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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 9, 2006 - 02:33pm PT
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From: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=235868&f=0&b=0
Mimi writes:
While I acknowledge that I've been in-your-faces, I don't think anyone owes you guys an apology. Are we supposed to simply forget what you guys did and let it slide because it was 25 years ago and climbers have again confirmed that two of the pitches on your route are difficult?
Are we supposed to just shrug off what your vertical circus represented to climbing then and still does today? Yes, we're a community alright. And we wouldn't get so fired up about these issues if we didn't care so much about the very resource that brings us together.
As I said in XXIV, this is still about honesty on your part, nevermind the details about the sky-camping you engaged in for 39 days.
Entering this thread as late as I did, I never saw where you specifically responded to the text below. As I stated earlier:
Just one question to clarify this whole thing in terms of what the second ascent party should hope to find on the route in its entirety. In your original article, WOS: Living in the Sky (Climbing, 1983) you reported that the route required 145 drilled placements including 75 rivets and 39 anchor bolts.
If you consider every hook placement touched by a drill, does this whole count still hold up or exactly where are things at this point?
Peace and love,
Mimi
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2006 - 02:35pm PT
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Since you seem determined to keep "it" flying, I will respond to you here rather than in the other thread where such a discussion is obviously inappropriate. My response follows in the next post.
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TradIsGood
Trad climber
Gunks end of country
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mb1 - Why not just give mimi your approval to repeat the route adding any fixed gear that he feels is necessary, and skipping anything that he does not feel is necessary? Then he can report back his results. While there he can count up everything that they find.
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atchafalaya
Trad climber
California
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2 steps backward, and you had been making progress.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2006 - 02:49pm PT
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The numbers that appear in my book as well as in the article you quote are correct. No, those numbers do not reflect "every time the drill touched the rock." If that somehow torques you, then I don't take it seriously until THIS challenge has been met:
JM has admitted that it is common practice (even by himself) to knock flakes off to make room for placements. He seems to suggest that this is infrequent. I want an ACCURATE tally (along with some reason to think that he has any clue)!
You have accused me of "insulting" JM, so I want the quote where I supposedly "insult" him. And YOU tout him as your own prophet of purism. So, to you I say: unless you can produce for me an ACCURATE tally of "every time the drill touched the rock" AND every time the pick of a hammer touched the rock "to remove a flake" for any reason on, say, his last two routes, then it becomes PAINFULLY obvious that you are attempting to hold Mark and I to a higher standard of honesty, memory, AND "purity" than you demand of your own heroes.
Do YOU ever climb, much less put up FA's? IF so, then I want that tally from you as well, and I want to know what route this tally represents.
If you're not ready to produce a NAME for yourself, what routes you have EVER done (especially FA's), AND the modification tally (remember: EVERY time you moved ANY bit of rock, however TINY, in order to help or make a placement happen!) for yourself and for your hero's routes, then you are just spewing and not worth any further response.
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nvrws
climber
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Ouch, Rich. But.. ya know sometimes ya just call a spray a spray.
Mimi, I/we are waiting....
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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re: No, those numbers do not reflect "every time the drill touched the rock." If that somehow torques you, then I don't take it seriously until THIS challenge has been met...
it would seem to be a better fit your own personal model of integrity and forthrightness, to be honest and open about your own route and your own tactics, despite what JM, bridwell, zippy the pinhead, or anyone else does or has done on lead.
i do understand that you feel attacked, but i'd still ask you to reconsider the "tit for tat" approach.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2006 - 03:45pm PT
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Matt, we have already been more "honest and open" about every minute detail of our ascent than anybody ever has, and we have already responded carefully and forthrightly to more scrutiny than has ever been leveled at another FA.
We simply cannot remember in more detail than we have expressed the FEW and tiny modifications we made. I continue to call this a "tempest in a teapot" because EVERYBODY does far more than we did on EVERY FA in history, yet nobody takes seriously the constant rock modification that goes on... except in our case.
