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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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May 31, 2016 - 03:27am PT
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Good one Bushman, your brother continues to inspire every life he touched
But back at the Munument, yessirreeee, those velco-gloved sheepbugggererzz cut a pretty wide swath up thar in the Monument, where men were men and the sheep were inseminated. Shucks, us Scumbags, the forsaken stepchildren of the SoCal scene, hell we was just dinkin' around on our little backyard pebbles, hoping to sit at the cool kid's table someday, and take on summa those thar sandbox sandbags with our big boy pants draped around our knees and a rack of #10 hexes and Eiger ovals scored at the Santee swap meet...
And although the fame and glory and women and B-loop campsites doggedly eluded us in the Monzonite Crucible, for some reason all the manga octopus porn cartoon fans just loved us in Japan! Ho Sai Gai!!
Hellooooooo Kitty!
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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May 31, 2016 - 06:17pm PT
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One of my problems about story telling was the lack of notable epics
You got to have epics to spin a good tale about
I never had a single un-planned bivy
I was never rescued or did a rescue,
nor watched some super death epic
It was a Zen thing, no epics
just do it and move on to the next thing to do
The Zen Gods looked favorably upon this young Grasshopper
Many a free solo was on the guidance of the Zen Gods assuring a spiritual experience if you go for it, and that's what it was all about.
I’m sure most of the rest of the Sheep Buggers were all tuned into to the same cloud of Zen angels looking over us.
But I do have this one nOOb lame ass epic at Suicide Rock in 1977, I was 18
Spencer Lennard was hot for cracks after a season in the Valley
He had done the Orangutan Arch, so he really wanted to do Wet Dreams which was one of the hardest cracks at the time.
It looked a little over my head at the time, but what the hell, I'll get a TR, right? What could go wrong?
I lead the Flower, and set up a hanging belay above the tree.
Spencer leads it flawlessly, and now it’s my turn.
Right off the bat I’m having problems, Spencer yells down, “use your left foot, wedge it in toe down!!” or was it "toe up"
“I’m trying!!, my foot doesn’t want to wedge that way..”
I somehow wiggle to the near the end of the crack and all of a sudden find that my elbow has dropped into a perfect deep slot that instantly wedged my elbow .. I try to pull it out, I try again,…and again, oh f*#k, my elbow is really stuck.
But since the climb is a traverse, I can’t take tension, I can’t do anything but hang off my stuck elbow on an overhanging wall with the only foot holds being the damn crack I can't get my foot wedged in..
It would have been less of an epic if Ricky Accomazzo wasn’t looking on, since he came upon my mini epic while he was descending from some other route. He yelled encouragements “pull it out!”
Great, now Ricky has to see how lame I am, with my F-ing stuck elbow.
After about 10 minutes, I’m able to muster the super powers needed to do a one arm with my good arm on some sloper so I can extract the lodged appendage.
I continued on to the next 5.11+ moves with some major problems, some stoppers that were practically fixed, which required me hanging some more.
I finally topped out with some sore humility. I wrote it down as an aided ascent.
I did it years later with E, no stuck elbow but still had problems with the toe wedge. Not on my top 10 list.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
from Poofters Froth, Wyoming
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May 31, 2016 - 07:19pm PT
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Good stuff Dr. F!
Saw a guy get his helmet stuck in that wide chimney thing to the right of the weeping wall... David? Goliath? Whatevs... Helmet stuck (in the before helmets on everyone era) in front of our crew... well, an elbow is way more noble. I'm thinking he slid down a ways and got his head wedged. He was up there a while.
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dee ee
Mountain climber
Of THIS World (Planet Earth)
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May 31, 2016 - 09:27pm PT
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PRICELESS.
Tim's story about the N. Overhang and then Mr. F on Wet Dreams.
I just got back from 6 days skiing, climbing, hiking and soaking on the east side near Mammoth.
Had a super great day climbing with 2 young super psyched young women from our gym, Rockreation, crazy, too much fun. I love those girls, Laura and Ann.
Ann
Laura
These young women are the real deal.
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Friend
climber
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LMAO loving these stories.
Thanks for bumping that photo Craig. That was a memorable day. Darshan managed to redpoint Etude and was super psyched. The vibes were good, I finally got up the nerve to try Wet Dreams and flashed it. We were both over the moon. Kia Ravanfar took that shot.
Here is a different angle, some years later. You can't really see the leader from the belay but it's a great one to watch from above. Steve Strong getting ready to go anaerobic.. photo by me.
Edit: Wet Dreams was established by Tobin Sorenson and John Bachar. I know Tim S. is reading this thread. Part of the intimidation of the route was knowing those two guys put it up. Bachar was posting on ST at the time and I wanted to email him to see if he remembered anything from doing the FA. But I thought, who am I to email Bachar. Then he fell a few years later. I always regretted not sending that email. RIP fallen heroes
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Hummerchine
Trad climber
East Wenatchee, WA
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Well put oh Mighty Thor...especially the edit.
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Hummerchine
Trad climber
East Wenatchee, WA
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Where were you climbing with those girls Dave? Looks really cool!
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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From Mt. Project
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dee ee
Mountain climber
Of THIS World (Planet Earth)
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Tom, we went to Cardinal Lodge Pinnacle and the lower Owen's River Gorge.
They dragged my ass up some cool stuff!
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hashbro
Trad climber
Mental Physics........
