coonyard pinnacle-first ascent sept 1960

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Steve Grossman

Trad climber

Seattle, WA

Nov 15, 2008 - 02:46am PT

Thanks for posting this up, Little Joe. Absolutely classic. I first did this one way back in the day, by the book. Green book that is......

Patrick Oliver

Boulder climber

Fruita, Colorado

Nov 15, 2008 - 08:31pm PT

Joe,
Great report, photos, info. I love the history, can't
get enough of the old times, whereas modern climbing
mostly bores me to tears.

The only thing I could add would be the actual story
of the Coonyard name. That actually took place in
Boulder, at Castle Rock. Dave Rearick and Chouinard
were climbing. Chouinard was still shaky from his bad, long
fall in the Tetons and immediately backed off the climb
he was going to try. He told Dave, "I just can't do it. My
head is in a bad place." Right about this time, a fellow (I
know his name, but for the moment I'll not give it, maybe later, after I think about it...) happened by and asked if they knew of or had heard of the climber Coonyard... who was
supposed to be in the area. Even Yvon didn't at first know who the fellow was referring to. Then it dawned on Dave and
Yvon who the guy was talking about. They told the story a few times, and it got around and to Yosemite... If you doubt this account, you can contact Rearick in Boulder. He has an impeccable memory for these things.

All the best,

Pat Ament

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Nov 15, 2008 - 09:01pm PT

Seeing the old pair of Kronhoffers (sp?) brings back crazy memories of the late sixties early seventies. Because the toe leather was so thin, we used to coat the toe with fiberglass resin. The resin would fill up the area around the edge of the sole and made for incredible edging on the right rock. Those shoes were worthless on the apron, however, you might as well have a pair of rollerskates on. I'll never forget the first time I borrowed a pair of EBs there, it was like somebody turned the gravity off.

BBA

Social climber

petaluma ca

Nov 15, 2008 - 09:41pm PT

With due respect to Pat Ament, I was the one who named the "great" pinnacle and it was as a result of Chouinard telling the stories of his trip back to the Gunks in 1960. The original spelling was Cooñard, but that got lost by the wayside. I was well acquainted with Yvon from frequenting Stony Point and Tahquitz 1958-1960 where I often ran across him and bought hardware from him. If you can find him, ask. Guido knows, too.

Lynne Leichtfuss

Social climber

valley center, ca

Nov 16, 2008 - 12:21am PT

So Joe, Super great to meet you and "Liz" at the Nose Reunion...hehehe. I just re read this post and appreciate it more than the first time now that I've met ya.

Peace, Lynne

Patrick Oliver

Boulder climber

Fruita, Colorado

Nov 16, 2008 - 12:29am PT

Well I wouldn't argue with you, about who named what. I didn't say you didn't name it. I was only citing where Rearick said the "Coonyard" or however it is spelled name came into being. He was there when it happened, and he and Chouinard laughed about it. I do know Dave Rearick well, and I know what he told me, and never in my life has he ever exaggerated or ever been the slightest bit wrong when telling any kind of story of the old days of climbing. Chouinard went to the Gunks and to the Tetons and to Colorado during that time, and it could be possible Yvon made a simple mistake and forgot exactly which of the places that person coined his name in such a way. I mean, we're all human, and maybe... he remembered it as happening in the Gunks. But Rearick says it happened that day at Castle Rock, because he was there and saw and heard it, and it was new to Chouinard then, and I believe Rearick. I don't doubt that you later named the pinnacle. Nor would I doubt Yvon might have told you that happened in the Gunks. Perfectly believable. I would have no reason to question any of that...

