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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 14, 2010 - 07:34pm PT
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i think that was my mistake. it suddenly realized this dude had almost got the whole thing and it decided to show who the boss was. maybe one too many sliders up the bolt ladder. doesn't sound like it gets much attention, so it had probably fallen asleep.
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rmuir
Social climber
the Time Before the Rocks Cooled.
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Jul 14, 2010 - 10:10pm PT
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I, too, started climbing in Pivettas but I thought the toe was too wide and the extra leather rand certainly didn't help things along. ...moved to RRs, but I was really happy to get into really snug PAs.
I've done Chingadera twice, and I would have done it a third time had it not started snowing on us around the second bolt. The first time was before we did Valhalla; Jim Hoagland and I probably did in 1972. I think I led the first pitch wearing PAs, and Jim followed with a stiffer pair of RDs. At that time, the route was rated 5.10+. Now, I can't remember a particular cruxy section, but I always found the edging in the middle the hardest section--by that time, the feet are burning! Clipping was dicey in one spot, and I've watched other parties hanging on that bolt to shake out (for shame). I loved the positive holds and the demanding foot and hand work. ...my favorite kind of climbing.
Chingadera was always old-school 5.10, guys. Hard, but not as hard as Valhalla's crux, IMO. Check out Wilt's old guide book:
"69. CHINGADERA Class 5.10+ (VI++) 4 hours
First ascent: February 1967; R. Kamps, M. Powell
"Midway between the Ski Tracks (Route 67) and the Reach (Route 71), ascend a vertical crack for 25' to its end. A delicate step up to the first expansion anchor starts 50' of sustained difficult face climbing with no piton cracks. The eight expansion anchors can be passed without using direct aid although several moves from the 5th to the 7th anchor are very difficult (class 5.10+). At the 5th bolt traverse up and left 6' to a sixth anchor, then traverse directly left about 8' on a slightly projecting rounded rib to the 7th bolt. Above the climbing no longer exceeds class 5.9 in difficulty. Ten feet up pass the 8th bolt which protects a 5.9 move to easier ground. From this point it is possible to move right to the belay ledge of the Black Harlot's Layaway (Route 70), or one can continue straight up a short distance. An awkward step to the right leads to a diagonal hand traverse up and to the right of the ledge where the Innominate and the Reach join the Ski Tracks."
"On the first ascent of this face (April 1964), M. Powell and S. Altman climbed the lower part of this route and the upper part of Route 70. The connection was made by a traverse from the 5th bolt to the right past another anchor to join the Black Harlot's Layaway just below the direct aid section."
Ah for the good old days when you REALLY got some beta!
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Jul 15, 2010 - 12:03am PT
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Hey tony
If you are who I think you are, we have a mutual friend.
He told me some great stories... good job on temple crag, you two are the real deal.
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henny
Social climber
The Past
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Jul 15, 2010 - 12:43am PT
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As much as I'd like to I can't remember exactly where I thought the crux was. I want to say I agree with Murf but seem to also remember a move where the guide shows the crux. Maybe it's 11a at both places? Individual moves can be easier/harder depending on the person anyway. I know - not very helpful.
Tim Powell used to jokingly say Chingadera was 50 10d moves in a row. That's what I remember about the route more than any single move. I always used to do it in one pitch like Kris which meant even more moves in a row on a single pitch. Given the continuous nature of the climbing I think the route is even more impressive for when it was done, and how (shoes).
I thought it was good at 11a.
"Erik Erickson called it .11+? The guy is such a good face climber (not to mention Lynn, and OK Evans is pretty good too), I give their opinion a lot of weight."
E is way light. Not to mention DE - surprised he hasn't floated off by now. I guess Lynn isn't. One outta three... (just kidding...right?)
"Chingadera was always old-school 5.10, guys. Hard, but not as hard as Valhalla's crux, IMO."
