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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Dec 16, 2009 - 12:26pm PT
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John: Although continental European climbers may have associated the British Eckenstein with the venerable Alpine Club, he may not have been a member of an organization he detested. . .. He was, of course, a friend of G. W. Young and several "modern" alpinists who may have been members of the AC at the time.
Hi John. Yes, I think that's right. I've always presumed that Eckenstein was never a member of the AC, if only because most other British private Clubs didn't admit Jews or even half-Jews. I don't know if he was a member of the Alpenverein. But after the turn of the century, he was one of the few folks associated with both Clubs whose name turns up in both the English and German literature.
To tie this back to the rest of the thread, so other folks can understand why John and I care so much about an obscure figure like Eckenstein, I should point out that there had been a strong German-English connection in the 19th century, but by century's end,, most of the AC crew and the French and Swiss guides had formed a phalanx against the Alpenverein, its politics, and its pitoncraft.
By the Mauerhakenstreit, few Brits even understood what was happening in the Eastern Alps, and the German journals seemed uninterested in the Brits, save for the Himalayan explorations and an occasional mention of Mummery.
WW1 made the break complete-- the Brits denounced all of the German innovations. Preuss and Dulfer were dead, and the Dolomites dripped blood and iron. When pitons came to the western alpinists, it was urban working-class guys like Pierre Allain (and later, Brown and Whillans), who pushed them.
But British histories of mountaineering typically told stories of the British invention of mountaineering, and then the British inventions of rock climbing in the Lakes and Wales, then Everest, and then leapt straight to Brown and Whillans without much knowledgeable mention of the Eastern Alps. The German and Tirolian tradition pretty much dropped out of the story.
It wasn't until the Cold War and NATO had made Germany and Austria part of a big, happy European family that a younger generation of British alpinists could again think of climbing as apolitical, and thus go back and reclaim the older German generation of technicians as personal heroes. Thus we finally get the Doug Scott book, and a few others, which have remained by and large the only English-language accounts.
And so American climbers, few of whom read let alone speak a second language, grew up largely innocent of any acquaintance with the sort of names familiar to any European climber: Barth, Winkler, Purtscheller, Zsigmondy, Enzensperger, Fichtl, Preuss, Dulfer, Piaz, Dibona, the Dimais, and on and on. These were the names that fairly dominated alpinism in the 1st half of the century and created the technical tradition that the Sierra Club imported and built on for Yosemite.
Make no mistake, the RCS folks who pioneered all the early Valley routes were direct descendants of Dulfer and Piaz, and not of Preuss.
The climbing world of Salathe, Harding, and Robbins was Preuss's worst nightmare.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Dec 16, 2009 - 11:46pm PT
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"jogill, how many of these guys were you hip to and reading about before you started pushing your envelope so far? Were you a history buff before, or did your interest in those pioneers develop over time?"
I started bouldering on my own in the early-mid 1950s, not knowing what I was engaged in, thinking of climbing as a form of gymnastics. When Yvon told me I was "bouldering" in the Tetons, I assumed the Stoney Point guys had coined the expression. A few years later I learned that some Europeans were doing similar things at Fontainebleau, but I never pursued it. After I was fully retired from the college in 2000, I started researching the history of my sport - that's when I began to hear of these wonderful characters! For us old guys, this is a delightful way to wile away our golden years . . . many thanks to Kerwin (klk) for pointing me in the right direction from time to time . . . but I remain purely an amateur without the skills and depth of knowledge of an historian.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Dec 17, 2009 - 01:11pm PT
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John's stories about beginning climbing, and reading the Encyclopedia entries for mountaineering or stepping up to read the AAC Journal-- or Robbins talking about reading Ullman's The High Tower-- are really cool.
US climbing was really isolated and provincial, and I think that actually helped the sport here, in the 1950s. There had been earlier German influences-- the Stettners, especially, who had come out of the Munich scene a generation behind Dulfer and Preuss-- and Fritz Wiessner, and Wolf Bauer and even Conrad Kain, a generation earlier.
But unlike skiing, where the prestige and dollar value of the sport led to a wholesale migration of top European skiiers, skills, and equipment in the 1930s, climbing remained localized. The AAC elites didn't push-- most of them went to the Alps to get dragged up 19th c trade routes in 19th century style. They never fully trusted Wiessner.
Even the famous episode in which Robt. Underhill introduced "modern ropework" to the Sierras was a bit strange. Read Underwood's article-- no pitons or running belays. His technique was twenty years behind. When the RCS finally climbed the Cathedral Spires (33/34) they had to order their pitons from Sporthaus Schuster in Munich, because they didn't know anyone in California who could make them.
US climbing was desperately and joyously backward, compared with that in Europe. Not until the late '50s and early '60s, with John and Batso and Robbins, did North American climbers actually match and even surpass European technical levels.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 17, 2009 - 07:09pm PT
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jogill, unbelieveable that it only took you 45 years to start reading about climbing history!!
That is NOT the answer I would've expected at all.
