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MH2
climber
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Good going, Mighty Hiker.
The Scott F. entry in the Waddington Hut log which begins, "I don't know whether it was the snafflehounds or the garlic pancakes..." is a gem of mountaineering literature.
That stump at Lighthouse famous?? Never considered climbing it. I always think of Tintin in Tibet when I go past it and try to keep it on the right shoulder (or is it left?). More than a few tourists have mistaken it for a bear in the dusk.
I think I recognize the flake the guy in the orange windbreaker is standing on.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Will post pics later, but for history .... Dan Leichtfuss, Todd Gordon and newest Zip.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Well, I did say the effort might be intermittent. But I’ve now got a bunch more slides scanned, and even written up ready to post. Little by little – patience! First, some more people pictures. Apologies for the intermittent quality – most were taken with a 1930s era Paxette camera, with exposures estimated, and usually with one hand. I never did drop anyone, either, even with hip belays.
As mentioned, a bunch of us went to the Valley in autumn 1976. John A., Daryl, Eric, my brother, Dave L., Perry B., Scott F., John B., me, Clarence (?), and maybe others. A great deal of fun was had by all.
Dave L. – not to be confused with Dave Loeks, who it turns out lived in the Vancouver area for a while, although I believe he was from Colorado – was then 15. Here he is leading the Anathema. Later he went on to all sorts of climbing feats, an ascent of Bhagirathi III with Scott F., and then to co-found Arc’Teryx.
Naturally we had to do this climb – doesn’t everyone? Scott F. found it interesting.
Several of us were climbing hard 5.10s and sometimes easier 5.11s, but Eric was a bit better. One day we went up to the base of El Cap and did Slack Centre, Sacherer Cracker, and Short but Thin – this is from the latter. Eric is wearing baseball tights, in those innocent pre-lycra days, although the de facto uniform then was baggy white trousers. The Seattle gang was quite keen on the baseball pants, as they were stretchy, left your lower leg and foot visible, and were more durable. Either that, or they were more stylish.
One of the last times I climbed with Eric.
As mentioned, all stories and photos, throughout the thread, copyright © Mighty Hiker, 2008, unless someone else took a photo or added something, in which case copyright that person.
Edit: Puzzled by Lynne's post.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Here is Ghost, all ready for nighty night, on the northeast buttress of Slesse in 1982. (Cross-posted.)
Canadians and their Stanfields have a long history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stanfield
I'll see if I can post some other photos from Slesse - another facet of climbing at Squamish in the 1970s.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Most of us eventually attempted longer routes in the mountains near Vancouver. The season isn’t that long, the approaches arduous, and the weather poor, but we still had some adventures. There is some decent rock, and people found more, e.g. in the Chehalis and Anderson River areas, although many made regular trips to the Bugaboos.
The great classic is the northeast buttress of Mt. Slesse, first climbed by Fred Beckey, Steve Marts, and Eric Bjørnstad in 1963. It’s only 100 km east of Vancouver, as the ladybug flies, and at the north end of the Cascade Ranges. You approach it by a 10+ km hike up logging roads in a valley to the east, starting at nearly sea level, do the climb, descend the opposite side, and hike back out the same distance. Sometimes the logging roads are driveable to quite close to one end or the other of the route, sometimes you have to walk. If you have to walk, it’s a 2 – 3 day trip. Still not quite an “easy day for a lady”, as A. F. Mummery characterized some climbs, although its appearance in a book titled “50…” has misled more than a few. Luckily, most of the unprepared and unwary are rebuffed by the approach before they get into serious trouble.
Here’s Slesse, taken from Mt. Rexford, across the valley to the east. You’re looking at about 2,000 m of relief. Most parties now miss out the bottom 1/3 of the buttress, bypassing it via the hanging snowpatch to the left. Which has now developed a nasty habit of falling off in late summer.
We did it in 1982, just outside the “1970s” theme. Anyway, we parked just off the Chilliwack Lake road, in my reliable if not entirely comfortable black bug, aka HAL. And set off hiking. David aka Ghost and his wife had fed me pancakes for breakfast, so it wasn’t an early start.
(I tried “autocorrect” with this photo, but it still didn’t turn into a Ferrari.)
