Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
John M
climber
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 09:54pm PT
|
Is it a matter of definitions? An official member of SAR, versus someone who has been used on SAR rescues. I don't really know the situation.
I agree with what Werner said earlier. I have zero doubt that Yosar would go no matter what. I also don't doubt that some hotheads said some inappropriate things or that when faced with someone like Werner, they would have backed down from their statements and calmed down and gone and done what needed to be done, if a rescue was called for. I even fully believe that Steve would have gone. Its one thing to be upset and say things. Its another thing entirely to be faced with someone in need and refuse to go just because you are pissed at what they are doing.
|
|
Meaty
climber
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 09:56pm PT
|
Yes Werner, I did in fact go to that meeting.
Madbolt is full of it with his accusations regarding Dill, Durr etc, just delusional!! Madbolt whined about me at that meeting in the previous threads, so he's lying when he says he doesn't know who i am.
Warren Harding told me those two chumps had told him I was the shitter....now he claims I m irrelevant and he didn't know I was on SAR....he's lying, again.
What he doesn't know about is my conversation with Daley, very relevant.
Being called the shitter for 30 years and then defending myself is relevant, funny how you can't grasp that fact madbolt.
As far as the 'big name climber' bulltripe....YAWN!!!
"...you were then and are now entirely irrelevant to the story."
Sorry, jackwipe......you've whined about me for years, called me the shitter for decades.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 09:59pm PT
|
I always thought all these years the shiter was Chesko.
I had no clue until I read it here on this forum.
|
|
Meaty
climber
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 10:00pm PT
|
Me too for a long time until SwillyRuzzle told me who it was.
And of course there wasn't any talk about not performing a rescue for those two, in fact many wanted a rescue. As you said above Werner, it's not up to the SAR climbers who gets rescued.
A video clip with Steve making that ridiculous assertion is somehow proof it was a conversation among the SAR climbers, it's absurd!!
Also,.... the lie those two were surrounded and threatened is as hollow as it was the last time.....they throw victim cards like confetti.
|
|
'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 10:05pm PT
|
I might have to stay up for this. I even opened another beer.
Dimitri - did you listen to the video clip where Steve says there was lots of talk about SAR not rescuing those guys? Can you process the logic of j-tree's arguments presented to you above?
Can you please relate your relevant conversation with Mr. Daley?
|
|
ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
extraordinaire
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 10:11pm PT
|
Mike Durr Good blast from the past.
I knew his wife.
She was totally rad.
My question is:
Why the FA feels the need to justify their efforts so much?
Movies, interviews etc "thou protesteth too much"
That ain't how it ever been done in the ditch.
Never has been.
I see it as weak.
The route maybe the best ever, but whimpering and complaining gets you nuth IMO.
|
|
Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 10:29pm PT
|
Jingy, for you to equate some nasty a$$ white supremacist with people working SAR is just absurd. What you heard in that movie is a pack of lies, no one on the SAR site said anything of the kind.
 No.. You are right.
I am wrong.
good day sir
did you click play on the video above that show a proclaimed climbing historian saying that there was exactly that talk going around at the time, that if they needed help.... we would let them meet their end up there.
Magic-Shitter theory. In the film we see the head cocks
back... and to the left...
back... and to the left...
back... and to the left...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
|
|
Meaty
climber
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 10:32pm PT
|
Jingy...there was no talk among those of us on the SAR site related to Steve's assertion....just didn't happen.
It indeed helps sell a lame movie of hype, whine and lies.... that's about sums it up. The dumbest climb in Yosemite history.
Here's another lie from madbolt:
"4) I had no idea you were part of SAR at that time"
The lies and whine never end from these two schmucks, especially the hollow lies regarding physical threats, just pure fantasy.
|
|
Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 10:36pm PT
|
No.. You are right.
I've said this before.
Obviously Steve was talking out his ass when he said the contrary.
|
|
Meaty
climber
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 10:40pm PT
|
Thanks Jingy, I've got no beef with you....except for postnig that lame video and not being able to listen to another side of the story, that's OK . I don't judge you for taking sides or whatever, but posting that video and trying to further use the lie those of us on SAR would refuse to rescue those two is just beyond silly. I just remember you and eurobriefguy Steve having fun in Bishop, poker nights with Fish etc....good times!!
|
|
John M
climber
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 10:42pm PT
|
Obviously Steve was talking out his ass when he said the contrary.
