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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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After climbing Centerfold in 1977, my life took other turns. I didn't visit Red
Rock again until 1991, so I missed the late 70s and 80s, when Joanne and Jorge,
Philo, Geof C and many others put up their great routes.
When I finally came back, in 1991, the climbing world had changed. Scenic Loop
sport climbs, unimagined back in the 70s, were now all the rage. I had fun on
those too, before rediscovering the canyons.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Youse guise is amazin! I love the pics and the stories and the recollections through decades. Keep these gems a commin'.
So as warned here is the next story. But due to the length and complexity and the fact that most of it is still in my head this tale will be presented in the installment plan.
LOST WAGES.
part 1.
The gear was all packed and ready, drinks and last minute road snacks included. Gathered right off the shelves of Newberry's General Store in Cimarron Colorado. Gassed and ready to go we said our fond "see ya's" and rumbled off in Jimmy's dubious VeeWee bus. In the rear view mirror I could see Jaunita, Newberry's saintly mom, scurry back to the store. No doubt to light her candles for Jimmy's safety.
As the van jolted on to the hiway I wondered to my self if she has alloted any paraffin for me.
We had just enough time for the Wall Crawler and I to wander the dessert plucking towers like apples off the branch on our way. Our rendezvous in Sin City was to incorporate a few days of warm up climbing at some obscure place called Red Rock.
While traveling Jimmy did his best to increase my understanding about the scope of potential just outside of Lost Wages. I had heard a few hard to believe tales about this "so called "climbing area but in my mind I just pictured a Garden of the God's on steroids. So I was more interested in getting on down the road than scruffing around some soft sandstone.
We were to join up with Geoff Conley, the MadMan, at Las Vegas's McCarran airport in a few days. Our team's ultimate destination was the still untrammeled rock of El Gran Trono Blanco in the wilds of Mexico. My greatest concern was the numerous stories, warnings actually, about the mythical MadMan. His exploits of adventure were harder to believe that the TALL tales of big walls in Vegas. Everyone said he and I would either hit it off or hit each other. Consensus was for the later. Two strong willed diametrically opposite individuals were bound to mix like oil and water. The tree hugger and the lumberjack on the road. Complicating my concern was the explicitly expressed description of the MadMan's physical prowess and his compunction to not take any sh#t. I think the words used to explain what would happen if I were to screw up anything were something a kin to "He will likely crush you (heavy emphasis on the you) like a zit" followed by riotous laughter.
Whereas my old friend Jimmy the Wall Crawler Newberry was the perfect adventuremate, easy going, jovial and generous to a fault. On first impression my new acquaintance and future ropemate was anything but. Geoff the MadMan Conley came off the plane with a staggering bluster. A whirlwind of confidence and bravado. His gregarious Fu Man Chu mustache spoke almost as loudly as he did. I was lost in the background of a boisterous reunion, a wall flower from interloper university. The introduction turned to me and a hand the size of a boxing glove was thrust at me. I thought he was going to hit me. I think I flinched before losing my own futile paw to the confines of a hearty hand shake. Followed by a lock eyed and earnestly spoken "I heard a you". For a moment I again thought he might strike me. But then laughter filled the little terminal and we went to retrieve gear, a lot of gear. A mountain of gear actually. In those days you could still meet your party at the gate and extra luggage didn't cost more than your ticket. Even still the airlines must have cringed whenever MadMan went-a-climbin'.
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Prod
Trad climber
A place w/o Avitars apparently
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Finally caught up on this thread, including Phantom Fugitive long read (well worth it BTW).
Good to the last drop there Chiloe, I think I could climb Centerfold sans topo at this point. Must have been clenching on the single bolt belay with a crappy stopper for a Jesus nut! Yikes.
Her Jer,
One of the great things about Red Rocks is that the tick lists can last for decades even heading there twice a year. Sh#t, there are main canyons that I have never entered, and many many famous climbs that I have not even thought about looking at... I sort of like obscure routes better anyways. Keep up the good work.
Flamer et al,
Great stories.
Philo,
Get with it, “bumpinski” only works so long. How about some more of that quality content.
*EDIT** Sorry Philo we must have been writing at the same tme..
Cheers all,
Prod.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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LOST WAGES.
part 2.