Six or eight hours later, having forded the Nesakwatch River and thrashed up the moribund logging road, we had gotten to and crossed the hanging glacier, and were up on the buttress proper.
A fairly alpine spot. The mountain in the background is Rexford. David may be the amorphous blob in the foreground.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Slesse was a bit of an initiation rite. You got to bivouac, and have adventures. Plus see neat stuff.
The next morning we were on our way early – it was a Sunday, and I had a job interview in the city on Monday afternoon. (VERY bad strategic decision!) This is what you see looking up – we’d traversed onto the buttress above its toe, and done a few pitches before Dave was allowed to display his (non-red) underwear.
You can climb the buttress directly, that is more or less the left edge, or go right up grooves and stuff, eventually coming back to the ridge at the base of the headwall. The right hand edge is the upper part of the North Rib, done in 1972 by Jello and Rob Kiesel.
In autumn 1956, a commercial airplane hit this side of Slesse, due to icing. 62 people died, although the wreckage wasn’t found until the next summer. There’s still a lot of debris scattered all over that side of the mountain, which adds to the foreboding atmosphere.
We’re now partway up the bypass grooves and ramps.
Imitating Scheherazade (The Thousand Nights and a Night), I'll see if I can add some more tomorrow. :-)
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Darryl Cramer
Social climber
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Maybe I just missed them but somebody must have some pictures of and the story behind the old hut on the Grand Wall below the Roman Chimneys.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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The story of the Pardoe Hut on the Dance Platform is about half way through the thread, including a photo by Mastadon (Don H).
I'm going to add something about Eryl Pardoe in the next/last Slesse post, as he had a connection with the area. Although originally from Wales, he was one of the first Vancouver-area climbers to die in the mountains. Elfrida Pigou, who found the debris from the Slesse crash in 1957, died in a serac fall at Mt. Waddington a few years later, with three others. Jim Baldwin died in a fall on Washington Column in 1964. He's commemorated by a lovely weathered bronze plaque on a pretty ledge just above the Apron at Squamish. (I'll look for a photo.) Eryl died in 1970. After that, Gray Nourse died from a fall at Waddington in 1974.
For 1970s-era Squamish climbers, we felt somewhat more connected when Leif Patterson, his son Tor, and Jeremy Saarinen died in a fall/avalanche in December 1976. Leif lived in Golden then, and probably hadn't climbed at Squamish for some years, but was well known. Quite a tragedy. In 1977, John Bryan, who we all knew and who came from a Vancouver mountaineering family, died in a helicopter crash up north. A difficult year.
The first climbing fatality at Squamish was Grace Wong, in early 1992.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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During the 1970s and well into the 1980s, it was quite common to have Volkswagens. Beetles, busses if you could manage it. None quite as elegant as EKat’s, but often a home away from home. They were reliable, economical, and not too hard for amateur mechanics to work on. Plus had high clearance, rear wheel drive, and an engine over the wheels – which was good in snow, and for getting up the poorly-maintained logging roads which so often feature in mountain access here. Not very comfortable, perhaps, but you can’t have everything.
Here's Hal, temporarily parked in a water bar - these are put into disused logging roads, to reduce erosion of the road surface in the heavy rains we get. A great deal of time and cunning goes into addressing these barriers.
Early model sport utilities. Not exactly avant garde, except perhaps in the sense of “avant garde a clue”, but they did the job.
My black bug was a ’69, but my first Beetle was a ’66. Six volt engine, chassis ground electrics, shoulder belts. Still, it did the job. (No photo.) In spring 1979 I gave Tami and Peter a ride to the Valley. I picked them up at Tami’s parents’ house in West Vancouver, where we were fed nice soup by her mother. We then loaded a large and heavy wrapped up tarp into the roof rack – I believe it contained comestible cans which the penurious pair had purloined from the pantry – and then set off. We stopped at REI in Seattle, and when ready to leave, I asked “Who wants to drive?”. Tami replied “I can’t drive standard”, and Peter said “I don’t have a licence”. Which was rather a surprise. So I got to drive almost 24 hours straight at 55 mph, endlessly hearing Blondie and Dire Straits on KNBR, once we got in range. (No tape deck.) I was very happy to finally arrive, make camp with Mazama Rick and the gang, and conk out. Peter & Tami were a little disappointed when I wouldn’t detour to the Ahwahnee, so they could look at “Peter’s Out” (another bad pun, by naughty Canadians) or maybe “Pigs in Space”, to see if there was evidence of any recent ascents. Still, a good trip.
