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WBraun
climber
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Feb 18, 2014 - 11:18am PT
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Yosar History --- "Does anyone have some good info on the history of YOSAR?
Especially the relationship between the climbers and the rangers,"
Especially the relationship between the climbers and the rangers?
Da facts man Da facts
There's thousand's of those stories from the naked YOSAR but you would have to have been there to get the facts right.
Better to start a different subject for school paper .... :-)
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Feb 18, 2014 - 11:22am PT
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Chief...It would be interesting to read that interview with you but i've never had much luck with the sheets archive search...
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Feb 18, 2014 - 12:03pm PT
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The Chief..Found the interview and your rebuttal to Doug kriese following the twin engine gear-up landing...Sounds like the only fire suppression involved was Kriese's rear-end..?
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Feb 18, 2014 - 03:10pm PT
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Aye , Aye chief...
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Urmas
Social climber
Sierra Eastside
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Feb 20, 2014 - 06:08pm PT
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Bruce, I remember Cosmic Bob - Bob Lingaard. We had some good times together! I remember one crazy night at the Ski Industries of America (SIA) show in Vegas; wandering around all night with sunglasses on and watching the sun come up over the strip. Whatever happened to him?
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Scole
Trad climber
Joshua Tree
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Feb 25, 2014 - 01:42pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Bump for some good stories.
At the 2014 Yosemite Facelift on Saturday night's rainy meatfest in Yellow Pine CG, I spoke with a Korean climber who lives in LA. His name's KI BUM or LICKY BUM, depending, I guess...
BooDawg and I were feeling no pain and KI asked about the early days, then specifically about the origins of YOSAR. Much of what Ken told him I forget, but my turn came later, as I was in the Valley involved in SAR before there was YOSAR, as Warbler puts it, if only in a small way, but I know what I saw, SGT. JOE FRIDAY!
In 1970 I came to the Valley and set up camp in Camp 4 with Jeff Mathis. We were able to stay in Camp 4 because we had agreed to be available for searches and possibly technical rescues. When we were in camp this was no problem, obviously
This was the big deal, however: When we were out of camp, we were out of camp, unreachable, (but not offline, for no one was even online then), incommunicado, plainly NOT available, whether we’d registered with a ranger or not (which no one ever did anyway), rescue personnel or not. We had no beepers, even. It was a technological Dark Age. Not a cell phone in existence.
At that time, the fall of ‘70 and the spring of ‘71, this whole rescue gig was loose as a goose in comparison even to the version of YOSAR of just a scant year later, when Warbler came bop-bop-boppin’ along, for instance.
We looked to Kim Schmitz, officially, more than to Bridwell at one point, because the management had selected him boss of this bunch, and I guess it was a political thing; but Kim did not relish the responsibilities We spoke of that one time. He hated it and must have thought me a fool to call his job a “dream job.” I looked at it as such, considering he and Bridwell were ski patrolmen in winter, had some training in rescue techniques, thereby, and could simply kick it in Camp 4 all winter. This is a naif’s POV, a n00b’s twisted idea, for Camp 4 in winter is a dreary thing when the snow’s deep. And no money to be made when everyone's hibernatin'! Idiot!
(I don’t know any of the politics involved in the placing of Schmitz as the head, but we had looked to JB, of course, and he resumed his place sometime that spring or summer, but by then I had quit the rescue site.)
My Tuolumne Tent suffered little, but it had a full load of snow on it when I settled back into my Camp 4 site n February, 1971. I had to re-rig the fly and de-ice it, but it proved to be a tough little unit. I had my van, however, and most nights were spent in that, but not in the Camp 4 loop. I was found most nights parked back of the female employee dorms across from Camp 4.
That fall, I wasn’t asked on any technical rescues, for Pete Thompsen asked me a simple question to determine my fitness, and that was, “Done any Grade Vs?” I had to say no, and this was when the Harding Rescue on the Dawn Wall was called. I completed two Grade Vs the next few months later and so there was no question of my ability to handle myself on a wall, Pete Thompsen was happy to have me.
As it comes to me, the rescue excitement on Dawn Wall was about the ONLY rescue called in this period. I may be entirely wrong, but it’s the only one of which I am aware. I was out of town, so to speak, down in Monterey, for some time that winter.
I did participate in one day’s search for a young female employee who went missing. Then I was employed to walk up to Ribbon Fall with two others beating the bushes, which were soaking from a rainstorm earlier in the morning.
