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MSmith
Mountain climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 30, 2005 - 11:35am PT
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jeff benowitz --“if the placement wasn't good enough to use without using a drill, than by definition it should be in the hole count.”
Jeff, I won’t argue that one can’t sanely hold an ethic that touching the drill, even for a stroke, should count as a hole. I will argue that you’re advancing an amazing standard. A great deal of hard aid on El Cap involves heading, typically #2’s in spotty seams where you have to hunt down pockets to get placements. You don’t have to go very many placements until you have an otherwise usable natural pocket except for a crystal or obstruction on one side or the other. Typically a single whack of the pick of the hammer into the pocket and problem is gone. Is that basically placing a hole? If so, then what about just smashing the head in and letting it take out the crystal directly? Same effect. Is that a hole? What about chipping the top of a nubbin to sling it? Another hole there? Or maybe not as long as you chip it with the pick of your hammer instead of with your drill. I have two concerns with where you are going. First, your standard is amazingly high. A crystal’s modification and we have a hole, add it to the count. Second, you are holding us to an unprecedented level of scrutiny, a standard which the Yosemite climbing community has never held any of their own to. Climbs like the Sea and Zenyatta (the standards of the day) have all sorts of overt modifications which no one has been worried about. To paraphrase Charles Bronson, “If someone is a murder, they are probably a liar too.” We can only assume that climbs like the Sea have every manner of modification from a stroke of the hammer to things that are half way (or more) to a bat hook behind the top of a flake. Have you even thought to ask the Bird if he knows how many total “holes” (using your standard) are in his climbs? The answer is undoubtedly “no.” Had the Bird done Wings of Steel using our style no one would be challenging his crystals. Is the real issue here how the climb was done, or who did the climb? I should also add that a hole “by definition” is a cylindrical shaft, an inherently concave structure. The enhancements on Wings of Steel are not concave. Come up with a term like “dirty” if you feel the need for a label, but “hole” isn’t the term to use.
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MSmith
Mountain climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 30, 2005 - 11:37am PT
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deuce4 – “In aid, of course, it has always been an occasional technique to break off a loose flake or something to make a placement, but think about it en masse, and you may be coming closer to the questions people were raising at the time.”
It seems like part of the complaint is the ‘quantity’ of modifications. I totally agree that it is a legit concern, and well expressed. I can’t recall the figure, but Wings of Steel has somewhere around 150 hooks. At least 10% of these saw modification. I feel safe to say that less that 20% did. That would come to about 20 -25 over the climb. (Richard, if that doesn’t jive with your recollection, feel free to jump in.) So I don’t know if that falls into the category of “occasional” which, as you acknowledge, is standard Yosemite ethics, or whether if qualifies as “en mass.” I could have described our number of modifications as “several,” but to me “several” means 3-5, maybe 3-10. So I used the word “many.” The only reason Wings of Steel could work as a climb is its less than vertical nature. On an overhanging wall you need a pit to make things go. On the Great Slab a flat surface is reliable. The number of micro-ledges and flakes on the Slab with flat tops usually left us with the problem of figuring out which one was best, not where to find one at all. Moreover, most of the flakes on the Slab are too small to be banging into as they are smaller than the diameter of the drill itself! If Jeff wants to count every modification as a hole, then consider the climb to have 165-170 holes.
“there's a big difference in the experience if you have a drill and/or chisel by your side and are willing to enhance to your level.”
It seems we are back an argument of ‘quality’ of enhancement. As I think should be clear from my post that kicked off this debate, we didn’t modify flakes “to [our] level.” If a flake was otherwise usable but had an obstruction at the back, we chipped the obstruction to get a flat spot big enough to take the tip of a Leeper Narrow (which as you know has a tip of almost no size). We didn’t say, “Gee, while I’m here, I think I’ll just bring this puppy down to my comfort level.”
One point I’ll throw in, although I realize this deviates from the topic. Regarding hook modifications, we could have said it never happened and sold the story. But we have attempted to be honest and transparent, offering both supporting points to our climb and points that are open to criticism so that those following this thread can form a judgment based on the entire truth. Our forthrightness should be worth something.
“I always thought that the left side of El Cap slab will go free someday.”
A great point. I don’t know if by “always” you meant in ’82 which was before sticky rubber. At the time it never crossed my mind that it could go free someday. With each passing year it seems more conceivable.
