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Brunosafari
Boulder climber
OR
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Aug 21, 2009 - 02:25pm PT
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Two open-handed crimps to Bump and to welcome Tamara and Royal Robbins!
Bruce Adams
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scuffy b
climber
Sinatra to Singapore
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Aug 21, 2009 - 02:52pm PT
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RR, here's a possible topic for rumination and comment.
I've been intrigued by the photograph of you which graces the
cover of Pat Ament's book, Wizards of Rock.
It shows you sitting atop one of the Cathedral Spires after an
early repeat, with the Southeast Face of El Capitan in the
background. You are gazing in the direction of El Cap.
Do you have memory of your thoughts at the time?
I'm guessing you either be thinking, "In a little while we'll be
able to climb that" or "Too bad that thing is impossible to
climb."
Of course, other possibilities exist. All in all though, in
those days, did you feel the (Yosemite) world was your oyster?
Did you know right off the bat that there were hundreds of
great climbs in the future?
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Brunosafari
Boulder climber
OR
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Aug 21, 2009 - 03:13pm PT
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Scuffy--I think he was working at a paint store in Modesto in those days--he was possiby gazing at El Cap and "calculating coverage."
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Aug 21, 2009 - 04:26pm PT
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Royal...thanks for your little essay in my Boulder Canyon guide.
Also..thanks for all you done for climbing...because of you we have some really big shoulders to stand on.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Aug 21, 2009 - 04:37pm PT
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good question Scuffy, nice way to bring back a topic!
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Royal Robbins
Trad climber
Modesto, California
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Aug 21, 2009 - 06:57pm PT
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Responding to "Scuffy B" -- He asked about my thoughts atop (I think) the Lower Cathedral Spire (in 1952, I think) (Photo, I think, by Barbara Lilley. I don't know what my thoughts were, or if I had any. And I had no idea that Yosemite Valley would play such an important part in my life. Anyway, I have always been afraid, and I recommend that emotion to anyone wanting to stay alive and in one piece. My advice: Don't get hurt. Don't get killed. Get to the top. In that order. Somewhere, soon, I am going to tell a story about music, because it played such a big part in our lives in the 1950's and 1960's. Best to all.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Aug 21, 2009 - 07:06pm PT
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Royal
Ah, but this brings back some fond memories!
"If I were a carpenter and you were my lady" Mort and the lovely Judy.
cheers
guido
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Brunosafari
Boulder climber
OR
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Aug 21, 2009 - 07:10pm PT
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Now that's a classy Royal Flush if ever there was one!
Now this music thing sounds intriguing...
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Chicken Skinner
Trad climber
Yosemite
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Aug 21, 2009 - 08:21pm PT
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Guido,
I have a cd of some of Mort's music. Do you have a copy or have you heard it?
Ken
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Aug 21, 2009 - 08:38pm PT
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Yes Ken I do and thanks for the offer.
Hennek has a large collection on reel to reel and we have been trying to get it transferred over for years. I believe Pat Ament also has a collection. Would be nice to consolidate it someday and with Mort's permission put together some more CDs.
Mort, Briggs, Covington were all excellent musicians keeping the mongrels of Camp 4 in line with their serenading and Teton Tea.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Aug 21, 2009 - 09:14pm PT
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Royal is one of the great spirits of our world of
climbers. He has always been true to himself, for better
or for worse. He has never been anything but what he is.
That's one of the marks of authenticity. His new book is
a treasury of subtle moral stories. Responsibility, courage,
compassion, loyalty, self-discipline, faith, character.
By some grand blessing he found one of the best possible
places to discover and to exemplefy these traits, a beautiful
Valley of Light. His memories and words have a little of
the Bible, a little from American history, a little from
Greek mythology, and the philosophies of Aristotle and
Plato. There even is a sense of the fairy tale, a rich
sense of Royal's literacy, built amid a culture and its
traditions. His growing up is a story that fascinates,
the way he built a kind of psychological tower of granite
where he was able to find escape from some of the
darknesses of the world.
It is a story of freedom, to happen into the freight yards
as a youth, sense adventure, and be taken by it. The
book is a study in the moral education of a unique
youth with a special heart and a keen
mind, not a perfect soul by any stretch of the imagination.
But name one of us who is. Royal has a vast stock of
experiences. When has he ever written and we have not enjoyed?
Royal has a goodness, a generosity and greatness, we hold dear.
His life was to take one step at a time, a remarkable
formation of character from his youth. A few of his stories
might strike contemporary sensibilities as old-fashioned.
For me, that's one of their strengths. Read the book in
quiet, alone, and you will hear Yosemite at a more
serene time. Great truths, great beauty, great people
live in these paragraphs, a kind of mystical corpus of
passages, as life has pointed out his way. Royal's life is
a land of fair sights, of slants of sunshine, of water that
flows in its crystalline beauty, of pines and health-giving
air that blows, and of camaraderie, a work that -- however
rough around its edges -- is noble.
"This was the noblest Roman of them all," Anthony said
of Brutus, in Julius Caesar. "His life was gentle, and
the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand
up and say to all the world, 'This was a man!'"