It was already late that winter day, too late I thought, to do anything more than get a $3 dinner at a casino. But no, Madman had the WallCrawler rap his now overloaded weenie wagon up and off we sped to the Calico Hills. These days the first two pullouts on the scenic loop road have become climbing destinations in their own right. Yet back then to me, compared to the Black Canyon in my back yard, the climbs we did that afternoon were mostly yawn inspiring. I still had absolutely no idea of the true enormity that surrounded me. The immense scale that is the walls and canyons of Red Rock country. Other than the swerving and squealing of the bus driven more by MadMan's impatience than by Jimmy the drive down Charleston towards the rocks was pretty ho hum. To me the Red Rocks looked like little more than lumpy sand dunes in the back light of dusk's approach. I was non-plused. "How long before we head to Mexico" was my primary contribution to the conversation that night. I think I caught a corner of the eye glimpse of Geoff looking at Newbs and pinching his thumb and forefinger together provocatively. Needless to say things looked different in the early light of a brand new day when what I hadn't seen before was thrust forward to slap me in the awareness.
The proposed three or four days lay over in Vegas morphed for a variety of reasons into a month. First and foremost was the predilection of the precariously drivable Newbs-mobile to strand us at any given moment. Leaving a sparking trail of random parts behind us we would abruptly swerve off the roads and into empty lot bivys midst the rubble of construction detritus. Those same ad hoc campsites are now the locations of luxury homes and sprawling casino complexes. The residents of which haven't the slightest idea what once took place in their very own back yards. Which is the only thing I find funny about the urban blight now encroaching rapidly on the very door step of Red Rock country.
We also lost Jimmy for an extended period of time. We in fact had and repaired two vehicle breakdowns before we located our wayward teammate. Rumor has it he enjoyed an extended nap in the exterior shrubbery of the Sands landscaping. I don't know for sure what all he experienced in those lost days but I do remember his prodigal return. On the very day and at the very time that Geoff and I were packing up and leaving the dive motel room we had rented on the Strip the WallCrawler stumbled home out of nowhere. Loud, belligerent, and stuffed like a sausage with more poker chips than I had ever seen outside of a casino. He threw handfuls of winnings into the air laughing maniacally then blithered off to crash in the motel bed. MadMan gathered up the Manna from Hell and wandered in to check on his old friend.
Everyone had previously expressed some level of concern that MadMan and I would come to struggles. Our egos and stubborn sides being an obstacle to friendship. Surprisingly he and I forged a fast friendship and a tight partnership. It was Newberry however who at that time had my hackles up. In retrospect I think I was mostly worried I would have had to tell Jaunitta I had lost her son. But I laid into Jim for all the worry and inconvenience he had..yada yada. He didn't care he wasn't moving. Not, that is, until Mad man picked him up by the belt and scruff and flung him easily into the back of the bus. "And stay there or I'll kick your Ass" I think I added while getting behind the wheel. Starting the engine I let myself think how glad I was that the MadMan was for now at least my friend.
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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Eagle Buttress
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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I had to look up Texplorer's route in the guidebook to learn something about that wall.
Quite a find in 2006.
Philo's partners sound like a crux in themselves. Looking forward to more story.
To add more color after Todd's good pictures above ... here's Cowpoke high on
Dream of Wild Turkeys, named by the Uriostes after that English route
mentioned on the "shining sea" thread.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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That rock is the Artist's Muse for climbers.
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Inner City
Trad climber
East Bay
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Prod has shamed me into it and it ain't much, but here we go:
Camped down at the Colorado river near that hot spring about an hour outside of Vegas, we finally motivated to go back to Red Rocks and try to do Black Dagger. My buddy and I had done a few routes in RR and loved it there and always went to the hot springs to soak and camp for at least one evening/morning during out trips down from the Bay Area.
We made it across the dam and onto the loop road and to the trailhead by noon and got to the base by 1:30 or so. It was the third pitch, or the one that is below the 'tunnel through' section where I had my moment. My palms are now sweating as I recall, going up to a wide portion of the crack and thinking, eek, this ain't 5.7 and then going right onto the face and finding more and more holds, just continuing upward. Up and up I went, no gear, and no problems. I remember looking left back to cleft and thinking I needed to get back there and not seeing a good spot, but up higher it looks o'kay.
Eventually, I was about 80 feet or so above my last piece and the wall went slick above me and I HAD TO GET LEFT, back to the actual route! The move over there was probably only 5.7 but involved a matching foot thing and one hand hold. After looking around for any possible pro, I finally looked down at my belayer, said "I'm going for it" and made the move. I was so gripped that my feet were jiggling as I went and my hands were clutched in a death grip on the lone hold and then it was over. I almost peed as stepped to a good stance and tried to calm down. I really felt like I had escaped death or something.
