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aldude
climber
Monument Manor
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Mar 23, 2009 - 02:31pm PT
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Kevin - never say never....a single push, ground up,stance drilled (no bolt/bathook ladder)free first ascent is feasible and would certainly eclipse SB. Hint - just right of Cataclysmic*
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 23, 2009 - 02:57pm PT
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Go Al Go!
It cud' be called "Cataclysmic Megasmear"
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aldude
climber
Monument Manor
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Mar 23, 2009 - 03:03pm PT
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Megasmear....good one roy! Maybe you could give it a go - not much crimpin - lots - o - palmin *
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Colt
climber
Midpines
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Mar 23, 2009 - 06:21pm PT
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Contender for one of the best ST treads ever! Props to all of the contributors.
Thank you!...bump!
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Mar 23, 2009 - 06:23pm PT
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Hopefully it would be shoes and not climbers doing the megasmearing.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 23, 2009 - 07:42pm PT
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'Best aim for the stratosmear...
Hey Coz,
Can we get a lil' story about that N Face route on Higher Rock sometime?
Should I start a thread asking after it... that seemed to work well for The Belle.
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scuffy b
climber
4 to 8
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Mar 23, 2009 - 08:19pm PT
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What a captivating and powerful account. Much of the time, I
fancy myself a climber.
This just points out my folly.
Thanks, Coz.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 24, 2009 - 11:40am PT
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Awsome!
Enough of this sissy slab climbing reportage...
Will you be including Coz, next to that Higher Rock story,
Something about Return to the Stone Age & Ribbon Falls Amphitheater???
I've gotta think so.
Here's the deal kids:
Ya'll probably only have an inkling of just how good this guy is on the rock.
So these routes, the MAN's climbs I'm mentioning, CRACK routes, more or less bottom to top, each of them have passages which Cozzy completed that would sear your butt hairs right to your smooth baby bottoms.
Forget about aiding through the tough sections too.
The only way we are going to get a crack at experiencing these bold masterworks is through reading about them...
I'll edit that sucker for you Coz!
I need my big break: you understand I got no résumé.
But you can see, as evidenced by my florid postings here, I will churn that puppy out with concision, brevity, and a particular knack for flow and an eminently digestible regard for proper diction.
I will shape it with no uncertain sense of tension, cast your words in dazzling rhythm and likewise imbue your work with the delectable flavor of the tell befitting man's greatest adventures, such that your readers will page turn that puppy straight from cover leaf to closing, and without fail be importuned to do so in a single push from dawn to dusk.
Or you can go for the slamdunk and ask Peter Haan to do it.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Mar 24, 2009 - 12:15pm PT
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My vote's for Roy the editor. . .
he needs a new 'hat'. . .
:-)
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Mar 24, 2009 - 12:31pm PT
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Brilliant thread, not just Scott's core story but Hank's too, and all the other notes.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 24, 2009 - 02:18pm PT
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Submitting one's work to the constraints of classical structure?
That could fly...
Go Coz Go!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Mar 24, 2009 - 03:32pm PT
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Damn, coz, that is a ballsy route fo sho!!!
Nice write-up.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Mar 25, 2009 - 02:50pm PT
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Coz,
What you wrote transcends in the same way as what you climbed. It was well worth waiting over 20 years for the story. Very few have come close, ever -- climbs or stories. Thank you.
I barely know what to say here. Werner, I was four thousand feet higher than you for that snowstorm 3-4 days ago, shredding the powder proudly on this era's short fat skis. But I was on aid -- riding a ski lift -- and those skis are the equivalent of sticky rubber compared to the long skinny nordic mountaineering skis that we were turning down near-death-fall couloirs during those same years that Coz and Schultz and Walt were setting a high water mark in the history of mega-smearing boldness.
That's why I missed the first posting of your meteoric words here Coz. Getting home I noticed that this thread had revived, but it took me a full day to sack up and read it. I was already gripped, just knowing I had your story to face. And this morning it literally scared the sh*t out of me, mulling it over the black-and-white tile floor before returning to read the rest.
You reached to, you transcended to, a realm that the decades since have proven beyond any doubt very few humans over many generations ever match. Most humble congratulations. I agree that the route I helped to construct only underlines the purity of your effort. Boldness that stretched forever the meaning of that proud term. Maybe the proudest ideal we have in this, our ascending passion.
BTW Steve, I wrote those words you quoted, not Chouinard and not Frost. They published them, but I got inspired to say something that helped define our game, and that brother Coz carried to rarified realms I did not dream of, then. I point this out not just for accuracy but because I am proud of being the conduit for that voice. It's a gift to write vividly and to channel big ideas. So being proud here goes beyond ego.
This is the kind of pride that waltzes eye to eye with humility, as equal partners. With both there's a shot at that transcend-dance. But if one gets the upper hand, it's the black hole, brotha.
