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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Jul 25, 2009 - 12:26am PT
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That's nuts!
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wildone
climber
GHOST TOWN
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Jul 25, 2009 - 01:45am PT
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That's great. So many awesome comments in this thread. Arlene Blum lives here in berkeley, and I was just looking at her book today in the Berkeley library...Kerwin, it's a good one? I guess I'm too much of a literature snob for a lot of mountaineering books...I'll still read and enjoy them, but I like to read someone who can actually write, and though I've found a disproportionate number of climbers who can write, there's always those who can't.
I love passive pro. There's just nothing like that perfect placement. Same as why I ride a fully rigid singlespeed mountainbike (and crush it in races). You gotta get back to the essence!
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Jul 25, 2009 - 04:41am PT
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I asked my friend Robert Summers about Margaret Young and using nuts and he told me:
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She had climbed in England and used nuts there.
I still have a 1/4 inch goldline sling with 3 or 4 machine nuts of different
sizes strung on it. Margaret had told me that was how it was done in England.
I filed the threads out so there would not be sharp edges. Don't recall the fancy aircraft fittings.
I took a group up Higher Spire around 1964 0r 65. Margaret as I recall was in that group.
She was badly injured in a ridding accident, maybe in the early 80's.
Never did recover. Lasted maybe a year after the accident.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 25, 2009 - 10:19am PT
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Thanks for following up on Margaret Young for us, Clint! It is ironic too, that equestrianism is what took Margaret out, not climbing....
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jul 25, 2009 - 11:28am PT
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If we're talking wooden blocks, and so forth, Fritz
Wiessner used some during his early visits to the
Needles of South Dakota, and he also discovered some
already in place, apparently used by... neanderthals?!
I think I mention some of that in my Wizards
history.
Rich, I hadn't heard about that woman Royal climbed with
in Eldorado. He always found me whenever he came to Boulder,
and he and I did a lot of climbing together in 1964, but
there was no mention of nuts or use of them. It was
September of 1966 that he came to Eldorado with Whillans,
and they looked me up, and Royal was ready to start using
nuts. He had just returned from England and was gung ho
on nuts. He slung some on me, and I fiddled with them all
the way up Ruper, even though we didn't really need
protection on that route. Then he tried to get me
to use them on the first lead of Supremacy Crack, but I
wasn't comfortable with the idea yet so hammered in a
couple of pitons instead. As I said, that was 1965, but I
have absolutely no recollection of Royal thinking about
nuts or using them in '64. Not to say you're wrong. I
would like to hear more, maybe I'll ask Royal directly.
Soon after Royal's visit to Eldorado in 1965, people in
several places all at once seemed to start producing
them, homestyle. Several people in Boulder, for example,
simply got some metal and drilled holes, or they took
regular machine nuts and filed out the insides so that
the slings wouldn't be cut. It took about a year, if I
recall, for nuts to start appearing in a few stores. And
longer for the mainstream to take them seriously. Doug's
great article and Royal's "Nuts to You" were instrumental,
I mean, very significant, in bringing about the
transition...
Pat (Oli)
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Jul 25, 2009 - 11:40am PT
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Dave Rearick created his own wooden chocks
from wood of the Osage orange tree.
Howie Doyle and I climbed with him in 1975 and
he used them on a route on the Twin Owls we
climbed with him on. I was suspicious, I'm not
sure I'd have wanted to clean one if a fall had
been taken on it.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jul 25, 2009 - 05:15pm PT
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Yes but Rearicks "plugs" as he called them
came much later. They were, though, very strong.
He tested them thoroughly, and after a short
while I trusted them. He gave me a full set, as
a present, including his "clapper," an adjustable
wooden nut for wide cracks. The clapper was usable,
but it was probably the one you would least trust.
It was more psychological than something sure. It
came apart, though, so that you could carry it flat
against your body in a crack when not using it. His
smaller plugs, though were bomber.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jul 25, 2009 - 06:14pm PT
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I thought I had one in the antique bin still.
AN hydraulic nut.
Circa 1970.
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France.
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Jul 27, 2009 - 02:54am PT
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Pat,
It still would be a great pleasure if you could send me the design details and some photos of the Clapper. As you know, I would like to remake an exact copy of this really interesting device for the Nuts Museum. It would really find a good family with Dave Rearick's other original "plugs", here at home...
Stephane / Nuts Museum
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