We finished the route and I learned my off-route lesson big time, and can maybe thank a good bit of run out Tuolumne face climbing as the reason for my problem and for my survival!
Years later I hiked in to the base of that same route with my wife after hearing at the Visitor Center that there was a 20 mo. old drought on. When we got to the upper portion of that beautiful slick rock bowl below rainbow wall the skies opened up, there were water falls everywhere and it was a spectacle I'll never forget. I love that place.
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Prod
Trad climber
A place w/o Avitars apparently
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Jan 10, 2009 - 09:43am PT
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Good stuff Philo,
What year was that?
InnerCity,
Yikes, I was gripped reading that. I got off route doing some odd 5.6 called Sandhole to the left of Tunnel Vision. After coming out of the Sand Hold, a cool long squeeze chimney, you are supposed to head left. I wondered off to the right on a sea of easy face holds with no gear. I ended up at the base of the tunnel pitch of Tunnel Vision, and finished off the last 2 pitches of Tunnel Vision. It was actually a nice link up.
Aren't rain storms in the desert amazing. When I was a river guide in the Grand Canyon I loved day time storms just to see all of the waterfalls erupt from every dip in the rim.
Prod.
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Jan 10, 2009 - 01:13pm PT
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I was just in Red Rocks this week Sun-Tuesday. Didn't do any canyon multipitch routes this trip. Stayed with the sporty stuff due to the time of year, but had a blast! Here's the link to my humble video of fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiT7qMb7iUE
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jan 10, 2009 - 04:25pm PT
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LOST WAGES.
part 3.
The Newbs-mobile finally shuddered to a stop. Gear, garbage and dirt bags cascaded out of doors flung wide. Amazingly the vastly distressed VW van had made it all the way out to the Wilson Pimple bivy site. We had made three stops on our way out of Vegas. First MadMan needed new shoes. His other pair now completely blown out from miles of vertical terrain. Desert Rock Sports was and is the place to go, so we went. Geoff, for all his machismo, shops like a girl. "How long before we head to camp" I asked. Another briefly glimpsed "pincher" signal flashed between MadMan and the WallCrawler.
Next a stop at a health food store in a west Charleston strip mall. For all his redneckness, Geoff was even then a connoisseur of fine food and wine. He avoided junk food in particular. So we stopped to get his favorite wall food. Loaves of uncooked sprouted wheat bread. Lumps of sticky sweet vegetable matter by appearance, they were in the final assessment delicious and nutritious. The final stop was a gorge-fest at the Show Boat our favorite casino buffet. All you could eat, and for us that what a lot, for five bucks. In the final assessment, other than dirt bag cheep, casino food was at least eatable and excreteable. Overused lobster bibs eventually aside and we were once again on the road. Out of the cacophony and excess of Glitter Gulch and back out to the sanity and silence of desert country. The sandstone big walls and canyons, painted and sculpted by the unseen hand of forces beyond my limits to grasp; over a span of time beyond my imagination to fathom. Wide open wild spaces where the burro and the dirt bag roamed free. I was hooked I never wanted to leave!
It was firelight dark when we finished racking and packing for the predawn start planed and coming soon. Haphazardly sprawled bivies were strewn about Jim's hissing and groaning spaced shuttle. Various melodious snores filled out the evening's lullaby concerto. Even still sleep came slow and uneasily to me. The unimpeded stars teased my retinas with the simple glory of brilliant light. The silhouette of Mount Wilson stood, an utterly inert ebony void, looming overhead like an eclipse of the night sky.The view, like a giant Tao of light and dark, kept me pinned in my bivy sac. Between the edge of the campfire light and hem of the starlight lay an unknown adventure for my immediate future. The prospects of which had me tossing and turning thru a good deal of the night.
It had only been three short months since I had the last cast peeled off. Two and a half months earlier I had finally perfected walking. My injury should have been a career ender seeing as how my leg had been buckled backwards violently enough for my own shoe to split my lip. But the overdrive gear on an A type personality coupled with my Polish heritage's inclination to ignore suffering compelled me to get back on the proverbial horse. Yippee ei oooooh. I was actually climbing great. But the approaches and descents were a torturous process of moving in fear of every step, for the next might be the last. To mitigate this anxiety I had taken to using a steam bent ash wood walking cane, It had a big curved handle like a sheepherder's staff and a little webbing loop that I had affixed to it. It was strong enough to hang off of and versatile enough to assist over any terrain. And when the climbing got technical I just clipped it in to a gear sling on my harness. That cane and I had as close to a symbiotic relationship as a human and an inanimate object could have. But the impressively emphatic MadMan had been clear beyond doubt that tomorrow the "stick" stayed home.
