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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Apr 10, 2009 - 01:06am PT
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Barry,
If you were a klutz I never saw it. But then we
were having a lot of fun just trying some of the
new and old routes, and it was the spirit I noticed.
You speak of art, and I think that may be the key.
You were an artist. That can be enjoyed at any age,
at any level of ability. I have found a new bouldering
area here, and so far I walk along the base and imagine
routes. When we get older and all broken down physically
there is an art to climbing without actually climbing.
It reminds me of when John Gill spoke about going up and
sitting at the base of the boulders and lacing up his
shoes and stretching, throw in a yawn or two, a glance
at the beautiful setting, and then he changed back
into his walking shoes and went home... I've
always been a kind of climber in my own mind, but now
it's really the case. Stay in touch, my friend.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Apr 10, 2009 - 10:31pm PT
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Barry, I remember you and I worked on
a boulder problem just south (a little east)
and slightly downhill from the far
east end of the Wine Boulder. On
this isolated little boulder's south face
was a roof or overhang with some little
but reasonably good finger holds on the
headwall above the overhang, and I
have pictures in my mind of you and me
there, but I can't remember if we completed
that route. Do you by chance remember?
Maybe John (Bachar) would know the route
I'm talking about.
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Anne-Marie Rizzi
climber
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Apr 12, 2009 - 04:49pm PT
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Hi Barry! I always remember you with so much fondness.
Anne-Marie
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Garcia
climber
PG
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Jun 13, 2009 - 12:29am PT
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B --- you are not far from let me, I'm in Bend. Let me know if you want to go to Smith Rock. P
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sibylle
Trad climber
On the road again!
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Jun 13, 2009 - 01:41pm PT
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Hi Barry! I remember that you and Bev climbed together regularly when I first came to the Valley. Please tell us some Beverly stories. I will always miss her.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 14, 2009 - 12:35am PT
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When I get down, I just think about Barry and am
lifted up. That's the way it is with Higgins
and Gill and Royal... and a slew of other precious friends.
That's kind of the definition of friendship,
that power to make us feel as though somehow we
belong in this world... and that a few people think
so...
Someone must have told again Barry's story of
the day he led the Left Side of the Slack, and accidentally
clipped in the haul line instead of the climbing rope,
and thus -- in essence -- soloed that crux pitch. Oh my.
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Barry Bates
Boulder climber
Smith River CA
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Jun 23, 2009 - 12:34am PT
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Hi Sibylle,
I don’t really remember when I first met Bev Johnson; she was just generally around in Camp 4 starting in 1969. I probably remember seeing her because there were so few women climbers in Yosemite at the time. I think the first climb Bev and I did together was the Kor-Beck route on Middle Cathedral Rock. By then Beverly had already climbed the northwest face of Half Dome and the Steck-Salathe on Sentinel Rock. I don’t remember how we ended up climbing together. I think that she didn’t have anyone to climb with that day and I didn’t have anyone to climb with that day and it was a climb we both wanted to do.
I didn’t really think much about the fact that Beverly was a woman climber. My introduction to climbing was through the Sierra Club Rock Climbing Section and there were always quite a few women on the trips who climbed well and could keep up with the men. Women climbers had been active in Yosemite at least since the fifties. Corky (Mary Anne) Matthews, who climbed in Yosemite during that period, was one of the people who taught me to climb, so it didn’t occur to me that Bev’s climbing was anything unusual for a woman to do.
When we climbed Kor-Beck Bev and I swung leads. Beverly led one of the 5.9 pitches without too much difficulty. When I followed her on the pitch some of the pitons she’d placed came out in my hand. When I reached the belay I shook my head and made some comment about how it was a good thing that she hadn’t fallen. Bev replied that she was at a disadvantage driving pitons because most guys had grown up using a hammer to drive nails and she hadn’t. Bev’s nut placements were always better than her pin placements but clean climbing (climbing exclusively with nuts) had not come into its own when we first started climbing together. It wasn’t until 1972 that clean climbing began to become widespread in the Valley.
