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Jobee
Social climber
El Portal
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Don't know what year it is but...
What i do know, The men in the valley are beginning to wear tights while climbing and it's really bothering me, I dunno it was just plain (Wrong).
I'm at the base of Catchy and I note a party to my left donning them i'm focused and thinking i might finally be good enough to lead this pitch and if i'm lucky i'll be able to pull the second pitch as well.
So i'm half way up the first pitch and on my left in another crack is this super ripped guy with very curly hair, no shirt, and giant arms leading the 5.11. For a young woman in Yosemite his was a man to be desired EXCEPT you guessed it he's YIKES wearing purple tights.
I'm trying not to gawk when I realize this super human is none other than Jim Bridwel o.m.g.!
Super Jim and I are now neck and neck crankin our pitch's when he looks across at me and says "Man, times sure have changed".
I shall never forget that day because all the way home I thought,
"Boy have they ever"!
jow
Jim's great in my book but gentlemen trousers please!
Way to go Gramicci.
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Gramicci
Social climber
Ventura
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Jo,
I have never met another person that could meld so well with each coming craze as Jim Bridwell.
Fortunately Retro is back in!
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Jobee
Social climber
El Portal
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Gramicci,
Every encounter i've had with jb, warm, polite, and very funny!
Maybe you should bust out a hundred pair of those cuffed white pants we all wore in mid to late eighties..they rocked and held up quite well. The new/old trend might just go off.
jow
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Gramicci
Social climber
Ventura
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Would like to hand out a few hundred pairs but I retired from the Company back in ’99 That pant style with the cuff was actually Bachar’s design. Evolved from there through the years, at least until 99
That’s a good idea busting out with something new. Keep your eyes open!
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rmuir
Social climber
Claremont, CA
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Above, Dave Evans mumbled:
> I had to check my records to get the exact date. It was October 12-13 1974 at
> Suicide Rock and it was THE STONEMASTER PARTY.
Whew. The Stonemaster Party at Suicide! I remember lugging 2.5 gallons of wine up to the base and summit for that weekend. Talk about mass ascents! In everything from tennis shoes to bare feet.
Here's a link to some old photos I've had laying around that just got scanned this morning...
http://chs.cusd.claremont.edu/~rmuir/webalbum/
Check out the early photos of Al Bartlett doing a repeat of "Ten Carat Gold" during that weekend!
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rmuir
Social climber
Claremont, CA
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The circle of "Stonemasters" had expanded to include quite a few notables, by the mid-seventies. Someone should tell some stories of the guide school that was formed up in Idyllwild called "The California Mountaineering and Technical Rock Climbing School."
Not too sure if anyone ever made much money guiding for them... (With the exception of Clark Jacobs, maybe?) But it was quite the place to hang. Talk about a roster of official Guides, though.
Check out this list, taken from an old brochure:
Among the rates they listed for services, the School offered a $10 bouldering outing for one hour. "Offered daily from 5 P.M. to 6 P.M.", it was reputed that rookies and idolators could, for a fee, go watch Largo chalk up!
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can't say
Social climber
Pasadena CA
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Rob, those shot are way classic. Big Al, sure looked a bit different then, kind of a svelte looking guy with hair.
nice
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John Vawter
Social climber
San Diego
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Ho man! Those are some great old photos. Really takes me back. Was one of those shots of Bartlett on Ten Karat published? Really looks familiar. Rob, were you on the Foraker expedition with Kenny Cook?
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rmuir
Social climber
Claremont, CA
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Yeah, one of those Bartlett photos was published somewhere. It was also used on the California School of Mountaineering brochure, too.
And, yeah, I was the expedition leader on the Mt. Foraker trip, Summer 1975. Ken Cook (RIP), Rob Dillinger (RIP), etc. Fun incident, that Summer, which proves how very small the climbing world was back then...
After we got off that mountain, I hooked up with Mike Graber (who happened to be in the Kachatnas at that time) and rather than flying back to SoCal, it was more fun to hitch a ride back down the AlCan in their old van. 1100 miles of dirt/mud road back then... We spun that rig many times, and got towed out of the mire three times by passing logging trucks!
We decided to hit the Tetons and then on to the Wind River range. Hiked all the way into Pingora from Big Sandy and arrived there late in the afternoon. The mosquitos were HORRIFIC! ...quickly pitched a tent and dived in to escape the onslaught. ...had to wait until nightfall to try and start dinner.
Later in the evening we stumbled out to discover, on the other side of the boulder from our tent, was Alan, fricken, Bartlett! Damn! And there wasn't another single climbing party in the entire cirque. So we SoCal lads had the whole place to ourselves for three days...
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Latitute 33
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Rob: Thanks for the link to the great shots. Don Wilson (the proprietor of Cal. School of Mountaineering) also used that one photo of Big Al on a poster (wished I'd saved one). Remember using the poster (along with a bunch of climbing photos) to decorate the ceiling of my 59 Bug.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Whew, hell of a faculty they had going there. Good to see a bunch of you Emeriti and Emeritae here on ST...!
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rmuir
Social climber
Claremont, CA
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I knew Dale Bard from Indian Rock in Berkeley in the sixties...
Most of the regulars there were high school and college aged (with the notable exception of really old guys like Bruce Cooke--"The Cooke Book" in Tuolumne. And then there was Dale... (...couldn't have been more than 13 at the time.)
