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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Jul 16, 2018 - 07:37pm PT
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Never had the pleasure, but his accomplishments in climbing speak volumes. My profound sympathies to his family and many friends.
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Hubbard
climber
San Diego
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Jul 16, 2018 - 07:45pm PT
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Reading his account of soloing Half Dome in a climbing magazine left a wild impression.
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crusher
climber
Santa Monica, CA
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Jul 16, 2018 - 08:08pm PT
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Wow, we are sorry to hear this sad new. RIP and condolences to his family and friends.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 16, 2018 - 08:55pm PT
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much respect
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Rudder
Trad climber
Costa Mesa, CA
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Jul 16, 2018 - 09:07pm PT
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What???
He wasn't much older than me, as I recall. We only climbed together once (at Margaritaville) but I saw him all the time. Very sad to hear.
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rmuir
Social climber
From the Time Before the Rocks Cooled.
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Jul 16, 2018 - 09:08pm PT
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Rest in peace, Charles. (Who will remain forever 'Chuck' to me…or Chuckles.)
Charles and I on the Flakes, 1974.
During the first ascent of The Flying Circus (5.11d A4) in 1978 with Robs and Ricky…
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Bob Palais
Trad climber
UT
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Jul 16, 2018 - 09:56pm PT
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Jimmie Dunn let me know just a while ago. We were planning to go to the ranch next week. There aren't words to capture the loss and our sympathies to those who knew and loved him. Charles was a gracious host, and an original, creative, genius and never afraid to attempt progress beyond his previous realms of expertise. Each time we met It was a great treat to hear his latest discoveries of novel implications of general relativity to astrophysics (figure attached). I felt fortunate to attend some of his last "seminars" along with Jimmie in Dinosaur with Charles and Laura last year, including some great rides and hikes during the breaks; and then when he visited my Dad's in Irvine, where he would always help with anything that he could.
I'll also never forget the First time I "met" Charles. My first time to Half Dome NW with John Gilardi in '84, we couldn't locate the start. Fortunately there was someone (Charles) soloing a route to the right (Queen of Spades). Much as we didn't want to disturb him, and feeling really incompetent, I yelled `Excuse me, do you know where the start of the NW Face is?' In a friendly voice, he replied `Below the Bay Tree!' which was just what we needed to be off to a memorable climb.)
I will miss his warmth and passion for discovery, and his appreciation of his family and friends.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 16, 2018 - 09:58pm PT
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Charles Cole III was right at the heart of a very solid and long-standing community comprising our Southern California tribe.
This is a real shot not across our bow, but right into the boat. Though he had to have had plenty of work stress running his business over the last 30+ years, Charles was essentially a clean liver and if he can go like this, the memo is: get your affairs in order, because any one of us is next.
When I was still just a punter, early 1979, Charles was one of the first of the Southern California Stonemaster acolytes to welcome me into the fold. He was hanging out in the monument by himself, before all the weekenders arrived, sporting that kelly green Porsche 914, and needed a partner. We climbed Loose Lady and that evening I enjoyed my first fireside social with Charles and the more established climbers with whom he was intimate: Maria, Mike and Mari. It was an exciting time, just after the FA of Figures on a Landscape, and there were stories of riding bicycles out to the Grey Giant.
In the mid-80s, after it was clear that my frostbite injuries had really taken me down a notch in terms of the future prospects for my free climbing ambitions, at one of those many Todd Gordon reveries, Charles took me aside and suggested that he thought I was embittered, and tactfully recommended trying not to go down that road. This was a very avuncular move on his part: well-meaning, and quite useful to my maturation as an individual.
Though he didn't really party, he was fun to party with and had quite the wit! At some frolic, the exact location and attendees lost to memory, there was a young woman wearing a skirt made from strips of reflective mylar. He pointed her out, turned to me and said: "Hey, Roy, can you see yourself in that skirt?"
He was also a man who could take a joke. One way of getting his goat, because he came from well-heeled stock, was to conflate his name with that of the Gilligan's Island character, Thurston Howell III. On a Sunday night, after a typical full value weekend, well over a dozen of us including The Gargoyle and Largo for sure, and God knows who else, seems like pretty much everyone, sitting together as one team, one family at a great big table in a restaurant, with Gargoyle running a cassette recorder, I walked up to the group, approached Charles right there in front of everyone and fully belted out the line often uttered by the blueblood TV character Thurston: "Love-ey! Where's my Teddy?"
No one laughed harder at that than Charles himself.
Damn, Chuck (to my memory, very few of us openly called him that…knowing full well he probably wouldn't like it) we truly are going to miss you!
Via con Dios,
Roy Boy
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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Jul 16, 2018 - 10:41pm PT
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A sad day for the climbing world. I don't really know what to say. Spent a lot of time with Charles on and off the crags. I am very sad. Strength and peace to his wife and kids.
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onyourleft
climber
So Oregon
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Jul 16, 2018 - 10:50pm PT
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I was fortunate enough to meet Charles at one of his earliest shops, off Lankershim in North Hollywood. Charles himself resoled my original Fires with first generation 5.10 rubber. When I picked them up, he showed me a prototype for his own shoe, the Vertical (with the accent on the "cal")
I really admired him for his genius in recognizing a trend with a need and filling it with his own innovation.
