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john hansen
climber
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On page 252 of Ament's Wizards of rock it says Greg Collins repeated it in 1981.
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The Larry
climber
Moab, UT
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klk, yup, I stand corrected I just pulled out Stone Crusade. Verm says Greg Collins likely did the second.
I love TRing btw. I get ghey on the rock all the time.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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If I remember right Pete Delanoy did an early unroped ascent.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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The other deal with that climb, whether or not the guardrail is currently there, is that you could fall onto a car, or turf on the tarmac and get run over by a 'bago. What fun would that be?
When we rapped off the Needle's eye my partner yanked the rope just as a country sedan wagon oulled up and the rope landed on their Hood!
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Disaster Master
Social climber
Born in So-Cal, left my soul in far Nor-Cal.
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The guardrail was there when Gill did it, and there were no pads and no spotters. At the time, 5.12 was two grades harder than the hardest climbs anyone was imagining. Gill didn't do it with a support crew of spotters, encouragers and reporters who would cheer him on and then post dispatches to the media on the accomplishment.
Gill was totally alone, engaging in a private quest, with no expectation of any kind of recognition and barely any vehicle for conveying it. He had nothing even remotely resembling the level of protection enjoyed by modern boulderers, and instead faced not only the hard ground but that guardrail.
If someone now would do a 5.17 highball without pads or spotters and no film crew preserving every move for posterity and then make no effort at promotion other than a passing comment or two to some friends, we might have an analogous event.
I love it. The most obscure and tenuous ascents ocasionally transcend the norm.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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un 14, 2010 - 01:15pm PT
John, did you consider your route on the Thimble bouldering?
No. For several years I had been experimenting with what could now be called free-solo exploration. I considered the Thimble to be a climb, and when I first saw it, as I soloed up an easier route to its left, I thought this might be a good test to see how far I was willing to go along these lines. Afterwards, I thought "that was far enough", and went back to easier solos. Another difference: the Thimble had no dynamics, and most of my bouldering problems had some kind of dynamic component. Also, it wasn't as difficult as many of my problems.
How many of your problems met the muster of B-3?
A few. In retrospect, what is now considered V9 or V10 would have qualified, for that was about as hard as I climbed.
These articles are painful to read! They seem incredibly dated, and my writing skills were minimal. But they represent my thinking on bouldering at that time . . . not necessarily what the few other bouldering enthusiasts thought! Hey, it's a sport open to individual interpretation, and hopefully won't be bound by inflexible ethical rules.
Shortly after doing The Thimble, John Gill told me about it in the Tetons as we were bouldering together by Jenny Lake. He seemed a thoughtful mixture of pride in the accomplishment, and still a bit shaken; saying on that climb he had crossed over a limit that he didn't plan to revisit.
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MisterE
Social climber
Bouncy Tiggerville
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I tried that thing a bunch of times in the mid-90's (alone, with pad), and always bailed left at "the knob of commitment".
One of the ballsiest ascents in bouldering history, IMO.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Gill's comments illuminate a point worth repeating.
The Thimble should really be viewed as a short climb rather than a boulder problem. Gill had done far harder boulder problems.
(The Scab:
just a few yards downhill from the Thimble, being one of many examples).
Given the fact that he had already bouldered---what?---as much as six V-grades harder, the Thimble could hardly be considered revolutionary in terms of difficulty, which is why calling it a "V4 Highball" misses the point. As a climb, it combined difficulty as yet barely imagined with a level of boldness that was extremely rare for the time.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Thanks Kerwin and Rich, knowledgeable voices. Gill has always
pondered and reflected, thrown out ideas, called bouldering
this or that and again renamed it or re-associated it. The process
is similar, I suppose, to a math theroum (spelling?), where one
postulates and revises. That's a somewhat typical characteristic of
a creative mind, I'm sure. I wouldn't take any given comment of his as the
final end all. The important things are Gill's humility, his strength
not only as a climber but as a human being, that he is a true
example for us all, was then and is now. I think Gill could have climbed
8 grades harder than he did at his best, had he ever really wanted
to push. He never did, in all the times I bouldered with him, go "all
out." Oh yes, a few moves took that moment's burst of power. There were
times he transcended, if you like that word. He has boulder problems
no one has done, that would tear apart your muscles if you had that
many muscles. But mostly he has continued to have a spirit of play,
to enjoy being outside. Some climbers today, I just happen to
think of Fred Nicole, would spend weeks and days and all-day days at
some problem, finally wire the first few moves, then spend a couple
more days or weeks on the next several moves, and of course standards
are going to shoot up as a result. Standards will rise also as they
always do, with the natural passing of time and each new generation's
inheritance of consciousness. Today a new climber is given bouldering
at a very high standard and almost begins where great climbers of the
far past set their upper sights. That the Thimble does not rate as
high as other climbs today means little to nothing. It takes a very
special climber, even today, to go up and climb it, along the original
line (farther to the right than many do it). Gill had manky shoes,
nothing but his own ability and motivation, as Rich so eloquently
notes. There aren't many among even the best of today's climbers who
can do one-finger pull-ups on any of four fingers, or do a one-arm
front lever, or an iron-cross mount on the rings... especially at
Gill's amazing strength-to-weight ratio, a large man, and also have
amazing footwork and balance (try Falling Ant slab without your hands,
most couldn't do it using their hands...). Gill was known for his short
climbs, and his boulders, but he did plenty of longer routes in both
the Needles and Tetons. As a kid he did such things as solo the East
Face of Longs Peak. He was more well rounded than most thought.