Coz, you tapped into that gift in your post. I am unbelievably excited that you are making it part of a book. (And I too recommend Tar to edit it for you.) It is already, in this chapter here, among the great pieces of mountaineering literature. You can take that to the bank, just as you can bank the proof of the decades since of barely any takers to try to read, and translate into action, what you guys wrote onto the blank page of the South Face. That is seared forever into the annals of the practice of climbing rocks.
Incandescent story. No wonder that you, just like the rest of us, are humbled to the point of bafflement that your climb reached a point where your moves opened onto a transcendent state with your mind going blank behind them, gone into utter calm and certainty. It is a very special place. It may sound trivial, almost like a joke, but I'll proudly say that I have been in that flow even on 5.7. And at rare moments I've pulled off that fierce state of grace on the, for me, threshold of annihilation at 5.10. Proud runouts for me, but still they somehow do not prepare me to get it – even just physically -- what you did up there. I'll liken it to watching Croft solo Crack a Go Go. I was there; Strassman was filming. But there were moments when I was too gripped by what was right before my eyes and had to turn away, feeling sick to my stomach. Only later, on the editing monitor and knowing that he had survived it, could I face seeing what Peter had done.
You have vividly described your state of mind and your feelings surrounding that – you said it – momentarily enlightened place you transcended into. It’s a good description of a rare place that I think is essentially the goal of climbing. A beyond-ego place that all our playing with fire tempers us into. I’m writing a book about that, and your description is so vivid that I want to quote pieces of it as an example of the best that arises, occasionally, out of climbing.
Thanks again, Coz. My hat is off to you. And to the Iron Monkey and the legacy of Walt. Caylor too -- whew! -- and your partner Alan, a hero up and down. And the finally-come-latelys Dean Potter and Leo "Alfa Romeo" Houlding. Pretty tight pantheon that far runout into boldness.
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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Mar 25, 2009 - 04:44pm PT
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”Climbing requires intense concentration. I know of no other activity in which I can so easily lose all the hours of an afternoon without a trace. Or a regret. I have had storms creep up on me as if I had been asleep, yet I knew the whole time I was in the grip of an intense concentration, focused first on a few square feet of rock, and then on a few feet more... This concentration may be intense, but it is not the same as the intensity of the visionary periods; it is a prerequisite intensity."
Had to reach for "Climber as Visionary".
Thanks Scott.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 25, 2009 - 08:27pm PT
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Right On, DR!
I have always had some difficulty separating the voices in that piece but yours is the firm but compelling voice of boldness to be sure!
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micronut
Trad climber
fresno, ca
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Mar 26, 2009 - 03:08pm PT
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I climbed Snake Dike once........
ught
I thought it was kinda scary too.....
Coz, thanks so much for posting that account. You invested so much of yourself in that route. Really inspiring man. Way to ruin my Snake Dike experience. I remember being gripped going down the cables late season without the posts. I'm a sissy. I live through you guys and your boldness. Thanks for keeping the dream alive for us punters.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Mar 26, 2009 - 04:28pm PT
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For me, as gripping as the story lines were, the most telling and compelling passages of the SB saga are these sentiments that Coz posted after the story.
"my sadness with the Belle is not so much what others perceive or do not perceive, but more the fact that other can not experience what a great climb it is. That it will never be climbed by all but a few people, this to me is sad."
And this one;
"I for whatever reason held that face as holy, beautiful and divine, the rap route (Growing Up), killed me inside, and Dave for that matter. It was if some one spray painted the Mona Lisa."
The correlation of art to ascent is both poignant and provocative. Coz speaks on many levels regarding the pain of the Artist through the looking glass of the creative process. I doubt that while up there they thought at all about the happy campers to follow. They did not produce a route for the mass proletariat to possess, only to admire from afar. They were creating a singular work of vertical dance and survival. Now the artist, having never intending to produce "Performance Art", is inevitably saddened that the audience is so small, that so few will know the price
and the rapture. But such is the way with artists and their work.
Growing up is not so much a spray paint tagging of the Mona Lisa as it is the hanging of a wildly modern abstract piece hung on the same wall. Conflict of styles? Absolutely! Debasement of either? Hardly.
In time it is likely that GU will attract many suitors, certainly many more than Southern Belle. The style of FA will be less an issue than the greater accessibility GU's more survivable protection provides. But all the while Southern Belle will like Mona Lisa be watching. No matter where one goes on that wall She will be watching. And she will be difficult to look away from and impossible to take for granted
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drljefe
climber
Old Pueblo, AZ
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Mar 28, 2009 - 04:07pm PT
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I like what Philo says at the end there.
I'm glad I can at least repeat(re-read) this thread,
as it seems to get better and better.
{{{{respect}}}}
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