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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 9, 2010 - 11:42pm PT
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B-dawg you are rad!
the traffic pic's made me think "what the hell are those students doing"? anyway, i like the pic of the S- turn with the train cruising on by!
ken Boche nice to meet ya!
when top-rope season is active we'll post some pic's of the gang climbing the "boche death route"..
tarbuster~thanks for check'n the Stoney thread. the fish is my favorite..
cole~your constant questioning stoney's history has inspired this thread...so get what you can out of it, because the world should always come climb at Stoney.
Stephanie you should get out more because i know your super strong!
Rincon i had to go to the gym today because of the rain..
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 11, 2010 - 12:26pm PT
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I'm pasting in these references to Stoney from what I wrote last nite elsewhere... http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1079288&tn=20
More important, as you recall, were are frequent and intense trips to Stoney and then moving beyond… Have you checked out the Stoney Point thread in the last day or so? A film maker, Cole Gibson is making a documentary on Stoney. He says the 60’s is a bit thin. Did he interview you? If not, I’m thinking he may be missing an important piece of Stoney’s influence, considering the intensity with which we climbed there and the places that we went later.
Someone else on the Stoney thread, I think, was asking me for Kamps stories. You, LongAgo, of course, are probably the best one for those…
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hoipolloi
climber
A friends backyard with the neighbors wifi
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Feb 11, 2010 - 03:50pm PT
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climbing bump
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Feb 11, 2010 - 10:42pm PT
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Tidbits
The smell of Stoney after a rain, climbing the big face on some pothole route in the rain with Bud (Ivan) Couch both wearing plastic bags with head holes because, well, we were trying to become mountaineers or Herman Buhl or something, meeting Bob Kamps who took me under his wing and tuned my lust for the game into safe and sane climbing practice, and bantered with me and challenged me and me him on flake after flake, boulder after boulder, then back to his house for a sumptuous meal from Bonnie, and on and on to Tahquitz, Yosemite, Tuolumne with Bob, now a brain full of walls, pinnacles, domes, routes and campfires and starry nights, Bob and our times still deep within me and why, in most measure, all of climbing now rests with me like a great lasting love.
Here's a small memory of Bob at Stoney, written a couple of years ago for a Stoney guidebook which may or may not ever come out. What better place for it than this thread, this bit of cyberspace where we connect full of exuberance and heart for the big lumps of sandstone called Stoney Point:
Tribute
I vaguely remember a charred, skeletal car body at Stoney Point the first time I visited there. The place looked crummy and felt dusty and hot. The air was brown with smog. There were no climbers visible as I looked around Rock 1 (now called “Boulder 1”), just a few walkers, pooping dogs on the loose and some kids yelling, running and jumping around small boulders. Some of the boulders and higher cliffs were painted with names and hearts and four letter words. I think it was summer 1962.
I had come there to meet Bob Kamps. I had phoned him on a ruse, asking about the best rope to buy. I didn’t care about ropes. I had heard he was good. I wanted to learn about climbing and maybe get to climb real walls with him. All I had climbed at that point was the outside of my house with friend and neighbor Bud (Ivan) Couch. We had salivated over the book Freedom of the Hills, bought a few steel carabiners, a hemp rope and soft iron pitons, but never been on rock. So I steered my phone talk with Bob toward meeting at Stoney. He agreed.
After walking around some, I found Bob topping out on Rock 2 (now “Turlock” or Boulder 2). He wore a T-shirt, shorts and a light hiking boots, probably Cortinas. His hair was short, army-like. He was a little sunburned, wiry, knobby, veined and strong, matter of fact, but flashing a wry smile as we talked about how I liebacked wood siding on my house. It was the smile that told me I had a chance with him. The first thing he showed me was to use my feet, to look for edges and undulations in the rock for friction. We did some no-handed routes on a smaller rock near Rock 1. Bob moved as if walking up a stairway. I got the picture about feet. Later, we did a top-roped climb on a pothole wall at the back (east side) of the area. As I struggled up nearing a crux, he called out, “man or mouse?” My blood zoomed, and up I went.
I remember now the little circuit of Stoney routes we often did as Bob and I became lifelong climbing partners. I remember the smell of the gritty sandstone after a rain. I can feel the soft, grassy paths of the Spring, remember our bantering and competition bouldering. Bob could mantle anything. I was good at small hold endurance traverses. Over those years, Stoney and Bob built in me: wiring in a trust of tiny flakes, how to edge, hop step, step through, reach, match, smear, mantle, yell, laugh, curse and think anything was possible – all the essentials for the walls I came to do.
