The Stigma vs. The Regegade

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Mike Bolte

Trad climber

Planet Earth

May 24, 2011 - 01:24pm PT

great shot walter

Wade Icey

Trad climber

www.alohashirtrescue.com

May 24, 2011 - 01:25pm PT

With teen Idol Jason Campbell on the belay...

the kid

Trad climber

fayetteville, wv

May 24, 2011 - 01:26pm PT

pretty sure first 5.13 in the valley was Phoenix..

klk

Trad climber

cali

May 24, 2011 - 01:31pm PT

iirc, largo's quote (about todd on hades) was, "every base trick in the cheat's repertoire."

that always struck me as a bit over the top, given that hades (like stigma) was an aid route with pro fixed from prior aid ascents.

lots of valley climbs went free only because years of nailing had cleaned the cracks, pinned out the thinnest bits, and sometimes left considerable quantities of fixed iron. yo-yoing was hardly unknown. todd just added hangdogging and an unapologetic attitude.*

jeff smoot is working on a history of the '80s wars. it's not a tale of moral uplift.

*footnote edit: yes, jardine earlier, etc. "unapologetic" was really the key difference.

Jaybro

Social climber

Wolf City, Wyoming

May 24, 2011 - 01:34pm PT

When did Cosmic Debris join the club?

klk

Trad climber

cali

May 24, 2011 - 01:46pm PT

jaybro,

i think debris was 1980? certainly before stigma/renegade. todd originally thought renegade would be 13+. but stounds like it's settled in at the watts grade.

so far as i can tell, the earliest thirteens in us remain phlogiston (cleveland) phoenix (jardine) and grand illusion (yaniro).

slabbo

Trad climber

fort garland, colo

May 24, 2011 - 06:53pm PT

Sh#t- I remember Hades ( 3rd ascent ? ) it sure was not"12C", no way.

I asked Todd about City Park " Did you grease it to keep Watt's away ?"

:NO

" But you would have ????"

mouse from merced

Trad climber

merced, california

Apr 22, 2012 - 06:00am PT

It's eggs ackly 40 years since we drove old Stigma down.
Old Stigma almost got named Smegma by Dillis, but he was out-voted by the rest of us. By the rest I mean myself, Cowboy Larry, and Richard Fries, an employee of PT&T living in a nice house up the hill from the Village Store. Rich was Cowboy's step-father and a regular guy. The four of us had the gall to claim the first ascent, but for reasons only George Meyers can relate, only Millis and myself were credited in the Yellow Guide, which I no longer own, blast it.
I see the last post here was nearly a year ago.
I see too, that we named it so well that it is ironic. It seems people want to stigmatize the modern "Wyoming cowboy and notorious trickster," and that's no problem for me. My personal stake is low in the "Poker Game of Fame" that climbing FAs has become; it was low in 1972, when the game had only begun. We climbed virtually the whole thing on aid. We got up the thing and linked with Enigma, which was our plan. We felt very good about what we had accomplished. I never gave it a second thought that it was nailed. We were in it to have fun. And we did.
I have misgivings only about the fact that sometime after the climb had been noted in George's guidebook, bolts placed (by Cowboy) had been removed by unknown bolt-removing Valley Christians. No big deal. Millis, Cowboy and I had done what we did and didn't have to pretend we did not care about what some might have taken as a metaphoric slap on the back of the head. What we did care about was that some one might take a grounder.
Make a mess for Werner to clean up. Hurt somebody else, like his belayer.
We knew nobody'd climb it free.
We were worse at predicting the future than we were about free climbing. I never led a 5.10 with any style and that was a JT shortie with a single move. Cowboy, well, I can't say which 5.10s he led over his career, but no more than a handful, I'm almost certain. And Millis, God love him, probably tore up a bunch. But this was in the Bark Ages, when Millis dog, Spats, was still alive.
As I said, I had little to lose, reputation-wise, by aiding the route. Millis woulda told off anyone who criticized him for it. Cowboy would laugh in their faces. I don't think it fair that Cowboy got no love from George, though. I am setting the record straight, is what I'm doing tonight. Cowboy stood up for me in Merced when I married my Yosemite maid and I gotta cut him a huss because of that.

