 16, 2009 - 07:40pm PT
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I met her through Warren in 1975. We were working on the Forbidden Wall and encountered snowy weather. We all spent the stormy night in the cave right on the Falls trail. She insisted on putting a little vodka in all our water to keep it from freezing. I had a horrific hangover from a night of wine drinking with Warren the night before at the Mountain Room Bar and could barely keep Margaret's doctored water down. About a year later she went on an all female expedition to Annapurna. They raised money for the trip by selling T-shirts with the caption " A woman's place is on top." I believe she passed away awhile ago though I forget how and when.
Ken
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jul 16, 2009 - 07:52pm PT
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Perhaps Arlene Blum would know - she led the 1978 women's expedition to Annapurna. ("A Woman's Place is On Top")
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 16, 2009 - 08:11pm PT
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ah, i remember that expedition.
 should've recognized that name from blum's book.
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jbaker
Trad climber
Redwood City, CA
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Jul 16, 2009 - 08:16pm PT
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Didn't John Mendenhall do the first ascent of Open Book in Tahquitz using lengths of 2x4 cut to size (sort of the prime lens equivalent of big bros)? That would have been the late 40s.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 16, 2009 - 10:54pm PT
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Chuck and Ellen Wilts used 2x4's on the regular route of Rixons in 1948. This route later went all free with John Bachar and Tobin Sorenson, 1974. I saw the 2x4's in there in the flare section, free pro, I assume; they were still lodged in the crack in 1964. Rotten of course. Speaking of using wood, wood goes way back, pilgrims.
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Jul 16, 2009 - 11:26pm PT
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my pro is passive aggressive. It looks good, but I have this feeling it's trying to kill me.
C'mon- Somebody had to make this joke.
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France.
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Jul 17, 2009 - 03:11am PT
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Fascinating information Peter! Thank you Les for sharing it.
Not to forget that Shirley Smith set up the mythical company Clogwyn Climbing Gear with Denny Moorhouse in 1966. And she helped him when he started DMM in 1981.
Stephane / Nuts Museum
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GBrown
Trad climber
North Hollywood, California
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Jul 25, 2009 - 12:21am PT
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I got your irony . . . right here.
In the mid-70s, while marvelously out of shape from no climbing for a year or so, I decided to climb with nuts for the first time on a slightly overhanging 5.8 crack at Crow Hill in MA. I thought "That's pretty good" each time I placed and clipped into one of the nuts and finally got my failing hands on the top of the cliff about 70 or so feet up. The top was flat and dusted with grit and not a finger hold in reach - requiring a mantle with my blown arms. I barely managed it by gripping the top with my chin (and pulling a muscle in my neck) so I could get cranked over with one arm. Upon creaking into a standing position, my partner called up, "Gary, look down."
Yeah, all the pro had lifted out and was sitting on top of his hands. "When the last ones lifted out, I thought it was best not to tell you."
Here's the irony.
About 8 years ago, I met a guy at a climbing gym who had done a bunch of climbing in the NorthEast in the 80s. He told me a story about learning to climb with nuts on an overhanging 5.8 crack at Crow Hill and how all his nuts popped out and he had to do this freaky mantle at the top.
But we both learned something and lived to tell about it.
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Jul 25, 2009 - 12:26am PT
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That's nuts!
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wildone
climber
GHOST TOWN
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Jul 25, 2009 - 01:45am PT
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That's great. So many awesome comments in this thread. Arlene Blum lives here in berkeley, and I was just looking at her book today in the Berkeley library...Kerwin, it's a good one? I guess I'm too much of a literature snob for a lot of mountaineering books...I'll still read and enjoy them, but I like to read someone who can actually write, and though I've found a disproportionate number of climbers who can write, there's always those who can't.
I love passive pro. There's just nothing like that perfect placement. Same as why I ride a fully rigid singlespeed mountainbike (and crush it in races). You gotta get back to the essence!
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Jul 25, 2009 - 04:41am PT
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I asked my friend Robert Summers about Margaret Young and using nuts and he told me:
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She had climbed in England and used nuts there.
I still have a 1/4 inch goldline sling with 3 or 4 machine nuts of different
sizes strung on it. Margaret had told me that was how it was done in England.
I filed the threads out so there would not be sharp edges. Don't recall the fancy aircraft fittings.
I took a group up Higher Spire around 1964 0r 65. Margaret as I recall was in that group.
She was badly injured in a ridding accident, maybe in the early 80's.
Never did recover. Lasted maybe a year after the accident.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 25, 2009 - 10:19am PT
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Thanks for following up on Margaret Young for us, Clint! It is ironic too, that equestrianism is what took Margaret out, not climbing....
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jul 25, 2009 - 11:28am PT
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If we're talking wooden blocks, and so forth, Fritz
Wiessner used some during his early visits to the
Needles of South Dakota, and he also discovered some
already in place, apparently used by... neanderthals?!
I think I mention some of that in my Wizards
history.
Rich, I hadn't heard about that woman Royal climbed with
in Eldorado. He always found me whenever he came to Boulder,
and he and I did a lot of climbing together in 1964, but
there was no mention of nuts or use of them. It was
September of 1966 that he came to Eldorado with Whillans,
and they looked me up, and Royal was ready to start using
nuts. He had just returned from England and was gung ho
on nuts. He slung some on me, and I fiddled with them all
the way up Ruper, even though we didn't really need
protection on that route. Then he tried to get me
to use them on the first lead of Supremacy Crack, but I
wasn't comfortable with the idea yet so hammered in a
couple of pitons instead. As I said, that was 1965, but I
have absolutely no recollection of Royal thinking about
nuts or using them in '64. Not to say you're wrong. I
would like to hear more, maybe I'll ask Royal directly.
Soon after Royal's visit to Eldorado in 1965, people in
several places all at once seemed to start producing
them, homestyle. Several people in Boulder, for example,
simply got some metal and drilled holes, or they took
regular machine nuts and filed out the insides so that
the slings wouldn't be cut. It took about a year, if I
recall, for nuts to start appearing in a few stores. And
longer for the mainstream to take them seriously. Doug's
great article and Royal's "Nuts to You" were instrumental,
I mean, very significant, in bringing about the
transition...
Pat (Oli)
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Jul 25, 2009 - 11:40am PT
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Dave Rearick created his own wooden chocks
from wood of the Osage orange tree.
Howie Doyle and I climbed with him in 1975 and
he used them on a route on the Twin Owls we
climbed with him on. I was suspicious, I'm not
sure I'd have wanted to clean one if a fall had
been taken on it.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jul 25, 2009 - 05:15pm PT
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Yes but Rearicks "plugs" as he called them
came much later. They were, though, very strong.
He tested them thoroughly, and after a short
while I trusted them. He gave me a full set, as
a present, including his "clapper," an adjustable
wooden nut for wide cracks. The clapper was usable,
but it was probably the one you would least trust.
It was more psychological than something sure. It
came apart, though, so that you could carry it flat
against your body in a crack when not using it. His
smaller plugs, though were bomber.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jul 25, 2009 - 06:14pm PT
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I thought I had one in the antique bin still.
AN hydraulic nut.
Circa 1970.
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France.
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Jul 27, 2009 - 02:54am PT
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Pat,
It still would be a great pleasure if you could send me the design details and some photos of the Clapper. As you know, I would like to remake an exact copy of this really interesting device for the Nuts Museum. It would really find a good family with Dave Rearick's other original "plugs", here at home...
Stephane / Nuts Museum
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