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drljefe
climber
Toostoned, AZ
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Jan 11, 2009 - 07:57pm PT
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BUMP! Loving these stories.
+-1992
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jan 11, 2009 - 08:26pm PT
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Thank god. I was beginning to believe no one read climbing threads anymore.
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Prod
Trad climber
A place w/o Avitars apparently
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Jan 12, 2009 - 10:23am PT
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Great stuff Philo,
What year?
Prod.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Jan 12, 2009 - 11:33am PT
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I was beginning to believe no one read climbing threads anymore.
But, our heroes haven't left the ground yet!
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jan 12, 2009 - 11:51am PT
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LoL Chiloe. Just for that here is part 4.
LOST WAGES.
part 4.
December 31st 1980. Short cold days and long frigid nights. Stiff achy knee pre dawn risings. We had already plucked a slew of fabulous routes including a planned bivy on the first continuous ascent of Eagle Dance. But now we were heading up the vast unknowns of towering Mount Wilson. This glorious geologic feature is truly a mountain and not just a big wall. We knew we had to move fast given such short days and long routes. So we carried almost nothing. One small pack for the second to carry hats, jackets, a loaf of sprouted wheat wad, two quarts of water and a lighter. We didn't have a headlamp because in those days they were just too bulky and heavy to justify. We didn't carry helmets for the same fuzzy logic. Additionally we toted one small old school rack, one 50 meter rope, and no bolt kit.
Still dawn dim we trudged up hill sweating from the pace in spite of the chill morning air. MadMan new exactly where he was going. He had been there before with Newberry the WallCrawler. Various unfavorable conditions conspired against their attempt and they abandoned the route low down. Now we were back. Everything above was in a vacuum of information. All I had as reference besides MadMan's horrific epic-fest tales was one lone article I had read. Larry Hamilton and Joe Herbst had created the monumental Aeolian Wall route years earlier. The hauntingly enigmatic tale they told had stuck with me for years. Years before I ever went there myself and realized that all the tales were true and where they were was where I was.
Roping up and donning tight shoes at the intimidating start to the first pitch I wondered, and not for the first or last time, what exactly was I getting myself into. Geoff took the first pitch as he knew right where to go. From that point on we swapped leads, he on the odds me on evens. Both of us hoping to not crap out. Whether by plan or providence Geoff got most of the devious pitches. Few people I have ever known have the route finding "nose" that the MadMan has. He could seemingly just sniff out the way to go, connecting incongruous features from a far. This route was his brain child. Forged by his drive and vision and lust for adventure. I was honored to just be participating as an equal partner.
Every chance I got, when a view of the rapidly descending desert floor presented its self, I would gaze intently trying to see my old walking stick at camp. Hoping to see it still propped where I left it and not tossed into the fire that Jimmy had rekindled. No such luck. The run-outs I engaged did not bother me near as much as my abiding anxiety about descending sans "stick" did.
The phenomenal foreshortening that occurs in places like the Red Rock canyon lands is not unlike the emotional experiences of sighting a desperately needed oasis in the desert only to have it be a mirage. Features I thought were two pitches away were still two pitches away after four pitches. This was a very big mountain! We were very small people. We were the only two people on Mount Wilson that winter day and one of us secretly yearned for the sense of security he left at camp.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jan 12, 2009 - 03:15pm PT
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LOST WAGES.
part 5.
(Previously presented in part as Adventures with a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, MadMan.)
Having already experienced a rich history of life on Sherwood Forest, the MadMan was first to rap to it. From our high point on Day One of our ascent of the soon-to-be “Resolution Arête”, we had rapped in for the night. By the time I got down to him he was already busy gathering the tall, dried and now flowerless stalks of the cactus plants that grow in abundance there. Unaware of his purpose, but sure he knew what he was doing; and a little afraid to question someone who towered over and outweighed me by an easy sixty pounds, I wordlessly followed suit. With both of us dragging armloads of what would end up being our firewood for the night, I followed that walking eclipse of muscle and sinew to the small bivy site he'd established years earlier.
