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Pete_N
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Jan 22, 2018 - 08:35am PT
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Something at Woodson with the RCS from San Diego...probably around 1977. The first roped climb I did independent of any "grownups" was a couple months later when my friend and I belayed eachother to the top of a slabby Woodson boulder near the bottom of the road with 2 bolts (we had a rope and maybe 4 biners). I could be making it up, but I remember the bolts as having homemade hangers and loose ones at that. We later convinced my cute nineth grade English teacher to drive us to Woodson. Afterwards, when she dropped us off at my parents' house, she told them that it probably wasn't proper for her to climb with us.
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rincon
climber
Coarsegold
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Jan 22, 2018 - 08:42am PT
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My first roped climb was on Kernville Slab in 1989. My partner and I were total newbies with only RR's Basic Rockcraft as teacher but we managed to have fun and not die. We did 'The Lieback' rated 5.5 in the Rock and Ice 33 mini guide. There was no mountainproject.com back then. Most people had no computers and if you wanted a topographic map you had to go to REI or A16 and dig through the drawers of maps.
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throwpie
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jan 22, 2018 - 09:04am PT
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Our house in merced, 1952
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matisse
climber
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Jan 22, 2018 - 10:11am PT
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Burgers and Fries. Smoke Bluffs Squamish, 1986. w/ Danny Redford
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kpinwalla2
Social climber
WA
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Jan 22, 2018 - 12:40pm PT
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Some obscure crack in 1974 at Natural Bridge State Park in the Red River Gorge. The park is now off limits to rock climbing.
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clode
Trad climber
portland, or
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Jan 22, 2018 - 12:58pm PT
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1970, 15 years old, Mt. St. Helens, South Side, with the Mazamas, long before she blew! Hooked ever since.
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Bruce Morris
Trad climber
Soulsbyville, California
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Jan 22, 2018 - 01:04pm PT
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Come to think on it, Mt Starr King in October 1961 wasn't my first climb. Actually, it was climbing the decomposing metamorphic cliff that leads up to the water tower above the Bay View district in San Francisco sometime in 1955. That's why my parents moved down to Parkside in San Mateo: To keep me away from that cliff where I always used to go to play. Attractive nuisance for a 7 year old!
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jan 22, 2018 - 01:35pm PT
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Our house in merced, 1952
Must be something in the air there.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Jan 22, 2018 - 09:09pm PT
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T Hocking, we (Stonemasters) all learned how to edge and crimp on the English Smooth Sole Slab. Rugged sh#t in the old RDs and PAs.
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BigWall Chris 101
Trad climber
Vail
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Jan 22, 2018 - 11:17pm PT
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Some rocks in Branchland, WV. At 12 years old. We borrowed a few clothes lines. Probably almost died? My Stepbrother was a Eagle Scout and knew a few important knots. My idea to rap the clothes line around the trees on top for friction and belaying.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 27, 2018 - 07:25am PT
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Some classic lines mentioned. Also some choss.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jan 27, 2018 - 08:26am PT
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https://mountshastatrailassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/black-butte-trail.pdf
Black Butte is a cluster of overlapping dacite lava domes in a butte, a parasitic satellite cone of Mount Shasta.
It is located directly adjacent to Interstate 5 at milepost 742 between the city of Mount Shasta and Weed, California.
My dad took my older brother and me up Black Butte in Shasta County in the late fifties. We were traveling to Etna in Trinity County to visit my mom's parents.
We pulled over off Hwy 99 (I-5 was a few years in the future) and parked near the railroad tracks. Leaving Mom and the two youngest in the station wagon, we three ascended the west slope and intersected the trail, following it to the top. I think we took the trail on the descent and reversed the climb.
The descent was a great one, done at great speed with much sliding and gliding on the loose cinders and scree. It might have taken two hours.
Dad wanted us to experience what he'd done one time in his travels up and down the Sacramento canyon when fishing with his dad and brother, who both lived in Redding.
First roped climb was Sunnyside Bench with Jeff Mathis. We were soloing it and met up with two young women who asked us if we'd like to tie in for the upper section. This was in 1968.
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Rick Linkert
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills CA
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Jan 27, 2018 - 09:59am PT
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Here is a “first climb” post from a few years ago on a Leaning Tower Traverse thread. The huge drooping loops of goldline rope and me not having a clue at the time still sends a shiver...