Everyone thought he was so cute, trying all those overhanging probs and having to work out alternate holds since he couldn't reach all the holds in the usual ways. But he was tenacious (even back then) and guys like Peter Hahn and Chris Vandever took him under their tutilage. And Dale cranked off some great problems, very creatively.
Much later, when he started living in the Valley, I vividly remember sitting in the Camp 4 parking lot one morning... We were all slowing getting the day started, shooting the breeze and drinking cup after cup of coffee. Some were smoking fags (JL) and using the gas station bathroom to wash faces, etc. The usual crusty daily ritual. We all had pretty strange diets, but Dale brought along some sort of vegan sensibilities from Berkeley that, at the time, were quite unusual.
Dale sat on hood of some car throughout the whole morning, there in Camp 4, with spoon in hand dipping into a freshly-opened quart of honey. Organic honey, probably. By the time we all were sufficiently awake, the rest of us (having by then consummed gallons of coffee and dozens of cigarettes) were shocked to observe that Dale had finished the ENTIRE jar of honey. Solo.
...could never figure-out how Dale could "crank like a fiend" on that diet!
But, then again, who wants to retell the story about the retreat from El Cap because the haulbag contained only "two raw spuds"?
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Robs
Funny, I don’t remember being associated with that guiding service up in Idyllwild. You may recall that we had established our own guide service at the time, run out of the Ski Mart: Flight Systems Mountaineering. We even had a brochure printed. Remember our slogan that Largo came up with?:
Any place,
Anytime,
We’ll lead it with grace
And you’ll jumar the line.
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can't say
Social climber
Pasadena CA
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Ok, trivia time regarding the old Ski Mart (old employee's can't play). They had an recurring ad in Climbing and Summit back in the day. What was shown on the doctored photo they always used in those ads?
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Hey Rob, who was the older guy at Indian Rocks? In 1970 he probably was 60 or so. Lived in Oakland and would ride his bike up to Berkeley. I think he only mostly bouldered.
I remember seeing him riding his bike somewhere over by the Claremeont Hotel. I slowed down, gave a honk on my horn and rolled down my window (actually, the windows slid open on my '58 bus) to say hello. He didn't even look up, he just flipped me off and keep riding.
Crusty sort.
Do you remember?
Also, you guys should get Dale to post up. It would be good to have him join in. I have been working on some other guys, not much luck so far.
Best, Roger
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rmuir
Social climber
Claremont, CA
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Hey, Rick.
Ob: Flight Systems Mountaineering... Yep, we didn't make too much money doing that either. Back then we charged $45 for a two-day guided ice climbing class at either June or Lee Vining.
Here's a link to a scanned image of the cover of our old brochure:
B&W photo
And, for the record, that's Dominique Thomas and Dennis Bird at the first belay during the third (?) ascent of The West Face of El Cap, circa 1972.
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rmuir
Social climber
Claremont, CA
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Yeah, Roger. That would have been Bruce Cooke. Back in the late Sixties, he must have been nearing seventy or so, I'm guessing. I remember him being an old RCS guy--but back then almost every old climber was a part of the Sierra Club's Rock Climbing Section. ...don't recall how his name got attached to the Cooke Book up in Tuolumne; I thought he did the first on it.
Those old guys were truly an inspiration to me. Smooth, methodical and disciplined boulderers. Bruce could whip-off 15+ pullups from a dead hang on Lichmann's Lick (sp?), a notorious set of crimpers down in the Amphitheater. At that time, doing five was pretty impressive. Bruce could also do one-arm pullups on one of the trees at Indian Rock. But you're right about the slow bicycle; peddling up those Berkeley hills at his pace... Damn, we could have walked it faster! OK. Smooth, methodical, disciplined and SLOW.
I always thought that climbing was a truly righteous sport if you could keep doing it into one's seventies! I remember his dry wit, and he was very generous to us younger kids.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Looking back at the group picture. I think that was one of the original Access Fund events, the 93 Joshua Tree AF Rendevous. The only person Dave missed, between Mari and Grandstaff, is George Meyers, 70’s Yosemite regular and Chockstone Press guidebook maven.
On Rob’s story about Dale and Camp 4 food. Here’s one about Werner.
We are sitting on the cars. Werner is eating from a bag of carrots and celery, but the vegetables are about a week old and well past their prime. Werner holds up a stalk of wilted celery, and demonstrates that he can bend it into a knot. He has a nutritional theory that he explains it to the group:
“If you want to stay limber, you must eat limber food.”
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 4, 2006 - 09:36pm PT
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Ricky wrote:
Any place,
Anytime,
We’ll lead it with grace
And you’ll jumar the line.
Is it any wonder you guys didn't land many clients with such a promotional slogan? But then, in those days the whole point of being a "guide" was to rope in a personal belayer for projects. The strategy was just this: Every client always had a few "dream routes," and you'd ask them what those were straightaway. You'd immediately race him/her up said dreams in nothing flat, and since they never actually considered doing these routes, they were always so stoked that holding your line and getting hauled up your project(s) by main force was no biggy. Oftentimes the ratio was one hour for them and the rest of the day for you. Pretty shoddy form, but it worked at the time . . .
JL
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Largo,
What the hell ever happened to that boulderer guy, Oliver Moon? Dude was bad! Alot of these young guys never have heard of him either....damn shame it is. I think he still has some unrepeated stuff at Josh... Where are some of his other testpieces? I'd like to go check 'em out after all these years. Know what I mean?
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