Robs, dude... I think you must of bumped your head... Chingadera is more continuous at the same grade. And, ummm..., if you know where the hidden hold is on Valhalla's crux, well, need I say more?
but then I think Idyllwild grades are a bit scatterred...
I thought it was the job of the guidebook "authors" to do every route in the guide to make sure that doesn't happen. Hmmm... those guys must of fallen asleep.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 15, 2010 - 09:20am PT
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gee, wish i could be that temple crag hero, GD, but i rarely do rockclimbs that involve backpacking. i'm posting the rare exception here to show what the granite's like on east twin in the san gabes--wouldn't mind a revisit if anyone wants to join me. we spent three days, and it wasn't enough.
valhalla was one reason i accepted a 5.10 ceiling for so long. it might have gone better without the 100+ temps the day we tried it. i will look for the hidden hold next time and endeavor to take it with me for chingadera.
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Lardog
climber
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Jul 15, 2010 - 11:01am PT
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I'm with you Tony, something is up with that route. All the replies discuss ascents from ages ago ( I guess that says something about today's climbers). I suspect the route has changed between the last bolt and the anchors. Going from the last bolt to the anchors is WAY harder than getting past the 2nd to last bolt which shown to be the 11.a crux in the guidebook (which I believe is fairly rated). I know Bob did the route putting the bolts in on lead but I have a really hard time believing anybody could hand drill the anchor bolts on the lead with the route the way it is now, I don't care who it is. I've climbed a bunch of 5.11a routes in Idyllwild and Chingadera is not 5.11a.
Let's see some climbers man up and get on it, I'd love some second opinions on this.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 15, 2010 - 11:49am PT
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Lardog wrote:
I know Bob did the route putting the bolts in on lead but I have a really hard time believing anybody could hand drill the anchor bolts on the lead with the route the way it is now, I don't care who it is.
perhaps, but how many Kamps routes have you climbed? seems that question ("how did he drill from stance there?") comes up often...
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Jul 15, 2010 - 12:08pm PT
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All the replies discuss ascents from ages ago
Of the more than several times I have done it which I mentioned above, the most recent was just a couple of years ago with James Pruett following. I really don't think anything had changed by then.
As I recall, what happens between the sequence below the last bolt, and the sequence getting to the first belay is that the technique changes from thin but straightforward crimping to a more or less no hands move with very tricky footwork.
Anyway like I said before it always seemed to me to be right on par with Magical Mystery Tour, which is .11c in the book. I'd say call 'em both .11b since MMT is certainly easier than Green Arch. I also think that Chingadera is a bit more of a crank, although much less serious, than P2 of Valhalla. But that's just me. Whatever...
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 15, 2010 - 12:08pm PT
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for me, it isn't a question of drillability, just that last move to the belay. it felt like a good place getting over the guidebook's 11a crux, and if kamps hand-drilled all the others on lead he'd have been able to drill that one. but the belay ledge just sat there on the other side of impossibility for me. i hunted for hidden holds. i took a couple sliders, then lowered for a rest. second try, same story. as henny says, individual moves can be easier/harder depending on the person.
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Jul 15, 2010 - 12:13pm PT
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I remember climbing Chingadera--or, rather, struggling up it, in '86 on a short spring vacation SoCal trip. I recall our reasoning for getting on it being, that even though we knew it was a Kamps route, that since it was originally rated 5.10--"it couldn't be that bad"----wrong, very wrong!!! My notes show--"desperately hard climb, very difficult for grade, both fell, me more" and that the crux was "a very high step-up with no holds after the 4th bolt" followed by "thin, sustained traverse left...sustained (that word again) with no rests for the feet". Does that make sense to folks who know the route better?