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Great recollection Craig. Love Wet Dreams which was certainly one of our first anaerobic threshold routes at Suicide.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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On another trip to Suicide in 77, Spencer and I went to do Flakes of Wrath as a warm up. It’s quite a hump from Costa Mesa. Spencer starts out on the lead .. and can’t figure out the cruxxy moves at the bottom to get into the Flakes. It’s all slippery and awkward.
After it looks like he won’t be able to figure it out, I yell over “check out the crack to the left!, we can do a FA, maybe now or never.”
He launches off into the unknown and it’s like G-d split that flake with diamonds,
I follow and commend the change in plans, Johnny Quest it is.
Photos from Mt. Project
We went back the next weekend and I led the crack, and then we put up a 2nd pitch with a bolt.
Tom Smith?
VVV
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209er
Social climber
Oakdale
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A morning after. Moon, The Ugliest Girl in the World [?], and Spewell, camp cook.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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The words “Stahl Brothers” have little significance other than for a small select crew of Southern California Locals, which makes it seem odd that people still want to be referred to as “Honorary Stahl Bros”.
The original Stahl Bros; Rob and Dave were climbing at an early age at Josh in the 70s with John Wolfe. They did some FAs and had years of experience. I met them in 1980 when I moved to Isla Vista for a couple years at UCSB.
They had corralled all the real climbers in Santa Barbara area at the time into the tribe “Stahl Bros” which consisted of Rob and Dave Stahl, Todd Battey, Bob Robach, Tom Burke, Paul Binding, and Andy Cratter. There were some tag along girl friends at the time that were referred to as Stahl sisters, then they became Stahl wives.
And then we had our Den Mother, Mona Stahl, and she would gladly drive us the crags in her V Dub Van to anywhere we wanted to go when we had time free from college. We made every Josh New Year and a couple trips to the Valley, Needles, and then some weeks in Tuolumne during the summer for many years straight.
It was good times.
This story is a prelim into the next tale on the discovery of climbing on Queen Mt.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Poodle Smasher
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Queen Mountain
One cold winter weekend, us Stahl Bros decided we should backpack out to the farthest reaches of the known Wonderland, and explore it for new routes.
We hiked through many new areas at the time, past the area that later produced “Poaching Bighorns”
and decided to bivy at the base of what’s now called “Smashing Poodles”.
That planned bivy night in the Wonderland turned sour after we went to sleep and it started raining, and then hailing.
I had a bivy sac, so I just pulled the top over my head, and didn’t care what happened. I woke up with a half an inch of sleet covering me. Some of the other Stahl Bros weren’t so well prepared, and got a little exposure, so we bailed quickly to Echadadas.
We all talked about how much we wanted to go back and work these great routes we just found.
The story about our hope to go back and do the “Poodle Smasher” will have to wait for another day.
While we were on our exploratory tour, we looked eastward up the obvious canyon leading up into Queen Mt. from the middle of the Wonderland. On the Canyon walls there were routes, and all the way up it looked like there was good rock, maybe there’s good rock up there on that high plateau, it sure looks good.
I’m not sure how long it took after that year, but we all wanted to go all the way up that canyon. So we made plans and went at it as an exploration hike.. It didn’t take long to get passed our old bivy spot after finding a short cut by going high from Uncle Willi’s along the base of Queen Mt. There were some big boulders in the major canyon past the poodle area that we found some pictographs, so we checked them out.
And then as planned, we went straight up the canyon eastward into the bowels of Queen Mt. At the top of the canyon, there was a Native Indian cave with matates, pottery shards and pictographs. There is another Indian cave up to the North from this cave. Once we got on the plateau we hiked up the stream bed into the central valley where there are now over a hundred routes.
We worked some great boulder problems that day, that we called the “Milks”, and searched the area for more Indian caves that never materialized. Dave Stahl found this completely flawless opalescent chalcedony arrowhead, and he was about to throw it into the bushes for what he called "safe keeping"… I freak out when I see it and yell stopppppp, and beg him to let me take some photos of it for safe keeping and then we'll throw it in the bushes. He questions my credentials but says what the hell, here you go.
It’s for sure my best arrowhead photo, I'll have to post it.
Once on top of the Queen Mt. plateau, we knew the fastest way back to the cars was straight South, so we charged down the southern scree slopes of Queen Mt. right back to Uncle Willies in what seemed like minutes. The next day we went up, from the Queen Mt. road.
We made it back up to the same area in 41 minutes, so hence it was the 41 minute dome.
The next weekend I explored the area 41 minutes past the 41 minute dome and found the Bloodline crags, some more Indian caves and some pottery shards. It was the mid 80s Golden Age of Josh exploration!!
photos from Mt. Project
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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My mom befriended many a dirt bag over the years, feeding many a complete Thanksgiving dinner in Hidden Valley. She made many trips to Nepal with my step dad John, and bagged some good trekking peaks.
Core StahlBros for sure
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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That's an awesome Queen Mountain story, Craig.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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I was checking out my old climbing notes about the Johnny Quest FA, it was 1977, not what the guidebook reports; 1979.
And after me and Spencer did Johnny Quest, we did Valhalla, and then I had the "Wet Dreams" epic.
The guidebook's comment on Wet Dreams is "more like a nightmare" which sounds about right.
Found some more good info, more stories to be written soon
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Shetville , North of Los Angeles
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Crag...I did Johnny Quest in 77 or 78 so what you said about the 79 first ascent makes sense...
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dee ee
Mountain climber
Of THIS World (Planet Earth)
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Do you see what I see?
Last Monday night from the Shepard's hot springs near Mammoth.
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