And there was one action-packed day when we got called very early for a ride up to Tuolumne Meadows from Camp 4, where we were assigned to one of two parties to comb the area down toward Cloud’s Rest and Pywiak Cascade on Tenaya Creek. Lloyd Price was in charge up in the Meadows and he had picked Jeff and I to ride in the chopper to a third destination but they couldn’t get up to us because of the unsettled weather and high wind.
So we got to go floundering down a gully to the base of Pywiak Caacade where we did find the body of the hiker we were seeking, Kim Schmitz’s doctor friend from Tahoe. He was in charge of our party and went the last way in to see the body and to identify it. It was a very personal experience for him and he wished to do it alone. The body came out in a flown litter next morning.. Matt Donohue was assigned to that chore and I think Larry Moore, but not sure.
When we got back to the top of the gully and up to Olmstead Point, the lot of us were told to come to Medlicott Dome and we had to assist in a litter-lowering from the very base of the cliff where someone, a day hiker, had tumbled.
I was involved in my only technical rescue on Serenity Crack. This was in the early spring of 1971.
I had left a one-man tent pitched in Camp 4 as a token of my “prescence.” I had received money from a settlement involving the loss of my thumb in a Merced peach cannery and had purchased a used van and had also gone to Monterey, where I’d lived earlier the year prior, and planned on enrolling in school again at Peninsula College. I didn’t know how this would go, and it didn’t, and this is why I kept my option open in Camp 4 for quite a few days, nearly a month, in fact, it seems. At any rate, I was in the parking lot of Yosemite Falls in the van with my girl friend, dolores. She needed to be in Merced that evening for work. I was told of a rescue going down and that was what we did instead of going down the hill to Merced.
We pulled Hugh off Serenity Crack. He’d cracked his ankle and it was a severe break. Lloyd strapped him on his back using a special body harness (how they came up with this rig, I don’t know, but it was amazing and just the ticket) and rapped down to the talus very slowly with my upper belay. All of us had been ussued headlamps and that was it, other than the belay and rappel ropes, primarily. There may or may not have been a spool or winch involved, but it’s long ago and doesn’t matter.
I was paid for the hours I spent on the rescue. I moved back into Camp 4 and forgot about school. I did not need a tag for my van. I could drive it into my campsite and park it there, too. It was on the low side of the drive-through loop. None of this “executive view” sh#t from the Upper Terraces.
The various personnel who I know were involved in SAR activities in the time I was there include these people: Bev Johnson, Barry Bates, the Bircheffs, Jeff Mathis, Matt Donohue, Bill Bonebrake, Jim Pettigrew, Schmitz, Roger Breedlove, Mark Klemens, Steve Williams, Meade Hargis, Bridwell, John Dill (maybe) and Werner (probably). I can’t be sure the status of anyone else, not with honesty. Besides, when I try to remember names, they aren’t coming, and when they do, they are not the ones who qualified under the stringent NPS employment guidelines then in effect.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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In the early 60's there were only a few of us living long-term up in the Camp 4 boulders, Royal, Pratt, Jim Baldwin, Chris Fredricks and myself (the youngest). Chris and i were still teenagers, the others in their mid twenties. On cold winter nights we tended to huddle around the electric heater in the rest room. The area where camping is currently allowed was all considered to be tourist country and we climbers stuck to the area up around the Wine Boulder to keep an eye out for marauding rangers.
Loyd Price had already inserted himself in the Curry Company hierarchy and occasionally showed up in winter with warm food. Bridwell and Schmitz, even younger, were not yet part of the scene. Chouinard would be with us during the spring and fall, spending the hot summers in the Tetons, Rockies, and Winds (as I did sometimes). Frost, Sacherer, Harding, Denny, TM, Kor, Kamps, Powell, and others exerted a strong presence periodically, but were not resident. John Salathe was also making extended visits. Royal usually climbed with me when one of his older buddies wasn't around. Royal was my mentor and instructor (as he did later with Ament and many others) and we shared a camp that I maintained when he was off somewhere else, such as in Modesto with Liz. I was blissfully unaware of most valley politics not directly relevant to my obsession for climbing several solo projects and developing specialized equipment. I also climbed with Sacherer, Kamps, Baldwin, Fredricks, Loyd Price, Jim Mays, Joe Feint, Margaret Young, Jim Richardson, and others on weekends. My friendship with Royal was inadvertantly disrupted when Sacherer became my regular partner. The weekend climbers helped make life possible for us by leaving food on the shared table. Glenn Denny taught me some of the techniques, but I have no memory of ever meeting Roper.
We were getting hounded by some opinionated rangers who also harassed the next door Yosemite Indian village. Since we were climbing every day, often for multiple days, they had a hard time keeping tabs on us. But the constant hassle of avoiding these rangers was disturbing.