Pat

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Nov 16, 2008 - 12:43am PT

Coonyard Pinnacle. Slightly left and 400 feet above the top of Monday Morning Slab on Glacier Point Apron rises a 40-foot slab, Coonyard Pinnacle. On September 7, Joe McKeown, Rich Calderwood and I ascended this pinnacle from the top of Monday Morning Slab. The first pitch leads to a bush some 50 feet up on difficult friction. It is protected by bolts 15 and 40 feet up. The route continues up and right to a large ledge system, which is followed left until it gives out. A bolt is used for an 80-foot pendulum traverse which ends on a ledge directly below the pinnacle. A difficult friction pitch and then a flake system lead to the top of the pinnacle.
WILLIAM G. AMBORN. Sierra Club

Glacier Point Apron, Coonyard Pinnacle Route. From the top of Monday Morning Slab, the Glacier Point Apron rises up at only a 65º angle, but it is very smooth and crackless. After several attempts Layton Kor, Richard Calderwood, Bill Amborn, Jeff Foote and I managed to push the route to the “oasis,” a spring of good water coming out of the cliff at the top of the apron. The climbing is essentially free except for a huge pendulum. This climb rates with the hardest free climbs in the country in length, extreme difficulty and lack of protection.
YVON CHOUINARD, Yosemite Climbing Club

[url="http://www.americanalpineclub.org/AAJO/pdfs/1961/351_usa_aaj1961.pdf#search=%22Yosemite%22"]AAJ 1961 p370[/url]

Thorgon

Big Wall climber

Idaho Falls, ID

Nov 16, 2008 - 09:56pm PT

That is amazing, look forward to more captures, such as this!!!!!!!!

Thor

Redwood

Gym climber

West Sacramento CA

Nov 17, 2008 - 12:36am PT

Coonyard Pinnacle

Here's a subject I can converse about. Thank you, guido, for creating the thread, and providing all the information, or juicy details, as it sometime seems. That must have been a mighty adventurous undertaking.

I made several attempts on this route over a span of more than 20 years. The first of these (if anybody really cares) was in September, 1969. The route was a kind of big deal back then -- at least as far as the guidebook descriptions were concerned (all this talk of the going to the Oasis and then the Hinterland being "the most sustained fifth class climb in the country," and so on). Immediately previously I had obtained a pair of Kronhofers; I remember them well. They were great, especially in comparison to the kletterschuhe I had been climbing in up till then (nice pair, John Morton. I got rid of mine, sadly, a long time ago). My climbing partner and I went up the Harry Daley route late one day, and then, at the top of the slab, pondering what to do next, we hit on the outrageous idea of trying the first pitch of Coonyard Pinnacle. My partner gave it a go, and didn't like it. And then I went. And I climbed the pitch. It was amazing. It also turned out to be probably the best thing I did in climbing, I'm sorry to say.

Back then I had the idea of being really serious about the sport, hoping to work up to Half Dome, and who knows what else. But it didn't happen. I went to college instead and got involved with other things. Probably the main truth of the matter is that climbing was just too difficult.

[url=http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2261900400053544625TuZOaL]{{img}}h~~p://thumb5.webshots.net/t/73/73/9/0/40/2261900400053544625TuZOaL_th.jpg[/img][/url]

Jim Hoagland leading a variation of the Harry Daley route, below Coonyard Pinnacle, Sept. 1969.

[url=http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2724065590053544625pxrFBA]{{img}}h~~p://thumb5.webshots.net/t/73/73/0/65/59/2724065590053544625pxrFBA_th.jpg[/img][/url]

Me grinning at top of first pitch, luxuriating in my Kronhofers.

So on the wings of that success we came back the next day with the intention of climbing the whole route. I found then, and still feel, the route to be very mentally wearing. The routefinding is not at all straightforward (especially then, when all we had to go on was the Red guide). We couldn't find the proper crack on the second pitch, and then wandered way right and up, eventually getting back on track by traversing way left, and establishing a tenuous (dangerous) belay below the next 5.9 section. I climbed that, too, somehow, and then downclimbed to the ledge. We could not, however, climb the next pitch (either the fourth or the fifth pitch, depending on how you do it; at any rate the second to the last pitch). There was a party ahead of us, and we watched more or less helplessly some British climber lead it pretty easily, as it seemed, in Robbins boots (big blue things with a felted upper that looked like they might be more at home in the Alps).