So, this is no "tit for tat" mentality I have. I am honestly asking for our critics to step up to the exact same plate they have asked from us. WE have honestly attempted to provide answers, but my exchange with JM makes clear that this whole "plate" is moveable and bogus. We simply did NOT "drill our way up the slab" as has been suggested, despite the FEW times we knocked a crystal off of a ledge.
There are routes that are "heavily modified," with trenched heads, bathooks, manufactured ledges, and so forth; and of such routes it can justly be said that they are "manufactured routes" and that "heavy-handed use of the drill" was employed. WoS is simply (and obviously, if you go there and look at it) not such a route. Trying to count up a few tiny, invisible, and utterly insignificant "modifications" in an attempt to MAKE the route seem like a "modified route" still does not make it into a "manufactured route," and my point has always been that our very forthrightness on this issue has made it seem like more of an issue than it is.
I'm still waiting for those tallies....
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2006 - 05:30pm PT
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Ok, John, in the apology thread you saw fit to sort of respond to my "inquisition on [your] style and routes." First, there is no "inquisition," and it is highly ironic that you refer to my request for you to stand at your own plate to be an "inquisition," when you have been one of the primary ones (and certainly the most credible one) calling us out about our modifications. Now, I simply ASK for you to accomplish the exact same thing with the same level of forthrightness, accuracy, and detail as you have repeatedly DEMANDED, and it's an "inquisition???" Too funny.
I know others here think of you as a hero or god, but your own post reveals YOU don't think of yourself that way, and so I don't offer you any special homage either. I have never insulted you, but neither have I treated you with "bowing and scraping." If you want to call me out about modifications, I will simply ask you to play the same game.
And GAME it is! This whole "issue" is the stupidest part of the whole WoS debacle. But, people like you seem unable to let this aspect of the ascent slip into the insignificance it is justly entitled to, so let me remind you of some history you seem to have forgotten in your statement: "Bridwell was of the 70's era in Yosemite. In the 80's, with folks like Walt Shipley and Steve Grossman, there was a bona fide, deep philosophical search for a higher form." Although, even you admit that things went to hell in a handbasket in the 90's. So, on your model, there was this little window of purity, right in the 80's, and we came RIGHT THEN and peed on it. Problem is, there was no such nice little window.
Bridwell a 70's climber???
How about Zenyatta Mondatta? Put up in 81, less than a year before WoS. Many ADMITTED modifications (modification TOUTED as better than drilling!).
How about The Big Chill? Put up in 87. I can't say for sure, but I've heard (and, given the above, have every reason to expect), using similar tactics.
And I think you're drawing a pretty arbitrary line to say that the Sea was a 70's route, as though that 70-80 decade line made some amazing new paradigm emerge out of nowhere. The (very modified) Sea was put up a mere four years before WoS. Certainly NOT a "sea change" (no pun intended) there!
So, let's move on to Shipley (not to speak ill of the dead, because I am not 'speaking ill' of him; I am not the one who thinks that drilling is the great evil that some do.) Native Son was done in 87. Hmmm... the Machine Headwall??? Two straight pitches of rivets??? Over 100 holes in 15 new pitches??? Doesn't strike me as a clear-cut example of the 80's quest for a new standard of purity you are espousing!
I honestly could go on and on. You say: "I hope that someone, someday remembers the 80's era for what it was. Despite your best efforts to convince people on this forum that everyone on the big stones were all up there doing the same thing, bashing and chipping and chisselling our way up the big stone where ever convienient, it is simply not true." As though I am the one who is trying to paint this totally distorted picture of how the 80's REALLY were.
Well, I don't know what "everybody" was doing, but I do know that there are many, many evidences that the 80's were a "window of purity" only in your own mind.
