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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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May 21, 2008 - 09:31pm PT
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Somewhere upthread, I posted about catching a headfirst leader fall soon after my first belay practice session with a cement bucket. This picture was actually shot by the leader who took that fall, a few minutes after he survived. I'm belaying the third guy in our party, who decided that he could lead the horror pitch (and he could).
Note the leather belay glove, we learned that from the practice!
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jgill
climber
Colorado
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May 22, 2008 - 12:24am PT
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Hemp rope in 1953, then graduated to wwII army surplus white nylon rope, then goldline, then . . .
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 22, 2008 - 01:18am PT
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The GoldLine rope trick, as described upthread by J Leazarian, and illustrated by Sheridan Anderson:
(From "The Climbing Cartoons of Sheridan Anderson")
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 22, 2008 - 01:21am PT
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A lurid yellow MSR rope in use, still eye hurting despite 30+ year old slides:
Grand Wall bolt ladder, 1974:
Peshastin Pinnacles, 1973:
South Arete, Squamish, 1973:
(Climber Eric Weinstein)
It might be called an MSR gold line rope, but it's a perlon (braided) rope - the original GoldLine was a laid (twisted) rope.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 22, 2008 - 02:22am PT
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Riley, I have a nice bit of GoldLine that, just between us two 'Nucks, I might be able to let you hold at the FaceLift. Fondle, too, if you're nice and promise not to tie up FatTrad.
It's over on the Goodies thread, with other pictures. http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=597341 But I said I'd find a good home for it, which will probably be the Yosemite climbers' museum.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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May 22, 2008 - 10:46am PT
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Goldline hanging out with its friends ... Kelty Pack, wood-handled ice axe, cotton/nylon tent, Primus stove.
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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May 22, 2008 - 06:09pm PT
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Honestly, just last week I threw away my 1/4" haul line of goldline we once used for ... what, maybe dragging a pack up a slab or pulling the climbing rope in rappels or something? Rope must be 40 years old. Quite stiff and faded now, looking sorry and out of place in the trash can. Of course, given the thread, I better take it out and mount it on the wall or cook and eat it or something.
Before goldline was hemp and it was dangerous. When Ivan (Bud) Couch and I started climbing in the early 60's we began with hemp on various outside parts of his 3 story house, imitating pictures in books I can't remember. But I do remember a 1/4" hemp prussick sling parting before my very eyes while I came up a thicker hemp rope during some practice session, Bud's parents looking on in horror. At least we had the sense to belay our antics with, uh, another hemp rope! Shortly thereafter, we graduated to the infamous gold cable.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 23, 2008 - 02:14am PT
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the waist rash from belaying a hanging partner was brutal on GL.
'bumpy' meant a rip saw effect with any slack in the system.
i think this is why I have always held a tight belay on people. never really realized this til now.
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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May 23, 2008 - 02:15am PT
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Indeed I did, first rope was a 120 foot gold line. Tied in at each end with a bowlin on a coil which further shortened it. Small wonder those climbs seemed so long and to take forever! I'll dig up some photos, you'd be amused.
Berg Heil,
Charlie D.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 23, 2008 - 03:01am PT
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Anyone feeling nostalgic, masochistic, or both may be interested to know that it is still possible to buy Goldline, or at least Goldline II (TM). As discussed in Roper's "Camp 4", it was and still is made by Columbian Rope - to be exact, Columbian Speciality Products, a division of Plymkraft, which seems to be an adaptation of Plymouth Cordage. (Corporate reorganizations and mergers seem to have taken their toll.)
It comes in three strand (twisted), and eight strand (braided, though not perlon style).
http://www.columbianrope.com/GoldlineNylon.htm
It's clearly still marketed for climbing - the blurb says "GOLDLINE ll IS BUILT TO WITHSTAND THE SHOCK OF A FALL AND YET ALLOW THE BELAYER TO CHECK THE FALL WITH MINIMUM EFFORT".
It looks like Riley's wish has come true. Although you probably have to buy a few thousand metres at a time, minimum order. Probably the military still buys millions of metres of the stuff, for purposes we don't want to know about.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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May 23, 2008 - 08:50am PT
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Yup, it was my first rope back in 1969 (actually it was my brother's rope, then mine) and right after we got it, the rope spoke to us. Honestly. It said: "Hi, my name is Stretch."