I'm also reminiscing re: the discussion of the mid-'60s style klettershue.Then, even more than now, there seemed to be great "partisanship" regarding one's climbing shoe choice. I was a Spider man--I was a Devil's Lake climber back then and preferred the edging stiffness at which this shoe excelled, as others have noted. However some friends preferred the more supple Kronhoffers. I changed "shoe loyalty" when the even stiffer RRs came out a few years later, but some of my Kronhoffer-using friends maintained brand-loyalty through several generations of shoes until they no longer were available.
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henny
Social climber
The Past
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Jul 15, 2010 - 12:55pm PT
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Good thread.
"I also think that Chingadera is a bit more of a crank, although much less serious, than P2 of Valhalla. But that's just me. Whatever..."
Not that it really matters much - but what makes Valhalla more serious than Chingadera? Yes, you did qualify with a "whatever", I'm just curious.
First - never, ever, get on it in the heat (per the 100+ temp comment - YIKES). Then, if you know where the hidden hold is it could well be that the first pitch is just as hard. Look left at the matched hands edge, there's a good left hand side pull in perfect position. You don't actually see it because it's in a bit of a dish, but it's there and it's good (guess I spilled the beans, eh?)
"but then I think Idyllwild grades are a bit scatterred..."
I thought about this a bit. When you have people like Kamps questioning if they should even call something like Chingadera 5.10 it sets a precedence. Yes, given the timeframe in which he did it and the then closed end system, there was probably good reason for his question. But subsequent generations usually use the previous ones as the basis of their scale. Errors early on can often propagate for a long time, either because people are trying to save face (without changing the past ratings) or just because they don't have enough exposure to the spectrum of ratings in other areas. Bottom line, Kamps was one of the people that screwed us all up by forcing us to underrate to appear we were as good as the previous generation. Ha. Combine that with some of the later routes that have inflated grades and, yeah, there probably is a bit of scattered grading in Idyllwild.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 15, 2010 - 01:48pm PT
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the thing that always seems true on a Kamps route is that there probably is a way to do it at the rating he assigned... he found that way through all the difficulty. The fact that he could do that "in real time" on an FA was part of what made him and his routes amazing...
...searching for the 5.9 path through the 5.10 and 5.11 moves on Curves Like Her up in TM only thoughts of major falls danced through my head, not the precise intuiting of the easy way...
There are other routes like this too, apparently he had a way of seeing which is not a common attribute among climbers...
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Jul 15, 2010 - 02:06pm PT
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Hi Tony,
As Darrell mentions...the one thing that will really help you on those 5.11 slabs at Idyllwild is to get on them in cool conditions; you're really handicapping yourself if you're trying them in the blazing hot sun! (or in the shade in 85 degree conditions)
Everyone thinks of Idyllwild as a summer area, but for hard slab climbing it's just not a good time. Suicide Rock bakes in the sun all day long until about 2;30 pm, and you have to wait until 4 or 5 pm for things to cool down where you'll even begin to stick the smears. As for the south face of Tahquitz, best bet is very early or very late in the day.
A 5.11a move on hot rock in the sun versus the same move on cool rock in the shade are two different ball games.
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Latitute 33
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Jul 15, 2010 - 02:52pm PT
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It has been a few years (meaning lots) since I was last on Chingadera, but I have done it at least 4 times. Imho it is solid 5.11a. Sarah concurs in the grade.
Actually, back in about 1973 (when it was still rated 5.10+), it was E (not KP) who said that it had 50 5.10d moves on it. We all thought that was a dead-on, if somewhat tongue-in-cheek description. It is sustained and the moves near the top are hard and your feet are pretty gassed by that time.
Because the route faces south, as has been said, climb in very cool temps. Summer is no time to be on the south side of Tahquitz on steep, thin face climbing.
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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Jul 15, 2010 - 03:28pm PT
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Maybe I was the only one calling it 11+ in '79! None of us even fell on it back then.
There are people spraying on this thread who couldn't even do it now, myself included!
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Jul 15, 2010 - 04:09pm PT
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Not that it really matters much - but what makes Valhalla more serious than Chingadera? Yes, you did qualify with a "whatever", I'm just curious.
