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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Jul 11, 2018 - 10:48am PT
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One of the amazing things about that moment when PE cleared the roof at Snowbird was how, as he did, a little shaft of sunlight hit just that upper part of the wall like god was spotlighting the finale.
RIP Patrick
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Jul 11, 2018 - 11:59am PT
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Still inspiring, more so than much of what is presented today! Wow. Thanks for posting, Roy.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jul 11, 2018 - 12:00pm PT
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As a collector it is cool to see that in the film "La Vie Au Bout Des Doigts" he is climbing in a pair of these Dolomite shoes:
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Jul 11, 2018 - 12:01pm PT
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I remember some reports of him when he did his first US trip.
What were the locals' impressions of him? Did he adjust to the rock quickly?
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 11, 2018 - 01:08pm PT
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I met him on one of those earlier trips, I'm thinking it might have been early to mid 80s. One of Bachar's favorite climbs in the Meadows was a crack called Love Supreme, named after the John Coltrane album. I didn't see Patrick working it, and for all I know he flashed it, but I think not. He was, after all, an excellent on-sight climber. That's the kind of detail John probably would've remembered. Keeping score, you know. Patrick had just come back from that route, we all knew who he was, I said hello to him and in an almost shy way, with downcast eyes he simply, humbly said bonjour, and that's about all I got out of him.
I had occasion to hang around Edlinger a second time in the early 90s when he and Maurice were visiting Colorado. At that time they were working on a film project. I mentioned earlier in this thread that Paul Sibley, who was working with them on that, and on whose property I rented space for a sewing shop, reported that Patrick could literally layback up and down the notorious Sphinx Crack in the South Platte. Patrick was pretty self-contained, generally on a mission, and I had little interaction with him, and came to know his sidekick Maurice much better.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jul 12, 2018 - 10:39am PT
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The competition at Snowbird 1988 - here as seen in Rock & Ice:
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Tim Jim
climber
North
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Jul 12, 2018 - 03:51pm PT
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Edgeclinger swings tools
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Before I ever climbed I used to borrow La Vie au bout des Doigts from the library in Regina SK. Awesome.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 13, 2018 - 10:28am PT
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I imagine not many of us back in the early 80s when he was breaking news understood that Patrick, pronounced pah-treek, dabbled in alpinism?
The interview below is quite good. He mentions having done the Dru north face in winter, in a day, with Patrick Berhault:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
 Marlow: thanks much for all of your scans!
I've been feeding source material to a fellow who is working up a book on the history of competition climbing in America, and this kind of stuff is invaluable to the task.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 13, 2018 - 12:26pm PT
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This short tribute is easy on the eyes and ears:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Now, in my earliest grade school years I had lots of French class and a single semester in high school, so if anyone says où est le chat, I'll be dialed in.
Other than that, though it's all Greek to me, I suspect this might be worthwhile:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jul 13, 2018 - 01:48pm PT
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AWESOME![THNX - MARLOW]Lynne & Dave,The Blonds from the GunksIt is so fitting, In memory, RIP & Berg-Heil! LAHHN-MAHHN
A PICTURE OF OUR VERY OWN DAVE LANMAN "LE BLOND" OF THE GUNKS:
& THAT IT IS A VERY RARE PICTURE OF DAVE IN FLIGHT! FLY ON DAVE !
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 13, 2018 - 03:58pm PT
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Seems like he was kind of the Bachar of Europe. Or Visa Versa?
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 13, 2018 - 06:19pm PT
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ionlyski:
That's a pretty fair comparison. Though I'd say Bachar precedes Patrick, and had the edge on him. Patrick and I were roughly the same age, whereas Bachar had a few years on us both and we all started in our early teens. I was part of the late 70s Stonemaster Southern California cadre, including the standouts Bachar, Long, Hill, and by that time, quite a few other single-minded talents, whom I spent a lot of time with at the crags. Whenever the big European hitters came over, they'd seek Bachar out. We all spent a lot of time with Wolfgang Gullich and Jerry Moffat on their various early trips, especially in Joshua Tree and Tuolumne, which were at the time prime targets for the Europeans. Not so much with Edlinger, in terms of his proximity to our activities. Not sure why that was; my sense is that he was a bit more catty and Bachar could be pretty competitive. There may have been a personality conflict at play, or maybe Patrick simply kept to himself. Perhaps there was a language barrier in place for Patrick at the time, something which I'll ask Lynn if she recalls, because that would go some way to explain the separation we seemed to have from him.
Also, somewhere in one of these film shorts or in the text that Marlow has been posting up, there is a reference to Patrick's position as editor for the magazine Roc ‘n Wall, as being the de facto clearinghouse for all things free-solo in Europe. Of this I was unaware until just now, and I find it quite interesting. Somewhat off topic, but with all the hand wringing I see about free-solo these days on this forum, I can imagine a time when it will become illegal in this country! No kidding. (I know: how very dystopian of me, to predict that outcome.) But we Americans, as a group, are now frighteningly risk-averse, no pun intended.
It was clear that Patrick did a lot of free-soloing, as exemplified in those early films. We all did, especially as an extension of the Joshua Tree cragging culture, which was a natural outcome of the small scale of the terrain, ease of access, and the grippy nature of the rock, factors which bear similarity to the solo aesthetic expressed on British gritstone. Toward the end of the late-period Stonemaster era, which I define as the early to mid-80s, after the initial competition events at Bardonecchia and Arco, Patrick came out with a statement that on-sight climbing was really the premier expression of the whole rockclimbing endeavor. At the time I found this disingenuous, because we Californians were so adamantly against sport climbing and hang dogging specifically, it being primarily a European and Australian vector. I felt he had appropriated the stance which we'd been championing all along. But in retrospect, I've revised that and I can appreciate his position, given how much free-soloing he did, and observing the qualities inherent in the goal of the sport climbing red point, wherein an on-sight flash was (and is still) held as the gold standard.
I also like your earlier reference to the similarities between Patrick's movement and that of Henry Barber. In so many pictures of Hot Henry climbing, we see him cocked into some pretty outlandish high step moves, much the same as is recorded in photographs and films of Edlinger (Le Blonde). Good eye, Arne!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 15, 2018 - 09:49pm PT
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The Rock and Ice article by Ed Douglas, posted way up thread by Marlow, chronicles Patrick's Edliger's life arc and is quite good!
Here's a re-post of the film short offered earlier by nut story:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
And something much more in-depth, which is mentioned in the Ed Douglas article, about Edlinger and Berhault, old friends on an alpine enchainment project.
(... for those of us who can't understand French, at least the music is pretty good!)
The Rope of Dreams:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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