To degrade John by talking about how easy his climbs were by comparison
to the hard routes today is to forget quite a few things, interesting
realities, such as that few of the top sport climbers today have gone
to the Thimble and climbed it... in that bad-shoe, padless, guardrail...
sort of way, and few ever will know what that time and those conditions
were like, for example with no previous knowledge of the route,
the knowledge everyone now has, etc. Lots of people met Gill in the
old days, saw him boulder in the Tetons or Needles, and some claim
now a deeper relationship than actually existed, and some were in
fact among those who could care less about bouldering but now look
back fondly at it. Hell, I'm just rambling now, but I guess my point
is that a few of us have been there with Gill, climbed with him before
his injuries and after, and have spanned the generations, so to
speak, seen it all, and still have the same awe for him we had from
the beginning, an awe no else has inspired or could, in the same way.
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50
climber
Stumptown
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Alex - In the '70s when I was a teen, there were a few climbing books that really left an impression on myself and my climbing buddies. Pat Ament's Master of Rock was one of those books. The story of Gill and the Thimble was legendary. I'm not too surprised that this boulder problem (route?) does not get much traffic these days...too dangerous and too low of a number on the modern rating scale.
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Watusi
Social climber
Newport, OR
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John Gill has been and will always be my hero! The level of climbing that he was accomplishing at the time, with the footgear... So far ahead of the game!! I've bouldered with Sherman and as good as he is I know he'd have to give it up to our master...Posting old shot of me to prove I'm not spraying...We were always trying to emulate as best we could...:)
OOPS!! Almost posted the wrong shot...
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Yes, Pat, you are wonderful!
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matty
Trad climber
los arbor
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Bonus Trivia - What problem does Verm consider to be "the thimble of the 90's" and who put it up?
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wbw
climber
'cross the great divide
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"And Rgold is correct, the sport has changed to the point that it's impossible to imagine anyone pushing a leap in standards that would be comparable to what GIll did with bouldering standards for North America."
What is less comprehensible is someone not spraying on their blog about how awesome they are in an attempt to impress their sponsors.
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Disaster Master
Social climber
Born in So-Cal, left my soul in far Nor-Cal.
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What problem does Verm consider to be "the thimble of the 90's" and who put it up?
Mandala, Sharma?
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Alex Baker
climber
Portland
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 6, 2010 - 11:58am PT
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Awesome. Thanks "50" for scanning and posting those shots. See you around..
Also, apparently there is a route right of Gill's famous line, that is a bit steeper and harder. I am unaware if it's been bouldered. Anyone know?
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matty
Trad climber
los arbor
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Verm's "Thimble of the 90's"
Mandala, Sharma?
Nope, Mandala was put up in 2000, but even so it lacks the character that made the thimble what it was. The thimble was known because it was high, dangerous (the guard rail), and put up alone with no spotter/pad. The mandala is not as tall as thimble and was certainly put up with a bunch of spotters and stacks of pads on a perfect landing.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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The Thimble's in the wrong parking lot.
If The Thimble were in Camp 4 or the Buttermilks, it would be a destination problem, despite its height.
In some ways The Thimble was not as innovative as many of the other parts of Gill's climbing career-- The Thimble was one of the things that came closest to what other traditional "climbers" did-- it was sort of a miniature version of the kinds of things a Hermann Buhl did in the mountains. I think that's one of the reasons it became such a signpost for many of us-- conceptually, it was easier to grasp (if not to repeat) than much of the rest of John's practice.
Eliminates, the super-short obscurities, the serial top-roping, the practice of obsessively designing and polishing moves on some crummy little butt nugget out in a canyon somewhere-- all of those habits were really out there for the period. Still others remain exotic today-- the particular style of movement that Gill carried over from rocks and rings to the boulders just isn't really in evidence at all, anymore.
And the idea that each problem should be considered an aesthetic performance-- more like a gymnastics routine, judged on form and style as opposed to, say, a long jump or sprint where only the numbers count --has fallen entirely out of favor. That's part of John's legacy that is really worth conserving. We're really lucky that Pat trudged around lost canyon with a movie camera documenting a portion of John's middle career.
The Thimble is a highball with a reasonably distinct line to an real summit, with clearly marked beginning and ending holds, and a numerical value attached to it. As a result, it looks a lot more like the sort of boulders folks compulsively itemize in their logbooks over at 8a.nu than do many of John's other "problems." And that's before we try to think about the way John's bouldering related to the bigger alpine context or the "religious" practice and so on.
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ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
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That picture of Gill on The Scab was one of those classic photos that made me realize "I'm not worthy" BITD. The position, the strength, the shoes, the socks!, I was pretty sure he'd figured out the secret of levitation when I saw that pic. His ability in grey suede shoes required a lot more technique than what people can get away with nowadays in the new sticky shoes.
The other series of pics from Master of Rock, in that cave in Red River (I think), also showed his unbelieveable strength and style.
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the kid
Trad climber
fayetteville, wv
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Thimble is super bad ass. photos do it no justice. I worked it in 2001 and then 2003 with charles fryberger and Verm. Neither Charles nor myself could pull it and yes chuck did take a nasty fall.
That problem is very heady and hard, and Gill is the true MASTER!
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