Bouncy, bouncy
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PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
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May 23, 2008 - 12:41pm PT
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I'd like to add a story to the mix.
Goldline had a nasty habit of untieing, especially when we used a bowline ("the king of knots!"). This of course was before someone (Tom Frost?) introduced the figure 8 knot to tie in with. My brother Paul was doing one of his first 5.7 leads, a variation to the White Maiden's Walkway at Tahquitz. He looked down for a foothold and noticed his knot untied and the strand of rope slipping through his swami belt. Somehow he managed to hold on, stay calm, and retie his rope.
I can still remember the feel and beauty when we got our first brand new red perlon rope.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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May 23, 2008 - 01:02pm PT
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My partner had that bowline-comes-untied experience in the middle of a lead on Tahquitz once. The rope actually fell off and hung from the protection below him. It was pretty tense as he solo-downclimbed, at a point several pitches off the deck, to get back to his rope.
This of course was before someone (Tom Frost?) introduced the figure 8 knot to tie in with.
I actually learned the "better way" from Tom Frost (late 1960s) -- but it wasn't a figure 8. Instead, he advised me to tie in with a rethreaded overhand knot, so that's what I did for years. Someone asked him whether it wasn't a problem that overhand knots became very tight when fallen on.
Tom answered, in his characteristically mild language,
"Well if I fall 40 feet and this knot saves my life, but then it's hard to untie, I won't be a bit sore about that."
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Gilroy
Social climber
Boulderado
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May 23, 2008 - 01:08pm PT
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I believe it was this characteristic of goldline untieing itself that prompted us to learn to tie a "one-handed bowline" for just this situation.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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We climbed on goldline for several years. I don't recall it ever coming untied, mainly I remeber how much it stretched and how wacky twisted it got after rappeling on it.
We then switched to those yellow MSR ropes which we dubbed "MSR knot specials" because they turned in to a clusterf#ck of knots just looking at them wrong. They were braided all the way through, were yellow when we got them and - WTF!!! - no one ever told us about washing or 'heat treating' them! And I suspect no one from MSR ever told the guys at Shawnee Trails store either. Maybe that's why they sucked so bad for us hicks down in the hollows.
They also abraided real easy and made enormous puff balls wherever they were getting worn. We'd duct tape the puffs back down (we had a Tuck Tape duct tape factory on the strip in town) and would only pony up to replace them when they got real hard to pull through the biners.
But, hey, it was all good to us as we had no idea there might be something better until a trip out to Eldo and we saw the prevalence of kermantle ropes. A rope was a rope was a rope to us - we were far more critical of the quality of onces in bags than of anything sold by the foot.
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Doug Buchanan
Mountain climber
Fairbanks Alaska
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The Alaskan Alpine Club headquarters coil of goldline...
Used it often, but got one of those new MSR boat ropes that still works.
Doug
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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I took a mountaineering class at Olympic College in Bremerton, WA in 1982, led by Kent Heathershaw. We climbed Mt Rainier from Camp Hazard, Glacier Pk and some peaks in the Olympics.
We used goldline, learned ice axe arrests & boot/axe belays and I rented some gear like old dull crampons and a helmet. I still remember the blisters from my new leather boots.
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Scott Cole
Trad climber
Jackson, WY^
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My first rope was a goldline. I worked at the kelty factory as a kid and got a discount in their stores. I worked long enough to get a rope, six biners and a few hexes; next day I called in sick, went to the store in Glendale, got my gear, and never looked back.
I started out roped soloing at stoney point, on aid. I retired my first goldline after taking a good whipper on the Barnett system, the knot melted onto the goldline and I spent several days trying to cut it off without ruining the rope. Finaly, I gave up and eventualy scored a real rope.
Scole
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mooser
Trad climber
seattle
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My first rope was a cowboy roping rope (started climbing at Woodson when living in Poway). My brother and I shouldn't have survived those days.
Our second rope was a goldline--purchased with pride at the Escondido Stanley Andrews store. I have fantastic memories of that rope, and can still even smell it in my memory.
Sometimes I miss the days of fewer options. Goldlines, swamis, painter's pants, rugby shirts, and EBs.
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Danielle Winters
Trad climber
Alaska
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First Rope was a 120' Goldline from REI Mail order catalog along with some Steel carabiners and blue royal Robbins rock shoes . OH were those thing cool !!! LOL
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