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jstan
climber
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I hate to say this but it all was not really that serious. Here I will tell a story on two people( really excellent climbers both) who potentially will no longer be my friends.
When headed off on the carriage road to do a climb, these two guys would link elbows and skip down the road while singing in falsetto. At one time they had worked up 100 verses. Unfortunately I remember only the chorus but you can tell what the rest must have been like.
5.10
5.10
We are off to do 5.10.
We leap and bound
And hit the ground
5.10
5.10
If the rock had had eyes to see them and ears to hear this I almost think it would have decided, "Maybe these nasty creatures are not so bad after all?"
I truly hope so.
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SteveW
Trad climber
Denver, CO
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Hi John
Steve Williams in Denverland. Don't know if you remember
me from the old Carderock days, helping pull your piano
out of your house eons ago, but welcome. I still remember
your work picking up trash in the Gunks and working to
save Yosemite back then.
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Aya
climber
New York
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So can we get some names??
What a tease!
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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John ain't gonna get away with "defending" himself that easily.
I think Stannard had more to do with the elimination of pitons and the conversion to passive pro in this country than any other climber. Yes, of course, we needed Chouinard to make the gear, and Doug Robinson to sing the praises of clean climbing, but it was Stannard who realized that you could do new routes at the hardest level of the day without pitons. Starting up a new route that was likely to be 5.11 with just a rack of nuts was a hypothetical activity until John showed, over and over again, that it was quite possible, at least for him. The influence of his example and his effect on the "next" generation (Barber, Bragg, and Wunsch) revolutionized climbing.
I wonder how many climbers today could repeat Stannard's routes, ground-up as he did them, with only the gear he used (a rack of stoppers and some hexes). Hail to one of the Masters of our sport!
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hardman
Trad climber
love the eastern sierras
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John do you have a good story to go along with any of these climbs?
John Stannard's contributions
Trapps
Low E
Stirrup Trouble
Kama Stura
PR
Higher Stannard
Interstice
Beatle Brow Buldge
Country Roads
Help
Mans Quest for Flight
Erect Direction
Doubleissima
Wasp Stop
Climb & Punishment
Kligfields Follies
Near Trapps
Criss
Criss Cross (to the top)
Sling Time
Swing Time
Fat Stick Direct
Generation Gap
Fat City
To Have or Have Not (5.12R crux Nut was placed w/ a coathanger)
Millbrook
Rib Cracker
White Corner
New Frontier
Swinging C#&%
Sweet Meat
Strange City
Garden of Allah
Promise of Things to come
Remembrance of Things past
Never Again (backed off this last year, let's hear about your adventure)
Skytop
Foops
No Exit
Crack of Bizarre Delights
True Grip 1st p
Mellow Yellow
Up Against the Wall
Crash and Burn
Half Assid
Also
Persistent
Stannard’s Roof
Now there's one sweet tick list!
John I have to chat with you one day about other areas in the gunks.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 7, 2006 - 04:50pm PT
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Hey John, reading your little vignette, I immediately pictured stout John and slight Steve skipping and singing their ditty in falsetto.
Now, we aint gonna accept that you did all those new routes, in an unheard of style, conversing with your nuts and slings, simply because you loved doing it? We all loved to climb—it is not a distinguishing characteristic.
On a serious note, Steve brought a powerful message to the Valley in those early years: climb clean, work your ass off on new routes, and back off if you couldn't do it free. He channeled you to the rest of us.
Best, Roger
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wootles
climber
Gamma Quadrant
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I certainly don't want to hijack this thread but I have a trivia question. No cheating now. Name the belayer on the cover of Climb pictured earlier in this thread.
Welcome Mr. Stannard. I'm looking forward to reading more of your posts.
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Omot
Trad climber
The here and now
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John, thanks for your vision and hard work putting up all those test pieces. I've fallen off both Foops and Stannard's Roof.
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jstan
climber
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I have a problem. I can post replies to you all but this would keep bumping the thread, which is rather discourteous toward everyone else. How about if I gather all those who have expressed interest into an email list and do a collected reply by personal email?
For the rest of this post I want to respond to the pretty general interest in stories. I can lie pretty good but I do have a story written out for me by someone you all know would never ever lie. Hans Kraus. I have to introduce this with a sentence or five. Perhaps you all have also noticed how we receive kindnesses, unbidden, every day? In the early 70’s I had no choice but to deal with the rock damage issue and I needed Hans’s help with the mostly free newsletter I started in order to get people talking to each other. Despite his insanely busy work schedule Hans was so kind as to spend the time it took to carefully write out in English (his second language) an account of the first ascent of High Exposure. As Thom Scheuer used to say – Enjoy.
