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xtrmecat
Big Wall climber
Kalispell, Montanagonia
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Jan 12, 2011 - 12:44pm PT
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Patrick, very nice pics. Keep them coming please.
I also suffer from the "no sleeps" from time to time. Two cures that work for me are to sleep on the ground. I seem to be able to sleep like a baby when out, so when I cannot sleep, I go out and sleep in the woods, hiking, climbing, or just being on the river. It doesn't matter.
The other cure was something I was turned onto about two months ago. Valarian Root, I take the max dosage and only once did I get less than 7 hours. I do not know if it is habitual or not, so I take it when I need. Sleep like a drunken sailor. Very economical, and found in the suppliments aisle of almost eery store I have gone into. Melatonin only worked once or twice for me, for what it is worth. Good luck.
Burly Bob
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CubicleNation
Trad climber
Mtn View, CA
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Jan 12, 2011 - 01:03pm PT
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Pat, can you give the story behind the photo of you holding the picture in Camp 4 that you posted previously ?? I've seen that photo many times before and curious about it.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 12, 2011 - 05:12pm PT
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Somewhere on one of these threads I tell the story, but since I can't just find it, I'll
give you the short version. This was fall 1967. I was
getting ready to go climbing, rope shouldered, waiting for my partner
Larry Dalke to do whatever he had to do. I was standing in Camp 4,
reading some magazine I somehow got hold of. I suddenly came across
this photo of Dylan. Just at that moment, Larry Dalke said, "Smile."
The instant before he clicked the button of my camera, I turned the magazine
outward. This was the year and season I did the first 5.11 in
Yosemite, and Higgins did the second one... I was pretty fit, on the
University of Colorado gymnastics team...
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CubicleNation
Trad climber
Mtn View, CA
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Jan 13, 2011 - 08:32am PT
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Thanks Pat.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Jan 13, 2011 - 09:07am PT
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Great pictures Pat. Wow, you had quite the guns back in the day!
That Ament/Dylan shot is just a prize, a real sign of the times.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 13, 2011 - 02:33pm PT
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I like Sherman's phrase, in Stone Crusade, "a honed tooling machine." Strangely, though, people prefer to remember the times I was weak, or failed miserably at something, or when they saw me grab a carabiner in a moment of weakness... they prize the imperfections, when such imperfections are far outnumbered by times I did ok... I was shy and very insecure in those early days, and some took that to be arrogance. I didn't have a natural grasp of the social graces. So they wanted to bring me down, naturally... Others just instantly understood and liked me, like Gill and Higgins and Bates and Bachar. I never could quite reconcile those extremes, what Bob Gofrey referred to when he wrote in his book CLIMB!: "No climber has generated more diametrically opposed reactions..." or something like that... I guess I was pretty dopey and clumsy and gauche at times... Some of us don't grow up until we're about 70.
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The Lisa
Trad climber
Da Bronx, NY
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Jan 13, 2011 - 03:14pm PT
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Patrick Oliver:
I guess I was pretty dopey and clumsy and gauche at times...
And cute! Not to mention "pretty fit" indeed. It is great to see all these photos.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Jan 13, 2011 - 03:21pm PT
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Not too clumsy to hold up a Dylan photo at the right moment, or to have the way smooth Doo goin' on! You're alright Pat, way ahead of most of us.
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.**
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 13, 2011 - 05:25pm PT
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That song was in our heads in the early later 1960's, and we often
got together, some of us, and just sat around and sang those songs.
Mike Covington and I walked up the 6 mile trail to the face of Longs
to do the Diamond (got snowed off), but almost all the way sang that
song "(we're on) The Eve of Destruction." It had just come out,
and both of us were/are musicians, and... you had to have been there I
guess.
Layton had done this wild, horrifying lead, on the first ascent of Psycho,
where he got over the big roof, brought Huntley up to a sling belay, then
moved left on the lip of the roof, looking at a horrible fall below
the roof into free space, onto the body and body belay of Huntley Ingalls...
As he often did, Layton cut loose, went for broke, and lunged for a small
finger hold on the vertical wall (with his feet above where my head
is in the photo). So we were a little nervous that we might not be
able to make that reach or reach that hold. I was in good shape.