A loss for sure. RIP
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Jul 16, 2018 - 10:52pm PT
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Reading his account of soloing Half Dome in a climbing magazine left a wild impression. If I remember correctly at one point to make upward progress Charles chimneyed way up behind a flake and dropped a rope out a small window. He then went back down the chimney and jugged up the rope on the outside wall. Genius!
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BG
Trad climber
JTree & Idyllwild
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Jul 16, 2018 - 11:08pm PT
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Sad to hear this. I can remember when Charles brought the first pair of prototype Five Tennies out to Joshua Tree, that he had glued together in his garage. Great things were to come from the invention of Stealth Rubber.
I have fond memories of climbing with Charles at Joshua Tree and Idyllwild. In the summer of 1985, over several weekends, we put up a route on Tahquitz called Scarface, one of the most demanding slab pitches up there at the time.
Back in that ground-up era there was no one better than Charles at running it out, stopping at some marginal stance, and hand drilling a bolt- no one. A lost art.
Charles had a genius intellect, a wonderful sense of humor, and a gravitas that made him so fun to hang out with. But what I remember most was his smile and his laugh.
Condolences to his friends and family.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Jul 16, 2018 - 11:25pm PT
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hey there say, ... i did not know charles... very sad to hear he died so young...
thank you for teaching us, that didn't know of him, so we can appreciate him...
my condolences, to his loved ones and family...
:(
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Juanito
Social climber
San Diego, CA
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Jul 16, 2018 - 11:42pm PT
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Another sad day...
I'll never forget one day way back when... in the middle of the drive to Tahquitz a friend told me about a new pair of tennis shoes that had sticky rubber on them that were called... get this... Five Tennies. That was the first time I heard about Charles Cole.
Years later, 5.10 sponsored me as a rock climber. A while later, I switched to Boreal as my sponsor. Later still, I began doing some of the graphic design and photography for 5.10. That he never held my switching allegiance from his company to his competitor was something I always admired and secretly thanked him for. 5.10 was one of my first steady clients and Charles was always a character to work for and with.
During one visit to the shop in Redlands, he pulled out my quote for photography. He looked at my rate - which was something like $1,500 at the time - and did some math. "Let's see... $1,500 times 261 work days in a year comes out to $421,000. That's way too much money. You must be rich." I don't know if he was serious or not. I vaguely remember trying to explain that there's no way I work anywhere near that much (my rusted out 77 Honda CVCC was evidence of that), but he was already onto the next thing.
Charles was one of those guys who was always positive. He was smart and thoughtful though so you weren't going to get anything past him. Though he had his successful company, wife, kids, big house, he never stopped being playful. Somewhere I have a photo of him that I took at a costume shop of him wearing a Napoleon style hat and mucking it up for the camera. It's a perfect portrait of him: Imperial but playful.
And oh yeah, what a climber too. RIP Charles Cole.
John Mireles
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ron gomez
Trad climber
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Jul 17, 2018 - 01:59am PT
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Condolences to his family. Charles was always very friendly when we were together...go back to the late 70's, Josh, when it was a small crew in Hidden Valley on the weekends. Dave Kassell, my thought, prayer and condolences to you and your entire family. Far too many friends are passing.
Peace
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Tom Patterson
Trad climber
Seattle
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Jul 17, 2018 - 05:45am PT
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Oh, man...this is really sad news.
While I'm sure I bumped into him at Joshua Tree many times (late 70s, early 80s), my only memorable conversation with him was over the phone. I was in grad school, and got wind of this new rubber compound that was changing the game. I tracked down the number and called him up, as I wanted to resole my EBs.
Charles spent nearly an hour and a half on the phone with me, so stoked was he about this new compound. His enthusiasm was palpable. I asked him a ton of questions, and he told me pretty much every step of his journey along the way. He didn't need a whole lot of priming.
I still have those EBs with the original resole job from one of his kits. I'm feeling even more sentimental about them now than before.
Not only was 5.10 rubber a game changer for climbers (I felt like a fly after lacing up my EBs, having rested my car tires on them with my newly glued-on 5.10 rubber overnight), but he just impressed me as a really great guy.
Very sad news, and my sincere condolences to his friends and family.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Jul 17, 2018 - 06:45am PT
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Well, crap. Another Stone Master? I never met him, but I feel like I've lost someone important. I probably crossed paths with him at Josh back in the day without knowing it, but between his name in the guide and the rubber on my feet, he was always around, an important figure and guide and helper. Does he now cavort with the Cosmic Poodle? Time for some more C4 on the ol' TC Pro's. Sincere condolences to all his friends and family.
BAd
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i-b-goB
Social climber
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Jul 17, 2018 - 08:43am PT
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Condolences, Charles is around my age, too young! But his Five Ten rubber brought the climbing community a high step foreword!
I got his original tan/green 5 Tennie approach shoes from his warehouse in the SFV.
I would resole every climbing shoe with his rubber and was the better for it!
Roy your Thurston Howell III story was too funny, but he was more of the Professor!
R.I.P. Charles!
Matt
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 17, 2018 - 09:09am PT
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Dam,, way to young
Condolences to Family..
Thanks for the stories Friends
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