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MH2
climber
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If you got past water bars using time and cunning then I am envious.
Did you previously mention or know of a Clarence D., presently a realtor but BITD,
"then he told me he was a part of the first ascentions team of the Black Dyke, years ago! (he's not mentioned in the guide book). then he told me he watched Eric Weinstein on the FFA of Sentry Box!! wow. he said he slipped out of the upper crack before the mantle, and got it next go on lead. then he did early repeat ascents of White Lightning and the third ascent of the Rostrum in Yosemite (before it was freed)."
from a climbing partner who recently met Clarence
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Usually we got (and get) by water bars by filling them in, and/or strategic planks.
I tried autocorrect on the second VW photo, and it still didn't turn into a Ferrari. Not even a BMW. Maybe I need to learn more about the program.
Clarence is a vague memory - I think he was a friend of Daryl's from Victoria, and had a VW van. I may have done a climb with him. Mead Hargis and Al Givler did the first ascent of the Black Dyke at Squamish in 1970, and Clarence could not then have been more than 13 or 14, if that. Perhaps he was involved with a climb in the area of the Black Dyke, somewhat later? Or maybe did it with Daryl, in the mid 1970s? It's possible that Clarence saw Eric free Sentry Box in 1976 - Dave V. might remember. His story is consistent with what happened. And it's possible that he climbed the Rostrum, e.g. with Daryl, but I don't know anything about that.
Edit: I've been keeping the text of this semi-soliloquy in a word document, in case it's useful. So far it's 42 pages long, with 123 photos - counting my posts only.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Back to Slesse, day two was very long and dry. Late in the afternoon, we got to the headwall. At its base, there’s a snowpatch, which helped a bit, but at that point it gets fairly steep and very exposed for 4 – 5 pitches. As you can see.
But finally we got to the summit ridge, not long before sunset. It’s a fairly complicated descent, but luckily Dave had done it before from that side. Still, we barely got down to terra firma by dark. No water, and a miserable night.
I got instructions from Dave, and set out very early in the morning. It was a 1,500 m descent to Slesse Creek, via a formidably steep and even exposed trail, followed by the hike out to the Chilliwack Lake road. The idea was that I would gaily venture ahead, fetch the car, and drive back to meet Dave at whatever point he’d gotten to. It was a nice sunrise – here is Canadian Border Peak. Eryl Pardoe, after whom the Pardoe Hut on the Dance Platform at Squamish was named, died in a self-arrest accident there in 1970.
Anyway, I ran off down the trail, feet crammed into my tight Vasque Shoenards. I was overjoyed to get to the creek, drink my fill and wash my face, then plod off down the road. A blistering hot day. I got to the main road, and stuck out my thumb. This was an act of optimism – there are several low-security prison camps in the area, and even the rope draped artistically across my shoulders probably wasn’t very convincing, given the signs warning people not to pick up hitchhikers. Plus not much traffic on a Monday. But wonder of wonders, after so many hitch-hiking misadventures over the years, someone stopped, and gave me a ride right to the bug. Ten second turnaround, as we had neither food nor beer in the car. Intercepted Dave just as he got in driving range, and we vamoosed for Vancouver, stopping only in Chilliwack for a drink. The black bug went faster than it probably ever had, and I was just able to get home, get washed up, and get downtown in my suit for the interview. SERIOUS culture shock.
I didn’t get the job, although my line was that I’d been out in the mountains “on a rescue” that weekend, to explain my somewhat worn appearance, and a front tooth that had gotten chipped. Assuming that self-imposed self-rescues are a form of rescue, my conscience was clear. But I didn’t get the job. And my feet were a bloody mess for a week.
Access to Slesse varies depending on the condition of the logging roads – when they’re working in the area, the roads are more driveable. But usually it averages out, and a typical party takes 2+ days for the round trip. For a while in the later 1980s, some cheated by flying to a knoll, perhaps an hour from the hanging glacier at the start of the climb. Kind of missing the point of the route, given that the approach and descent are half the fun. A tactic for what Ahhhnold might call girlie-men.