Or he was talking about those loosely related to SAR, such as himself. Ie.. have gone on SARs when the call goes out for help, but aren't officially a member of Yosar.
just my 2 cents. I can't speak for Steve
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 10:48pm PT
|
For now, I'll just ignore you, Meaty. I've learned that that is the best possible approach to apparent insanity.
Werner, however, asks legitimate questions and is relevant:
John Dill, Mike Durr, the camp4 campground ranger and sar team all were behind this?
No, I certainly would not put it that way! John Dill and Mike Durr always treated us with a sort of "distant courtesy," while at the same time trying to negotiate a "treaty" with the really inflamed SAR members. They suggested various things such as, "Why don't you guys go do something like Dihedral Wall, which would show the guys that you are competent, and it would also give you a bird's eye view of how blank that slab really is?"
The very fact that they were negotiating in such a way indicates the extent to which SOME (I emphasize SOME) SAR members were front-runners in the controversy. Dill in particular clearly had the idea that if we could appease some of his guys the whole controversy would go away.
Also, there was not just one "SAR meeting." There were several, and they included variously: John Dill, Mike Durr, and this or that SAR-site person. In these smaller meetings the tone was much more, shall we say, subdued than it was in the "one" meeting to which everybody refers.
My "take" at that time was that John Dill and Mike Durr were not "actively encouraging" any harassment of us. But they also both repeatedly made it clear that they sided with those SAR members that were affronted. They kept urging us that the root of the problem was us, not the affronted SAR guys. They kept telling us that the problem was ours to resolve, and they had various suggestions of how WE should solve it. So there definitely was a very passive aggression on their part, and the lines were quite clearly drawn.
Werner, I very much appreciate your sensitivity to having SAR in any way linked to the harassment, and I would not cast it that way. SAR as an organization is amazing and highly professional. But there definitely were particular SAR members who utilized their positions of credibility to float a version of reality that was largely responsible for the broad-scale harassment and then ongoing defamation that followed.
So, no, "SAR" was not "behind it," but there certainly were varying degrees of "complicity" in the leadership, even if only in the form of passive aggression, and the offending SAR members were NOT actively reined in until John Daley got involved.
Daley told us, "This sort of thing will NOT go on here! I will talk to my rangers, and I'm going over to Camp 4 now to talk to those guys and inform them very clearly that they enjoy many privileges in exchange for their services, and I will instantly remove those privileges and even start booting some of them out of here if any more of this goes on. You guys have every right to climb your route, and nobody under me is going to harass you for exercising that right."
And, voila'! After that day, except for the on-route bombings and a lot of ongoing verbiage (that ultimately lasted decades), the physical threats and the meetings with Dill, Durr, and SAR evaporated.
|
|
John M
climber
|
|
|
Nov 24, 2014 - 11:11pm PT
|
I have a question for you Richard.
If people believe someone doesn't have the experience to do something, and this lack of experience could cause them to need rescue, or perhaps bend the rules and start deciding that this wall is blank and thus justify a bolt ladder or chipping, as was done on another route on the Capitan.. . if people believed this, then what can they do? Especially if the person isn't listening to reason. Do you just let them go do it? I'm asking because I'm wondering if you can understand why these people were so upset and why they wouldn't just take your word for it that you were experienced and wouldn't put up a crap route or a chipped route. Plus I am interested in your state of mind at the time. I wrote something a few pages back and I am wondering about your take on it. I am not in any way defending the things like the shitting. I am talking about why people were upset. Not how they handled it. Plus.. what one should do in a case like this. Mark at one point in the video said that he could see how it was naive what y'all did, but then he went on to contradict himself and say that he thought that you guys did nothing wrong. So which is it? Was it naive, and if so, then why didn't you listen to your elders? And do you blame them for being upset, or just for how they dealt with their feelings? What is, in your understanding, the proper way to deal with something like this?
