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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Apr 16, 2010 - 12:58am PT
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I've seen it advertised in army green or black for *tactical* use, and in a blue-white twist for the arborists.
I don't know why anybody would buy it today, considering the comparable priced alternatives.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 16, 2010 - 01:00am PT
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Yep, for several years and then we switch to this yellow, completely woven rope from MSR that we called the "MSR Knot Special". That stuff we used until the duct tape holding the hairballs down wouldn't go through the biners anymore without too much hassle.
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Apr 16, 2010 - 01:18am PT
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I remember setting up a Tyrollean between the rim and the Monolith in Pinnacles. We stretched that cord as tight as our little 14 year-old paws could and I was nominated to be the first across. I remember the "bump-bump-bump" as I slid almost out of control down into the canyon until I reached the lowest point. Our stretching had down seemingly nothing as I sat spinning and bouncing between the sky and death in the boulders and poison oak below. I now faced the arduous prussik up to the top of the monolith. Sweat, tears and blisters were produced in equal quantities. But we were now officially mountain climbers!
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 16, 2010 - 01:18am PT
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ultra classic thread, nice bump mountainbob
I thinks a set of crossed wood skis might complete that picture too.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Boulder Creek CA
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Apr 16, 2010 - 02:42am PT
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My first rope was a spool of telephone wire. I couldn’t rap with it, but it worked for a Tyrolean, until it broke and dumped me on my back in our yard. I also played with hemp clothesline, trying to teach myself to rappel, but that hardly counts as a rope.
My next rope was 60’ of ½” Manila that I used and wore out, until someone gave me a length of Army green nylon that I used on the basalt cliffs of the Boise River. Then I discovered Holubar’s white Colombia Nylon. I took about a 100’ leader fall on the east face of Tepee’s Pillar and ripped out a line of knife blades trying to find a route that Royal did there. (Chouinard took a similar fall on the North Face of Teewinot around the same time.) I had just started using a swami belt.
Up until that time it was just a single bowline around the waist and I didn’t learn a bowline on a coil until later. I can still tie a bowline around my waist in less than two seconds. We used to fantasize jumping off the top of Half Dome holding the end of the rope and tying in before hitting the end of the rope, but nobody was quite that crazy (might be fun to try with a base rig on your back). A bowline in Goldline tends to untie, so everyone added a half-hitch. I developed an extra securing pass that I call the Cochrane twist, by feeding the rope from the half-hitch back through the original loop to lay alongside the standing rope.
Then I bought a 5/16” Goldline that I used as a rappel line and to haul my pack for solo climbing. It was the only rope with me when I free soloed Irene’s Arête and the Grand Teton North Face in 1963. I also brought it along as a rappel line when Jim Baldwin and I did the left side of Goodrich Pinnacle on GPA, perhaps the second ascent of it. It twisted madly while retrieving the rappel and Jim lost his cool (to be polite). Twice I had to hand-over-hand back up and rerig with the two ropes held about three feet apart by two anchors. I still have that rope, and it’s probably still about as good as it ever was.
I was possibly Doug Tompkins' first employee at the North Face in San Francisco, and we participated in the annual ski show at the Cow Palace. (He introduced me to Bob Dylan’s music about that time.) Austrian champions Anderl Molterer and Pepi Gramshammer were giving ski demos on a tall ramp covered with jute mats; and I was giving climbing demos by Jumaring up and rappelling back down a Goldline rope tied to the tall ceiling.
Most of my climbs in the 60’s and 70’s were done with Goldline lead ropes.
However I still have about six perlon style ropes with plenty of wear on most of them, starting with a Chouinard Fantasia.
And I'm not old; I'm not, I'm not, I'm not!
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jstan
climber
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Apr 16, 2010 - 03:22am PT
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No one in their right mind would climb on Goldline.
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Edge
Trad climber
New Durham, NH
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Apr 16, 2010 - 09:35am PT
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Here is a pic of my first rope, a 3/8" x 150' Goldline bought via EMS mail order in 1977. I think I still have it in my climbing closet upstairs.
Man, did that thing stretch! Made a funny sound too rapping over the triple woven cords.
I think it was the only rope I owned until I bought my first kernmantle in 1980.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Apr 16, 2010 - 10:34am PT
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Yup. I guy I learned to climb with when we were 13 bought some. Got lots of use at Rubidoux.
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ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
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Apr 16, 2010 - 01:15pm PT
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I remember -
Raw red hands with little yellow hairs in them from catching someone on hip belay.
Rope so stiff that it was hard to get a tight bowline on a coil.