At some point between 1970 and 1990 a bolt was added to this pitch, about 25 feet up. A very properly placed bolt, in my opinion. There is also, if you are sharp-eyed, a hole that used to have a bolt in it about 10 feet up, in which a baby angle can be placed and tied-off (don't tell anybody). At any rate, not feeling adventurous and courageous enough, we went down. Too bad. I found out much later that it "eases off" as they say about 20 feet up (even though it doesn't look like it).

Feeling somewhat fagged and fashed about the whole business, the route stewed in my mind for another year, and as it happened I hit on the idea of getting what I thought might be better shoes to give me an advantage. So I did. I bought a pair of very cool looking PAs at the Tuolumne Meadows store, late in the summer of 1970. At the same time I got a kind of oral history of the route -- years before its time -- from the shoe salesman they had there; no helpful ideas on making it easier or safer, though. Who was that informative shoe salesman? I thought you'd never ask. It was someone by the name of Joe McKeown.

So Jim and I went up there again, with approximately the same result. And there it stood. Ten, twenty years went by, and I just couldn't stomach the idea of dying without giving it another shot - especially since Jim had climbed it with Jeff Johnson a year or two later. And so after all those ages and ages I somehow managed to find a partner to try it, somebody whom I knew had climbed 5.11. I figured I was set. I have pictures of this attempt, here: http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/563235491jkJvMy

It really happened. But it was too bad again, since we couldn't climb it, despite the appearance of the renegade bolt on the second to last pitch. Maybe that made up for the disappearance of the first bolt on the first pitch. There had been a pretty big rockfall not long before, and it clobbered that bolt. I had to make do with threading a wired nut over the stub. It worked out Ok; it held a fall, too (don't tell anybody). But it did add an unanticipated particle of anxiety, and they add up. Although not every section on this route is "very difficult," it seems as though every time you turn around you're looking at another 5.9 pitch, and if the first pitch has tolerable protection, the others don't. For instance the traverse to the belay ledge at the top of the second pitch; maybe it's only 5.8, but it's run out and you get to clip-in to a rusted looks like a Lost Arrow driven up into a crack in a roof. That's way down there.

By 1990 I had a wide range of footgear selection not previously available. But I thought it wasn't quite fair to go up there in my EBs with sticky rubber, so I hauled out my old PAs from 1970 (even if they had sticky rubber, too -- don't tell anybody). I even got to put a lot of fancy gadgets on my gear sling (Friends, nuts, you name it (the attempt in 1969 involved only pitons: we actually placed one or two)). You don't actually use many of these things, but they're nice to have for show and the overall psychology of the experience.

[url=http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2663086290053544625TiIBpx]{{img}}h~~p://thumb5.webshots.net/t/69/669/0/86/29/2663086290053544625TiIBpx_th.jpg[/img][/url]

My PAs. I'm not getting rid of these. I want to be buried with them, actually. I can't seem to get a direct link to work, so these thumbnails will have to do.

It turned out I went up a few days later, in 1990, with someone else (someone whom I had seen climb 5.12) and finally climbed the route. I felt like Katsushiro in The Seven Samurai ("Today you're a full-fledged man.") I felt so manic that I wrote out a 30 or 40 page chronicle of my misadventures on the route, which shows me how much of an idiot I was even as late as 1990 (I'm much wiser and more mature now).

Thanks again, Joe, and thank you all for your patience.

WBraun

climber

Nov 17, 2008 - 12:55am PT

It's a mind blower that you guys could climb those slippery slabs in those Frankenstein boots.

Patrick Oliver

Boulder climber

Fruita, Colorado

Nov 17, 2008 - 04:15am PT

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but those Kronhoeffer's in the picture look like one of the mysterious clones that surfaced for a short time. I remember the original Kronhoeffer's, and of course used them for years, and they had a certain perfect cut to the rubber tread on the bottom. Then came along a version from who knows where, with the little lightning-shaped variation of that rubber tread, and the rubber was different, and they weren't as good. When I saw the photo above, I noticed that right away... The tops were also a slight bit higher than the original kind...

Patrick Oliver

Boulder climber

Fruita, Colorado

Nov 17, 2008 - 04:19am PT

Also, the original Kronhoeffers didn't have a heel, if I recall. Higgins you remember this, right...?