I am amazed how much turdage can originate over such a tiny crack not worth the time of day to anyone other than KLK, who is probably who I think he is. It seems ten times more pointless than the actual climbing to spend more time "in discussion." But I'm clearing some cosmic debris, so lemme be and wasn't that just an awful poem about A. Hondhold? I won't mention the site it lies in, but it was, in the colorful jargon made popular by Seth, "a turd."

In the Mtn Shop there was a bitchen b/w photo, framed and impressively posed of Wayne and Lloyd on the climb, not yet named. It made its way into my brian-brain and sat there until I discussed it with Cowboy. We jammed down to the Cookie and he was driving, so he got to lead. Besides, he owned the rurps. We set up the belay anchor on the folded-out tailgate of his Ford station wagon. He didn't take all that long, half an hour at the most, before he slammed in the bolt at "the stance." I was ready to rock and roll, but he had me lower him and we traded places on the sharp end. He belayed me as I clipped up and cleaned hanging from the upper placements. So it was top-roping. Guilty as charged. We knew we needed more bolts than we had, so we left off for the time being. That single bolt, we figured, would protect the leader on the next excursion, and that would yield a longer first pitch, making it a two-pitch Grade II. I guess Cowboy had work obligations; the next to lead it was Dillis Millis.

He and I went to the old Forresta road in his Olsmopile and he parked right there at the base of the climb. I just sat in the front seat with the passenger door open and used the steering wheel as the anchor. Approaches are to be avoided like rappel descents. This is common sense to de Flames, to Armadilloes, to Stonemasters. So, having exhausted myself tying the knots, I was glad Millis was leading. I figured I was saving myself for the "drilling bit" promised by the crack's fade-out. and Millis' bolt kit was bulging. It wasn't happening, though. Ma Nature took matters into her hands by kicking loose a rockfall from the western end of Elephant Rock. It didn't kill any people, but the carnage in the talus and forest below Elly Rock musta been awful, not to mention the trout probably abandoned Steamboat Pool for a long time. Water from house-sized blocks sloshed onto the road, soaking some cars, but not causing any to crash. The dust cloud rose and crept up the gorge, moving on the breeze. I was blase enough to tie off the lead rope to the door post, pick up Millis' camera, and begin walking up the road to a good vantage point to do my Ansel. Dillis, I don't know, he was cool, but he knew he wasn't going any higher. I think he was standing in his lowest loops. There was some high-falutin' stack job supporting him. He was planning a rurp for the next placement. Eventually, whenever the brouhaha had run its course, we went back to work. He clipped the bolt at the stance and decided to call it a day and we repeated the cleaning procedure Cowboy and I had used.

It was not the best of Millis times, it was not the worst of Millis times

It was really too early for beer, so we got all civic-minded and went to the Schmeglies and wrote out a brief affidavit of having witnessed the rockfall. Then we got the Schlitz, my favorite at the time. And regaled friends and girl friends with macho swagger and total lies. Millis time. Cowabunghole! Kill a keg for Christ's sake.

Then Cowboy and his step-father, Richard, sought me out and said they wanted to go do a climb. Rich had no idea of what to do, so I set him up with a swami and made sure he had solid boots, if not rock boots. Cowboy racked up and we ended up going for it that day. I led the first pitch. Then when I got to the single bolt, looked up at a big knob you could stand on forever; I realized I was not going to commit to the free move from slings, even though there would be several bolts for aid before I got there. I dealt with Cowboy and he said he'd lead the mantel-shelf I wouldn't touch for all the weed in Damnbodia. He also refined the deal by getting me to agree to Richard's cleaning what I had led. But I had to put in the bolts up to the knob. I literally bolted to the finish line, but a broken bit put the kibosh on that, so I got lowered and Richard cleaned up on the yo. He got it done in good time, had a ball with trying not to drop any of the stacks as he cleaned. He spent lots of time with such tasks high off the ground: he was PT&T's trouble-shooter in Yosemite, fixing everything from the lodge switchboard to repeaters on the rim of the Valley, to delivering phone books. Larry went up and, with a fresh bit, drilled again. He made the move from his top loops look so smooth that I kind of hated him, but he was performing for Rich, so I had to smother the envy. I don't know about after that.