Being New Years Eve, it was a bitterly cold night high up on Mt. Wilson. The only way to stay warm was to huddle as close to our small fire as possible, continuously feeding the long cactus stalks in as they slowly burned. Totally exhausted, I fell asleep with my legs draped over the far end of one of those brittle stalks. Meanwhile, like a sandstone gargoyle atop some desert cathedral, the oh-so-stoic Geoff Conley patiently watched over me. The MadMan waited…waited for the inevitable. He waited to watch my pant leg catch fire just as his own jacket sleeve had done at this exact spot two years earlier. Still wearing that same jacket, he laughed at my misery with uproarious contempt. Startled awake to the dual indignities of hellfire and humiliation, I wondered again just who exactly was this MadMan that I was now inextricably linked to.
One day earlier he had, in spite of my whining protests, made me—actually forced me—to give up my beloved walking cane. The MadMan knew I didn’t really need it. At that moment, however, he was having a beastly good time at my expense, watching me in bemusement as I beat out the flames on the very leg I was so sure required that cane. I realized—reluctantly—that if I had stubbornly brought it along, it would have just been in the way and ended up in the fire anyway.
The following day, after summiting the first ascent of the Resolution Arête, Geoffrey took on the role of nursemaid to me as we descended Oak Creek Canyon, in the pitch dark of that long winter night. He faithfully stuck with me on my turtle-paced caneless stumblefest. So dutiful was his attentiveness that, to this day, I have no doubt I’d roped up with one of the most competent and visionary climbers I have ever known and been proud to call a friend.
Such was my strength of faith in him and our partnership that we went back to Mt. Wilson a few days later to put up the adventurous Gwondonnaland Boogie. Again armed with only a single 150' rope and a minimal rack of hexes and stoppers. With the MadMan on belay, I was calm and serene, focused and alert when after 100 feet of hard steep face climbing, with only one very marginal sideways stopper between creaky flakes for protection I came to the crux of the route. Figuring that if he couldn't catch me, at least I knew he could haul my carcass down.
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Prod
Trad climber
A place w/o Avitars apparently
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Jan 12, 2009 - 05:50pm PT
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What a pleasure Plilo. Thanks for sharing.
Prod.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jan 12, 2009 - 07:10pm PT
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Well don't go away I am not done yet.
LOST WAGES.
part 6.
(Previously presented in part as The Edge of a resolution.)
The name "Resolution Arête" did not spring into being simply because Geoff "resolved" to go back to it after his first attempt with Newberry cashed out. Though that was a motivating factor to be sure, the way it really went was like this...The morning after ascending our fixed lines, the first substantial pitch of climbing was a delicate face traverse, left and up into a gravely chimney slot with minimal protection potential. This pitch is now called “the tricky hand traverse”. I watched Geoff lead this poorly protected section like it was a walk in the park, and then he disappeared into the chimney.
Now back then the MadMan was a manly man, he was really large and powerful, not like the scrawny wimp he's become (umm…he's not gonna read this is he?), with a reputation for being an animal on hard cracks, off widths and the like. On the other hand, I was a scrawny face-climbing specialist. I assumed that if ol' Monstro could reef on those tiny little layback flakes, then it should be a breeze for me. Much to my chagrin, when I reached the crux, I unexpectedly popped a flake and went flinging into the overhanging void with a wild pendulum. I came to rest dangling 300'+ above Sherwood Forest, unable to connect with the rock and hearing MadMan’s emphatic plea to "GET OFF THE ROPE NOW!"
He, too, had assumed I would fly across that pitch, and when he didn't find any good anchors at the stance in the chimney, he just put me on a hip belay backed up by some really crappy wired stoppers behind a dubious flake. The jolt of my fall hit so suddenly that Geoff was ripped off his stance and dragged several feet down the chimney. Two of the three anchors blew out completely, and the two of us were literally saved from a fast trip to Nottingham by the MadMan’s brute force self-arrest, and the one remaining marginal stopper. How Geoff ever managed to keep it together, wedged like that while I struggled to swing into the overhanging face and unweight the rope, is beyond me. It certainly is a testament to his power and drive that he not only saved both our lives, but never once thought about going down.
We finished the first ascent of the route that day, and being that it was New Years, we (needless to say) made several resolutions. The first of which being that, even if the anchors are pathetically marginal, put in as many as you can! And of course, there was that reference to the well known quote from the old TV sitcom “The Odd Couple”, about the dangers of assuming(*).
We had talked about all sorts of names for our FA the night before at the bivy, but at the end of that second day, the name Resolution Arête just sort of made sense.
(*) "Never ASSUME, because when you ASSUME, you make an ASS of U and ME."
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jan 12, 2009 - 09:17pm PT
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(more to come unless someone stops me)
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SuperTopo on the Web
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