I'm just asking. I'm really not trying to start an argument. This is interesting to me.
( its late, I'm heading to bed in a few.. so no hurry )
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2014 - 02:15am PT
|
I'm just asking. I'm really not trying to start an argument. This is interesting to me.
I'm gonna head to bed after this also, but I wanted to answer before your questions fade into obscurity on this thread (and in my own mind).
And, for the record, I saw your earlier post but had no interest in jumping into this thread until Steve's post. At this point I'm "dragged in," and I'm happy to respond to you.
I'm going to break your paragraph up into bite-sized pieces. Perhaps Pete will even accuse me of another too-long post. Sigh.
If people believe someone doesn't have the experience to do something, and this lack of experience could cause them to need rescue, or perhaps bend the rules and start deciding that this wall is blank and thus justify a bolt ladder or chipping, as was done on another route on the Capitan.. . if people believed this, then what can they do?
Well, a bunch of hot-headed climbers in their 20s do not naturally provide the best context for thoughtful dialog, so I guess that the lack of it should come as no surprise.
But your question as posed seems to presuppose that this sort of questioning dialog process WAS pursued, particularly prior to when things were already escalated past the point of no return.
It was not. By the time of the first SAR meeting, our ropes had already been cut down, we were already feeling great physical danger, and we even had bathroom-wall graffiti directed at us and urging our slaughter (no phone cameras at that time, or I would have pictures).
"Dialog" was non-existent, and the SAR meeting was not well-handled so as to provide an actual venue for dialog.
So, the idea that these guys had some legitimate basis for their beliefs on the foundation of productive and charitable dialog is right out the window. By the time of any "dialog," the lines in the sand were already drawn.
Now, regarding the actual content of their beliefs, well, about that I have no sympathy. Sorry, but by the time the sh|t really hit the fan (in the absence of dialog), we had two pitches up. PLENTY of people now can attest to the FACT that those two pitches ALONE demonstrated that we CLEARLY knew what we were doing, that the route was NOTHING as it was being cast, and that the odds of our needing a rescue were no greater than anybody else's.
ANYBODY at that time could walk up to the base and see the story. But they didn't. Or they walked up and saw what they wanted to see.
ANYBODY could see with the naked eye (even better with a pair of binoculars) that what we were saying about the route was true. They couldn't be bothered to do that.
ANYBODY could have taken us up on our offer to jug our lines, as we offered to even take them up there and SHOW what we were doing. The first time anybody jugged the lines was at night and with a chopping already determined.
They preferred instead to gather around us in threatening groups and yell at us, even as we tried to reason with them: "Look, just go look at it. It is not a bolt ladder. The hooking goes; it's natural! There's even quite a bit of free climbing on it. Just hike up and LOOK! Jug our lines!"
What I don't think you are really getting is the extent to which a mob mentality had already taken over. And there were three guys who packed the power keg and then put the match to it. They know who they are.
Finally, regarding them being upset about being forced to take risks on a rescue, I honestly think that is a specious argument.
In a pure nanny-state, okay. But in the United States, in a public, national park... uhh... no.
If you want to be on SAR, you takes your chances, as the saying goes. Perhaps one day it will be some goofball wading too close to the edge of a falls. Perhaps one day it will be some team trying to speed-climb El Cap when weather moves in. You rescue who needs it, regardless of "competency," and the bar to show incompetency is pretty high, as it should be.
The only way your argument flies is if it is even POSSIBLE to assess rescue-risk with some degree of certainty in advance of an event. And it is just too easy to come up with countless counter-examples to that idea. The most competent teams have been rescued. And at the other end of the scale (lol), Mark and I didn't need rescue (despite a pretty horrific Pacific storm that dropped a lot of snow in early July).
You simply cannot preemptively decide who climbs and who doesn't on the basis of "beliefs" about "competency." You're on SAR? Then you rescue who needs it. End of story. That's actually the selfless heroism of the role!
Neither their beliefs (which had no rational foundation, given the facts that were clearly there to be seen by the naked eye!), nor the argument from those beliefs to the decision about who gets to climb and who doesn't have merit.