But what about after that? But what about after that?
From the LP titled Safe As Milk by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band

Cowboy led the rest of that pitch but how he managed I'm not sure. It was 40 years ago. I feel he put in a few more bolts, maybe 3. In the above photo it looks like a crack or fold or such is there left of the knob, but we couldn't use it, since we had no bashies, just Kandy Korn,* in the gasic colors of "yellow, orange and white." Whatever. He tied in to the Enigma and I belayed him from the mantel knob. It's such a complicated story, I know, especially for such a silly little climb. There's not much glory in having a stigma attached to your name, when you think of it.

They can trash Todd all they care to, but it's all pretty pointless. I'm delighted to find the thread, though, with links to the other thin cracks mentioned above. And it's good to think Stigma came so very close to icon status, like Phoenix, which looks good for "first Valley 5.13." Thanks for the history lesson everyone who took part in this thread.

What brought me to this Topic was a simple search for the local wunderkind, Jason Campbell. I was trying to find what he's been doing because I came across a profile and short interview with him in the Rocktober 1987 issue of Climbing. Other than this clusterfluck, I have learned nothing.
But I've been reminded yet again that all is vanity.

The Renegade

Here I sit so broken-hearted:
His life is ended, barely started.
Stigma's hard, but he was harder:
Dedicated, full of ardor.
Climbing free what Cowboy started
Was the goal of the departed.

Hasta la vista, you big bumper.
You may be climbing the Gates of Hell, but hang in there, dog.

*Kandy Korn--another Beefheart (Kandy Korn bashies are for psychological pro only and never to be relied upon for aid climbing--we are a responsible, level-headed bunch on the road to Hell--What's up, Todd? See ya sooner than we expect.)

martygarrison

Trad climber

Washington DC

Apr 22, 2012 - 10:24am PT

I looked up at this thing and thought why waste time monkeying around this stupid thing when you can get many high quality pitches in during that time.

Great topic. Werner I aways thought the same thing walking by that thing.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

merced, california

Apr 22, 2012 - 10:59am PT

Trad climbers say the smartest things. Garrison, how about a plaque mounted into a block of granite at the bottom with "Look but don't touch?"
Maybe not. It's not worth it either. You do have to be a sicko to do what Todd did, and I don't mean just the hard climbing. He didn't eggs ackly die trying to send a hardy.

I did not thank the photographers...Smoooooooot, YO!
Walleye, the eyes have it. You da manliest photographer....where we you set up? On an abseil line?

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Apr 22, 2012 - 09:05pm PT

mouse,

Thanks for the stories and names of the original FA - I'll correct the historical record (using actual names).

You mentioned 1972. The big rockfalls from Elephant Rock occurred in 12/??/1970 and 3/4/1971.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1485313&tn=0

Did the FA occur in 1970 or 1971?
Or was it started then and finished the 3rd pitch and finish on Enigma in 1972?

mouse from merced

Trad climber

merced, california

Apr 22, 2012 - 11:15pm PT

Clint,
History's funny in that two people tell it two ways. The best way, absolutely, to get to the bottom of this particular rubble pile would logically be to find Cowboy Larry Moore, who is a victim?acolyte? of the Bhagwhan in the Northwest, who I think passed away. Rich Fries, several years ago, when Betty, Larry's mom, died, told me that Larry was still in the Bog's community.
Barring the likelihood of that possibility, I am going to time-line the ascents. I remember one ascent that I have not recorded, because I thought it unimportant to the story. It occurred in very early 1972 and stands out simply because my left ankle wore a plaster cast as a result of the fall I took on Swan Slab's Lenna's Lieback.
Stand back and let me think. where's my coffee?
It seems I should close this and go look at the rest of the postings and just sketch the time-line. I don't want to lose this part. Schwarzenegger said it best.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

merced, california

Apr 23, 2012 - 01:09am PT

It's much less fuzzy.
The dust cloud of mem has dissipated.