So Royal wrote a letter to Secretary of Interior Udall pointing out that any technical rescues would have to depend on the few of us climbers who were actual 'local residents' i.e. receiving our mail General Delivery Yosemite. Royal's letter mentioned five of us by name. It didn't hurt that I was a founding member of the National Mountain Rescue Association.
The Secretary sent a letter back to the Park Superintended instructing him to stop hassling the resident climbers and to constitute us as a rescue team with rights to remain in the park as such. Royal was copied on the letter, and he showed it to me with great glee! After that we just had to keep a clean camp and we were left alone by the rangers.
Since there were only the few of us climbing and we all led charmed lives and took care of each other, there was little risk of actually getting called out on a rescue.
Jim Baldwin getting killed had a major impact on our culture of invincibility, and the Valley never felt quite the same after that...
A younger generation moved in, replacing our gallon jugs of red wine with LSD and pot...inspiring some of us to move on...
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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I can give you the precise origin of YOSAR.
Back in the early 70s, just after I got the YMS guide service established, NPS had only a few qualified rock rescue rangers. When there was a technical rescue the guides got called out and worked with those few rangers and whatever volunteers were available. The Roy Naasz rescue on the Arrow (April 1970) was a great example, and I don't know that anything that technical has been done since, primarily with recreational climbing gear and pulleys. (See Farabee's "Death, Daring and Disaster" for that one.)
The obvious problem was that when NPS called on our guides they had to leave their students and clients hanging, so to speak. We loved doing good rescues and did some great ones, but it was no way to run a business. At the same time there were some of the best rock rats in the world hanging out in Camp 4 or lurking in the talus somewhere, being harassed by the rangers for overstaying the camping limits.
The solution was equally obvious - if it could be sold. Not easy, considering the NPS/climber relationship at the time. It would be something of a paradigm shift.
I snagged Bridwell out of Camp 4 and we went over to talk to the Superintendent. The big boss was unavailable, so we talked to Keith Nielson, the Asst. Superintendent.
Basically, what I told him that he had some of the best climbers in the world in Camp 4. They would give their ears to be able to stay more than a couple of weeks. The rangers were wasting their time trying to chase them out, when the climbers - working with the rangers and under their nominal supervision - could be a rescue team surpassing anything in the country. The Naasz rescue was a perfect example. (Perhaps the fact that Gov. Ronald Reagan watched it through a scope made an impression. Maybe he didn't see that all the rescuers flipped him the bird.)
I suggested to Keith that if a group of the best of the climbers could be granted unlimited camping, provided 50% were available at any one time for a rescue, NPS could then sign them up, cover them with insurance and maybe even pay them in some way, then NPS would have the best rescue team possible.
Fortunately I had a good relationship with Neilson, and he accepted Bridwell as the rep for Camp 4. To my delight he bought the idea.
Exactly how it evolved after that I have only a vague notion, as I was busy with YMS, trying to get it established in TM in summer, getting a Mountain Shop going and a cross-country ski school in winter. But apparently Neilson took it and ran. I think Bridwell was a key, but I don't know. And it has evolved into an incredibly great organization. I am truly impressed. YOSAR, you guys are awesome.
Pete Thompsom, Bridwell, Loyd Price and Herb Swedlund can likely confirm this history, and it is almost certainly in the Park records somewhere.
I imagine Keith Neilson is long gone, but he deserves huge credit for accepting the idea. So does Bob Maynard, who was Curry Co. VP at the time and decided that a climbing school was a good idea, and was totally supportive of that and every other effort in that direction. And I suspect Pete Thompson supported it from his then Rescue Ranger perspective, although I've never asked him about that.
Damn, that's a long time ago!
WM
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Wayne
Thanks for joining the taco. Good stuff!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Both Tom and Wayne, fossils from different strata layin' it down.
Thanks, muchly.
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nah000
climber
canuckistan
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great additions.
nice resurrection mfm.
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Gorgeous George
Trad climber
Los Angeles, California
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Isn't there someone out there that can put together a collaboration of players to write their memories of the early Yosemite/YOSAR experience?
Personally, I get a lot of vicarious enjoyment out of reading these first hand stories!
Obviously, somebody needs to recruit JM into this effort.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Misc ramblings:
This is fairly important history. I hope more people of the day check in with factual stories.
I was a complete noob to climbing when I first roped up in the valley about 1973. The Camp 4 "rescue guys" were already becoming legend. The first permanent tents were sprouting. Rescue camp was still pretty much a slum.
Being an occasional weekender I heard more rumors than facts.