By the way, I'm writing in a philosophical tone, and I don't mean to sound provocative. I certainly understand why you would ask the questions the way you do. I'm just responding as objectively as I can, which can come across very "forthrightly." My saying that a particular argument doesn't have merit in no way implies that YOU don't have merit. I hope that makes sense!
Especially if the person isn't listening to reason.
See above. There was no "reasoning" involved by the time things really blew up. And by then, the battle lines were drawn, and we were just trying to get onto the wall and away from it all (silly us, thinking that the wall would be safe).
The version of reality that a few still try to float goes like this:
Jensen and Smith as "inexperienced kids" show up and start drilling up the Great Slab. We locals get really concerned! Are they going to hurt themselves? Are they trashing El Cap? Are we going to be called upon to rescue them, when a rescue COULD be avoided in advance?
So, we start talking with Jensen and Smith, and we discover from our dialog efforts that they have no El Cap experience, that one of them has zero big wall experience, and that the odds are dramatically high that they are completely clueless. We try to "reason with them," but they are hot-headed, inexperienced kids that "will not listen to reason."
So, we start being more insistent! "Look, you guys are going to get yourselves in a lot of trouble if you continue. There's a lot of us here that are very concerned on many levels, and we would really like you to back down until you can demonstrate that you are competent to do this! We're really trying to save you from yourselves!" But the two inexperienced goofballs will not "listen to reason."
So, we start getting VERY insistent, including bringing the rangers into it. We have a big meeting with the SAR leadership, and the two goofballs are just unresponsive to our attempts to "reason with them." Now, some of us are starting to get really mad about this. Not ALL of us, mind you. But SOME.
Sadly, SOME guys went over the top, but how far they went over, well, really nobody knows. Jensen and Smith now claim a lot of things that cannot be verified. We do know about the chopping, and that was surely an unfortunate incident. But don't paint ALL of us with that brush. Only a few were involved in that. And beyond that, all most of us did was try to dialog. But Jensen and Smith would never "listen to reason." So, you see, there was solid reason to believe that they were entirely incompetent; some of us continue to believe that to this very day! In a very fundamental way, Jensen and Smith really brought this all down on themselves.
THAT is a fairly good summary of the "line" that a few still try to float. It has little if any resemblance to reality.
There never was a dialog. There was only screaming and yelling and threats from the MOMENT that Corbett, Paul, and Cole started monitoring us from Cosmos. Mike Paul has since apologized to me very profusely, but Corbett and Cole never have. From that encounter onward, the rumors spread like wildfire, and we never got a "hearing" of any sort until that first SAR meeting (if that can be called a "hearing").
So, there was nothing like "listening to reason" in their approach to us. The sh|t literally hit the fan before there was even the slightest attempt at "reasoning." And then, the ones not listening to reason were our opponents, as we urged again and again, "Just walk up and LOOK at it! It is NOT what you are saying. Jug our lines and LOOK!"
So, no, I have exactly zero sympathy for the whole "listen to reason" line that it is convenient to float now. Anybody TODAY can hike up and look at what they WOULD have seen if they could have been "upset" enough to do so. And ANY unbiased eye can SEE what is there and KNOW that we could not be the bumbling, incompetent goofballs that we were cast as from the start of the whole mess.
Do you just let them go do it? I'm asking because I'm wondering if you can understand why these people were so upset and why they wouldn't just take your word for it that you were experienced and wouldn't put up a crap route or a chipped route.
See above. No I have no sympathy for it, because the actual facts just don't bear out that whole "reality." You can hike up to the base at ANY time and see for yourself that the first two pitches are NOTHING like a "crap route" or a "chipped route" or a "bolt ladder" or "a thousand bolts to Horse Chute" or ANYTHING like what we were accused of putting up. And we offered to let anybody jug our lines. You can inspect pretty dang closely from the lines!
Also, one advantage of that slab is that from the ground, particularly with binoculars, you can SEE what we did for hundreds of feet. There are no corners to hide atrocities. Our bolts and rivets are clear to the naked eye, and the run-outs are crystal clear. You can scour the thing for chipping, and you won't see any. It is OBVIOUS that the route is what WE said it was, not how they intentionally painted it to arouse the mob.
