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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Jun 30, 2015 - 06:26pm PT
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Warbler, it's easy to see your love and devotion, and your engagement in getting the story straight. It's a bummer when things get published and you feel you could have tweaked them just a bit here and there to make them jive with your own points of view.
Keep the rant going, it's hot energy. But also do us all a favor, and really, write your own. You have a great chance to scribble a short essay here, righting what you see is err in the book. Give us your perspective, filled with the fun & friends that you remember from those early days camping in C4. Honestly, '72 Fall through '77! Everybody who is reading this thread, and those yet to come, would soak it all up.
Me, I'd print it out and be stoked to stick in my own copy of Bullwinkle & Largo's.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jun 30, 2015 - 08:10pm PT
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The term caught on like wildfire, from coast to coast, from shore to shore, and across the Big Pond, and it changed the face of climbing forever"
Perhaps a touch of hyperbole here.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Jun 30, 2015 - 08:18pm PT
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The Stonemasters never found the cure for cancer but they were entertaining and talented...The legends lives on ....Hoh man.....
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Jun 30, 2015 - 08:37pm PT
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Perhaps a touch of hyperbole here.
Understatement of the year
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Bullwinkle
Boulder climber
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Wow, Earth Shattering!? Kevin, you are more in need of a Blow Job more than anyone I've ever known. . .
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Hey, Dean, why not cut to the chase, man?
+1 for the coffee-up-the-nose laugh
Sycorax, thanks, but it seems a perfect match, doesn't it? Except that TW could not climb Valhalla, home of the gods, where they keep the bonfire of the vanities.
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WBraun
climber
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sycorax -- "If Stonemasters is going for $600, I'll sell mine. Largo signed it at Facelift."
StoneMasters can never ever be sold.
Only the imposter can be sold.
The modern climbers call themselves Stone Monkeys.
They've devolved into monkeys.
Just seeeee ...... :-)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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I'm asking you to simply correct the misinformation and acknowledge that your closest partners, Ricky and Richard, and the rest of your noted crew came to spend extended time in the Valley a year after the other group mentioned did, rather than before as implied.
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I'm sure this must be true. Not sure why it was never spelled out besides the fact that none of us got up to speed till around 1973 - that is, in terms of us setting off to do big new things like Stoner's Highway. But yes, there were two or three different Cali factions that were warming up to the big time - one down south, one in Yoz., and others scattered around.
Also, since I alwys considered you as part of our "noted crew," since you and I, and you and Richard, climbed so much together, that dividing up people according to years and so forth never occurred to me - not because I sought to promote a false history, rather because, as mentioned, the whole shebang didn't get full lift-off till we were all pretty much one unsanctioned band and from that band, partners were basically interchangable.
JL
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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I found and reread the exchange of edited versions of my essay on Yosemite 1970s climbing and the moniker Stonemasters. My essay was a serious effort to describe what Stonemasters meant to Lois. Hi Lois, You have asked a fairly difficult set of questions
I received two edited versions from John which were close to my original essay which was about 1,400 words, but were edited to better fit with the editor’s requirements. However, I never saw the final shorter version, with its significant edits, until I received a copy of the book. I didn’t like what had been published but it was a book and done deal. And since I am not a Stonemaster, it would have been very unseemly to have said anything. But Kevin has poked me, so I will respond.
In my opinion, what was published under my byline is misleading. In my original essay on the Stonemasters, I distinguished between the original Southern California climbers and 1970s Yosemite climbers as a whole. The first paragraph is about 1970s climbing, which carries into the second paragraph where the first three sentences apply to 1970s Yosemite climbing, but are followed by the four and fifth sentences which are specific to the named Stonemasters. The third paragraph opens by effectively stating that the best climbing done in the 1970s was done by the named Stonemasters. My guess is that is an inadvertent slip caused by rushed editing. In the end I think that most readers would assume the named climbers did all of the climbing in the 1970s. I know that John does not believe this, so I assume that whoever did the editing conflated my essay with someone else’s observations.
I also agree with Kevin that the last paragraph indicates that the latter group of climbers came after the original group. I don’t know when anyone started climbing in the Valley, but I know when they started doing first ascents. The second group’s first ascents started in 1971-1973. Amongst the original group, John started in 1972 and the rest were in 1974 or 1975. In terms of production, the second group did about two and one half the number of first ascents as compared to the first group.
All that aside, publishing is tough and editors have to cater to their audience. John is a friend and I was happy to support the book. It is a fine book. I have always liked Dean’s photos.
To the point of not having a history of 70s climbing, we do have a very good history of Yosemite climbing laid out in all the posts on Supertopo. I have done my bit by summarizing the actual early 1970s Yosemite free climbing in book report format, contributing stories of my own climbs, profiling the climbs of important contributors, using statistics as a weapon, writing satire for fun and goofing off, and carefully building an argument about how to think about what made the early 70s so successful and who was responsible for what.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Could be. She managed to dominate SuperTopo and its regulars for a long while. She deleted the thread I referred to, but it is worth reading for the humor.
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Sometimes I miss LEB. Said no one, ever.
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rmuir
Social climber
From the Time Before the Rocks Cooled.
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Yeah… Lois was here at least a year before some people, and she certainly stayed for an extended period of time.
She was certainly more prolific than most southern Californians… And northern Californians, for that matter. ;-)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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At first, all I could think was,
"Is Roger talking to/about Lois Rice?"
Raise your paw if you knew Lois Rice, part of the pre-Stonemasters gang in '70 and earlier.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Any one know where Lois Rice is?
Lois was always a bright spot on any day. Beautiful, smart, interesting, lovely lady.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Any confusion between the persons known as LEB and Lois Rice is understandable in a younker like you, Craig.
But it doesn't make a comparison of the twain any less ludicrous.
Roger, I haven't seen Lois since '71, probably.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Couple days ago Lois was off the Hebrides in the Atlantic if I remember correctly. Looked interesting but way to cold for moi.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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...and I'm still waiting for that calendar you promised to send me, Mr Winkle.
My wife threw out all my old National Geographics...
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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WoW this book may be turning into a movie/8-D
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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>Raise your paw if you knew Lois Rice, part of the pre-Stonemasters gang in '70 and earlier.
I didn't know her then, but will send her a link to this thread. She's off adventuring with Walt V.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Hey Kev, the whole Stonemasters edifice comes down if I am included: I was a bonafided fuddy-duddy. My small place was in the early, pre-Stonemasters, 1970s. Now if I had ever climbed Separate Reality or the East Face of Washington Column all free, I would apply, if there were a section for non-weed smokers.
Jim may be a defacto Stonemaster, but more than half of his first ascents were done before the end of the 1972 season. One third of them were done in 1970 and 1971. Jim's first career in the Valley revolved around Sacherer and Kor; the second career, in the early 1970s, revolved around Klemons, Bates and Haan, and Wunsch and Donini when they were in the Valley; the third career was in the middle 1970s with the Stonedmasters.
For those above who know Lois Rice, please give my best regards.
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