Indeed Royal is a spirit who took charge
of himself in marvelously steep places, a man I
am not afraid to say I have loved.
Pat Ament
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MH2
climber
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Aug 21, 2009 - 09:24pm PT
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There is little to fear from contemporary sensibilities (if I read the code correctly) in these pages.
Count me among those glad to see this happen.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Aug 21, 2009 - 11:24pm PT
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I would add, in advance of RR's emerging writing he mentions, that fear IS a good thing. It is an appropriate appreciation of the situation. That's it. We just learn to manage it so we still can move.
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Royal Robbins
Trad climber
Modesto, California
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Aug 22, 2009 - 12:30pm PT
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Looks like I struck a nerve by mentioning to music in climbing. I found myself wondering, "Why did I think of music?" And then I remembered that someone had referred to this forum as "a campfire." (A marvelous analogy!) And then I remembered that music was most often enjoyed around a campfire. I don't know how it is elsewhere, but in America music was (in the 1950's and 1960's) important in climbing. Of course Mort Hempel was a big part of it. And, yes, to those who have access to his cd's I would love to hear some of them. Mort was the best. I still remember vividly some of his lyrics: "The river is wide, I cannot cross oer (spelling?), Neither have I the wings to fly. Give us a boat that will carry two, and both shall row, my love and I." Mort got a lot of his stuff from Bill Briggs, a skier and climbing resident of Grand Teton National Park. Bill and I often played chess and Go (a Japanese board game). I remember first meeting Briggs. Joe Fitschen and I were on our premier visit to the Tetons and were lieing in our sleeping bags on the ground near Jenny Lake Campground when we heard this marvelous music wafting our way. We arose and, like zombies, moved toward the sound and soon found ourselves in the middle of a Teton Tea Party. Teton Tea is a beverage made of tea, lemons, sugar, and white and red port, and kept hot by being in the middle of a campfire. You sip it deep into the night as you sit listening to music and talking of climbs you have done and hope to do. The "Tea" keeps you awake and drowsy at the same time -- a marvelous invention! Anyway, Briggs differed from Hempel in leading sing-a-longs around campfires whereas Mort more often sang alone.
And Mike Covington was later on one of the best singers, with a voice that soared. Thanks, Mike, for the inspiring music. Of course, all of these guys, Hempel, Briggs, and Covington, were, besides being fine singers, also fine climbers who did many ascents. The coda to the above is that music was a very important part of climbing back then, and, in the crucible of rock and ice, music is often overlooked. Don't underestimate the power of guitar and voice.
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myterious
Trad climber
Joshua Tree
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Aug 22, 2009 - 12:32pm PT
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Hey RR, just did Tis-sa-ack last week, awesome route! Good job putting that thing up back in the day!
MM
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Aug 22, 2009 - 01:47pm PT
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Hi Royal,
Great to have you here. I envision everyone around the campfire suddenly getting quiet with respect as RR arrives and pulls up a stump!
Would love to hear some memories of your Tahquitz years during the 50s, say the Open Book or the Unchaste. And I look forward to your new books. This would be a great place to preview passages that you are working on.
Thanks again for your presence at Bachar’s memorial. It meant a lot to everyone there.
Rick Accomazzo
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Aug 24, 2009 - 07:29pm PT
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well, I don't know no better if there's a hush over the campfire, so I'm going to post up...
Royal, there is a formation called Fin Dome in the Rae Lakes basin of SEKI. Now, the memory is probably bad on my part, but did you end up leading a climb on that on a Sierra Club outing? Hrm, don't have my Roper guide with me, but maybe it was described in Pat's book.
What was that like, at that time for you? I've been back in there and like many high sierra locations found it to be a phenomenal area, but to do a first ascent there must have been a total blast!
cheers,
Munge
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Aug 25, 2009 - 02:36am PT
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Boy, I c uld stand to hear a few old Tahquitz stories, and RRs experience with Chuch Wilts, a force back in the day, and the first ascent of the Vampire, and seconding Jonah - and just keep them coming if you please, RR . . .
JL
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Paul Martzen
Trad climber
Fresno
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Aug 25, 2009 - 04:42am PT
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Music
One of my favorite memories of Camp 4, is listening to the hilarious and ribald songs that many British climbers would sing at the campfires. Sometimes they could go on for hours. I loved it.
Cliffs make a great backdrop for singing I think. Just wish I could remember more than a few words to each melody in my head!
Sometimes coming out through the tail waves of an exciting rapid, the mood fills me and I sing at the top of my lungs. "Love Stinks! Yeah! Yeah!" was one of my favorites for some reason.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Aug 25, 2009 - 05:25am PT
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"I'm a climber, I'm a climber from Manchester way, I get all my kicks the rock climbing way.
I may be a poor man on Monday, but I'm a free man on Sunday."
Or something along those lines.
I think we all learned a number of things from the lads:
How to drink
How to play the spoons
How to use nuts
How to eat humble pie
and most of all how to laugh
Oh yes, they were bloody good climbers indeed.
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