Forget "dialog!" Just go LOOK at the thing and see if a "reasonable" mind can conclude that we were incompetent and needed to be put down.
Furthermore, back to my argument about freedom and national parks, NOBODY gets to single any particular route out for "special enforcement!" Let's say that we WERE putting up a bolt ladder. That still justifies NOTHING about how we were treated, and it would not justify special enforcement on the part of the NPS. We are entitled to EQUAL protection under the law, and the LAW has nothing to say about "a drilled placement every 22.3 feet is acceptable 'destruction of public property,' while a drilled placement every 15 feet is unacceptable."
There is no legal or moral reason to have singled us out for special condemnation, even if we WERE doing everything we were accused of. To address such atrocities, you do something like what I did with "Look Out! Weak Sauce!" and you CLIMB the damned thing, leading it, and document what you found. Then you write about it and address whether or not crossing "this line" is acceptable and within the range of what WE the climbing COMMUNITY is going to call "climbing."
There are "lines," but they are fluid and not ENFORCEABLE! You can go after a climber's sponsors. You can call them out in writing (when you can PROVE what they have actually done, and you address strictly and only the FACTS). And peer pressure has a lot of power, actually. Every climber values respect among their set of peers, so you can put a lot of pressure on behavior via non-violent "calling out" by peers, saying, "THIS we do not respect!" Again, your "calling out" had BETTER be based on demonstrable facts, or it is legally defamation!
But there is NO basis legally or morally for "enforcement" of a merely PERCEIVED "problem" at all! And that response is even more outrageous in the face of the contravening FACTS that are there for anybody to hike up and see for themselves.
Plus I am interested in your state of mind at the time. I wrote something a few pages back and I am wondering about your take on it.
Yes, you wrote about how you perceived an incompatibility in what Mark says in the video, how he in one place says that he wouldn't do anything substantively differently, yet in another place he says that we were "naive."
I agree with Mark that we were naive in a fundamental way. Contrary to what some have tried to float, we were WELL up on the sorts of ethics and controversies in Yosemite climbing history. We took it seriously; we were honestly prepared to bail the route if the fourth pitch had gone as the third did. But our naivety went to things like the civil exchanges and the pretty high level of reasoning that went into the writing of the Robbins, Harding, Bridwell era just prior to us.
We thought that we would not make a "splash" and that any interested people would honestly evaluate what we were doing, that they would quickly see that we weren't doing anything outside the norm, and that we were actually doing something pretty cool with hooking that hadn't been seriously tried before on a grand scale, like a whole route dependent on it. We did not imagine a full-blown turf-war, which is what the whole thing REALLY was!
In the forward to my book, Harding calls it nothing more than "dogs pissing on trees," and our naivety was that we just didn't think of the climbing community as composed of enough such people to be any problem.
Regarding not changing anything, Mark is referring to our behaviors. He is referring to the idea that we supposedly "should" have "proved ourselves" to the "Valley locals" prior to assuming that we had any "right" to try the route. He is referring to the idea that we "should" have "initiated dialog" in some way. What would that even have looked like???
Here we go.... We walk into Camp 4 and start asking, "We're new here, and we'd like to find some 'locals' to talk to about a new route we're planning to do on El Cap. Can anybody direct us to some 'locals,' because we want to pay some dues before we imagine that we're 'worthy' to get started?"
Ridiculous, of course! And on countless levels. But its very ridiculousness reveals the multitude of problems with the whole presupposition!
As Harding said to me repeatedly: "I am THE 'Valley local,' and I would have cheered you guys on."
And the whole IDEA of a "Valley local" already begs the question!
If you agree that the SAR guys are the closest thing to "locals," then you admit that SAR was "behind it," as Werner asks. But if you agree that even THEY are not 'locals,' as there really is no such thing in a NATIONAL park, then you admit that there was no particular set of people that had to "sign off" on our ascent. The NPS certainly has not made those sorts of decisions, so there was no going to the NPS in advance for "approval."
WHO, exactly, do you initiate dialog WITH, and WHY??? The whole idea that we had some responsibility to "prove ourselves" first utterly begs the question.
