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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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I climbed the west face of Sentinel with Bud (Ivan) Couch June 18-19, 1973. Somehow, don't ask me how, we didn't sign the register (at least, I can't find it in the register). Just thought you ought to add Bud Couch to the "list".
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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I'm with a couple of others here who never found the register in the early 70's. Did the Steck Salathe with Loyd Price but never saw the register and am still trying to find the ascent date in my falling apart pencil-pen diary book, but believe early 70's.
If registers make a comeback, maybe there should be solar powered hi tech versions where key ins go wirelessly to some off-site server in the cloud for recording and posting in cyberspace. Imagine a site of registers for Yosemite and the Sierra, heck, all U.S. peaks of some stature - virtual registers instead of physical ones fallen away, corroded to bits, lost or sitting in someone's attic. Of course, no guarantee a solo powered station would last very long I suppose.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2011 - 07:00pm PT
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The Dawn of the Summit Kindle...LOL
Discuss the route with a hologram of the first ascent party.
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Summit Registers and Beyond (again)
Here on the 4th, I should be watching fireworks and will, in a while.
Steve: Hologram discussion with the FA party - indeed! Cyberspace summit registers or nuts and bolts registers of old: they all tell the same essential story of us mortals knowing too well about our end and thus trying to hold onto the past, honor and appreciate those we love, the sport we love, the way we ourselves were, grip it all tight. And we try to project into the future from the same motive we hold the past, offering a bit of ourselves for those to come who we trust will have our same hearts about climbing something we climbed. On we go recording in guide books and journal articles, taking the pictures, posting to discussion sites, maybe personal web sites, blogs or Wikipedia, and saving the little brain bursts to hard drives and sticks and disks, and gabbing around campfires, and gabbing right here, right off our keyboards.
With these thoughts just now, I look at my old climbing diary trying to find when I did Sentinel with Lloyd Price, seeing maybe I didn't record the day, and so thumb the pages for another memory, another side of me thinking I could toss this little book with a laugh, maybe somewhere on a long hike in Tuolumne.
I think I hear the boom of fireworks starting.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Dave Davis...there's a familiar name...Did you teach at Long Beach city college in the mid-70's?....RJ
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2011 - 09:31pm PT
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Tom- If you are going to toss your climbing diary blithely off the trail please give me a heads up so that I can recover it...from a discrete distance...while no one is looking! LOL
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dogtown
Trad climber
JackAssVille, Wyoming
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Robinson and I did it in a afternoon, 79 I was stoned!
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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The little orange/yellow book by Dave Dornan was the first
nice gathering of climbing routes around Boulder, with a
section on Eldorado including many of the first ascents. Of
course others had gathered and written about routes in the
Trail and Timberline and other publications for years, but Dave was
up on Kor's activities and the little elite of "the Marmots,"
what a few of them named themselves for a time... Within a
day or ten of having my own cherished copy of Dornan's little
pamphlet/book, dozens of new routes started taking place...
Every guide to the area that has ever been written was
instantly out of date, for the large amount of activity...
Higgins, I guess I knew you had climbed the Steck-Salathe,
and I knew you had done a fair number of big walls on the
Cathedrals, but we all knew that wasn't your cup of tea, that
you loved the shorter, more intense things... Lloyd Price...?
I would have thought you had done it with Bob. What's become
of Lloyd? I remember a difficult boulder problem he did, and
Royal showed it to me. It's just a few inches to the right
of what they call "Ament's Arete" and mantels/balances up onto
that sloping horizontal ledge. With the advantage of seeing
Royal do it first, I too did it. But everytime I return I
glance at that thing and believe it was the work of some kind
of real good climber... It feels he and I climbed together,
but I can't for the life of me remember what...
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Pat,
Re Lloyd Price and climbing records (diaries):
One poster (Warbler) in 2007 Supertopo thread claims to see him in back row (2nd from rt, black shirt) in one of the pics here, so maybe around then and still around now, or not. Here:
http://dev.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/434711/Historical-pictures
Talk about time warps and time passing, check these old photos on the thread. Wonder how many of these people have old diaries like mine and what becomes of such old paper, passed to loved ones, passed to attics and the rats, probably. Maybe AAC library gets and keeps climbing diaries of the famous ones and someone could photo pages of some and post here and we could discuss and ... what am I saying! No way to stop time, though sure fun and terrible to look back on it.
