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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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426
Sport climber
Hanging Limb(yeah. it is), TN
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Oct 31, 2005 - 11:07am PT
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"Why is no one whining about those poor wittle crystals lost to the mighty cro-mo steel?"
Cuz' dems good free climn hols in da woiks!
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nickh
climber
St. Louis, MO
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Oct 31, 2005 - 11:51am PT
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madbolter-1,
my post was more of a sattire of the nitpickers, than a dig at you.
Nick
Added- As has been said before, I think Royal Robbins determined this a long time ago. THE STANDARD IS to repeat the route, if it is a overdrilled chop 'em and tell everybody (plus you get to spray). However 2000 ft up the big stone you may have your mind opened, and be quietly in awe of someone who, at lower elevations, you were convinced was destined for the more painful circles of Hell.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 31, 2005 - 12:45pm PT
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Well I found a guide book (Meyer’s) and it shows 13 pitches for Wings of steel and then joins the Aquarian Wall to finish. So it is a variation to the Aquarian Wall not a complete separate line from bottom to the top.
Richard and Mark found a subtle and rarified series of placements interceded with drilled protection between the Aquarian Wall and the Dihedral wall up the great slab.
In the statement "Is the real issue here how the climb was done, or who did the climb?"
I honestly believe that the people debating this topic are doing so on “how it was done” and not “who”. Some folks will love to make that their primary focus as it will strengthen their defensive tactics away from the real discussion using the so called “racist” platform.
Many years have passed since the events of the first ascent of this variation to the Aquarian Wall and hardly anybody has given a rat’s ass about this anomaly on this great slab.
It has been done and stands, what else is there to do. The future will tell whether this is a masterpiece or a forced push through the great slab. It will be based on individual opinions which can be swayed and biased according how one visualizes.
So far this variation according to some has been left standing in disgrace for 20 plus years.
But the mighty Captain after everyone leaves, in the dead of the winter remains proud and far above the meager exploits against its face that man attempts.
Thus again I would also have to ask “What does the Captain think about us?"
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Oct 31, 2005 - 02:47pm PT
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Nick, sorry to have missed the satire. It's so hard to convey tone in a forum like this. I AM a dimwit, so be patient with my sloooowwwwwness. Thanks
Werner, I think that time will tell that Wings was neither a "masterpiece" nor something totally contrived. It was a subtle route, and we did try to follow the features where they led, but it WAS "pushed" as well (depending upon what you mean by "pushed"). We certainly WERE willing to drill to connect up sections of hooking flakes, but there is quite a sliding scale determining how much drilling is "valid".
I guess that all we've ever wanted to say to the climbing community over the years is: It's not a rivet ladder, so take a chill-pill.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Oct 31, 2005 - 03:34pm PT
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Cool thread. I truly hope you guys are the FA party, and if so, thanks for the candor. It does beg the question of why this discussion only came up now, though.
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MSmith
Mountain climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 31, 2005 - 04:17pm PT
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“But the mighty Captain after everyone leaves, in the dead of the winter remains proud and far above the meager exploits against its face that man attempts.”
Werner, you are quite the philosopher and poet, far surpassing me in those areas. Regarding the rest of your post, I’m not sure how or if to respond. Wings of Steel will be 25 years old in not too long. Another 25 years and we’ll be seeing each other at the nursing home card table, not the Camp IV parking lot. Maybe it’s time to put more work into building bridges than into reinforcing walls. Therefore, I’ll limit the tone and scope of my response to your views of our variation of a variation of the West Face route.
Regarding your objection to my statement, "Is the real issue here how the climb was done, or who did the climb?", go back and read the post to which I was responding. I think it will be clear that the question was appropriate and the answer was “yes.” It is not indicated to take my statement out of the context of that post and use it to characterize my view of the group of climbers who have contributed to this thread as a whole. I should note that the overwhelming majority of what I have said in this thread goes directly to the issue of “what,” not “who.” Insinuating that my “primary focus” has been a “defensive tactic” to divert attention “away from the real discussion” doesn't seem very reasonable, to say the least.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 31, 2005 - 07:42pm PT
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Ha ha ha Mark kind of funny how we miss understand ourselves on the forum. My statement (“is the real issue here how the climb was done, or who did the climb?”) was meant in context of not you or Richard but of the responses.
The “defensive tactic” to divert attention “was meant about your detractors not you guys.
You see, the detractors are also on the defensive …..
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MSmith
Mountain climber
Portland, Oregon
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Oct 31, 2005 - 08:14pm PT
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Werner, Thanks for the clarification. Maybe I'm getting too defensive. Now I'm REALLY glad I didn't say what I was thinking the way I felt like saying it. BTW, maybe I need more training in philosophy, but since El Cap indeed can't think, it seems to me that asking what El Cap would say is little more than a case of pointless personification. (Yes, I know you explained this in some detail in an earlier post.)
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deuce4
Big Wall climber
the Southwest
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Oct 31, 2005 - 09:08pm PT
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gawd, if I have to read another post with every other word in all-caps, I think I'll be ill.
madbolter, just glancing at your posts, and seeing things like:
"we weren't even ALLOWED to "promote" ANYTHING, not even the truth. "
I'm actually starting to feel sorry for you that you feel so controlled, and so insecure about something you did 20 years ago.
I'm also realizing how you promote your climb, by spewing to the point where someone finally speaks up, triggering a series of long winded claims about being "unjustly" attacked on a whole range of issues, as if it was all initiated by that person.
It seems like the only one who believes that your climb was possibly of no value to anyone, is you.
Maybe you should consider your own advice: take the red pill, chill, etc.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 31, 2005 - 09:41pm PT
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Good troll Dingus I really don't think anyone really gives a sh-it if it's repeated or not.
People are into free climbing ElCap now, aid is dead .......he he he
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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WELL JOHN, IT APPEARS THAT NOTHING HAS CHANGED OVER THE YEARS AFTER ALL. (oops, sorry)
when lacking any facts, or when the facts don't sustain you, you can always revert to speculative personal attacks.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Mark and Richard, thanks for posting. And maybe this is what you were expecting from the climbing community after all these years... Good job on your FA on El Cap.
And yes I do believe that you two were fairly well mistreated without proper justification. And those that tore your ropes down and sh&& on them will get theirs.
Now will someone send this thing already?!
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darod
Trad climber
New York
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Mike wrote:
"...And what's with the last BAT hook section not being part of the route and merely connecting routes? Bull. It's part of WOS, whether you like the section's "style" or not. Maybe the guys who put up routes with intermittent systems would like to omit the rivet ladders to render their lines better in "style." You guys fully lost me there..."
What is this Mike? this fact is always been in the topos of the route, not a secret to anyone who might have looked at it.
So what's your point? more nonsense trying to justify the unjustifiable?
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darod
Trad climber
New York
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WGAF?
I bet you would if it was your name/route trashed around the way it has happened with WoS and its FAs.
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the Fet
Trad climber
Loomis, CA
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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."
As an outsider I always though the name was an F-you to the detractors. Bolts/Rivets (the steel) were the thing that allowed you to soar/climb (the wings). lol.
So although you didn't intend the name to be provocative, hopefully you can see why, for some people at least, it is. If the name was Icarus it wouldn't be an issue. You need to take some responsiblity for this IMO.
It like a comedian complaining that an audience sucks and doesn't get their jokes. Yes, the audience might be a tough crowd, but it's up to the comedian to make their jokes understood and funny.
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