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MSmith
Mountain climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 30, 2005 - 11:38am PT
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Gene, Lot’s of good points being made. I don’t see the complaint of the bat hook traverse exiting the climb as one of them. The climb’s last pitch had a total of 13 placements which consisted of 3 rivets and 10 bat hooks because we only had 3 rivets on us. That fact of the bat hooks is inconsequential to the intent or essence of anything we’ve said. Every topo we’ve ever released or has been published notes the bat hooks. It’s not a secret that accidentally escaped from the closet.
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MSmith
Mountain climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 30, 2005 - 11:40am PT
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Farrokh Bulsara–“This is the fatal flaw with the "method". If I can't tell which flakes have been ENHANCED, then am I allowed to ENHANCE my hook placements in order to do the route? How do I know I am even doing the correct route?
Russ (do we have to be friends to call you Fish?),
Well, dang. Maybe we needed to do enough modification to every flake that our path would be clear? Hey, I do agree that exact flake finding is a challenge on Wings. There are enough bolts and rivets to point the direction, but there is no way any two ascents will use the exact same placements. I think Richard spoke with Slater after his trip to the 5th anchor. Ask him if Slater ever complained of getting lost. Regarding this thread, it’s just about to the place of needing a high speed connection.
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MSmith
Mountain climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 30, 2005 - 11:41am PT
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Piton Pete, E1, E2, E3, that was classic. Wings of Steel, A5 E2!
Hey, this tread has been a good discussion. The time it’s taking me to download it tells me it’s probably about run its course. Of course I’ll be willing to respond more, but if you don’t hear back don’t think I’m bailing. Hope it’s been as enlightening for you as for me.
MS
Drill First, Think Later™ lol
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Landgolier
climber
the flatness
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Oct 30, 2005 - 02:15pm PT
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Man, this is one for the thinking caps. Lemme offer up something that struck me, a crappy aid climber but a slab fanatic, as interesting.
Most hard aid is vertical or overhung most of the time, whereas what these guys were doing was a massively sustained slab. Their technique certainly can't be called clean, but it seems like what they were really doing was using hooks on slab the way that you use pitons on more "normal" terrian. I mean, the whole principle of nailing with modern hard steel pins is that you're going to make the rock conform, ever so slighly, to the pin, and the next guy's going to nail it out a little more, and so on and so on. Granted eventually people are going to start stuffing brassies and offset aliens in those holes and the route is going to go clean (or at least cleaner), but it's not like there isn't some rock destruction going on.
Your average pin placement certainly takes out a crystal or three, which by our ethics is ok for FA's. It seems like the only difference here is that these guys whacked the rock with the pick or the tip of a drill rather than the pro itself, which while it reminds most of us of chipping holds or ditch witching a head placement isn't really that different from blasting an Arkansas Toothpick LA into some crack. Yeah, the next guys that come along aren't going to be able to use (or find) all the same little flake ridges, so maybe they do 50% new placements. Granted these suckers would be harder to see than your average pin scar, but maybe after 5-6 ascents there's enough of them going on that the route goes clean. Yeah, the drill/pick would have to come out on early repeats, but ethically I think this is closer to just nailing on a repeat than it is to drilling new rivets or bat hook holes. Maybe not exactly the same, but certainly closer. Perhaps it will also go free some day and will do so at a lower grade than it would have in virgin state, but from what I understand of the free ascents of the Nose it basically only goes because of the pin scars.
Maybe I'm just bullshitting here, but again, what's so radically different about bashing some crystals in a crack to make a pin fit and picking some boogers off a microflake to make a hook stick? It's definitely not classic hooking ethics, but I think it's fair to say that these guys were also pushing the boundaries of hooking. Again, maybe on sustained slab it should be ok to use hooks the way pins are used on stuff that is vertical or past vertical.
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deuce4
Big Wall climber
the Southwest
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Oct 30, 2005 - 02:57pm PT
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MSmith, thanks for your comments and openness. Apologies for the gruff tone directed at your route's ascentionists in general.
I don't really think you need to justify your climb. It's all about the personal experience in the end, not what other people think. There's no need to compare.
The important thing to do is to be at peace with your own efforts, which you seem to be.
As far as the slab someday going free, your route will probably show the way and be the first line people will attempt.
All the best-
John Middendorf
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MSmith
Mountain climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 30, 2005 - 05:22pm PT
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John,
Thanks. All the best to you as well.
--Mark
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 30, 2005 - 08:05pm PT
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Akutzer says: "Who even cares anymore?"