We naively thought that if somebody questioned what we were doing, we would DISCUSS it with them. And now, in hindsight, it's EASY to say, "Oh, maybe we could have initiated a conversation with Corbett first," or some such thing. In the end, though, knowing the personalities as we do, it's clear that there was NOTHING we could have done differently to suggest some different outcome.
Just look at Grossman's personality and approach to this, in the very face of all the evidence, and tell me how we were going to "reason this out" with guys who have had their minds made up from the first moment.
So, our "state of mind" started out naively believing in a Robbins/Harding-era sort of dialog with any interested parties. Beyond that, we thought we would just keep our heads down, not cause a splash, and just do out thing--ALWAYS with the values of what "climbing" even IS guiding our behaviors on the route. I repeat, we almost bailed after the third pitch, and we would have bailed had the fourth gone the same way. We CARED very much about putting up a good, solid route. We CARED about what "climbing" means and what drives people to test themselves on hard climbs. Our own goal was to test ourselves, and we knew what that meant.
I am not in any way defending the things like the shitting. I am talking about why people were upset. Not how they handled it.
Yes, people were upset. So what? Being upset is nothing special. I get upset ALL the time! I mean it... there are SO many things about our present society that upset me. Big deal. Grow up. Get over it. I sort things through, see if there's anything worth my efforts to actually deal with, and make productive decisions. The "upsetness" is a data point; nothing more. (Of course, that maturity and perspective is not natural to a 20-something. But, come on... their level of "upset" was far beyond what the evidence could even begin to sustain.)
Now, all that said, it is NEVER my desire to upset people myself, if it can reasonably be avoided. And I think that's the question you are really asking, something like: "Do you understand (and would you change anything) about how your actions caused people to be upset?"
THAT is indeed a very interesting question. But it has to be parsed out carefully.
First, I don't believe that MOST people ever got upset based upon what WE did. That is a point that cannot be overemphasized! Let me explain....
We had FOREIGN climbers bombing us from Aquarian Wall! They had never met us. They had never seen the route. They were "upset" strictly and entirely because of what they had HEARD. WE did not upset them, and that is true of the vast, vast majority of what became the herd!
So, the real question you are asking is: "Do you understand why a tiny group of 'locals' were upset, and do you take ANY responsibility for making them upset?" After all, the "locals" are the ones that started the herd mentality that became pervasive. So THEY are the ones we're really talking about.
Alright, let me ask it this way: "Is there something I should be doing now to have Steve Grossman no longer upset with me?" If there is, I have NO idea what it would be that would also maintain my personal integrity.
Just as Grossman is presently ENTIRELY responsible for his own emotional reactions to the evidence that is before him, the "locals" are entirely responsible for their own emotional reactions to the evidence that was before them.
The first two pitches were THERE, you have to remember, by the time there was ANY attempt at "dialog." Prior to that, as people would gather around us in groups yelling and threatening us, we urged them: "Look! Just look at it! The ropes are hanging there, so jug the lines if you want and LOOK at what is there!"
The mob mentality, based entirely upon Harding's prescient statement, "dogs pissing on trees" is ALL there is to the "upsetness." There is nothing more lofty than that, and I have to thank Grossman for making that more and more clear every time he opens his mouth or puts fingers to keyboard. All the "ethics" and "concern" were a smokescreen to justify nothing more than dogs pissing on trees. And I simply won't "compromise" to "build bridges" on the basis that there was ANYTHING justifiable in the "local's" emotional responses. The evidence was THERE, we tried to get them to look at it, but they had already decided. And that remains true even today, although the numbers have greatly dwindled.
There HAVE been some real MEN who have seen through their own responses and have realized HOW wrong they were. These men, like Mike Paul and Steve, have apologized very profusely and have called it for what it was. Steve even explicitly calls it a "mob mentality." THEY can see it for what it was, and THEY were right IN it at the time. THEY know how they got caught up in it. And THEY know it was unjustifiable. There's nothing "lofty" about it. Harding got it dead right. The rest is window-dressing and ad hoc justification.
So, yes, I "understand," but that does not make me "sympathetic" with it.