LongAgo
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oldguy
climber
Bronx, NY
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One thing that stuck me reading the register is that it provides a chronology of when many climbers, who later became big names, came on the scene. The SS was a must-do climb and should be still. Also, given that RR copied the early entries, I was amused that there is no 10th ascent listed. In fact that was when RR and I did the first one-day ascent in June 1960--about ten hours I think because we were back at the Lodge in the late afternoon to the surprise of another climber who casually asked, "What did you do today?" It was also the first time the route had been done all free except for the headwall. I remember a lot of loose rock on the penultimate pitch (the last steep pitch as I recall) that made it a bit dicey, but RR led through with his customary aplomb.
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BBA
climber
OF
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I wondered about that 10th ascent.
I tossed my climbing notebook one day in the mid 80's when I was thinking how stupid it was to cling to old stuff. I still think that, but am gratified to see that others do not as some of it makes for interesting reading. One effect of aging (on some of us) is to become a historian, or a fan of history, and that's as good a way to spend ones time as any. In personal terms, I remember Seth Kovar asked on a thread for photos or memories of his uncle, Dave Craft of Gunks and Vulgarian fame. I felt gratified I could post a few photos for him, as well as pen a few lines. So my climbing efforts may have been puny and my ability nothing great - in the scheme of things - but that's life for all of us but the truly talented few.
As to what happens to stuff, just consider Lewis Clark's photos that Michael Rettie found, and what may have been lost had he not found them.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 5, 2011 - 07:44pm PT
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Joe- Your second trip up the SS and Royal's fifth or sixth?
Such a fast time makes the 3:14 that RR and Frost pulled off a bit more reasonable! LOL
Make sure to consider "discarding" your photo and paper records in my direction. Write me off forum about it.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Big Joe-what is the status of your book? Many of us are anxious to see it in print.
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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I saw Shawn Curtis in for an ascent of the West Face in 7/5/76. I thought that was odd because I was sure he did the route with E and Bob Harrington. There is an amazing story associated with their ascent.
E please weigh in.
Are you out there?
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Back at post #122, there's an incomplete list of names of known SuperTopians who appear in the register. Who needs to be added?
For those who climbed Sentinel within the dates of the register, but didn't find or sign the register, I'd be happy to add them also, perhaps with an asterisk* to indicate same. But perhaps the Morals & Ethics Committee wishes to comment on this?
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PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
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Joe:
I'm with Guido, when is your book going to be published? Look forward to reading it!
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Urmas
Social climber
Sierra Eastside
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Mighty Hiker, I did the SS with Ruprecht Kammerlander (second to last entry) in Oct.'76. It was my first grade V, and a very memorable one. We went so light, we didn't even bring approach shoes - did the descent in our EB's, with no flashlights on a moonless night. Actually, now that I think about it, I wore EB's... He wore Hush Puppies!!
Ruprecht (Rupert for Americans) was an unforgetable character (RIP). I can't think of anyone with more lust for life and passion for climbing than he. In hindsight this intensity was not destined for longevity. Shortly after soloing the West Buttress of Denali the following summer, he died in a motorcycle crash.
I miss him!
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Brock Wagstaff
Trad climber
Larkspur
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Hey Urmas - Nice of you to remember Ruprecht. He was an amazing guy with incredible energy. He and I guided for Tony Sottile's "Matterhorn School of Mountaineering" back in the mid 70's. If I remember correctly he once broke his leg trying to run down the descent slabs at Lover Leap, just to see if he could do it! I too miss him!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 6, 2011 - 02:21pm PT
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Ruprecht is singular enough to make a really good route name. You're always putting stuff up Urmas.
Ruprecht's Rubric...
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Steve,
I did name a first ascent after Kammerlander, as I also was taken with his joy in climbing and the mountains. It's "Kammerlander" on Fresno Dome which we did together. A description is buried in an old AAC journal with pics (he tilted the camera for effect, he said, so the route looks way steep but isn't THAT steep), and lo and behold I found it in my tattered journal as Aug 14, 1978. We also did another new route next to it called "Water Music," after some of his favorite music.
My occasional inclination to toss my journal and all my pondering of the value and meaning of summit registers as at once glorious and useless is not to discount the value of any written word in climbing or any human endeavor. Great to share and remember, link hands over time as I said, uncover lost or forgotten names and history, compare and contrast events. But there are times when I see all writing, art, music, the entire collective communication and interaction among us humans as paltry little thrusts to preserve and unravel meaning against the backdrop of all huge and imponderable in time and space, and our very short existence on the old globe. But then I slap myself, tip my hat to death and the vast canopy of stars, laugh and enjoy the day.
What it comes to: I hold my days on the walls with deep reverence, and a wry smile.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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