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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 14, 2010 - 11:09pm PT
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Certainly an international level competietion.
No, I actually mean a classical pegboard and not a modern climbing structure of any sort.
The Vertical Club eventually Vertical World was the first commercial indoor gym circa 1987.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Oct 14, 2010 - 11:28pm PT
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BITD, Dale built a short wall at DR's place. Base104, myself and others helped him build a plywood face and pine board crack wall at Doug's in round valley. I would watch Dale lap the thing, but could not get off the ground myself. Really taught me what it meant to be a real climber vs. a weekend warrior.
No digital photos though. Maybe DR can place the date; I'm thinking 82?
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TMO
Trad climber
Puyallup, WA
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Oct 15, 2010 - 12:53am PT
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The first picture in this thread, Spire Rock, is the first place I have ever climbed, back in 82. And to this day (weather permitting) I still visit about twice a week. Here in western Washington we have Index, Exit 38, volcanoes and chose piles to chose from. Without this structure so close (6 miles from my home) I surely would have given up the game years ago. I am VERY thankfull to the folks that had the vision to build it.
Thank you!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 16, 2010 - 12:02am PT
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From the 20th Anniversary issue of Climbing April/May 1990, a couple of Beth Wald's classic early Snowbird shots!
Le Blond in 88.
Didier Roubitou in 89.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 18, 2010 - 09:46pm PT
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There's a lady who's sure those winged guys with bows are trouble...and she's buying a Stairway To Heaven...LOL diabolically!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 16, 2010 - 01:06pm PT
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I think that Bonnie Prudden built the first dedicated (and non-military)outdoor climbing wall in the late fifties as part of her ground breaking physical training facility in the Boston area. Bonnie was way out in front on the concept of strength training for enhanced athletic performance.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Dec 16, 2010 - 11:07pm PT
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Perhaps not quite OT...should be titled Early Climbing on Outdoor Structures.
From Chicago, ca. 1962
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Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
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Dec 17, 2010 - 09:55am PT
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Hi Rich, I presume it is you in the lower picture--great outfit!!!!, but who is in the top one? The lakeshore wall I presume. Alan
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Dec 17, 2010 - 11:47am PT
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Yes Al, the wall is a retaining wall at what was then the La Rabida sanitarium; I have no idea what it is now. The mortar typically filled in the edges around the blocks, making it necessary much of the time to climb on the rock features of the blocks themselves. The wall was not especially high, as you can see, but some very long traverses were possible.
The first picture is of Bob Williams, a distinguished mathematician who was on the faculty of the University of Chicago at the time. The second picture is, as you guessed, the nineteen old version of my current considerably more decrepit self.
It is indeed amusing that we had to put on our knickers in order to do a little bouldering on a wall in the city a few minutes from the dorm. I'm afraid that forty-eight years later, I can't channel the mentality involved at this point and so can offer no explanation other than the possibility that our jeans were just too damn tight.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Dec 17, 2010 - 01:18pm PT
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John, hope all is well?
This is wall that Bob Murray and Frank built in the early 80's in Frank's backyard in Tucson.
Michael Kennedy and Beth Wald look on as Frank cranks.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Dec 17, 2010 - 02:03pm PT
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Shot of the MSU climbing wall from the '85 issue of "The Climbing Rag".
I seem to dimly recall folks had been using it for a number of years...
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MH2
climber
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Dec 17, 2010 - 02:12pm PT
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"From Chicago, ca. 1962"
That's early, all right. Thanks for those pictures. I know that wall and those shown on it. Bill Dietrich showed us his home movies of it. By time I was there most of the mortar had fallen from between the blocks and that changed the mind game however much we avoided the easy holds.
An analogous scene from 1972 in front of Vassar Brothers Hospital in Poughkeepsie. The photo was taken by a newspaper photographer and appeared in a local paper but my notoriety as a climber unaccountably went nowhere.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Dec 17, 2010 - 03:41pm PT
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Steve mentions Mackey Pit, and while I know he realizes that isn't/wasn't made for climbing, nevertheless the point being there were structures we climbed on back "when" that were as good as any climbing gym today. In the 1960's, mid and later, I did some really difficult boulder routes, a few high up, on solid cement (or was it concrete?), including the big smooth (for fingers) barn-door lieback at the bottom of the stairway at the northeast corner of the UMC on the Boulder campus. That area had amazing routes. Dalke did a long, really strenuous traverse. I repeated it, utterly pumped... Some of these routes were almost pure technique. I think I did a friction stem in a corner left of that lieback, but I can't recall if I ever topped out. Maybe... We also did some routes on that big concrete wall where you pull up on a sloping finger ledge and leap up and above, over an overhang, to the ledge at the top. That was a really difficult dynamic move... My favorite, though,
was the simple west wall of the UMC, endlessly wide and long, and an easy traverse, done back and forth for about three hours became murderously hard on the forearms and fingers... Breashears did some traversing on the observatory in Denver, and I think that contributed to his feet being so strong, for all those hard, delicate runouts he later did....
Above all, the perfect place for climbing was Boulder High School, in terms of structures. The corner walls were very fingery and dicey, and all the flagstone blocks each had tiny finger holds on its outer face (as opposed to the flat ledge at the top of each). Dalke and I did many routes where we were not allowed to touch the tops of a flagstone block, only the little holds on the outer faces... Some of our hardest routes are right there, never to be noted by the world, because they were buildering...
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FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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This thing got climbed in about 1980, it was somewhere in the Berkeley hills.
The climber is John Sherman and the belayer is Nat Smale (of Nat's traverse at Indian Rock)
That thing was Really Hard. Bad finger size to the top with no feet.
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills, CA
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I built this Velcro climbing wall in 1990
The wall could also be suspended by trampoline springs and used as "Velcro Wall" (put on a suit, jump on a trampoline and stick to it).
The wall was easily disassembled / assembled and transported in a full size pick-up truck to different locations.
Built with my own hands.
EDIT: I also made rock climbing panels that would replace the velcro panels so it was also a portable rock climbing wall.
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PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
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Back in the early 70's Gene Foley and I climbed a concrete cross on a hill overlooking the city of San Francisco (Mt. Davidson I believe?). There was a bolt ladder of sorts on the structure, if I remember right. I do remember it was that it was one of the most stunning views for a short aid climb: i.e. the night lights of the city of San Francisco.
(Hope this doesn't spark another religious debate!)
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 4, 2011 - 04:10pm PT
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An afternoon workout on the Life Sciences building back in the 1980s. It looks like it was made for climbing, doesn't it?
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FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Ahhhhh
Mr. Gill
I don't see any footholds there!
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