The ring-leaders honestly believed that they had some sort of enforcement rights, deriving from turf rights, when they actually had NO such thing. And they then spent decades justifying their "upsetness" to justify their behaviors, and all of that in the face of an ever-growing mountain of evidence that threatened to undermine their whole edifice.
You say that there is no justification for their behaviors, and you are right. But the actual fact is that there was no justification for their BELIEFS on a host of levels. And that fact holds even today.
Plus.. what one should do in a case like this.
I hope I've answered this question by now. What you DO is to honestly, charitably dialog if possible. If you have actual evidence of objective facts that something is a botch, then you show the evidence and write it up. There IS no rock-police-force, not even "locally," and particularly not in a national park. Nuff said on that.
Mark at one point in the video said that he could see how it was naive what y'all did, but then he went on to contradict himself and say that he thought that you guys did nothing wrong. So which is it?
Again, I hope I have explained this adequately. There is no "which is it," because the two comments are not actually contradictory as you assume they are.
Being 'naive' (particularly in the idealistic way we were) is not 'wrong,' and our 'problem' was, if anything, a more idealized notion of climbing community dialog than the 'locals' were capable of.
Was it naive, and if so, then why didn't you listen to your elders?
Yes, asked and answered. But "our elders?" That one just has me amazed. I simply deny the premise.
Do you mean "more experienced?" More "competent?" More "pure?" I have no idea what idealized version of "our elders" you are floating here, but I simply deny all versions of it as a basis for whatever we were "supposed" to have done to "appease" them.
The idea that you can only have the requisite experience BY working your way up some ladder set forth by the "elders" is the HEIGHT of the whole "Valley Christian," elitist mentality that Harding died parodying! It is outrageous, and I won't have any part of it.
You "judge" climbs on their actual merits. There is no "one path to competency!" Here in Colorado bitd, the "Kloberdanz Kid" showed up entirely unknown and just blew everybody away; they had the integrity to admit it. That basic argument that Grossman still tries to float has been by definition debunked. CLEARLY, by some "miraculous means," we were competent. End of story.
You don't have to bow down to Grossman and pay some apprenticeship under his heavy hand in order to be granted the "right" to "take the next step," while he says, "Respect your Sensei!" There are NO "elders" that matter in the sense you are suggesting!
Respect is NOT the same thing as "getting permission" (or even "getting a nod") in climbing! And everybody quickly focuses on the notion that we DID, perhaps, wink-wink-nudge-nudge, have SOME "duty" to treat "the locals" with respect, while it is wink-wink-nudge-nudge sort of understood that they had no "duty" to treat us with any respect. After all, we hadn't EARNED any respect from them.
That notion utterly begs the question. J-tree mentioned on this thread that the Riverside Quarry has some pretty stout aid climbing (thanks, btw). Yet our really hard routes have been "cleaned off" to make way for bolted sport climbs. Those routes don't even exist anymore. But I can tell you the truth that BOTH pitches of Bird of Prey (which no longer exists) were harder than ANYTHING I have ever done anywhere else. The fact that Grossman and his ilk downplay our experience begs the question. The fact that we were "outsiders" to YOSEMITE is irrelevant to the issue, because without the "local" mentality, you recognize that there are hard things outside of Yosemite, and you have the humility to realized that you don't know it all! You treat an unknown outsider with some initial respect and civil dialog!
As my Kung Fu instructor used to say, "No matter how bad-ass you think you are becoming, there is always somebody out there who can kick your ass. And you are not going to know who he is in advance. So have some humility and respect." The likes of Grossman could have learned something about climbing from that advice.
So if you are suggesting, as Grossman does, that we had some duty to seek out and bow down to our "elders" and "get their blessing," well, I'm sorry but, no, I AM just a bit too much of a CLIMBER to do such a thing. I bow to NO MAN, and I mean that. And anybody suggesting that I should can stuff that where (hopefully) the sun never shines. Ridiculous, and I'll have NO part of it.
If they were "so upset," then THEY had a responsibility to dialog and to LOOK at what was there. We offered to show them. We offered our lines for them to jug up and SEE. That's the extent of what they were "owed." Beyond that, HUMAN dignity and HUMAN respect should have been the trumping considerations. And even a 20-something should have enough maturity to just "get over it" regarding their personal upsetness.