I remember when and how Jack Dorn died. A woman climbing partner of mine knew him pretty well. That really brought home the dangers of the work even if you weren't swinging beneath a chopper.
It also served as a warning to do your best to be at least minimally prepared for getting benighted in high places and then to take care of yourself.
It's truly incredible that John Dill is still there.
All the official logbooks are probably in the public domain.
And from another SuperTopo thread, an excellent story by Tom Evans on the El Cap rescue of 3 October.
http://www.elcapreport.com/content/elcap-report-special-rescue-edition-1032014
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Remember when the pagers could also listen to the LEO channel?
Some good BASE stories about that. Never to be told....
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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What a treat to hear from Wayne Merry himself. This is a very cool thread and I hope it turns into a fantastic school report if it hasn't already been completed. How often is that you get to write a report about legends and hear from the legends themselves. Supertopo comes through again.
Scott
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Tom -
I hadn't been aware of Royal's correspondence with Udall. That must have been what - mid 60s? It is apparent that Interior was becoming more aware of the Yosemite climbing/rescue situation well before that final decision was made to create YOSAR. It would be great to pick the brains of all the players who worked on that to see how it all fit together.
Asst. Secretary of Interior Nathanial Reed visited in early '71 and I took him over to Camp 4 to meet some of the climbers, who fortunately were feeling amiable that day. I don't remember which climbers spoke with him - maybe someone out there does. I later got a letter from him saying in part:
"I never met a more interesting group of young people. If in some way we reached out and shared with them our genuine concern and interest, not just for the Park but for their ideas, hopes and future, then the trip was worthwhile." And farther on, "Let me know how the plan for Camp 4 is coming - whether the young people are interested, concerned and responsive to our flexibility. We want to help - give us that opportunity."
How that all fit in to the picture I don't know, but it indicates that a good softening up had occurred which finally triggered the establishment of YOSAR.
Being part of the Yosemite Park & Curry Company provided useful opportunities to meet some of the significant politicos. I was at a cocktail party one time at the Superintendent's house with a bunch of bigwigs, including Rogers Morton, Sec. of Interior, and George Hartzog, NPS Director. Hartzog, who had once been a southern evangelist-type preacher and had a gift for gab, got into a toasting contest with Ansel Adams, who was equally imaginative. The two went on for - must have been twenty minutes with elaborate impromptu toasts which were positively Shakespearean, and had everybody in stitches. They drank with every toast, too.
Fun memories.
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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It was around 1968-1970, a friend of mine fell on Clyde Minaret, broke his femur, and it was a high altitude rescue. Wayne Merry, Loyd Price, and Tom Gerhughty were involved in the rescue, maybe also Jack Miller. It seemed like Wayne was informally heading up YOSAR, if the rescue required actual climbers. Gerhughty came back and said it was a scary operation, it was a bit high altitude for the chopper, and also the climbing part, lowering the guy was scary.
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Aspendougy -
That Clyde Minaret east face rescue was a good one, but it wasn't YOSAR, it wasn't in the park. Loyd Price and Tom Gerughty and TM Herbert and another person I failed to record and I went because the fallen climber's partner (I didn't record his name - he worked at TM) was Jack Miller, one of our guides, and the Sheriff's Dept. over there couldn't handle cliff rescue.
When his partner broke his femur Jack rapped off, ran down to a campsite, found a guy who had a sleeping bag and some oral morphine, and ran back with them up to the face. Then he climbed solo in the dark back to his partner and took care of him.
Next day Loyd - and I think Tom - went over in the first chopper. Loyd carried something like 8 coils of rope up to the ledge and fixed ropes to the bottom - a superhuman effort, which blew him out. TM and I came up in the next chopper loads. We jumared up Loyd's fixed ropes with the rest of the gear. I was hauling a Stokes litter. We got him splinted up and into the basket. Had to move him down to a better ledge to lower from. Just before lowering, someone just touched a desk-sized rock which slowly slid off the sloping ledge and dropped the - I don't remember exactly, but I think it was around 1000 feet. It sure as hell scattered the Sheriff's and Forestry guys, who were next seen clear across the valley. Then we lowered TM down with the basket, passing knot after knot in the lowering line. Jack, though tired, was remarkably sharp. Herbert and our subject were in a lot of danger from falling rock, but Loyd had cleaned it to some degree. There weren't any chopper rescues from faces then. Anyway, it all went well.
Later, we nominated Jack for the Carnegie Award for heroism, and he got it, and deserved it.
I was privileged to work with a crew like that. And if I've forgotten anybody I'm really sorry and I hope you speak up.
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WBraun
climber
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Great stories Wayne from the days when men were still men and women still did dishes ......
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