I will be the first to admit that we all see things through our own filters, but YOU need to come clean with the same thing, John. YOUR sanitized perspective of the 80's is not somehow special because YOU are the (whoa) JM! You've been around, that is true. But your perspective of the fabulous purity of the 80's is not refected in the many historical FACTS of the totallity of what was actually done then! You might single out a few guys like yourself, Grossman, and Shipley as especially "pure," but to call the Bird a 70's climber, just to get him out of your target window is pretty distorted in its own right, and even Shipley was not as "pure" as you are making him out to be.
The whole point here is that YOU have singled out our VERY FEW and invisible "modifications" for special condemnation, yet you are utterly inconsistent to do so! You yourself have modified, and there was a LOT of drilling and chipping going on both before and after WoS. I maintain that we did FAR less of it on WoS than on MOST routes that were going up in the 80's, your filtered version of the 80's notwithstanding.
I DO, honestly, respect the purity you and a few others were striving for, and I grant you that this was in fact your quest. I also grant you that we did APPEAR to be "drilling our way up the slab," and so I grant that there was a genuine foundation for the ire you and others immediately felt against us.
What I do NOT grant, and NEVER will grant, is that you or anybody else had the RIGHT (or responsibility) to treat us as we were treated, or that it was right or correct for the SAR guys of that time to UTTERLY refuse to engage in reasonable dialog, refuse to go up and LOOK at the route, and then begin a multi-decade slander campaign. Regardless of how you (speaking collectively) PERCEIVED us at that time, it was your responsibility as reasonable human beings to DISCUSS with us (as we so often tried to initiate) and come to see the obvious truth that was there to be seen.
So, John, I understand your perspective of how we were perceived, but what gets minimized in these discussions is that we TRIED to get communication going, and we were SHUT DOWN in all attempts. No amount of historical filtering or revising is going to change the fact that WoS WAS put up in the "standard of the times" in fact in better style than many other routes), and a whole generation of well-known climbers simply chose (in the face of plenty of evidence to the contrary) to believe a lie and then foist it off on others.
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deuce4
Big Wall climber
the Southwest
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well, I tired.....
(sigh)
Maybe you are right, Madbolter, we all were just a bunch of asswipes, f*#king everything up. Quite possibly more true in the big scheme of things than I care to remember.
Sure was fun back then, though.
Signing off from this nonsense for a while.
C-ya! (wouldn't want to be ya!)
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darod
Trad climber
South Side Billburg
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deuce4 wrote:
"...Maybe you are right, Madbolter, we all were just a bunch of asswipes, f*#king everything up. Quite possibly more true in the big scheme of things than I care to remember..."
You finally nailed it!
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MSmith
Big Wall climber
Portland, Oregon
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John,
Perhaps since we key off of what we disagree on it leaves the impression that we regard the other side to be completely without merit. You make broad points on the other thread (see link above) that are well-taken in that they are based on a concept under which you climb/climbed. I do understand the notion that one of the aspects of the 80’s was a deliberate attempt to find ethical purity and that many of the key figures of the time were searching for a higher standard. That was noble and I’m sure that had I been a part of the inner group at the time of WoS, I would have raised my eyebrows too. On that we can find some common ground and perhaps a foothold toward reconciliation. The problem, I think, is that Richard and I were uniquely and unreasonably singled out for criticism on our deviation from your higher ethical standard. (That last sentence is very key to this post.) It seems to me that the higher standard was unintentionally hypocritical, though, and therefore shaky if not outright bogus, as those on the inside were allowed to (seemingly) stray away as needed. Perhaps the best example is Native Son in which an insider saw a great line that ended in space. What to do? Answer: Set the ideal standard aside and drill a two pitch rivet ladder so the climb could rim-out. The rivet ladder was given a name, showing it was noble or something, and all is well. No published criticism. Btw, this pattern of holding a higher standard only when convenient is not new, as Robbins did the very same thing when he climbed Tis-sa-ack (“a route worth drilling for”).