And do you blame them for being upset, or just for how they dealt with their feelings?
Asked and answered. They are responsible for how they processed the (ample) evidence that was before them. They are responsible for how they intentionally turned away from the evidence. They are responsible for how they emotionally reacted. They are responsible for INTENTIONALLY stirring up a mob mentality. Etc.
However, I don't call it "blame" in the sense you might mean. Many of them WERE 20-something kids, and some HAVE apologized very forthrightly. Like kids playing with matches, they didn't realize how it was all going to go when they struck the match. So, responsible, yes; "blame," no.
What is, in your understanding, the proper way to deal with something like this?
I hope I've answered that by this point. If you want to further pursue this, I'm happy to do so. I'm not punting. I just don't want to be ridiculously redundant.
Thank you for your forthright and, I believe, sincere questions. I think that this is exactly the sort of dialog that could have deescalated the situation bitd, had it been honestly pursued. Of course, something like this is much easier (and actually communicates more) face-to-face. But we do what we can.
|
|
Meaty
climber
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2014 - 06:50am PT
|
One of the best posts in this thread so far, from BIOTCH:
'Why the FA feels the need to justify their efforts so much?
Movies, interviews etc "thou protesteth too much"
That ain't how it ever been done in the ditch.
Never has been.
I see it as weak.
The route maybe the best ever, but whimpering and complaining gets you nuth IMO.'
Madbolt's last post is more proof they're still slandering and spewing whine to justify their effort with long boring irrelevant whiny posts.
Whimpering, complaining, flat out lying including new lies like death threats in bathroom stalls....the hype and whine never ends from these two schmucks. Sad the movie has brought forward yet another round of slander and whimpering from the WOS schmucks and all their lemming supporters. There have been far more serious incidents of violence,vandalism and scapegoating in the Valley with some resulting in arrests, prosecution and convictions, but the WOS hysteria keep flowing with the same old worn out lies and false narratives and now some new ones thrown in the mix.....they just can't stop their whine......their whine flows by the gallon...
WOS is not and never will be a significant and popular climb no matter how many years S and J whine about it.
|
|
Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2014 - 07:09am PT
|
meaty and grossman for the 3rd,,oh wait. too late for them.
|
|
'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2014 - 07:13am PT
|
Gee, um, I guess that's what happens when you ask a philosophy professor philosophical questions.......
Anyway, this was the best part:
"To address such atrocities, you do something like what I did with "Look Out! Weak Sauce!" and you CLIMB the damned thing, leading it, and document what you found."
Wow. Richard almost swore.
|
|
donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2014 - 07:28am PT
|
Tempest in a teapot, time for people to go climbing......harsh therapy, I know.
|
|
the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2014 - 07:57am PT
|
The vitriolic, hypocritical, and illogical posts do more to convince me these guys were wronged than anything they say.
I concur with DMTs strongsauce comment too. Although I admit I did read those reports, so I'm guilty of looking at the train wreck.. At least nothing was chopped.
|
|
'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2014 - 08:25am PT
|
"Yes if someone runs down my climb the logical thing to do is go climb another route and run its FA team down too.
Strongsauce..."
I think you're missing the point, whatever your name is. Craig, right?
Richard's objective in climbing the second ascent of this route was to document its claims. He did this like a journalist, photographing all the placements and so on in excruciating Richard Jensen detail. Why? Because the route had been highly touted as one of the hardest aid climbs in the world. So he went to see if it was or not. You know where to look to see what he found.
He is justifiably annoyed that nobody bothered to this for his route Wings of Steel, as they bashed the route without even climbing it, or without apparently even walking to the base with a pair of binoculars.
Let's put it in another context:
Let's say somebody puts up a sport climb, and they tout is as one of the hardest in the world. Don't you think the top sport climbers would be lined up to give it a go? And suppose these sport climbers went up there, took pictures and videos of themselves climbing the route and so on, and they discovered that it was nowhere near as hard as claimed, and that various holds had been artificially manufactured. Would the second ascensionists not report this?
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!