Funny you said you read the whole thread, Richard Jensen cares and that's why it's being discussed.
You missed it totally dude as you were just looking for something to make your own independent rant on people to make your own self look like you're so far above everything.
Get over yourself dude and go climbing ......:-)
Edit; this isn't the real Akutzer, but an imposter.
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jack herer
climber
chico, ca
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Oct 30, 2005 - 09:20pm PT
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please someone f*#kin climb this route now
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Oct 31, 2005 - 12:47am PT
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Ok, where to start???
LOVED the "hush thy self" post. PERFECT play off my "no posting on Sabbath" post. Nice one, Yo.
Slater didn't "fail" on the route because he couldn't do it or couldn't FOLLOW it--he bailed because of insane heat. I'm sympathetic, having been there, done that. As everybody knows, the SW side CAN be a reflecter oven, especially the slab.
My little contribution on "enhancements".... It has been claimed that our "enhancing" was somehow retrograde, because that wasn't the style of the time. But it WAS, and it has been widespread and common throughout aid climbing history. Bill Westbay makes no bones about the fact that they were chiseling copperhead placements on PO Wall (you can read it in Yosemite Climber, where he refers to "using a chisel to clean flakes" from seams so that copperheads would stick). We've already mentioned what we found on the Sea, which means that either the FA team or some very respected teams (two through four) were "enhancing down to their level" on subsequent ascents. On this very thread I have been bashed for supposedly "dissing some great aid climbers, like Bridwell and Beyer," so if Beyer is a "great" aid climber, then HE has been "enhancing" and "enhancing" like crazy to get those sandstone routes to go. I could go on and on, but I'll defer to Landgolier, who makes the same points I would have, and he does it much more succinctly than I would have.
"Pitiful self-righteousness" and "arrogant dimwit"? I'm baffled. We're bashed if we don't "defend the route," and if we defend the route then it's "pitiful self-righteousness"? Of course, being baffled is just the sort of thing an "arrogant DIMWIT" WOULD say in this context, so I'm hung on my own petard. :-)
However, THIS passage does seem to deserve a BIT more of a "pitifully self-righteous" reply: "The first ascentionist's lifelong insistence on promoting their actions as a high standard simply because of the resulting difficulty of their manufactured route seems to suggest that they therefore feel deserving of accolades as pioneers, instead of what it finally really appears to be, a trio of inexperienced climbers trying to make a name for themselves."
Well, as I rememeber it, we were not "promoting our actions... as [though we were] pioneers... trying to make a name for [ourselves]." What I remember is that we couldn't even get the route GOING before some cowardly souls gathered just enough courage to jug our fixed lines in the night, chopped our bolts and rivets in the night, pulled our ropes down (have I mentioned in the night?), defecated all over our gear and ropes, and then spent the following weeks (and then years) stirring up a controversy in the Valley (and ultimately all over) that we wanted no part of and did our best to communicate honestly in order to resolve. But, these "protectors of purity" did not want to communicate--instead they wanted to engage in a smear campaign, which they were able to effectively pursue because, being well-known climbers, they were able to get books and articles published telling their side, all, of course, without ever having done the route. As I remember it, we got DRAGGED into a one-sided "discussion" in which we weren't even ALLOWED to "promote" ANYTHING, not even the truth.
As I remember it, correct me if I'm wrong, Robbins DID Harding's route. Isn't that how it went? I mean, shouldn't the "protectors of purity" BE themselves pure? Of course, I'm so dim that I don't expect to actually "get it," so help me out here people.
As I rememeber it, ALL we did to "promote" anything was to steadfastly deny the universally-repeated claim that the route was a rivet ladder, NOT claiming that we had done anything "high-standard". Oh, and we DID "promote" that we thought it was in "bad style" for one to chop a route he haven't climbed. Oh, and finally, we DID "promote" that we thought that it was in "bad style" to empty one's bowels on somebody else's gear. So, I guess we WERE "promoting" a few things about the route after all, but I just can't remember "promoting" ANY of the things that John says we were trying to "promote".
I would like to get to some productive, ethical discussions, but it seems that things keep coming back to our motives, our characters, our intentions.... like this: "Because it seems apparent that the ascentionists haven't climbed too many routes other than those that have a significant 'reputation' of top difficulty, which they repeated with what seems like the sole purpose to gain credibility for themselves and for their ability to publicly announce to the world that their route was harder, it seems difficult to ascertain that these climbers are climbing purely for their own 'personal experience' as claimed. In fact, it seems like the sole motive is to convince the world that Wings of Steel was somehow ahead of its time, despite the fact that they admit enhancing the natural features considerably."
