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scuffy b
climber
On the dock in the dark
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Jan 20, 2009 - 06:41pm PT
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Thanks, Dane.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Hagerman, ID
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Jan 20, 2009 - 11:23pm PT
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Dane: You blog Diva!!-----thanks for crediting me for the last three Alaska photos you posted.
I swear: I will send you the CD of Deborah pics soon.
Fritz
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RDB
Trad climber
Iss WA
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Jan 20, 2009 - 11:49pm PT
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Fitz...sorry man! Certainly not an intended slight. Happy to go back and credit you with the photos, past, present and/or any thing in the future :)
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jan 20, 2009 - 11:53pm PT
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I've made that mistake as well ... what with the frenzied fun and all.
It's important to recognize that that darned edit button goes away after a bit of time, so changes are near impossible after that point...
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RDB
Trad climber
Iss WA
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Jan 22, 2009 - 01:55pm PT
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I was looking at my hickory handled piolet this morning. Noticed it has a dbl set of teeth in the pick and 3 rivets in the handle and the single CHOUINARD script, which makes it a later production axe. Axe was purchased in late '76 or '77. Anyone know when they stopped building ash and hickory shafts?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 23, 2009 - 12:20am PT
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I recall that those shaft options were replaced by the laminated bamboo but the date must be earlier than '76. Have to ask Tom about the switch.
Here is the house quiver of bamboo axes.
Left-Original Piolet from the early 70's with four teeth that I added by the shaft. Two crosspins.
Mimi's upside-down Zero and my Zero Northwall hammer.Three crosspins. The darker tools have been pine tarred.
Reverse stamp on the older Piolet.
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Jan 23, 2009 - 01:10am PT
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What was sold in Europe may be different than what was made specifically for the american market and sold by Chouinard. I think that 1978-79 was the shift from bamboo to the blue fiberglass shafts. Ash was rarely seen in North America and hickory seem to have disappeared by 1974 and replaced with bamboo about then. Rexilon was available while the bugs were worked out of the bamboo. Oh those nasty cracks next to the tangs. It took skill not to break gear.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jan 23, 2009 - 11:21am PT
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Grossman!
Front and center: clean your weapons soldier.
Maybe start with some cotton wadding with the polishing compound. (Never Dull)
Maybe amend the polish in the wadding with a plastic Scotch Brite to knock off the rust; or some extremely fine steel wool.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 23, 2009 - 12:04pm PT
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Well change my name to Rusty! LOL
Definitely Scotchbrite time, when I can carve it out.
I don't recall a RR ice axe either. Just ropes, carabiners and shoes from him.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jan 23, 2009 - 12:34pm PT
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I vaguely remember Robbins importing those orange axes...
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RDB
Trad climber
Iss WA
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Jan 23, 2009 - 01:12pm PT
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Todd may remember better than I. But iirc, the axe Robbin's Mtn Shop (Mountain Paraphernalia) sold was made by "La Parade" and was the Rene Desmaison model. Hell for stout with a metal shaft/ plastic grip and a funky bump on the top of the head. All in day glow orange with a blue handle. I took a couple of them with me to SE Alaska on a surveying job in '77.
This is the hickory piolet I was thinking about. 3 rivet shaft, dbl teeth and 55cm. It was bought in England. Thanks for the observations.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jan 23, 2009 - 03:53pm PT
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This one's for Rusty!
I mean, barely presuming to post here w/o so fine a grade of steel wool, let alone blueing...Sir!
Before any of out times, thank you, but here's an ice piton (50s?)
with a rock pin of the same era for comparison
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 24, 2009 - 10:36pm PT
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Ahh, the era of drive-ins! The movies were gone by the time anyone really worked that one out. Nice one ,Doug.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Jan 25, 2009 - 07:13am PT
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I had that Forrest ice hammer, and a piolet along with the Chouinard Alpine Hammer. Dana Couloir was the first place I used them back in 1972 if I recall correctly. With Chouinard-Salewa cramps and Galibier Super Guides (great boots).
I had a Jensen pack also EDIT a green one.
Don't know what happened to all that stuff over the years, I know I sold some when hard up for money.
Still have my North Face Ibex sleeping bag from 1969.
EDIT
Still reading through this thread. I had a Simond Chacal. I thought it was cool and used it in Lee Vining.
EDIT
I had a pair of Trappeurs, heavy as a friggin' car, had a little 'gaiter-like' 'sleeve' or whatever you want to call it (cuff?) at the top. Only used them a couple of times.
Doug wrote: It's odd, maybe, that I don't recall Don ever going to the Valley. Grew up in Walnut Creek,.
Hey, I was born and raised in Walnut Creek and Lafayette. Was Jensen from there?
Don lost it on black ice on his bicycle and slid headfirst into a stone wall while a Postdoc in Mathematics in Scotland in the early 70s.
For some reason I always thought he was hit by a car while bicyling in Scotland. Regardless it was a loss. I met him once but I can't recall where, perhaps one day at the PSOM, but he wasn't instructing there when I went, at least I don't think so.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 25, 2009 - 10:56pm PT
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From the 72 catalog.