Believe it or not the Leaning Tower Traverse was the first climb I did in the Valley. I was @14 (1965)and had never done a climb with any significant exposure. Somehow I got hooked up with a lunatic hanging around Camp 4 who started climbing because of what he later described as a pathological fear of heights. Turned out to be an accurrate description. He selected the climb because he had made an unsuccessful attempt with another victim the week before and wanted to retrieve an over-driven 1" angle located near where they turned around and retreated. He dredged up another guy from Berkeley who was a bit older than me and we took off. I had no clue as to what I was getting into. I still remember huge loops of rope drooping between pitons and trouser-filling exposure. For most of the climb, you are shufling along above enormous, overhanging exposure. Our leader appeared absolutely gripped at all times- profuse sweating, incoherent cotton-mouth conversasations and self-directed pep talks. We were wearing swamis and had absolutely no clue whatsoever about self rescue. I remember some rotten rock and loose flakes. Any time something came off, there was a sickening wait until the sound traveled back up from far below. There was one pretty good size ledge part way across where we pulled in somewhat shell-shocked. Our leader noticed several huge blocks that looked to him like candidates for some Olympic-caliber trundling. "Do you think that's a good idea?" as he went to work doing a leg press to dislodge one rather large block teetering on the edge. We screamed "rock" as we saw that he was really going to do it. An eternity later we heard a distant "boom". Our leader shivered and cackled with excitement and anxiety- scaring the hell out of me. We coaxed him into leaving the trundling and completed the climb up to the rim, skipped the trip to the top of LT, waded across Bridalveil Creek and made our way down the Gunsight.
If you are looking for an unusual, sometimes loose, wildly exposed adventure in a very scenic position, the LT Traverse is something to consider. I'm sure I would have had difficulty with 5.8 at the time and would have been even more gripped than I was. I think it was 5.5 or 5.6. I can't imagine it is climbed very often and you definitely won't have to stand in a que once you get past the start to the West Face. Probably would be a good idea to be up on ascending a free-hanging rope in the event you pitch off most anywhere on the route. Oh yes- he did get the 1" angle but broke one side of the eye when he retrieved it.
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Jan 27, 2018 - 10:00am PT
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First with a rope was some grungy dirt road cut with stolen hemp rope and scavenged railroad spikes with BVB round about 1969, but that was really just simulation. For reals on T-day weekend, Indian Cove at Josh with the Sierra Club Rock Climbing Section in 1974.
edited to add: Great story Rick!
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Jan 27, 2018 - 10:54am PT
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Ha Rick, we’re contemporary’s....I was 14 in 1965 when I did my first multi-pitch climb. It was November, it had already snowed and me a bunch of Boy Scouts head up the snow filled Trough at Tahquitz. We had an epic and managed to survive the icy descent at night and ended up in Humber Park frozen. Charlie Raymond was climbing the Vampire that day and his girl friend or wife (?) took us kids into their VW van and wrapped us up in down bags. How we survived those early days was likely credited to my mother with her rosary beads whenever we’d head out to the mountains. Such fond memories of those days, Berg Heil.
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Rick Linkert
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills CA
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Jan 27, 2018 - 11:41am PT
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Hi Charlie -
I had my own epic on The Trough with the U C Santa Barbara Mountaineering Club. One guy went catatonic about half-way up - a real scene but nowhere near as cold as yours. He could probably write an interesting "my first climb" story.
Cheers
Rick
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jan 27, 2018 - 12:52pm PT
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According to Timid TopRope (his photo of one hanging in Bill Nickell's home) this is of Vern Clevenger and Bill Nickell's early days on the rocks. Never looked at it real closely, but now I do, it looks like Indian Rock. Bill is from Oakland, so Vern must be a Bay Arean, too.
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Hubbard
climber
San Diego
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Jan 27, 2018 - 08:00pm PT
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The ramp at Mission Gorge on a top rope. January 1978. Bought a rope the next day.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Jan 28, 2018 - 01:41pm PT
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Largo’s post made me smile as my first climb was also that Northwest Chimney on the Old Woman (fka North Fourth in the John Wolf guidebook). That was November of 1970.
I was a junior at Upland high school and had signed up for a climbing class taught by a charismatic and extremely self-assured senior. He led the chimney with ease and I was one scared hombre, but got up it. The hook was set.
My instructor? One John Long.
To paraphrase Rick from the movie Casablanca, that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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