A week or so after we climbed Kor-Beck, we climbed the northeast buttress of Higher Cathedral Rock together. On that and subsequent climbs I led the hard pitches and Bev led the easier pitches. Shortly after we climbed the northeast buttress of Higher Cathedral Rock, we climbed the Crack of Doom and the northeast buttress of Middle Cathedral Rock. I don’t remember which route we climbed first, the northeast buttress of Middle Cathedral or the Crack of Doom, so Middle Cathedral might actually be the first 5.10 climbed by a woman in Yosemite. On both climbs, we swung leads and I would lead the harder pitches—pretty much everything that was 5.9 or harder. As far as I know Bev was the first woman to climb all three of these routes, although we didn’t discuss that at the time.
The Crack of Doom seemed to have a special significance to Yosemite climbers during late sixties and early seventies, probably because it was known as the first 5.10 climbed in Yosemite. I’m not sure but I think that the East Chimney of Rixon’s Pinnacle may have been climbed before Crack of Doom, which would make it the first 5.10 climbed in the Valley. However, Crack of Doom was the only 5.10 listed in the Red Roper Yosemite Guide. Because of that exclusive listing I think it gained a special status with Yosemite climbers.
When I first started climbing, at the age of 15, I had a copy of the Red Roper Guide that I had practically memorized. I grew up in the Monterey Bay area and there were not many climbers living in the area back then. All I could think about was climbing and the Roper Guide was my link to Yosemite. I spent hours pouring over the climbing routes and photos. The thing that stuck in my mind about the account of the Crack of Doom was the fact that it was 5.10 and that the second pitch was described being “for those climbers willing and capable of leading 5.8 without protection”. I was only a 5.6 or 5.7 climber at fifteen and it was hard for me to imagine anyone being able to climb 5.8 without protection. Although it seemed impossible at the time, given the standards nowadays it makes me laugh to think about it now.
By the time I was twenty, when Bev and I went up to do the Crack of Doom, I’d probably done fifteen to twenty 5.10 routes. I felt fairly confident that I’d be able to get up the climb. Still the description of the second pitch stuck in my mind. This was before Jim Bridwell had come up with the a-b-c-d rating system, so when you went to do a 5.10 it was just a 5.10. In some ways this seems like an advantage, because you didn’t have to worry about whether you had done a 5.10c or a 5.10d before—you were just doing a 5.10. The first 5.10 I ever did in Yosemite was the Edge of Night, which is now listed as 5.10c. I probably wouldn’t have tried it when I did if Bridwell’s rating system had existed.
When Bev and I climbed the Crack of Doom I led the first two pitches and survived the unprotected 5.8, much to my relief. Although it didn’t seem terribly difficult when we did it, I had built it up in my own mind and was a relief to get through it. She led the third pitch, another 5.8, climbing past a ‘camp’ of bats in the back of the chimney. I led the fourth crux pitch that finishes the climb. From what I remember it was a crack leading to a face move that finished the pitch off. When I got to the belay point and I was belaying Beverly, I kept looking up and thinking, ‘maybe there’s another pitch’. The climb didn’t seem as hard as I thought it would be. Because of its reputation I expected that it would be much harder for both of us to climb but Beverly finished the final pitch without difficulty.
After we rappelled back down the route, we returned to Camp 4. I was sharing a camp site with Jim Bridwell, Mark Clemens and Beverly. Galen Rowell was visiting Yosemite and staying at the same campsite that weekend. When we got back, Galen asked me what I’d climbed that day and I told him I’d climbed the Crack of Doom. Galen just shook his head and said, “No, you didn’t.” I insisted that I had and Galen asked, “Ok, who did you do it with?” Bev was standing there and I pointed to her; I thought Galen’s jaw was going to hit the ground. Bridwell remarked, ‘Well, you seem to have found a climbing partner’ and, as it turned out, I had. Bev and I went on to climb another thirty or forty routes together. Along with Phil Gleason, Pat Ament and Steve Wunch, Bev was one of my favorite bouldering and climbing partners during the early seventies.
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Fuzzywuzzy
climber
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Jun 23, 2009 - 01:19am PT
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Great stories Barry. Thanks. And thank you for hosting us at the slide shows at Bugaboo all those years ago. Tell us more when you can.