Two pounds!!!!
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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Jan 25, 2009 - 11:08pm PT
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Damn, those are some beautiful tools! I love the new pick/adze of the silver BD Raven, but the cursive engraved name and bamboo/hickory/ash to metal contrast can't be beat. Those ice daggers, however...YIKES!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jan 26, 2009 - 01:21am PT
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Always thought that Jensen shot was pretty artful.
2 pounds: hardly anything to it in terms of structure; in a way like monocoque automotive design, nothing in the way of framework, all exoskeleton.
That one looks like it has an arched zipper on the back side of the pack (up top), rather than along the back panel as all I had seen were fitted.
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RDB
Trad climber
Iss WA
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Jan 26, 2009 - 02:09am PT
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The first Jensen's I saw were all green and had a zipper on the front of the pack as pictured above from the catalog. The second version was rust colored and had a zipper next to your back. The Giant Jensens I saw were also rust colored and zip next to your back.
Ray's pack in the picture below has the same zipper placement.
Ray Brooks photo
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jan 26, 2009 - 10:46am PT
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Let the zippers fall where they may... The Ultima Thule I recall carrying for years had a flap top.
Here's my take on the "most copied pack ever" or whatever. Designs evolve.
The Jensen Pack that made me sit up and take notice was a day pack he made for guiding on Temple Crag. Light nylon, same basic shape, late 60s. Well under one pound. Don also had an overnite alpine version, size of the Rivendell and Thule.
It was his patterns for that size that I gave to Larry Horton one day in Berkeley to launch Rivendell. He paid Don a royalty and eventually produced Don's Bombshelter tent too. Then became miffed at me for redesigning the pack until it became the Ultima Thule. But designs evolve, the Thule carried better and by then Don had died.
Back up a little. In the spring of 1970 I skied 36 days along the John Muir Trail and the Sierra Crest. Still the best expedition of my life. Carl "P-Nut" McCoy built our wonderful Hexcel ski prototypes for the trip. His girlfriend Claudia and I built two Jensen Packs and a Bombshelter that totaled five pounds. Each pack weighed 17 ounces and carried up to 70 pounds. They were the first really big Jensen Packs; I ballooned-out Don's pattern.
The packs skied superbly. The basic genius of Don's design was to get a soft pack to cling better to your back the tighter you packed it, instead of turning into a sausage that rolled its weight against your turn to slam-dance you onto the snow. Again.
And skiing even more than alpine climbing is the ultimate test of how a pack design will follow the motion of your back.
The hidden problem with the design, that only became obvious once I expanded it, was that its softness wouldn't support lift straps for the shoulder straps. Many cycles of evolving it into the Ultima Thule with Tom Frost's help and encouragement, made the bottom compartment wrap far more tightly around your hips and took more weight off your shoulders. But with big loads, not enough.
A fundamental limit of the design had been reached. And exceeded, I could tell every time I lowered a 60# load off of shoulders beginning to cramp. Don Jensen had tacitly pointed that out, I realized, by carrying all his really big loads in an external frame pack. Later, internal frames would bridge the difference, getting the load closer to your back than his Kelty, but also supporting those shoulder-stabilizer straps that would give relief to the tops of shoulder muscles.
See? The zippers and the rest of the stuff that holds the load mean nothing compared to how it is made to ride on your back. How you support it is the trick.
I later designed, on paper, a small frame element that would allow the Thule to grow shoulder-stabilizer straps. But by then packs with two internal stays were the state of the art, and I never built it. The internal frames would carry a big load all right, but they went careening off in their own wrong direction until you could heft a seven- or even eight-pound wonder. Even with a monster load, there's something just wrong about 10% or more of the load you're humping up the trail going into merely the sack to put it in.
Back to the Jensen, I read on the Internet that Rivendell produced a thousand of them over a decade. And hundreds of Bombshelters. (Sweet tent, btw, but tiny. On our ski trip I modified ski poles to hold it up and we only carried the ridgepole. Patterns on request, tho the state of that art has moved on from A-frames.) Someone in Washington is now reviving the original Jensen Pack design yet again. Sticking to tradition is honorable in its way -- it's the conservative path -- but don't get stuck; if Jensen were alive I'm sure he would have carried an Ultima Thule instead, because it made his own idea work better. And then like the rest of us he would have moved on to an internal frame. It's like the Einstein t-shirt I saw last night: "Life is like a bicycle. You have to keep moving forward or you'll fall over."
I hounded Wayne Gregory for years about weight, and even cooked the first carbon-fiber stays in my oven for his packs. He built me a custom lightweight for climbing Ama Dablam with Frost in 1979, but didn't sell anything light until after I had designed MontBell's Wishbone suspension packs 15 years later.
Now there are some more diverse ideas cropping up. Some really innovative, and some de-volutions that lock up your back. I'm sitting on an idea that I think could be the Next Big Thing, if any companies out there are interested.
Long live the genius of Don Jensen. I've written a bit more about him, but I'm waiting to find the photo to go with it and then I'll start another thread.
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