Larry didn't really want to do the route, but I was gung ho... and
managed it. Just before we departed for the climb, Layton heard we were
going to attempt this horror show. He phoned me
and said, "Ament, you have to place a bolt
out there to the left somewhere. I would have, had I been able to find
a way. There needs to be a bolt there, so do it. I mean it." I was
very reluctant to place a bolt, to add one. I really
didn't want to bring on the ire of the community by adding a bolt to
this brilliant runout pitch, but Layton insisted. So when I got out left,
I found a little horn to put a sling on (in photo), and used that to
keep my balance while I placed a bolt. I made sure to place it as low
as possible, so that it would not help anyone on the crux moves above
and so that a fall still meant to drop over the roof into free space, but
so that it would not all fall (so to speak) on the belayer's body to
absorb the force of the fall. It was so cold my fingers were frozen,
but I then went up and climbed the pitch my first try. I made a kind of
bouldering move to reach that finger hold Layton lunged for... Of course
later a few thought to belittle the ascent because of the bolt,
but all they had to do was go up there and try the route and realize
the bolt made little difference in terms of the seriousness of the
lead. Those kind of people don't go up there and do such routes, just
talk about them. Anyway, that was a high moment in my young career.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2011 - 01:05am PT
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Oh, and Lisa... Cute?
I happen to be single right at the moment, just in case you're
interested!! haha.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2011 - 04:08am PT
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That's what happens when you stay up too many nights. Everyone
starts lookin' pretty.
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The Lisa
Trad climber
Da Bronx, NY
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Jan 14, 2011 - 02:44pm PT
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Ha ha, Pat! I bet you can still rock those Bermuda shorts :)
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2011 - 07:27pm PT
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That would be a funny image, me in those Bermuda shorts. I'm only
about thirty pounds heavier, though it doesn't show too much, as
long as I don't take my shirt off... and as long as I don't try to
climb one of those old boulder problems.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Jan 14, 2011 - 08:23pm PT
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as long as I don't try to
climb one of those old boulder problems
You were smooth and adroit back in the old days, Pat. A pleasure to watch you scamper up one of your projects.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jan 14, 2011 - 09:43pm PT
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John-
I didn't get to watch how smooth and adroit Pat was on the first ascent of Supremacy Crack, but I DO recall the look of absolute pain on his face as he pulled over the top and sat there quivering for several minutes before I could congratulate him. He did the climb with NO tape; no blood on the rocks, either. It must have taken hours for the circulation to return to his hands...
And no... I never had to hold Pat on a "hang," either. That was Colorado's first 5.11.
Rodger
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2011 - 09:43pm PT
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Thanks, John. I had some good mentors... Very few people ever saw me, though, when I was in my best shape ever, those nights alone on Flagstaff. I would go up night after night and boulder by myself and push hard. I did the first ascent of virtually every route in the Flagstaff Amphitheater, that little cirque of rocks above Red Wall and Pebble Wall Boulder, and no one there but myself... I did more than one of those "one-arm" mantels, and I could do the Red Wall statically, very slow with every reach... but then I ruined that tendon in my left middle finger, and that was that. I never could reach that level again. I ruined the tendon doing a 5.4 warmup move at Fort Collins, a day following a hard Flagstaff workout. My tendons were tight to begin with, from that previous day's bouldering, and I
put my fingers over a big square, typical Fort Collins bucket, and
the edge of the bucket pressed into the big tendon of the left middle finger, and the tendon tore. Many cortisone shots and therapies later, it made no improvement. I can't tell you how frustrated I was for several
years. Well, I could still do things such as the Red Wall (right
side), and led a few 5.12 routes... but I really felt substantially
weaker... I know you must have felt some of that same frustration, with
your various injuries...
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 15, 2011 - 12:39am PT
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Yes Rodger, you were the belayer on that first 1965 ascent. I don't
exactly get your comments, since you were belaying. You didn't watch?
Or didn't see my face? Anyway, I don't
remember you looking at me afterward, though, either, since
I went over the top out of sight and since you were below. I wasn't
in much pain, if any at all. It wasn't painful, because I had begun
to learn how to jam (yes, you're right, without chalk or tape). It
was more of a test of wind. One might get a little out of breath,
though I was in good enough shape that day. No agony or anything.
I sat quietly for a couple minutes at the top, in my private world,
listening to and feeling the soft breeze of that beautiful day...
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jan 15, 2011 - 01:02am PT
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Pat-
I recall belaying you from the top of Supremacy. That's why I couldn't watch. You did look very tired and worn. I also recall your hands being pretty sore and you didn't feel like shaking hands at the moment. You did sit there and 'contemplated' what you had acccomplished, which was a colossal leap forward in local standards.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Jan 15, 2011 - 01:19am PT
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Pat,
Kinda echoing some other posts, but that Camp 4 /Dylan picture is a classic. Hope you find some peaceful rest tonight
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