Tom Carter
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Jun 23, 2009 - 01:26am PT
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kewl deal
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Jun 23, 2009 - 01:41am PT
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Wow - 1969, right like it was last week. Plus the background on the mental side of things and having a guidebook as a kid before you had the skills/strength. But the dreams are a big part of why it all happens.
The Galen encounter at the end is a definite classic. Some people, sometimes, think they know who's good and who's not. They get to learn!
I think the only thing left to add would be a photo of Bev, crankin'. But I have never seen one; there may not be any.
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Barry Bates
Boulder climber
Smith River CA
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Jun 23, 2009 - 08:09pm PT
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Hi Tom
I'll try to think of a few more stories before senility completely sets in and if it does set in I'll make some up.
Clint
I don't have any photos of Bev climbing; I never carried a camera while climbing and have never seen any photos of her when she wasn't standing in slings on a wall. You're probably right there may not be any.
Barry
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Jun 24, 2009 - 08:29pm PT
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Barry,
Here's something I wrote about you long time back. Can't remember the reason for the little reflection, and pretty sure it never appeared in any climbing rag or site, so I'm thinking, why not put it here while we're all still alive:
"I put Barry in the Pratt category: humble in overall manner, excellent at his craft, pure in style, passionate but never preachy or even inclined to say much about his accomplishments. His influence, then, is submarine. Like Pratt, he modeled a way of climbing which checked the temptation to tout your own deeds. He focused you on the joy of the act well executed. It is so easy when one is young to miss the point - the deep wonder of climbing. Too often, the focus goes to one's place in the pecking order or list of first ascents or free ascents or whatever tick marks fit the day. After climbing with Barry, or even doing some of his climbs and reflecting on his ascent, those distractions melt away.
I remember a couple of climbs we did together which spoke volumes about his mentality, as did repeats of several of his first and first free ascents. As with Pratt, one need not have climbed with him much to have felt his influence. I remember trying his infamous mantle move on the Mechanic's Delight at Pinnacles National Monument after he did the first free and thinking, wtf? I didn't even try and instead resorted to my specialty of micro edging to get around it, but kept looking over to imagine him cranking up one arm style (slippery small snout it is) protected by a then terrible bolt. I remember his floating up Twilight Zone we did together with the calmest, easy movement and not a trace of pride afterward. And his honest, non-envious congratulations to me after I got the FA of The Void on Cookie Cliff in Yosemite, a route he and Bev Johnson were working on but couldn’t get and which he invited me to try as I was walking by. How many climbers invite someone else onto a route they were working! And I remember doing the Machete Direct, another of his FFAs, thinking, at the time, I could usually do 5.11 face, as he rated it, first or second try, only to find it was another of his Pinnacles testpieces, very sustained, tricky at the end. As I lowered back to the ground for more restarts than I liked, I stared up, squinted, shook out, and whispered to his imagined figure standing there, "5.12, Barry, 5.12." After I finally got it, I didn't feel sandbagged. I knew his conservative rating had nothing to do with pumping his achievement and everything to do with his caution and humility in ranking his routes.
Characters move on the landscape, both in climbing and our wider lives. As time goes on, we get to look back and sort out the few who marked our souls. Quiet, powerful, able Barry was one who marked mine. I have not seen him in years, but wish him well wherever his path is taking him."
If you go to my website here, you'll see a bit on Machete Direct and my reflections on Barry:
http://www.tomhiggins.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=20&limit=1&limitstart=0
And again on my site, in the middle of an old Ascent article of mine on Pinnacles, you'll get more on Barry, this time re Mechanic's Delight:
http://www.tomhiggins.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11&Itemid=20&limit=1&limitstart=5
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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scuffy b
climber
Sinatra to Singapore
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 24, 2009 - 08:39pm PT
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That's a nice piece, Tom.
It's quite hard to ignore the pecking order and
avoid wondering where you fit when young and
growing and, really, defining yourself.
I believe this is the first I've heard regarding the
et al in the first ascent credits for The Void.
Supertopo ends 37 years of wondering!!
Thanks
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