When you did fall on aforementioned bowline, really uncomfortable scrapes and grooves in the rib area.
The kinks, oh the kinks!
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Apr 16, 2010 - 03:37pm PT
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State of the Art 1962
Hey Cochrane I want to hear some stories about the old SF North Face and Carol Doda!
Les Grand Tetons.
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SGropp
Mountain climber
Eastsound, Wa
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Apr 16, 2010 - 04:02pm PT
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I actually started to climb with hemp ropes with the Seattle Mountaineers in 1969. There were various " rope stations" around the Seattle area where you could check out a rope to use for a trip.
The first real rope I had was a "Goldlon", a kermantle type rope also made by Columbia, It was so stiff that it would stand up straight for about 8'. It made a good rope for aiding on as it seemed to have minimal stretch. I took a long zipper fall off the Narrow Arrow Direct at Index on that rope.
I think that rope ended it's career as a rope swing.
The first time I climbed on an Edilred rope was a real eye opener.
I'm surprised we persisted [and survived ] at the sport, starting out with such primitive gear.
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Ain't no flatlander
climber
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Apr 16, 2010 - 05:07pm PT
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Assorted trivia:
Plymouth Ropes was the original source of Goldline (and greenline for the military). They made a "soft lay" and a "hard lay," which referred to the tightness of the twist; the latter was what climbers used because the soft was too stretchy (but handled better). Plymouth got shut down in a hostile takeover in the 60s and sold off to Columbian. Two ex-Plymouth employees then started New England Ropes and one of their products was Skyline. Nowadays, New England (Maxim ropes) is owned by Teufelberger, the Austrian company that used to own Edelweiss (now moved to France).
If you ever learned that an "inside bowline" was stronger than an "outside bowline," that was a holdover from the days of laid ropes. Nearly all laid ropes had a counterclockwise twist (called hawser laid) so how the knot was tied affected strength. With kernmantles, there is no significant difference.
Price was the only real reason laid ropes stayed around into the early 80s. Kernmantle climbing ropes were introduced in 1951 (Edelrid, then Edelweiss 2 years later) but not many people could afford them.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Apr 16, 2010 - 06:39pm PT
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My first rope was a 120' white Columbian that I bought from Holubar's in 1959. Goldline was thet "new fangled" stuff that was "too stiff."
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jstan
climber
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Apr 16, 2010 - 10:39pm PT
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I think I had some of that white Columbian. Until you got up sixty or seventy feet you were looking at ground fall.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Boulder Creek CA
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Apr 18, 2010 - 12:43am PT
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Guido, I'm not sure I actually ever saw Carol Doda. However I was busy mounting skis in the basement shop of The North Face. The ceiling of the shop was the floor of the stage where she was doing her topless dancing act. (That's back when she was about the only one doing that sort of thing where the public might be aware of it). There were cracks in the shop ceiling that allowed occasional intriguing glimpses. As a kid from Boise, I was much to naive to have any proper appreciation of such things. I might have been more interested if she was a rock climber.
As a refugee from Camp 4, I was running big main frame computers for Fireman's Fund American Insurance during the midnight shift. Then during the day I was bookkeeper/purchaser for Gerry Mountain Sports on Grant Avenue. Then in the late afternoon and evening I was bookkeeper/ski-mounter for The North Face on Colombia Ave. No one seemed to think it was odd that I was the bookkeeper for two competing companies; the climbing world was much too small at that time.
On weekends we'd race our sports cars to Yosemite. I started with a white Austin Healey 100 and migrated to a red MG Midget. These hardly competed with Galen Rowell's Corvettes and later AC Cobra 289. But there were tricks to manipulating the traffic.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 18, 2010 - 01:10am PT
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Getting Old if you have, green behind the ears if you haven't
I take the 5th
peace
karl
(1976 in high school taking classes with YMS)
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Apr 18, 2010 - 02:03am PT
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Yo Tom
I heard some great stories in the past about Doda and the North Face crowd. Maybe it was Art,"The Move," Gran that was involved?
Guess you were pretty naive if you were just mounting skis in those days! lol
Oh yes, had some insane trips to Yosemite with Galen in Corvettes and Nomads. El Bravo to the max.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Apr 18, 2010 - 11:08pm PT
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Chiloe-
That shot on the S. Face of the Matron brought back a memory of my climb; about 1966. Kletter Spiders were all the rage in Yosemite around 1965, and Chris Fredericks convinced me to get a pair. I thought that they edged great, but really sucked on friction. Wore mine on Arches Terrace, and retired them as soon as possible shortly thereafter. They were OK shoes for heel-and-toe jamming. Stiff as steel I-beams.
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