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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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I think you'll notice on the Tightrope topo that the crux 5th pitch really has two cruxes: the nasty one with the big fall potential over the roof, which is 5.10 something, and a second harder section up near the end, which is the true 5.11b crux. You don't notice the second crux so much though because, although it's harder technically, it doesn't have any long fall potential. You can take your time and boulder it out at your leisure. But that's certainly not the case with the first hard bit where there isn't any second chance or room for failure. Seemed at the time that the fall I took was about 45 feet or so, but it may have been only really 35 ft. Experientia docet!
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Cool thread. Unfortunately I have nothing to add on Tightrope, but any Apron climb with Vern usually has an entertaining story. Ask Vern or Dale about their first time up Grack Right, and Vern's threat of using a belaying knife.
John
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 13, 2011 - 03:24pm PT
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Tightrope
I'm up on the tightwire
one side's ice and one is fire
its a circus game with you and me
I'm up on the tightrope
one side's hate and one is hope
but the tophat on my head is all you see
And the wire seems to be
the only place for me
a comedy of errors
and I'm falling
Like a rubber-neck giraffe
you look into my past
well maybe you're just to blind to - see
I'm up in the spotlight
ohh does it feel right
ohh the altitude
seems to get to me
I'm up on the tightwire
flanked by life and the funeral pyre
putting on a show
for you to see
Sing it Leon!
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Clu
Social climber
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Aug 13, 2011 - 04:50pm PT
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JEleazarian, David Moss was the 3rd on that trip with Dale and Vern, that's where I heard this story. Something about trying two ropes together...? Chose to decline Dale's offer to do Patio Pinnacle. Charles.
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Aug 13, 2011 - 04:50pm PT
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love the threads like this one
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 13, 2011 - 07:32pm PT
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Charlie,
You're thinking of the Dike Route on Pywiak. David and Dale were part of that team of three, but I can't remember now who the third was, except that I'm pretty sure it wasn't Vern. Dale got off route and ended up leading to the end of two ropes tied together (and beyond, it turned out) with nothing in.
I first heard about that a few days later at Indian Rock, where the scene was described to Galen Rowell. All Galen could think about was "Wow! He could have taken a 600 foot roped fall!"
John
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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Aug 13, 2011 - 10:58pm PT
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Not to hijack this thread, but I remember an ascent my partner Jeff and I did of A Mother's Lament in 1978. I was leading the first pitch (in the small dihedral) and it was really wet. I put in a stopper at my waist and promptly slipped on the wet. As I was plummetting to earth I remember the jerks as my pieces began pulling. The only thing that kept me from a 100' grounder was a Forrest copperhead the side of a pencil eraser.
Needless to say, I was toast for a few pitches, but we finally got to the crux of the route. A variation to the 5.10c wandering crux pitch had just been put in by, I think, Bruce Morris(feel free to chime in) that avoided the long traverse out left and then back right to the belay. With a new bolt, you climbed straight up to the belay (well, that was what we thought).
My partner Jeff, one of the most underrated slab climbers of that era (late 70's) went up, clipped the bolt and then ran it out about 45-50' straight up on moderate 5.10. Barring his way to the belay was a very blank looking 15'. He just couldn't get the psyche to launch out on it so he down climbed back to the belay.
To get up the nerve, we rapped to the top of the Calf and then climbed up to the belay via the Calf Continuation (5.10b or so). Jeff then reclimbed up to the blank section and sent it. Following, the blank section was at least 5.11b maybe 5.11c; the leader doing those moves 50 feet out.
We were so amped from that effort that I flew up the next pitch(5.9) which basically had no pro and one quarter inch bolt as the belay. Also, there was no real ledge. You had to weight that bolt. Rik Reider later told me how dull their drills were at that point and he thought those bolts were pure sketch.
Anyway, in my excited state, I had Jeff climb up to me. He was plenty surprised, and rightly so, to see one bolt. He decided to rappel first, it didn't really matter who did. If that bolt popped we were both dead. When he got to the ledge at the bottom of the pitch and the good anchor there, I would have given just about anything to trade places.
No room for jealousy here. I gingerly rapped to the ledge. The rest of the descent went without incident. We were pretty spent emotionally on the walk back to the car. I don't know of anybody who has done the crux pitch the way we did. What I like to say about that 15' blank section 50' out from the bolt is that you were hanging on nothing and going for nothing. My palms are sweating just typing these words 33 years later.
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Aug 15, 2011 - 02:26pm PT
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Would like to claim credit for such a horrendous variation on the crux of "Mother's Lament", but I'm afraid I never put that one up. Must have been by some anonymous slab 'Master'?
I did put up a second run-out pitch from the top of "Dead Babies" that runs up right and ends at the top of the second pitch of "Mother's Lament" that's not in any guidebook. I did it with Eric Mayo in October 1984 or so. Anyone ever repeated it? When I started the lead off the "Dead Babies" anchor there was a 3/8" bolt out and right about 25". I clipped it, did a big runout, drilled a second bolt and then ran it to the second belay of "Mother's Lament", rapping down from there.
There are obviously still a lot of mystery pitches with strange histories over on the Apron that have never been documented or written about. Maybe someone should write a history of the Apron that delves into all these dark passages?
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smith curry
climber
nashville,TN
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Aug 15, 2011 - 05:20pm PT
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WOW... Just WOW!
