McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2012 - 11:12am PT
|
NOTHING at Stoney Point is obscure! :>) I don't have anything fun to report really, even though it was all fun. I don't think I ever did the Boche Death Route but I'm not sure. There's a good chance I did. I did a fair amount of practice nailing at The Quarry in Boise getting ready for soloing the Dihedral in 77 (and 75 - got iced out that year and hit in the face with a nice chunk of ice. What stopped me there, though, was just not being able to jumar the icey ropes). I remember now, too, that somebody stole the jumars I had left up there. That could have been the final straw!
The original plan for 77' was to climb the Salathe with my friend Tom McLeod but we got totally rained out earlier that spring (couldn't even start) so I went back and soloed the Leaning Tower and Dihedral Wall in June in about a ten day period.
I took a grounder from the top of one of the walls at the Quarry during a practice session for El Cap and cut a vessel on the side of my head. We were on the way to the hospital but then we stopped the bleeding, so I never went until it had healed over and the vessel had broken under the skin. When I did get it opened back up, the doctor and nurse and wall of the clinic got sprayed with blood! I think I still had the stitches in when I soloed the Dihedral. I think that was the only aid fall I had ever taken. The rock at the Quarry was pretty good stuff, so it was easy to push on it, but still, it was not granite. I was certainly nailing more difficult things than what is encountered on the Dihedral. I mostly aided thin cracks there, that had little potential of going free but the one I fell on was mostly blades behind flakes that were a little too thin.
When a person learns to nail at Stoney they can probably appreciate more the bight of pin tips, hooks, and bashies in real rock.
I'll get a photo printed from climbing at the quarry and post it here when I have time. I also found 2 slides of trying the main face at Stoney free - the section between the large main crack (CS crack?) and the shorter left hand crack. I got about half way up between that flared chimney feature in the middle of the face and the top. Like I said in another post, we never went back to try again.
|
|
FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2012 - 01:26pm PT
|
|
|
sowr
Trad climber
CA
|
|
|
Nov 26, 2012 - 09:03am PT
|
Mark Thorpe's article about Stoney Point in Ventura Blvd Magazine is on the streets. Although it is not a technical exercise is it a very well written and thoughtful accounting of where we climb.
It's well worth a read.
An online edition is likely to be posted soon to:
http://www.ourventurablvd.com/
Here's the link to the photos - Mark there's a couple of good ones of you....
http://galleries.jeffberting.com/stoney_point/index.html
|
|
FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
|
|
|
Nov 26, 2012 - 03:49pm PT
|
Nice link, thank you.
|
|
guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2012 - 11:08am PT
|
Raining hard..... closed for the weekend!
|
|
Cole
Trad climber
los angeles
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2012 - 11:32am PT
|
Cool article, thanks for the link! To bad that Cole Gibson guy hasn't a clue what he's talking about...
|
|
pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 29, 2012 - 02:34pm PT
|
Mchale this is some obscure aid line which is right next to sculpters crack. we have a little info but not much.
also: no climbing on the sandstone after a good soaking!!!
|
|
McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2012 - 03:14pm PT
|
I have seen features like that in sandstone. Pins may have been placed in those holes but they could have a natural beginning. I have seen natural pockets in incipient cracks like that. I don't recall nailing that one.
|
|
FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2012 - 03:57pm PT
|
McHale you might need to click on the photo & enlarge it to see it, between the top two holes ( pin scars ) there is a bolt (?) or something. I'm sure this was an aid line long ago. Ryan, Waugh might know.
|
|
pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 30, 2012 - 08:56am PT
|
Mchale when did u climb the obscure aid line in the back?
|
|
Tfish
Trad climber
La Crescenta, CA
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2012 - 09:07am PT
|
Hey Pyro, a bunch of those new bolts you guys just put in on those route in the pic are already missing hangers. I was there a few nights ago and the far right one has 2 rusty petzl hangers, and then the ones for the route to the left just has 1 mad rock hanger left.
|
|
pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 30, 2012 - 02:32pm PT
|
Tfish i found out the other day when i went to set it up. people seem to think it's okay to take the hangers. looks like waugh is going to have to glue em in. i called him we laughed!
|
|
Tfish
Trad climber
La Crescenta, CA
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2012 - 02:36pm PT
|
What about using the 5 piece style bolt, where they'd have to take the bolt out to take the hanger instead of just the nut. Does that deter these dicks at all?
|
|
Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2012 - 03:38pm PT
|
Just leave the studs without the hangers and bring the nuts and hangers with when you go to set up. Why keep giving these clowns hangers?
If they'll unscrew a nut they'll unscrew the bolt in a 5 piece. Then yer bolt'll be gone too...
|
|
Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2012 - 03:45pm PT
|
Pyro, Several of cool lines left of Sculptor's Crack. SOWR parties worked them over good in the 1980's (sans pins).
That line in your photo is tweaky-hard. I did see one person send it once.
Left of that is a big arch with an undercling that leads up to a dyno for this big 3-finger hole. Kinda hard to do since a tree is shooting up under that.
Further left is another line the top of which is marked by a single hangerless bolt.
Bring long long runners to TR these bad babies an get a good wholesome pump on.
I've heard that Gaines is promoting using a 100 ft 10.5 mm static line for all TR set-ups. Best idea I've ever heard and I started doing it too. It is ideal for exploring off the trade routes at Stoney.
|
|
McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2012 - 08:19pm PT
|
Pyro, which obscure aid line you referring to? You mean the one in the black and white photo I posted - same area as in your photo there? That would have been about 1969 or so.
|
|
pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 30, 2012 - 10:51pm PT
|
|
|
McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
|
|
You can see those 3 knob like chicken heads in my other photo and can see we came in from left of those. The route the climber is on in your photo looks familiar too - meaning I recognize it.
|
|
life is a bivouac
Trad climber
|
|
Hey you guys out at Stony...
Back in the early to mid '60's as
Chouinard was making his pins, we: Hennek, Boche, Dan Griffin, Pete Spocker, Myself (Russ McLean)and of course some others, were eating up any virgin aid lines that would take three or more placements.(after all aid was the King at this time). All of us were still using soft iorn to it's extreme...bending them, twisting them and snaping them... then came the Holubar knife blades and the RURPS and of course the rest of Chouinard's sizes... As Hennek, Boche and I would skip classes from High School and from Pierce JC to work for Yvon in Burbank at his "Lean-To" making said pins, we had the best ranges of thicknesses and lengths. Not to mention the mentoring of Yvon and the likes of T.M. Herbert, Gary Hemming, and Layton Kor.
So, in those back gullys we nailed almost every line to the top...
Hey Dan McHale, Good to see you're around!!
That photo left of the Sculpture cracks, there are two other lines further left as well done by the usual suspects...
Cheers from Bishop! Russ
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!