The rockfall witnessed by Millis and Mouse happened in December of 1970 in the mid-morning.
Cowboy Larry Moore and Mouse climbed Stigma, placing a bolt at the stance, prior to the rockfall. It may have been early December or late November when we did that.
The actual date of the rockfall is not listed in the historical rockfall records which I reviewed. However, I am convinced it was shorly after our trip to JT, which was just before Xmas. This was close to the end of the year, between Xmas & Dec. 31. We documented the experience for the NPS, but there is probably no way to unearth that, no dissing the NPS. I called them Schmeglies in the earlier post. It has a better ring to it than other epithets. Stupid bastards lost the paper.
So, let me see........
Oh, yeah. The stuff I just put into the Topic of the Grack Rockfall reminded me that Millis and I witnessed both the rockfall of December and the one occurring in March of 1971. We were in bivouac on Ahwanee Ledge on the Tower's west face. It was heard, not seen, of course. I wakened to the sound, which reached us easily and may have been acoustically enhanced by the Tower's peculiarities. I dunno. Millis would have slept through it, but I had to waken him' too. "Fookin' shite. No te dije!"
My always fluent friend, just kinda looked at me and we knew what it was but found out where later.
So, we have here three ascents by the original staff:
1) Larry Moore and Mouse, fa pitch one, in Nov. 1970.
2) Dennis Miller and Mouse, 2nd ascent, in late Dec. 1970.
3) Larry Moore and Mouse, fa, to the Enigma. 5.8, A3+, exact date not established, but likely 1971, after the second rockfall of March. (Rich Fries never completed this ascent).
Best I can remember.
Some time after the third climb, a gang of us went to the Cookie and had some brews. I drove us in DORF. (search dorf if you haven't met him).
Bob Romanovicz, my wife, Cowboy, a few others. I don't know who led, but
I cleaned the pitch to the stance on Jumars and then we excused ourselves.
Whew.

Note to George Meyers: WTF? Correct our fa information pls if you list it. Larry deserves it and it is the right dope. thank you, old boy.

Renegade? Renagade? Sheeeit.

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Apr 23, 2012 - 01:38am PT

mouse,

Thanks for the additional details. So I'm putting 1971 for the FA of all 3 pitches, and including all 4 of the folks you have listed who contributed.
(I'm not strict about restricting names to the people who topped out on the final effort; more into including those who "did the work", and let the FA people decide who is worthy of including in that list).
The later (1972) ascent sounds interesting with the cast, but doesn't count in the FA records since the 3 pitches had already been done. And I would call the 12/2_/1970 climb a 2nd ascent of p1 (vs. a 2nd ascent of the entire 3p climb).

George Meyers has not been working on the guidebook since the 1987 edition; Don Reid and lately others including Ed and myself have been maintaining the records.

Karl Baba

Trad climber

Yosemite, Ca

Apr 23, 2012 - 02:34am PT

Climbing topic bumped with story of aiding the thing...

Way back in 1981 (give or take a year) a buddy and I decided to practice aid up the Stigma on the Cookie Cliff. Back then you could drive right to the base and anchor to your steering wheel or bumper!

It was rated A2 which seemed easy enough that we wouldn’t need pins. We ro sham bo’ed for the lead which I won.

The higher I got, the harder it got. Nearing the (then higher) anchor I had been using crack-in-ups, hooks, micro-stoppers and it kept getting worse. Something ripped and I was suddenly weightless. The rope caught my leg and flipped me upside down. I could feel more gear ripping giving me one weak shock after another as I rocketed in slow motion downwards. I could see the ground approaching fast. I had time to think “Am I going to actually deck? Is this ‘It’”

Booiiing! A piece finally caught me. I was upside down, and close enough to the ground that one more piece blowing might have sent me to the road.

My partner suddenly lost his appetite for leading. It was up to me to go back up and finish the pitch. This time I brought a hammer but, like a testosterone infected youth, only used it once or twice very lightly. I discovered two disturbing things.

One: The #1 wired Hex, placed sideways between two crack protrusions that held my fall, and that I used to Jumar back to my high point; For some reason I cleaned it when I reached the top of the rope. The rock shattered on both sides of it when I cleaned it. It could have easily failed.

Two: Somewhere above that was a #4 stopper still in the crack but with a broken wire. I cleaned it for a souvenir. Eerily, part of the #4 stamp had worn off so that only the shape of a crucifix was visible. At the time, it felt like an omen.