It would be NICE to stick to some objective facts, but over the years this has perpetually been denied us. It's just amazing to me, John, what insight you apparently have into my soul... oh, and of a route you haven't done. When you say, "enhancing the natural features considerably," I have to wonder how you are able to ADD the "considerably" part. BECAUSE we have attempted to be totally transparent in this thread, we have discussed things that would have been FAR better for us to not discuss, and nobody doing a subsequent ascent would have ever known we "enhanced" at ALL, much less "considerably". People seem to keep forgetting that the Sea WAS "considerably" enhanced!
But the best part of this post is that it sets up yet another damned if we do, and damned if we don't scenario. If we had NOT done any other "top reputation" routes, then John et al would continue to float the line that we were "inexperienced kids" who didn't know a hook from a duckbilled platypus. But, as I said earlier, "partially" in order to defend ourselves against just such charges, we HAVE actually done some "top reputation" routes, thereby demonstrating that we DID know that a hook is a curved, pointy piece of metal, and a duckbilled platypus is a marsupial. (At least, I THINK we demonstrated all that!) And that "partially" is rather important, since, as I ALSO said, we did those routes "for ourselves" as well because we wanted to know for ourselves where we stood.
Maybe the idea is that I MUST be an "arrogant dimwit" because I haven't yet figured out a way out of such a dichotomy, yet I am stupid enough to keep trying. I don't know. The "murkiness" to ME is that I can't feel my way through all the psycho-babble to find any objective facts in such posts.
I AM also quite baffled about exactly HOW I have "in so many words" dissed some great aid climbers, like Bridwell. In all my posts that mention him, I have expressed only a genuine respect for Bridwell. It is deeply question-begging, John, for you to think that just because I suggest that the Bird's El Cap routes quite apparently have had "enhancements," that I'm dissing him. You assume that "enhancing" is bad, then you assume the the Bird would never do anything "bad" like that, and ONLY "inexperienced kids" like us would ever be so retrograde as to do something that "bad," so for us to drag the Bird down to our level MUST be dissing him. Yet, I have expressed ONLY respect for Bridwell, which I honestly do have, EVEN THOUGH I am confident that people on his FA teams HAVE enhanced their placements. Regarding Beyer, yes, I have dissed him, but, then, well... I simply deny your claim that he is a "great" aid climber. As I remember, you were one of the ones most frothing at the mouth about Intifada, lo those many years ago. But, the FACTS speak for themselves, I guess--IF the facts are allowed to get out.
By the way, this thread is getting insanely long at this point, so we're all clearly in the mode of trying to keep the pathetic dial-up riff-raff (sorry, Mark) off this thread now... so I'm just doing my part. :-)
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Oct 31, 2005 - 12:56am PT
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John, you SAY in your later post that we didn't need to justify the route because it was all just for our own experience. Mark quickly lets you off the hook, but we've been the brunt of some of your own published critique of the route, so I'm not quite that easy.
This latest post of yours seems not to be written by the same person who issued your earlier diatribe. What's up? If the valley boys would have had the attitude you have most recently expressed, Wings WOULD have faded into obscurity, this thread wouldn't exist, YOU wouldn't have published some of the things you have about the route, and WE would never have had anything to say about it.
Just as we had NOTHING to say about Ring of Fire--because we did it just for ourselves, and we FULLY expect that route to fade into obscurity, that would have been the fate of Wings. But people like you have perpetually disallowed that to happen. So, please explain. What's with the sudden attitude shift?
I just wish there had been a way to have this very discussion about twenty years ago!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Oct 31, 2005 - 01:00am PT
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BTW, even the route name has been problematical for some on this thread, like it is provocative or something. We named the route after the Kansas song, "Icarus, Borne on Wings of Steel." We listened to that song over and over, and it fit our mood at the time.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Oct 31, 2005 - 01:09am PT
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Finally, I have some ethical questions.
When Mark and I did Wings, we each weighed about 150/155 pounds. And, we were trying to keep any excess gear weight off of us when we went up on lead. Even so, we were pulling off hook flakes, and they weren't ALL undercut. So, ultimately we found a more or less "continuous" series of flakes up the route, but those that held us would probably not hold someone weighing, say, 180 pounds.