You were too busy out there making history......
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Dec 19, 2009 - 06:16pm PT
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Sicherheit/Sicherung is a play on words. Sicherheit usually implies security but also certainty, confidence and even competence. Sicherung is more like safeguard, and is the key part of Versicherung or insurance, like life insurance or fire insurance or something else you buy from someone else to protect from random chance. So he's suggesting a competence/incompetence contrast-- incompetents buy insurance (pitons, rappels) because they're likely to be victims of random chance.
He's also possibly implying a Wagnerian reference; Gotterdaemmerung, in Wagner's famous operatic cycle, refers to the apocalyptic end of the world.
"In der Beschraenkung zeigt sich erst der Meister"-- in his limits, the Master shows himself, or mastery shows itself in limitations-- is from Goethe's Sonnet, "Natur und Kunst," which is one of his famous engagements with the problems of the modern world.
http://www.teachsam.de/deutsch/d_literatur/d_aut/goe/goe_lyr/son/goe_natur_u_kunst_txt.htm
Here's a usable English translation:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/wednesday-poem-nature-and-art-by-j-w-von-goethe-translated-by-david-luke-1114712.html
The reference is on point to Preuss's fight with Piaz et al. It's also relevant to his occasional contrasting of "alpinist" and "climber." You can already see folks struggling to define a conflict between "real climbers" and "sport climbers."
Early 20th-c climbing culture was a good deal more intellectual than what we get on old ST.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Dec 19, 2009 - 09:39pm PT
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Is anyone else out there still following all this besides Survival, Jogill, and Klk?
Cheez, I hope so! This is a wonderful dialogue, thanks to the expertise and efforts of Randy and Kerwin. It would make the core of a small book in itself! I wish one or the other of these scholars would spend a few minutes cleaning up the short Wikipedia entry on Preuss. Fabulous, reading of these letters form the early 20th century, where "the past is a foreign country. They do things differently there."
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Dec 20, 2009 - 12:00am PT
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Is anyone else out there still following all this besides Survival, Jogill, and Klk?
Yes! Though "still following" is claiming a lot, when the truth is more like struggling to follow. What a rarefied and beautiful world a century ago, already wrestling with the quite absolute limits of soloing, and the moral turpitude implied by better footwear. That past is not just a "foreign country" but nearly a foreign language.
John is probably following better than I, and has certainly been one of the great beacons of purity in climbing during the last half of Preuss' century, yet even he once said something to the effect of (apologies for not having your exact words at hand): "It is important to remember that cheating is not counter to virtue."
Was that completely tongue-in-cheek John, or...?
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Dec 20, 2009 - 12:34am PT
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Randy-- My guess about the Wagner is based on my vague memory that someone in this debate-- before Preuss really entered in--invoked a Wagner cite. The nationalist and aryan wingnuts usually played a Wagner card, and their critics frequently would play a Goethe card in response. but i can't pull the cite right now, hence my "possibly" qualifier. or as largo says, a weasel word. (btw, tait keller and lee holt both have good recent dissertations on the doav in this period.)
John-- Nice Lowenthal quote!
DR: What a rarefied and beautiful world a century ago . . ..
nice to see you reading and I wish I had time to right something readable and smart. the only reason I can sample this thread at all is that i'm under deadline on a related topic hence my abbreviated exchanges w. randy and john.
the world of the mauerhakenstreit was at once rarefied and beautiful and unbelievably nasty. if you step back just a bit, it's hard to miss the ways that the clubs-- and this fight -- were launchpads for the world wars and the battles over fascism and nazism.
for us, raised on the sense of climbing as an escape from the rough-and-tumble of politics, it's tough to think of the german-austrian, italian, and french clubs as venues for serious political battle. but they were. the past really was a foreign country.
the other tough thing is that you can't cleanly map white and black hats onto the sides in the mauerhakenstreit. it'd be easy if one side turned out to be the nazis and the other the good guys. (just as it'd be nice if here, we could map conservatives and progressives onto one side of the other of the sfhd fight.)
but it doesn't work like that. in retrospect, both preuss and piaz, on opposite sides here, look pretty good when compared with the politics of the 1920s. piaz, a socialist/anarchist, and preuss, a half-jewish intellectual, would've ended up on the same side of the 1920s fights over nazism and fascism. while someone like schmidkunz (mentioned by randy as one of preuss's partners) ended up a nazi ideologue and propagandist.
in the mauerhakenstreit, we're looking at a world about to explode. for real. wagner, goethe, buddhism, purity, idealism, pitons, soloing, moral virtue-- the whole thing reeks of cordite and blood and sulfur.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 20, 2009 - 01:00am PT
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Though "still following" is claiming a lot, when the truth is more like struggling to follow.
HA! Thank you DR, whew, I thought it was just me...
But I'm having a ball trying to keep up. We've just gotten waaay past my ability to ummm....
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
Top of the 5.2-5.12 Boulder
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Dec 20, 2009 - 09:34pm PT
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I'm reading along, Randisi.....