I remember sitting in the dirt with Bob near Rock 1 decades after our first encounter. We were spent, our arms pumped and gone, sipping a beer. I then lived in the Bay Area and was visiting for Thanksgiving (we alternated Thanksgivings visits for 30 years). Bob was eyeing a young climber, probably thinking, “no, put your foot there, not there.” By then, Bob had bouldered at Stoney about twice a week for nearly 40 years. Every flake, ledge, crack, hole and ledge was in his brain. I asked him if he remembered the first time I contacted him and he said, still looking at the climber but smiling, “Yeah, about the rope.” We laughed.
In 2005, about 200 people came to Stoney to honor Bob after his death. How fitting to hold a memorial for him there, but Bob is not gone from Stoney. He is there anytime I visit, stand still and close my eyes. Next time I go, he’ll be topping out on Rock 2 again, in his cut-off shorts, grinning.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Feb 11, 2010 - 11:24pm PT
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Tom-What a wonderful tribute to a beautiful man.
The two of you together were unbeatable.
I spent a lot of time at Stony when I was at UCLA between 1966-71, but always had to get a "visitors pass" since I was a Northern Cal boy from the Indian Rock Gang. Boche and the gang will never let you forget you are in S.Cal turf. Kamps was always fun and generous with his time and his beer.
Here is an interesting letter from Bitchen Bill Amborn, aka BBA, that portrays a day at Stony in 1962 and various other activities going on back then with some of the key players. It wasn't all climbing.
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2010 - 12:03am PT
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he had hands like a gecko!
Tom wrote: "The first thing he showed me was to use my feet, to look for edges and undulations in the rock for friction. We did some no-handed routes on a smaller rock near Rock 1."
~those no hand rests got challenged by a couple of gym rats the other day and non of em' could crank them out because the lack of foot technique! we showed them how bob showed us and then they got it.
thanks for the story Tom.
Guido how interesting!
thank-you
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 12, 2010 - 04:54am PT
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WOW!! Tom, thanks SO MUCH for your moving and eloquent posting about your meeting Kamps and the relationship that you and he had over SO many years. Although my dad first took me to Stoney and to the Sierra, Cascades, Tetons, and Canadian Rockies, he really couldn't mentor me the way Kamps mentored you. We were all awed by, probably somewhat envious of, the two of you over the years. Sometimes I feel like nearly all climbers develop extraordinary bonds with those whom they have really connected. But I know that you and he had a special bond and love that not every climber is blessed with such bonding. Fred Becky, for all his genius and drive, may have missed some REALLY important life lesson that I KNOW you and Bob shared. So do Guido, Hennek, and Lauria. I feel honored to have known and climbed with all of you.
Sheesh, Guido, you really do amaze me, more than ever, with your knowledge and experience around this craft we call climbing. Thanks for your insightful comments which seem to be sprouting up everywhere like wildflowers in the spring.
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matty
Trad climber
los arbor
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Feb 13, 2010 - 07:50pm PT
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He slept at stoney! Great stuff. RIP BoB
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Feb 15, 2010 - 06:34pm PT
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A Tad Philosophical
Ken, yes, I now realize my relation with Bob was especially formative and deep, launching me not just in climbing but shaping how I approached a host of life's pursuits. As Guido says, "It wasn't all climbing." Indeed.
As I look back these past few years, everything and nothing spins around climbing. I know I am largely who I am because of climbing. We all are who we are in large part because of climbing, so how could it not be vital? And yet, suppose my "game" had been tennis or surfing or cycling or skiing and I had met the equivalent Bob Kamps there and formed a resulting lifelong friendship and felt fulfilled, then what do we say?
Maybe we come to this: the most vital thing from the standpoint of feeling satisfied and whole in life (not to imply I always have that feeling, but by and large I do) is not so much the rock and our game on it, nor our particular climbing accomplishments which mostly will be hazy or forgotten with time, but how we go about whatever we go about. With what passion we invest ourselves in any life game, how we honor and respect those we meet, how we internalize what we come to value in others we love and admire and, then, how true we are to all we have learned and hold dear. Again, not to say that’s the path I’ve seen all along or, once seen, to which I’ve held. Far from it. It’s only in the past few years I’ve even had such thoughts. And how strange a thought, I realize, that climbing may not be the point, especially to put forth on a climbing site. But there it is: rock as mere "geography," -- stunning, superb geography, but only that compared to our inner geography, the growing and carving of our lives, which gives all things the only meaning they have.