Anyway, I finally got the pitch but it was dark by the time it came for my second to clean. It was threatening to rain with heavy mist coming down. We didn’t have a headlamp so I tore the rear view mirror off my Volkswagen bug and turned on the headlights. I reflected the headlights up on the wall so my partner could see!

Years later I had a very powerful vivid dream harkening back to the accident. In the dream, I took the exact same fall from the exact same perspective but this time I hit the ground. I was stunned and managed to crawl into the passenger seat of my car before my world contracted around me and I knew I was going to die. The world faded around me and I turned within, but an amazing conscious divine light dawned within me. I merged with it and began to expand in all directions. I was expanding, merged with that light outside the boundaries of my body and beyond, beyond, beyond. It was total ecstasy. So much so, that self-consciousness of the experience arose and that brought me back to the waking state.

Peace

Karl

Gunkie

Trad climber

East Coast US

Apr 23, 2012 - 09:28am PT

I looked up at this thing and thought why waste time monkeying around this stupid thing when you can get many high quality pitches in during that time.

Great topic. Werner I aways thought the same thing walking by that thing.

Yeah, I think the same thoughts walking by a lot of different things these days.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

merced, california

Apr 23, 2012 - 10:31am PT

Karl Gaga, I read you. But WTF, Alan Watts got the FA, so what in peaceful bliss would one expect? I know, some other Watts. Watt the Dimbulb. The beautiful Watt Avenue Bridge in Sac where I roamed the American River and raided Indian burial grounds with the other kids for the beads.
It just goes to show, the alpine start generally works in your favor. Sounds like it was the standard coffee shop then the rack then the climb start. I never liked them but love to say I told you so.
It was on top of the Salathe that I came that close, upside down, less than a foot from the ledge where Doug Ross was anchored. It was in March 1974. The storm collapsed that morning, day 6, and we had just got through the penultimate pitch, the one Peter Haan led f*#king on-sight, solo. It was pass the pitons, please, dire wet conditions, which made Doug forget the free climbing. I had the entire rack, less the single tied-off LA for pro, and that's why I went topsy. It was wet and my foot just slid as I stepped right. But good lord above, your fall was nasty! It's fortunate your VW didn't have to suffer by a roofer.

"He and I...parked right there at the base of the climb. I just sat in the front seat with the passenger door open and used the steering wheel as an anchor."

I truly hate the automobile, but loved my Econoline, the DORF. The old road to Forresta was a big part of my younger days, as our scoutmaster's family had and still have a cabin up there. We hiked down the road to swimming holes at Cascades and Steamboat. Right past our future. It is a good thing the road is closed by divine fiat. No more fiats, VWs or DORFs allowed. And all that rockfall noted above and in other threads, I'm totally sure it's due to the vibrations of large vehicular movement and if not that, I'm willing to go with Terries and Firmies.
Having your second chance is such a blessing. I am so happy you can still remain faithful to the bitch goddess of climbing.
Tafadhali (whichever language it is, it means what you seek),
Mouse
Tioga Resident, Merced

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Apr 23, 2012 - 11:13am PT

mouse brings up an interesting conundrum, and Clint hits it home with an example:

how are the conflicting claims of FA parties resolved? as time passes, the last public words in the journals or around the campfires get passed into the guidebook appendices... only to resurface as those guidebooks get updated, usually at the initiation of a request for more information.

these conflicting claims resurface, and essentially it is the call of the guidebook editors to decide history.

many of the conflicts seem so very minor to the majority of people, but are often intensely debated among the few. it is essentially writing in or our someone's perceived legacy to climbing. human "memory" being what it is, the collective recollection of the community of then active climbers may be a poor, albeit only, means of deciding the claims, with the generally better told story carrying the consensus.

klk may have an opinion here as a professional, but it is a lot of responsibility to put on the guidebook, though taking up such a task probably implicitly requires such a commitment.

and then there is the issue about "who cares, anyway?" one could argue that guidebooks are so full of consequential errors that inconsequential errors, like who did the FA, or even that of the order of names should be on an FA, are irrelevant. one could also argue that the guidebooks should be as factual as possible.

my question to you all: how should these debates be resolved?