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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Nov 14, 2013 - 02:27pm PT
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"A Short Walk With Whillans" is my favorite chapter of One Man's Mountains. The natural way Patey captured the essence of Don Whillans remains, to me, the best description by one climber of the personality of another climber. May they both rest in peace.
John
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 14, 2013 - 02:45pm PT
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Bloke offered Whillans a menthol once, and so 'e 'it 'im!
'e did! Me da' saw it with his own blinkin' eye!
1970. I was out of Pall Malls in the Bugs, nick-fitting like mad.
A noobie's lack of planning, as Bridwell, the ciggy bum, would definitely say.
I got some GOAL WASH from the menage of Frenchmen who showed up in Boulder Camp with REAL FINE SMOKES!
They politely offered one each to each of we three, and Jeff was the non-smoker, so he saved it for we two (Bullfrog and myself) addicts to split later on.
Merci beaucoup, mes amis.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Nov 14, 2013 - 03:22pm PT
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As I recall Dandy Don took 2500 ciggies with him on the Annapurna South
Face joy ride. I don't think they were Gauloises, not that it really matters.
Or was it 5000?
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Chris Jones
Social climber
Glen Ellen, CA
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Nov 14, 2013 - 06:12pm PT
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Gauloises were certainly the smoke of choice for my pals and I in the Chamonix of the mid 1960s. Our British cigs just didn't make it in France - too bland, as in Players, too awful, as in Woodbines, or too expensive and effete, as in Balkan Sobranie. (When I could afford to, and trying to appear sophisticated, I did smoke Balkan Sobranies in London)
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What little we knew about the great alpine routes we dreamed of climbing was largely gathered from such wonderful books as those by Buhl, Bonatti, and Rebuffat. And one thing seemed apparent: bivouacs were nerve-wracking affairs where death stalked the unwary. The answer, we felt, was to bring lots of cigs and smoke the night away, thus avoiding never waking up. We had read about that sort of stuff!
After all, what about The Death Bivouac!
While I then smoked maybe a few cigs a day back home, in the alps we all upped our quota. This increase of cigarette consumption while actually climbing, and at relatively high altitudes, seems completely counter-intuitive, but it was all part of the scene.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 14, 2013 - 06:49pm PT
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From the thread @ Club Vagabond.
I remember reading of Mick Burke smoking on Annapurna.
I always liked the idea of capitalist smoke blowing into China.
We get plenty of their pollution, ya know, like we used to get plenty of their smoke and mirrors propaganda.
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Michael Hjorth
Trad climber
Copenhagen, Denmark
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Nov 14, 2013 - 06:50pm PT
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Nice picture, Chris. Did you scan more? Please...!
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Nov 14, 2013 - 07:23pm PT
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I don't wish to detract from the charm of this thread, but in my mid 70s I have watched men I know a few years younger than me conking out right and left with lung, mouth, and throat cancer and heart disease. I never thought much about it when I was younger, but now I clearly see that regular smoking is one of the worst things one can do to one's body.
Edit: OK, missed your earlier comment. Sorry about your father.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 14, 2013 - 07:38pm PT
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As mentioned upthread, I have reasons not to be a smoking advocate-------but I sure appreciate the contributions made to this thread about how integral smoking & especially Gauloises were to alpine climbing in the last century.
Chris Jones! Thanks for sharing your photos & memories!
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Allen Hill
Social climber
CO.
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Nov 14, 2013 - 09:40pm PT
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 14, 2013 - 10:00pm PT
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Allen! Great photo of a high-altitude climber getting a fix, without the oxygen. Do you know where & when the photo is from? Everest South Face?
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Allen Hill
Social climber
CO.
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Nov 14, 2013 - 11:51pm PT
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Over here at Club Vagabond film world, we must have two hundred old photos of smoking climbers. I'm guessing the largest collection anywhere! This one is from Everest. It's amusing and all but the best one ever is of Mick Burke pulling back on a fag in a blizzard on the rock band of Annapurna South Face. His O mask resting around his neck at 25 thousand feet.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 15, 2013 - 12:03am PT
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Allen & all! Thank you! Any more memories or photos are welcome.
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Decko
Trad climber
Colorado
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Nov 15, 2013 - 12:18am PT
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Never write anything you'll only regret it...
Don Whillans
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rmuir
Social climber
From the Time Before the Rocks Cooled.
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Nov 15, 2013 - 08:58am PT
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In the seventies, we Americans were sucking on (barely) smoking bedees in front of the Bar Nash... Now there was a hard-man smoke if ever there was one!
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Nov 15, 2013 - 09:04am PT
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The picture of Don with the cig is telling. Recall that he was only 52 when he died from a heart attack. How old does he look in the picture.....puff away lads.
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Chris Jones
Social climber
Glen Ellen, CA
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While the quotation below is not about climbing history, it is from a new work by James Salter, author of the much-praised novel with a climbing theme, "Solo Faces."
In his recent novel, "All That Is," he writes of a romantic liason in New York as follows:
"Early one evening he sat outside smoking a cigarette and looking across at the smooth surface of the pond that was absolutely still and across to the other houses where lights were already on and a car was slowly making its way, half-hidden by trees, to one of them ...
Christine came out on the porch. She sat down beside him.
"I didn't know you smoked," she said.
"Just once in a while," he said. "I only smoke Gauloises, like the French movie stars, but you can't get them here. This is just an ordinary cigarette."
This association with movie stars would have been the clincher ....
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 5, 2013 - 08:35pm PT
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Chris: Thanks for the quote. It was a different world back then.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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With the crazy, careening course of technological and cultural change, it's a different world every month or so.
edit: except at the City of Rocks
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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I figured out that rolling your own out of Samson Shag was far more pleasant and cheaper than those vile French smokes. I would chain smoke at alpine bivies with the best of em.
I was on a job with Mike Graber once. He had just barely missed making the summit of Everest without oxygen, so I refused to give him one of my Marlboro's. Eventually he just grabbed the pack.
Nicotine is my vise. At least now I can vape...
Somehow I don't see Whillans or Bridwell vaping.
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