My conclusions: 1) I truly applaud and respect the higher standard that you and others were committed to. 2) The insiders were not held accountable to the standard. 3) Pugnaciously and almost uniquely holding WoS alone to standard is not reasonable.
If your position is that WoS is a bad route that would have been better left unclimbed, we could still find a real measure of reconciliation. If your position is that WoS failed your standard of the day and should strongly be held accountable to that standard, then probably the best we can do is to try to deescalate the rhetoric and go our separate ways.
--Mark
PS Sorry that I've been so maxed this last month that I've not had the time to keep up your posts.
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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"The problem, I think, is that Richard and I were uniquely and unreasonably singled out for criticism on our deviation from your higher ethical standard."
with all this lovey dovey internet stuff going on all of a sudden (mimi aside), do you guys ever look back and wonder how it could/would have all been different (for you) if you had agreed to do SS before, instead of after, WoS?
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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I know that this belongs in the apology thread, but I wanted to say that I was sorry I didn't eat more corn before I sh#t on your gear.
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WBraun
climber
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Still at it?
I've been around here the whole time up until today. I'm sorry to say that I've never heard any smear campaign from so called Sar guys. The smear campaign was done by climbers! This fiasco happenened back then. There's many sar guys for the last 18 years or so who've never even heard of this bullsh#t. Some of them now havn't even been born yet back then.
Richard you need to drop the Sar guys smear campaign. Sar personal are Sar when on a actual rescue. Some of these so called sar guys back then have been gone for over 15 years and longer, especially the shitter himself. He's been gone off of Sar for over 20 years. I highly doubt that anyone here has ever heard of him. When on free time these guys are climbers and not SAR! Don't lump me into your "SAR Guys" smear campaign.
I myself have never even known there was a smear campaign going on until I read about it here. I don't read those dumb ass climbing magazines either.
Then there is this:
"You reported that the route required 145 drilled placements including 75 rivets and 39 anchor bolts."
That translates into 249 whatever. That will surely flip out some people who are so passionately into climbing regardless of the glossed over accepted whatever style & ethics or what have you. Some people will surely start saying sh#t about it no matter what. Do something controversal and you'll get negetive responses no matter what. Some people will just say some sh#t to get a rouse out of ya .... you already know that.
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Blowboarder
Boulder climber
Back in the mix
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Hi, Werner.
Do me a favor and punch Jon in the eye next time you see him.
Thanks.
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darod
Trad climber
South Side Billburg
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WB, there goes the target again!! everybody who reads these threads is aware that we're talking about the SAR guys of THE TIME, so, why try to spin this once again?
Offwhite, very mature, it gives a very good idea of the level of people you were and still are....and your name is?
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WBraun
climber
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Darod
Just so you can waste your time thinking about it.
Blowboarder
Hahahaha I got it. good joke
Guess what, he came out of the shower a couple of days ago and his towel got jammed in his bike spokes and took a gnarly header.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2006 - 07:30pm PT
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Matt, I assume you mean SoD rather than SS. Well, it's sort of "received wisdom" that there would have been nooo problem if we would have just gone up and done the Sea first before doing WoS, instead of the other way around.
Perhaps that would have been the case. However, I do have some reason to question that speculation, which I will get to in a moment. First, though, I want to say that I don't think it would have been "wise" or "necessary" for Mark and I to do so. Unlike what is commonly thought, I had been climbing in the Valley for many years prior to WoS. My focus was primarily on free climbing, but I had soloed Washington Column in two days and had later gone up to solo the NW face of Half Dome, where a bear attacked me, virtually took the pack right off my back, and shredded everything! (That bear was tracked down and killed. Yea!)Furthermore, I had been aid climbing for many years prior to meeting Mark, and we had then climbed for approaching two years at the Riverside Quarry, putting up routes that Yaniro and others have said were "absurdly dangerous," as we learned the ins and outs of dealing with tiny features, loose blacks, and detached flakes. So, we simply didn't see ourselves as rank novices or as having anything to prove when we got to the Valley.