We salute Stoney as we have on this thread. We salute times there and friends there and on all the walls. But, finally, we also must hope to salute ... ourselves.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 15, 2010 - 07:32pm PT
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"A strong camaraderie existed among the more habitual climbers, the regulars, and he found strength in this relationship. There was, again, a sense of separation and special-ness among them. They were separated from society by their unusual passion and their willingness to pay an extreme price. Most were woefully poor but had the hubris to take pride in their indigence -- one young man actually bragging about his ability to live on six hundred dollars a year. Many saw poverty as a rejection, an act of holy indifference. But others were simply students. They’d discovered a rather engaging, even consuming hobby and the powerful redolence of rebellion and danger. Their goal was a strange mixture of physical hardness, psychological control and emotional sensitivity in the celebration of natural beauty.
And Stony Point was their place of embarkation; it was safe and comfortable, yet it offered a sense of waiting adventure. Like so much in L.A. offering possibilities, it teased, cajoled and sometimes repelled one into pursuing further excitement."
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MisterE
Social climber
Across Town From Easy Street
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Feb 15, 2010 - 11:54pm PT
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Bump for the new-found happiness that comes from living 8 minutes from such a historic place in technical climbing.
It's like the start, 21 years ago at the UW rock, all over.
The learning texture feels the same.
Thanks to all the historical perspectives - I have a new-found appreciation for what initially seemed like a loud, ugly and friable crag.
Beginnings come from the least expected places, teaching and the simple and not-so-simple lessons of Stoney have renewed that fire.
Erik Wolfe
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2010 - 12:25am PT
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BooDAWG!
Ken Boche I sent you an email!
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2010 - 12:50am PT
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just some great temps for this week!
enjoy the pic's!
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2010 - 01:50am PT
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okay ken Boche!
lets clean up your route!
thank's maybe you can identify these bolts as yours...if not then we will erase them..to give credit and restore the f.A!
R.M.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 19, 2010 - 05:46am PT
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Pyro:
I got an email from Don Lauria who said that he didn’t remember any bolts from the F.A.
On thinking about the F.A., I don’t remember placing bolts anywhere at Stoney. Furthermore, I didn’t name the route, “Boche Death Route.” As I recall, the name was created by my friends to describe the consequence of taking a fall from high up on the route, so I think the original route never had any bolts in it.
If I had placed any bolts, they’d have been ¼” X 1” Rawl Drives with Leeper hangers such as shown in the pic below.
Even if the bolts are removed, if they are used for aid, the climb could still be done if the holes are usable with “hooks” such as the custom ones pictured below that were made by Dennis Hennek.
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guyman
Trad climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Feb 19, 2010 - 11:15am PT
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Bo.... so let me get this straight. TBDR was done originally on tied off pins?
friggen wild. Two of my friends, Hank Lavene and Fred Lytle (sp?) nailed that sucker in 1973 in preparation for the second accent of "Moses" in Utah. Scared the heck out of them... that ratty rock at Stoney.
One time we were hanging out at the "Oliver Moon Hotel", around midnight, somebody suggested we go and do the bolt ladder at SP by moonlight. We gathered the gear and in no time we were at the start of the climb. After a hanging party at the belay bolts, I was given the task of leading the last part.... when I hit the summit and went to go clip the anchors I interrupted a loving couple who were sharing a private moment at the time. "Sorry, excuse me, I need to clip those bolts so my friends can get up here" ..... she had nice ones too. :>)
So much has gone down at Stoney, it's quite a place to climb at.
Any more stories are welcome.
Guy Keesee
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 19, 2010 - 03:11pm PT
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Yes, Guy; that's the best Don Lauria (who did the second ascent) & I can remember, and it makes sense, given the name that grew up around the route.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Paradise Island
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Feb 19, 2010 - 03:18pm PT
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I've been wondering about a couple of wino characters that frequented SP during the early sixties: One's name was Phil Mesch (sp?); I can't remember the other's. They were actually pretty good climbers on their favorite routes, and they always drank cheap Ripple wine and bragged about how much better their climbing got as an afternoon and their drunkeness progressed. Have there been any postings about them? They always added a lot of color and laughter to our "more serious" approach to climbing. VERY entertaining! Anyone have any pix of them?
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Peenemunde
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Feb 19, 2010 - 03:22pm PT
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I have bouldered more at Stoney Point than any living person.
Sad but true.
Juan
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