I appreciate getting to look into part of climbing's history that I hadn't heard about....thanks!
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Dec 20, 2009 - 09:51pm PT
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There was at least one prelude to the unfortunate employment of climbing societies to prepare for war, albeit not the sort of climbing we're discussing: The Turner movement in the early part of the 19th century, after Napolean's conquests and the disarray of German society. Freidrich Jahn - the father of modern gymnastics - organized youthful athletes into gymnastic competitions, including rope and cable climbs up wooden scaffolds 40 to 50 feet high. When one sees the images of these contraptions there can be no doubt that courage, as well as strength, were prerequisites for their enjoyment. A splendid environment in which to prepare for martial activities. Here is an excerpt from an American Turner website:
//At this time there lived in Berlin in the Kingdom of Prussia a German schoolmaster by the name of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn who deplored the conditions of his country and whose strong nationalistic spirit urged him to do something to liberate his country from the French occupation. He wrote a book 'Deutsches Volksthum' (German Nationality) which called for the unity of Germany. He introduced gymnastic exercises among his students and infused them with a patriotic love of freedom to make them capable of bearing arms for their oppressed country and to prepare them for the imminent war of liberation.
In 1811 Jahn opened the first public playground at the Hasenheide in Berlin. Five hundred young men answered his call and indulged in gymnastic exercises under his direction. In a few months Turner societies spread to every city and town in the country.
Jahn and his Turners were the first to respond to the call to arms issued in 1813 by the King of Prussia. They served with distinction in the liberation of their country and Jahn became sort of a national hero and was rewarded with an annual pension for his services by a grateful government.//
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 21, 2009 - 01:02am PT
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Randisi,
I'm digging back a few posts, because I'm trying to read more carefully this time of night.
Just random thoughts.
Make no mistake, the RCS folks who pioneered all the early Valley routes were direct descendants of Dulfer and Piaz, and not of Preuss.
The climbing world of Salathe, Harding, and Robbins was Preuss's worst nightmare.
I think you are quite right, but Preuss would have found some serious limitations in his ethic in Yosemite!!
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 21, 2009 - 01:45am PT
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Mr. Preuss wants to strive for an ideal, I quite believe him, but it is a cold, rigid, frosty ideal.
Randisi, did these guys do some writing after the cold, rigid, frosty ideal claimed Pruess for good?
I'm sure it was all very serious, but they couldn't help their "I told you so" I'm sure.....
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 22, 2009 - 04:43am PT
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Dude, you're making my head hurt......HA!
This is great.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Dec 22, 2009 - 01:05pm PT
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Preuss's climbing ideals would lead to serious limitations everywhere, not just in Yosemite. He might just reply: It is in limitations that the master shows himself. But I think you are right that during the '60s Preuss would have stood with Robbins (perhaps writing essays very like our own DR!) and the '80s Bachar – let's not forget Bonatti in the '50s and early '60s.
hmmmm. well, people do sometimes have conversion experiences. kauk became a sport climber.
yosemite climbing in the '50s and '60s was the type of technical climbing, on a bigger scale, that preuss was denouncing. duelfer's best routes defined the style: pick a crack system, climb it with pins for both aid and pro until the crack runs out. tension traverse or pendulum over to the next crack system. repeat as necessary.
had he lived, preuss might've reconciled himself to the new technology and approaches. but then he'd have been a lot less interesting.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Dec 22, 2009 - 05:01pm PT
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John is probably following better than I, . . . yet even he once said something to the effect of (apologies for not having your exact words at hand): "It is important to remember that cheating is not counter to virtue." Was that completely tongue-in-cheek John, or...?
Pole vaulters moving up from bamboo to fiberglass or aluminum poles; golfers using new, improved club technology; tennis players using bigger, lighter racquets; climbers adopting sticky rubber soles and chalk; etc. That's what I meant.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Dec 23, 2009 - 11:34pm PT
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It's truly impossible to replicate the past. You can wear nailed boots and rope up with natural fiber rope, but you can't replicate the spirit of the time, the mindset, the social environment, and so many other aspects of a past period. Once again, "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there."
But it's fun to try . . .
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 25, 2009 - 04:39pm PT
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Yeah Randisi, I was beginning to wonder about the quality of your translation........Bwa ha hahahahaaahahahahaa!!
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 25, 2009 - 04:52pm PT
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Actually, you're right, it has morphed a bit.
I will still always admire his fire for his ideal, but now I find myself wondering more about some of the things behind it.
The crux of my change though is that I have lived long enough and fought my way through enough desperate situations, that I KNOW I would rather pull out a bit of technology than lose my life.
I mean climbing to the upper end of my ethic is still important to me, but not always, forever and ever til death do us part.
I've got a wife and kids, friends I want to climb with, etc.
Gimme that dang piton!!
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 25, 2009 - 05:47pm PT
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Of course you know, I'm completely joking.
I would have absolutely no clue if you had missed something.
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