Maybe that was an incredibly naive view, and I can certainly understand how people would think that way. However, if there's anything I've been trying to fight in these threads, it is the idea that a few SAR guys, just in virtue of their special stay-status, had any right to think of themselves as "locals" in anything like the traditional sense, and thus that we had some (even tacit) responsibility to prove anything to THEM. As Harding told me personally shortly after the ascent (and he knew many of the then SAR guys personally as well), "They are as#@&%es--I'M the 'Valley local,' if there is any!" So, while these guys had an inflated view of their special status, I think that most of the people outside the Valley would be very disinclined to agree that they had any right to act as "gatekeepers," and I have been (and will remain) vehemently opposed to that idea.
Now, that said, perhaps we would have minimized conflict by doing the Sea first, but I doubt it (and I question if that would have been "better") for several reasons:
1) At that time, the Sea had had two ascents. Even when we did the fifth, the awe the route enjoyed was palpable! There was NO OTHER when it came to hushed whispers about the Sea. Had we shown up as absolute unknowns to do the third ascent of the Sea at that time, I have every reason to think that we would have gotten similar sorts of crap about it. It would have been assumed that we would "drill it down to our level." Had a drill even been found among our gear, we would have been beaten over the head with it. There is no doubt, and we were told this in no uncertain terms when we started the fifth ascent, "defiling the Sea" would be a FAR worse offense than anything we might have done on WoS!
2) When we got up on it, we found TONS of drilling and very overt modifications. Imagine the crap we would have gotten as future teams found all that. It would naturally have been "KNOWN" that we did all that! And we would have had zero credibility to deny that we did. Unlike WoS, there would have been effectively no way for us to clear ourselves of THAT mess! Look at Intifada now; there are a few (fortunately only a few) who think to this day that we drilled Intifada down to our level. So, knowing what I now know, I am OVERJOYED that we did the Sea after WoS and enjoyed such close scrutiny that nobody can begin to claim that we added any drilling or mods to the route. (whew!)
3) Because we didn't know the sorts of things being done on many of the hard routes of the times, we simply didn't know that we could have made WoS MUCH easier on ourselves, while rating it much harder, by employing the same tactics. We honestly tried our best to make the minimum impact on that slab that we could, and we were holding ourselves to a really high standard in that regard, contrary to what some have tried to emphasize. We tried to free climb sections that even LOOKED like they might go. I well remember wasting an entire afternoon at the top of the fifth pitch, waiting for the water to dry up, so I could try to free climb the last fifteen feet to where we would set up the anchor. After half a day wasted, I still couldn't do it. That sort of thing happened over and over (part of the 39 days), and we just wouldn't have had the same attitude if we would have done something like the Sea first. We would have drilled far fewer "holes" (as counted) and modded orders of magnitude more (as I did on WoC). We were unsullied when we did WoS.
Well, it's getting long, yet again. But, the bottom line is that I in no way regret having done the Sea after WoS, and I have many reasons to think that it actually was best that it happened in the order it did.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2006 - 07:38pm PT
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Werner, you say: "That translates into 249 whatever." Lost on me because the quote you derive this from says: "145 drilled placements including 75 rivets and 39 anchor bolts." Whenever I write or read the term "including," I intend or take it to mean "what follows is a part of what came before." A little arithmetic (and this is about my limit of ability to do it!) reveals a total of 114. Now, let's subtract that number from 145, and we should have the number of protection bolts in the thirteen pitches. Yup, there it is: 31. So, to be totally inclusive, the passage should read, "There are 145 holes in WoS, including 75 rivets, 39 anchor bolts, and 31 bolts in pitches."
Yet again, a higher order of scrutiny than enjoyed by any other route in the whole world... makes me so proud (sniff, sniff).
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