The Flames.

THIN LINE a.k.a. LIMP WRISTED FAGGOT

I am the Limp Wristed Faggot. The chosen name was an expression of self-deprecation. Granted, that's not very enlightened, as it is essentially still homophobic in its derivation. Teenage boys in the 70s routinely bantered this way. We were all homophobes, even if we didn't actually judge homosexuals themselves. At age 23, when I did the route, I was just beginning to come out of this. It's just how we talked and acted. We were silly, ridiculous, and yes, often hurtful. Counterculture angst and all of that fun stuff.

In spring of 1984, the time of the FA, I was coming off of a frostbite injury to my fingers and it was a route I thought I should have been able to flash, on-sight. I couldn't, I wound up top roping it. I was very angry that I had let myself get injured so fundamentally as a climber and so early in life, pursuing what was to be, and would become, my life's work. Corny, but true.

I completed the original top rope of LWF with Michael Paul. He said, "Whoa, Limp Wristed Faggot ... That's an edgy route name. There's a double entendre to it though, Roy. The Brits call cigarettes fags. You were so pumped (limp wristed) you couldn't even hold a cigarette (faggot)." In fact, it was the weight of a joint which bent my wrist back, not a cigarette. I know children might be reading this, sorry about that.

So Mike Paul liked the name, because he knew those individuals prone to making hasty judgments might jump to conclusions about some homophobic derivation, (which it was initially), but that if they were a bit more worldly, they might understand the connection to British cigarette slang. To Mike, the name was a trap for presumptuous types. We were all about being well-traveled, so that was his approach to it.

Did I really think that would hold water? No.

Mike Lechlinski actually got the first lead. He didn't care about the route name and didn't think it should be reconsidered. You would have been appalled to listen to the gnarly tone and tenor of our average chiding with one another BITD. Seriously, we were total brats. Irreverence was part of what we were all about. There was no Internet. Climbing was nothing like it is now. It was not even close to becoming mainstream. Yes, context is everything.

In fact, and here's the good part, Randy Vogel, at the time of the FA, 1984, told me he thought I would regret the name LWF. He actually changed the name to Thin Line. Thin Line! How boring, we all thought. I figured Vogel was probably doing me a favor so I just let Thin Line stand. It wasn't until very recently that Randy told me he regretted censoring me, and that he had restored the route name to its original state.

Not long after I named that route, a young woman whom I respected very much, said to me "You should be careful how you talk about homosexuals, Roy. You never know who might be one." Being that I actually never had any problem with homosexuality, and that I strive to be sincere in all my dealings with people, I really got what she was saying, and I grew up.

Initially, a route name is nothing more than a bauble you roll around in your palm for consideration. It's not even the climb. It's a cultural artifact. Where that name selection eventually settles can be something almost completely arbitrary.

I'm not big into route ownership. Once I top out on a trad route FA, I'm done with it. By comparison, I find the top-down FA experience equal to that of high school auto shop, so not bad, but I have no great emotional connection to such an experience.

A route begins and ends in the public trust. If those who become the custodians of this public trust choose to alter my route names, add or remove bolts to the rock, I say this is their prerogative. But they do so at the risk of fragmenting their own lineage.

Happy Climbing!
Roy McClenahan

2/22/2016