High Exposure*
by Hans Kraus
Many years ago, in 1941, Fritz Wiessner and I walked home from a day of climbing at Mohonk. In those days there were hardly more than a dozen people climbing in this area and very few routes had been put up in the Trapps. We did not have to look for a free space between two climbs to map a new line. We would look up at the cliff and if we found a corner, a ridge, or a face that appealed to us and made us curious how it would feel to be there, we climbed it. As Fritz and I walked home after a pleasant day, we passed Sleepy Hollow and as we looked up the cliff we saw this huge roof jutting out over a beautiful ridge that caught our eyes. I wondered if it could be climbed.
The next week Fritz and I tried. It was a beautiful day and as I climbed up the first rope length, the rock felt warm and pleasant. We had tied into double hemp ropes, for nylon was not known at that time. These ropes were rather heavy and they were not as reliable as nylon ropes, so a double rope was advisable for any new climb that might prove difficult. After reaching the end of the corner, I found a good stand and asked Fritz to follow. From here it was possible to get over to the ridge that looked steep and beautiful in the sun. A ledge led out from the corner and on to the next rope length. It was good clean rock leading out to the airy ledge and it was a real pleasure to climb up to the big terrace under the forbidding ceiling.
After Fritz had followed and tied himself to a rock, I started out after looking once more at the half-dozen pitons and ten carabiners hanging at my side. The pitons were of the vertical and transverse variety. There was only one ring angle, a new army piton that had been given to us for testing. It wasn’t too difficult to get under the roof but there the world seemed to end. A little ledge would serve as a foothold beyond the roof, but it would mean I was committed to the climb, and I didn’t know how it was going to go on. So I placed a piton, put in a small carabiner chain (we had no slings) reached out with my left arm, pulled my body out from underneath the overhang, and in one move stood on the ledge. From here the rock went up very steeply and gave me the feeling of being on the rocks of the Dolomites that I love. At first however, I was quite afraid and only happy when I had placed a second piton and I had snapped the rope into the carabiner. Then I moved out to the left and halfway up found a good place for the ring piton. I hung in and stood there for a long time. The exposure was beautiful. Turning left, I gained the upper part of the ridge and climbed out.
Fritz followed quickly, as we used to in those days, left in place all three of the pitons we had used. We sat there and looked over the valley, a valley that was very quiet with very few houses. We looked down on the dirt road that is now 299 and it lay quiet without any cars. Then we coiled our ropes and walked home.
Home in the Gunks in those days was the Bayards Inn and that is where we always left our car. We considered the walk to and from the place a pleasant warmup. After dinner we walked out into the yard and looked at the dark hills and the valley that lay dark and quiet with very few lights. We went back to bed to rest for another day of climbing.
*Copyright: The Eastern Trade – Aug. 1972
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 7, 2006 - 09:26pm PT
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Nice write up from Hans Kraus, John. Talk about a magical era: ” We would look up at the cliff and if we found a corner, a ridge, or a face that appealed to us and made us curious how it would feel to be there, we climbed it.” Can’t get any simpler than that.
John wrote, “I can post replies to you all but this would keep bumping the thread, which is rather discourteous toward everyone else. How about if I gather all those who have expressed interest into an email list and do a collected reply by personal email?”
John, your sense of courtesy in killing this thread is misplaced. You may have noticed that collectively we want more climbing posts on the front page, not fewer. Not everyone will want to read what you post, but my guess is that many will, even if they don’t respond. There is plenty of evidence that lots of folks read carefully and appreciate good climbing posts but don’t participate in the give and take.
So, post up, boldly.
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cintune
climber
Penn's Woods
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Second that. It's what this forum is *supposed* to be all about. Wouldn't mind seeing this thread knock any number of Private Life Drama topics down to page 2 limbo.
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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John,
It's the internet. You're supposed to keep on posting--that's why Willie invented it.
Curt
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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I'll bump. I don't think it inconsiderate to repopulate the front page with items actually pertaining to climbing.
Here's John on a Valley classic in 1970. On the next pitch, an unprotected chimney, I ingeniously arranged to drop a sling with every wide piton we had on it. I had turned around twice in the chimney, switching the gear slings to the outside each time, and somehow the sling with all the bongs ended up just pinched between the others and not on my neck and shoulder at all. This should have been the end of the climb, but the sling went down 300 feet and hung up on a twig about the size of my thumb, and our two ropes tied together just barely reached it.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Stannard in JT in the 80's. (Photo by Curt Shannon)
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Stannard in J-Tree (Indian Cove), circa 2001...
Can't recall the name of the route, but it was a 5.11
Note the 2" swami...
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Rich, is that the west face of Sentinel, the famous expanding flake pitch?
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Very cool thread to bump. John Stannard is one of the bright stars here!
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Hey John . . . how are you doing, old-timer? Aging is a whole new world, isn't it?
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murcy
Gym climber
sanfrancisco
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Just a facelift pic:
John had taken all his camping stuff on public transportation all the way from god knows where to the Valley. The young bucks working with him on a heavy-crap-removal project were lost for words.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Where is John these days? I've missed his posts.
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