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t-bone
climber
Bishop
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gotta love the comment section...
Patrick
NYC 19 hours ago
Tom Cruise did something like this for that movie Mission Impossible, not sure if it was the I or the II, but he definitely made it look easy. I actually canceled my own trip to El Capitan after seeing that film, and instead went bow hunting for lion in Kenya. Maybe this year I'll give it the old spin.
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Bad Acronym
climber
Little Death Hollow
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^^^
Thought I'd go bully off to free the Dawn Wall as well! Then I saw the NYT article and binned it. Now it's off to Greenland to shoot gnats with nailguns, ho ho HO!
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Outside the Asylum
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Perhaps we can look forward to the NYT, and other news media, explaining to the public the fine theological niceties of the different styles of 'free' ascent, including clean, on sight, hangdog, red point, rehearsed, and on and on. Not to mention that the current ascent wouldn't have been considered free by the standards of 1970s Yosemite, but now is by many. And that a true free ascent arguably requires a naked climber without any equipment besides that required for public morals, and previously untouched and unseen rock.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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The simple way to frame a general audience article about a specialized sport most folks didn't grow up playing or watching nor yet understanding - include a sidebar with a few key terms and techniques briefly and clearly explained. This provides much-needed context, insight and verisimilitude to the piece and frees up the feature writer to do the "story," as opposed to hacking out an info dump on what all those ropes are doing and how they got up there. It also weeds out howlers, like all the hooey about the rope.
Simple concept, rarely used.
JL
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ryankelly
Trad climber
Bhumi
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Key beta from Mr. Long. Right on.
Kinda funny about this article because as I stood in El Cap Meadow with Tom Evans on January One, 2015 someone speculated about the possibility of a New York Times article.
Tom thought maybe the front page of the Sporting section. Pretty cool to fire up the news and see people try to describe what Tommy and Kevin are making happen up there.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Anybody catch the Today show?
Their piece kept flashing to a pic of Half Dome and calling it El Cap!
lol
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CCT
Trad climber
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Text message from my mom this morning, who is New York Times reader, and who has been kind enough to toprope with me once.
"Saw T Evans and K Jorgeson are on El Cap. This is exciting to see even for me! Glad they wear safety ropes"
Go Tom Evans! And how about that excellent photography, presumably from T. Caldwell himself.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Awesome stuff. This is our super bowl :)
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Our Super Bowl? Are you nuts?
I'll be impressed when somebody actually frees El Cap without using sling belays!
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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^^^
Dawn wall is 5.14D/A0 ;D
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pc
climber
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Well...IMO Aid climbing is climbing "the rope". Aiders are just ropes of a different configuration.
Regardless...
Nice going on the Dawn Wall fellows!
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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When Todd Skinner and his friend first free climbed the Trango Tower, they got some media coverage. I recall Skinner saying that "previous parties had climbed rope ladders, not the rock itself," or words to that effect. So, the media equates aid climbing with "rope ladders." Still, I agree the coverage this time around was confusing.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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I would have hoped that the enormous increase in the number of climbers since the Dawn Wall's 1970 first ascent would have resulted in more accurate reporting in matters concerning our hobby. There are plenty of journalists who climb now, so the oversimplification disappointed me, particularly coming from the Times. At least the Fresno Bee reported the cliff's height as 3,000 feet, rather than 3,000 miles.
Oh well, to quote Dudley Do-Right: "But it's in the newspaper, so it must be true."
John
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pschwa
Social climber
The 9th Circle
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sempervirens asked
Ed, or anybody, Any chance you have a link to that NYT article about the first ascent of WOEML?
It doesn't look like the Times actually wrote any articles about the climb, although they carried wire articles from UPI or the AP on November 14, 16-20, and 22, 1970. On November 14 and 19 (after the "rescue" refusal and summit, respectively), they did have wire photos on the front page, below the fold.
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MisterE
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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I was clenching my nubs even before I saw this quote!
Caldwell, right, and Jorgeson at the Dawn Wall, which has a relentlessly smooth face with few cracks to penetrate or nubs to clench.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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#NubClenching
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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or in tommy's case:
#nubclenchingnub
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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From my monstrous Random House Dictionary the first definition of nub is "a knot or protuberance".
Nub clenching works for me.
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MisterE
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Go, Team NubClench!!!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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There's a second shorter article about it on the front page of the Times today - Hanging Out 1,200 feet above the Ground. More accurate but the comments are highly critical and cynical. What is it about the internet that brings out such negativism?!
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