Roger Breedlove

climber

Cleveland Heights, Ohio

Nov 17, 2008 - 11:09am PT

Super recollections of sliding around on the Apron.

Hey Redwood, did you mean to say "and I just couldn't stomach the idea of giving it another shot without dying" or did I read it wrong?

The whole issue of shoes on the Apron is a thread in itself. I tired to climb on the Apron in Spyders (that didn't work so well) and tried it again as a guide in EBs and it worked just fine.

Best to everyone, Roger

Jaybro

Social climber

wuz real!

Nov 17, 2008 - 12:51pm PT

I think I had a pair of Kronhoffers without a heel. Wish i still had them. Never let feel "practical" with your stuff in the vicinity of a thrift store...

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Nov 17, 2008 - 01:10pm PT

I don’t remember the heel on Kronhofers, but I do remember the change in rubber. I remember it as being pretty sticky and then less so. I think the same thing happened to those blue suede Robbins boots. The earlier version had a pretty sticky formulation and the soles actually broke off in very tiny chunks. Later the soles seemed like regular Vibram hiking soles. The good rubber had a very intense smell to it as well. I remember walking around in my mother’s kitchen after getting a new pair of Kronhofers and leaving black marks all over the place because the rubber was so soft and came off so easily. As well, we used to buy them several sizes too small and the upper leather would sort of form to your foot so you could really feel the rock. They hurt like hell.

Don Lauria

Trad climber

Bishop, CA

Nov 17, 2008 - 02:04pm PT

Some Kronhofer memories.

West Ridge Mountaineering in West Los Angeles was the sole distributor for Kronhofer klettershoes from about 1970 until old man Kronhofer announced he was quitting. The earlier models did not have the heeled sole. I can't remember when the heel with the new sole pattern became standard, but since that's the only climbing shoe I ever wore until EBs & PAs came into vogue, I can vouch for the fact that the composition of the sole was never altered.
Those of us that considered ourselves expert on the subject, preferred the "new" heeled sole for its pattern because the lugs were more closely spaced than the original heel-less sole. Also the heel stayed in etrier loops more securely.

Any difference in "stickiness" was never noticed by anyone I ever sold a pair to(actual stickiness was never a characteristic of the Kronhofer sole).

Also, we always bought them at least a couple sizes smaller than our normal shoe size and when brand new we would put them on and dip our feet, shoe and all, into a bucket of water to soak them. Then we wore them around all day until they dried out - perfectly formed to our feet. Next, we would remove the brass staples in the toe of the sole (they were a problem when the sole wore down and the metal made contact with the rock. We also used to epoxy the toe and outer side around the small toe area to prevent premature wear and eventual holes appearing in the leather.

Great shoes (until Fires came along). Only bad feature was the absorbency of the suede leather. On the 8th ascent of the Nose, Boche and I climbed for 7 days in the rain. The water pouring down the face would run down our outstretched arms, through our clothes, and into our shoes, but when we stepped up in our etriers, the water would be squeezed out, if only partially and temporarily.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Nov 17, 2008 - 02:57pm PT

You may well be right with regard to the “stickyness” of the soles; perhaps I’ve confused them with the Robbins soles. At any rate, I bought every pair I ever owned from Westridge. Loved that store. They were really remarkable shoes on any rock that had a bit of grit like Stonypoint or out at Joshua Tree. Even after EBs came out, I still used my old Kronhofers out at Stonypoint.

scuffy b

climber

On the dock in the dark

Nov 17, 2008 - 09:28pm PT

I've seen Kronhoffers with two soles. Most had the Kletter Super
as seen on John Morton's. Some had the Marwa Klettersohle,
which had fewer, broader lugs and came flat. On Kronies and on
the Voyager Directissima (the closest knockoff ever) there was
a wedge of black foam rubber to build up the heel area
slightly.
The pair of Kronhoffers I bought from Higgins had the Marwa.
Morton's are the real deal, I'm sure.
I dissected a good number of Kronies and Directissimas both.