Soon I'll post some more people photos, before eventually meandering back to some actual climbing at Squamish in around say 1978.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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A morning tidbit, and for once some pictures of Merrycans. A few of our friends from the U.S. during the 1970s, particularly from Warshington. Very occasionally Americans from elsewhere came by, but Squamish was not then a climbing destination.
One was Rick LeDuc, aka Mazama Rick, who was always hospitable, and great company. Plus a fine climber. This photo is from 1979 – I finally got a bit better about taking pictures where faces were not only visible, but identifiable. Though I still had exposure problems that autocorrect is no better at fixing than my VW/Ferrari.
(In 2005, Rick and Missy hosted a fun gathering of climbers from that period, at their home in Mazama.)
And, as posted to Peter H’s Wheat Thin thread, leading Wheat Thin. Seattle-style baseball trousers.
(The photo is tilted about 20 degrees – corrected in the Wheat Thin thread.)
The Seattle contingent included Pat Timson, Julie Brugger, Carla Firey, Jim McCarthy, Don Harder, Bob Crawford, and others whose names escape me. (Rick?) They took their off-season training quite seriously, as you can see from this shot of Pat.
Bill Zaumen was an honourary Canuck/Warshingtonian, and we saw lots of him. Known to many of you, I believe – he’s quite a lot of fun. Here he is on the Apron, again 1979. Bill came to Squamish for a visit in 1982, and was delighted that there was a bakery up the street from my parents' house called "Pascal's" - a geek thing. My mother, a keen opera fan, was flabbergasted to discover that a friend of her son's also liked opera.
I’ve always enjoyed going climbing with people who know about science and natural history. Bill could be counted on for an interesting, if not entirely understandable, discussion of issues in physics. Somewhat like Ed H., or Bryan L. when discussing geology.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Is this an improvement?
I used Irvanview (free software) on Windows.
First I used auto-adjust levels, but his hair was too dark.
So I then increased the brightness, then gamma level, then contrast a little.
I also cropped off the top (blank part of the slide).
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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The Seattle contingent included Pat Timson, Julie Brugger, Carla Firey, Jim McCarthy, Don Harder, Bob Crawford, and others whose names escape me
Not sure about the others, but Julie Brugger and Pat Timson are still pulling down.
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Hardly Visible
climber
Port Angeles
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Hey Anders,
Hope you don’t mind me tweezing these a bit for ya
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Kevin, thanks - I caught your 'adjusted' photos, but now they've vanished. The great god PhotoBucket has spoken.
Thanks for the thoughts on the photos, and the retouching. Though I am somewhat averse to "posed" photos, and other trickery - the magazines are already full of that crap. I kind of like it 'real'.
Luckily, there are few pictures of me from that period, as not many others had a camera at all.
I figure I'm doing fairly well to get the old slides scanned, reduced to a manageable file size, and maybe tinker a bit with cropping and autocorrect, usually to brighten them up. Most aren't very good in technical terms, and have probably aged - can't help that. I wish I had time to find and learn how to use programs to "enhance" the slides, but for now all I have is MS Photo Editor.
I'm afraid that Clint lost me when he said: "So I then increased the brightness, then gamma level, then contrast a little." I'll leave irradiation of slides to Ed. :-)
Don's (mastadon's) slides upthread have much the same 'real' quality - a bit like many other hoary old photos, their technical attributes are mostly irrelevant. Unique moments.
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MH2
climber
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Possibly Rick? could have been Rick Graham, as natural a crack climber as I have seen and pretty well supplied with 'character', too. He had a bar encounter with a center for the Seattle Supersonics which was defused when Rick suggested they, "take it out back", and the much much taller and bigger b-ball player broke up.
I agree that in photography technical excellence and emotional impact are different issues and sometimes in conflict. I think that both climbing and photography can be pursued for their own ends but that their goals diverge as either is carried to a high level. However, even older iconic images surprisingly often turn out to have a degree of posing or other planning in them.
Ander's photos are evocative of the time he is recalling.
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