So, for the purposes of argument, let's assume that the route is currently repeatable in reasonable style by someone weighing 150 pounds, but it is NOT repeatable in reasonable style by someone weighing 180 pounds.
Did Mark and I have a responsibility to weight ourselves down with gear until we reached some sort of "average" aid climber weight, say, 175 pounds, thereby ensuring that the route would be repeatable in reasonable style by the average-weight aid climber?
Furthermore, now that the route is in its current state, do climbers heavier than, say, 160 pounds have a responsiblity to stay off of the route so that they don't risk ruining the route for those lighter folks who COULD climb it in reasonable style?
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Darnell
Big Wall climber
Chicago
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Oct 31, 2005 - 01:42am PT
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I found this post by the Fish in an old RC.com
thread.http://rockclimbing.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=99540#99540
"Hey ya,
The friction hook is top secret.....
but..... think of a slab of C4 Stealth rubber mounted to a metal plate about 4 inches long and able to flex side to side. All this is mounted on a short "arm" about the length of a FISH Hook.... clip in, apply weight, and welcome to the afterlife..... if it blows"
and this
"also from the top secret drawer.....
the lead head.... like a copperhead but lead... and you use a mini torch to melt it into the crack. Keeps you under the umbrella called "hammerless aid".
"try it sometime"
Russ "
Since I weigh 190 lbs. I wonder if the new millinium hard boy's will give me the ok to use the friction hook? I know I am way down at the bottom of the valley pecking order list, but maybe if I buy them some OE??
Let the games begin!!
hmmmm... Maybe another thread should be started for the dial up ppl. wings of steal part two?
Kerry Livgrin(sp?) is the man!!
_
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Oct 31, 2005 - 01:50am PT
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"Had the Bird done Wings of Steel..."
(emphasis mine)
...well if he had, it wouldn't have such a freakin gay name, that much is certain!
edit:
i just keep picturing big hair and hearing loud journey ballads whenever i hear that name.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 31, 2005 - 01:52am PT
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Yikes now you have to be a certain weight to do this route, that only means light weights may have a chance. Ironic isn't it?
Thus we may now have come to the conclusion this route is of a rarefied and subtle nature?
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nickh
climber
St. Louis, MO
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Oct 31, 2005 - 09:55am PT
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"and a duckbilled platypus is a marsupial"-madbolter1
A duck-billed platypus is a monotreme, not a marsupial. Now all your claims are TRULY suspect!!!!!!!
Nick
edit-spelling
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Oct 31, 2005 - 10:36am PT
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Nickh, we are both correct, depending upon which experts you believe. The platypus IS, as you say, a monotreme according to most experts. However, I am not alone in calling it a marsupial:
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:6p563h8HOQEJ:www.sci-con.org/news/articles/reprints/20030402.pdf+duck+billed+platypus+marsupial&hl=en
And many other experts do commonly refer to the playpus as a marsupial. I agree that it is most accurate to refer to them as monotremes, as they are egg-laying.
But the real issue here IS charity, isn't it. Even if I were utterly mistaken and alone in calling it a marsupial, is that really the point of this thread, and are ALL my claims suspect if I make such a mistake? Somehow I thought this was a climbing thread, but we are now into primitive mammals (the platypus IS a mammal according to the vast majority of contemporary scientists). Do we get to make ANY mistakes without being ripped?
Guess not. As always, there are some (at least they don't seem to be the majority, as the once were) who are determined to find SOME way to keep bashing on us, even if now it has nothing to do with the route. So, nickh, regardless of the classification status of the platypus, Wings is not a rivet ladder.
Back on topic now?
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John F. Kerry
Social climber
Boston, MA
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Oct 31, 2005 - 11:01am PT
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MSMith: "Climbs like the Sea and Zenyatta (the standards of the day) have all sorts of overt modifications which no one has been worried about"
Exactly. Still waiting to hear the SuperTaco outrage about the drill being used for enhancement on those routes.
"Is the real issue here how the climb was done, or who did the climb?"
I submit it is the latter. People are afraid to criticize those they have idolized.
Landgolier: "Your average pin placement certainly takes out a crystal or three, which by our ethics is ok for FA's"
Great point. Why is no one whining about those poor wittle crystals lost to the mighty cro-mo steel?
The discussions about freedom vs. resource conservation are important and valuable. I'm just tired of the pseudo-righteousness from the rock police where they excoriate people like Richard & Mark but turn a blind eye to celebrities who have used the very same tactics.
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