Henny
Not to psyche anyone out, but I've seen two guys break ankles by coming off above the first bolt on P2 of Valhalla. I was belaying one of them, the other was years later. They both caught that sloping ledge you traverse out on with a foot. Crack!! Thats a pretty fair fall there and you better get out in the air if you whip.
I cannot imagine getting injured like that on Chingadera.
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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Jul 15, 2010 - 11:50pm PT
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Dr. F, correct as usual.
Shaddup sandbaggers.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Jul 16, 2010 - 09:08pm PT
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I did this with Ricky Accomazzo probably in 1972 when we were teenagers and climbing a ton at Roubidoux. It seemed very continuous but really contrived so far as a line goes, which is probably why I never went back and did it a second time.
Most of the better routes on that wall we did scads of times, especially Unchaste. But Chingadera was a one-and-done kinda fandango because it was basically just a bolt ladder up a blank wall that took a queer line (with that crux traverse at th end) and awkward clips. I climbed it in red PAs and remember I got it a bit easier than Ricky, a trend that lasted about a week longer. Then "Rockamazzo" became a demi-God on those dimes, especially when the big runout was called for. Fun to remember back to those days.
Kudos to Kamps in the Cortinas. That's got to be 5.12 that way, or near that. Bob was awesome on the thin stuff, and he helped pioneer the concept and practice of on the lead, stance bolting. In those crummy shoes. I thought the step up to EBs was significant; but when Fires came along the Tahquitz and Suicide routes were not remotely the same. Some, like Season's End Direct, and Rebolting, became downright cruisable.
Another rarely mentioned route up there is Upside Down Cake. As one of the few 5.10 cracks at Tahquitz, I did it virtually every time I was coming down from the top.
Another kind of screwy one up there is Big Daddy, FFA in '59 by Tom Frost.
JL
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henny
Social climber
The Past
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Jul 16, 2010 - 10:47pm PT
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Chingadera is kind of forced, true. And it is an annoying amount of work to just tick an 11a.
The south face does have some good climbs though. As JL mentioned Unchaste has to be high on the list. I also thought Black Harlot's and the Reach were real good. And for an easier route I always liked the Chauvinist for some reason. But never any of them in the dog days of summer.
"I got it a bit easier than Ricky, a trend that lasted about a week longer. Then "Rockamazzo" became a demi-God on those dimes, especially when the big runout was called for."
Lucky you. Some of us never had the chance to have that week. I can remember multiple times when Ricky would innocently ask if I wanted to go have some "fun". Which seemed to translate to how few bolts we could place. It always felt like that was some kind of a scary trick question.
Yes, those were great times.
(calm down DE..., good job Dr. F, I'll correct my count of 10d moves in a row)
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Jul 17, 2010 - 11:02am PT
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Kamps was so good. You've heard this story before, I posted it when he died. But it's one of my favorites, about the time when Kamps met Tobin Sorenson:
In the summer of 1973, I was a teenager and on one of my first trips to Yosemite. I was with Tobin Sorenson, who was just as green as I was. We were impressed to see the glories of Tuolumne for the first time, after making the long drive from LA. We knew we could face climb pretty well; we had trained on a progression of hard routes at Tahquitz and Suicide. In fact, Tuolumne’s knobby domes looked positively featured after the dense, white granite of Tahquitz.
We heard rumors of a new and hard route put up by Kamps and Higgins, The Old Goat’s route on Medlicott (1972). Kamps was staying a few camp sites away, so we walked over, intending to get some information about whether the route was completely bolt protected or might require crack protection. After introducing ourselves, Tobin, who was exceedingly polite, broached the question:
“Mr. Kamps, what do you need to do the Old Goat’s Route?”
Kamps looked us up and down, and then from side to side. Then, with just a hint of a smile, he replied:
“Courage, boys, courage.”
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