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Aug 15, 2011 - 08:32pm PT
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Bruce,
"Your description here seems right: I remember on the crux 5th pitch you pull over a roof, clip a fixed pin, then walk a ramp directly above the roof drop-off, until you reach a small sloping stance where you have to jump up and grab a friction mantle hold. If you jump and miss, you're air bound ... The 5.11 crux above there is academic with the bolts right at your waist."
Got to say I stood there looking at the jump for some time and the potential fall, then somehow crawled to the hold on way tiny stuff. It's certainly the gripper moment on the climb, especially compared to the little 5.11 crux above. But also agree with another poster warning about the second pitch - not too hard but no pro I can remember. So while the route goes over beautiful rock in great positions, one must be very careful or pass on this route.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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tom Carter
Social climber
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Aug 16, 2011 - 02:44am PT
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Chuck Cochrane remembers leading the 3rd pitch like it was yesterday.
Know Vern lead the tough stuff.
I do remember that lower pitch and falling a bunch on the 6th?
Had no idea so many notables had been up there!
TC
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KabalaArch
Trad climber
Starlite, California
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Aug 19, 2011 - 07:05pm PT
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Got shut down on the 3rd pitch of Tightrope by rockfall; a football exploded about 3 or 4 feet away, at my level, and, well, you can't exactly run away. That was just a year or 2 before the big avalanche transformed the entire area into scorched earth, and I haven't been back since.
Tom Carter and I - yes - there is "the Other Tom Carter" - had just finished up on The Calf when we ran across Chris Cantclimbwell and Bruce Morris on Dead Babies, whic proved to be a very seminal climb for the 2 of us. I remember Chris being so into the Zone that he skipped a bolt in the lower and sustained edging bit. Bruce, for his part, was complaining that "Contacts and chalk don't mix" ...we had no idea what he was talking about, because we were new to The Valley, Pinnacles lads really, and still climbing from Roper's Green Guide.
After Chris and Bruce split, we bouldered out to the first Dead Babies bolt easily enough. "What happened to 5.10?" The hardest we'd climbed was Pinnacles 5.9.
After training on No Fall Wall at Indian Rock all winter, Tom and I...actually just Tom, as I got hailed off right at the crux, sent it...before we had ever climbed any "official" 5.10.
I got my chance to lead it after I'd moved to Bishop. A fractured arm had kept me on the proverbial couch all year - equestrian accident. Day before I'd dayhiked up to Red Lake, beneath Split Mountain, a charming 5,000 foot walk in the park. Next day, Sunday, rockslide had closed the road between Crane Flat and 140, so I had to detour around Coulterville, adding a mere 100 miles or so to my "drive in the country."
The Plan was to screw around on the Milk Dud...harnessed, I bouldered up to the 1st bolt on Dead Babies. Clearly, this was a low gravity day, and I called for some draws, a rope, a belay. With my arm I couldn't even manage a single pull up - but I sent!
A cool Ranger let me drive direct up to Crane Flat in the Sunday dusk - it seemed that there'd been some rockfall at Reed's blocking just one lane. Cool!
That was the only climb of that particular season...and for some reason, I recall it as one of my best seasons!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 26, 2011 - 12:47pm PT
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Speaking of slabbage...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2012 - 02:56pm PT
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Bump for Ze Beeg One!
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wstmrnclmr
Trad climber
Bolinas, CA
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Nov 25, 2012 - 03:31pm PT
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Steve...how did you log a post for 11/26 above one for 11/25? A neat time travel trick?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2012 - 04:41pm PT
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364 degrees of separation...
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couchmaster
climber
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S Ledge Rat, that's pretty impressive free solo downclimbing apron climbs.
Dr Feelgood to Mr Natural use to be one of my favs on the Apron. The rockfall really makes you think of your own mortality though and I haven't done it for a while. Went and led Son of Sam with my boy recently with wrecked shoulders last time down and was eyeing that rockfall talus just uphill warily at the base. Whew. Too close it seemed. I was fairly concerned where we were, that stuff is huge and scary. I got worked enough on SOS that I didn't even try Lonely Dancer which may have been a good thing when you are in a rockfall area. I saw that Reid had downgraded SOS to 5.9 from 10a. Makes one feel old:-) Was happy to get out of the rockfall zone, even if we were just on the edge of it.
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Feb 10, 2018 - 12:47am PT
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Bruce Morris wrote: There are obviously still a lot of mystery pitches with strange histories over on the Apron that have never been documented or written about. Maybe someone should write a history of the Apron that delves into all these dark passages?
I know Pat Timson put up a route (maybe with Mastadon) on the Apron with not very much pro for either the belays or the pitches themselves. I seem to remember one of the belays being on hooks.
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mastadon
Trad climber
crack addict
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Feb 12, 2018 - 06:49pm PT
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Don’t try to drag me into a Timson horror show, Bruce. Hooks belay? I may be stupid but I’m not dumb. OK, well maybe I am, but not that time. Pat was probably with Crawford.
Have you seen or spoken with Jeff Vance lately? You still working?
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Feb 12, 2018 - 08:23pm PT
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Don’t try to drag me into a Timson horror show, Bruce. Hooks belay? I may be stupid but I’m not dumb. OK, well maybe I am, but not that time. Pat was probably with Crawford.
Have you seen or spoken with Jeff Vance lately? You still working?
Don,
Jeff is living up in the Santa Cruz Mountains and is a big mountain biker these days. His middle daughter is big on climbing. I retired from hi-tech about 20 years ago and just try to stay out of trouble though that can prove to be pretty difficult at times. Man, those days in the Valley and the Meadows were so much fun!!!
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