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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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EBs were indeed far better than the (for me, more comfortable) alternatives. But whatever last they were built on didn't have my feet in mind.
I, too, crammed bare feet into them and settled into the pain. One pair ultra-tight for edging and jamming, and one pair slightly less tortuous for smearing.
I never got the ingrown toenail effect, but after a few years of wearing tight EBs so much, I developed a really entrenched case of fungal nails on most of my toes. Something about "dark, hot, moist environments" being really good to "grow your own." And hours in those things certainly qualified. I had the fungal nails for decades until some doc prescribed an anti-fungal pill that could possibly destroy my liver.
Over the course of each climbing day, the medieval torture-devices would get really damp, almost wet from sweat, which would make them almost imperceptibly more comfortable. It was always a neck-and-neck race to the finish line whether increasing swelling would win over the slight dampness-induced stretch.
And the "finish line" always carried with it portents of what the next day would bring: yet again "sliding" not-fully-recovered feet into the things dry. So it was almost regrettable to take them off, knowing what the next day had in store.
The memories... the discomfort/pain/damage was what "made" a "hard man."
And the aroma. I can recall it "afresh" even now as though I'm actually smelling it again, so etched into my brain cells it is. By day's end, the "environment" was literally breeding new life-forms, and these had to be exposed to light and fresh air occasionally to snuff them out before they developed opposable thumbs and perhaps even consciousness. In death, however, they exacted terrible revenge.
No amount of mental-bracing was preparation enough for the searing waves of deadly toxic fumes that would smite me to my knees as the first shoe came off. Hideous groans and cries filled the air along with the fumes.
Many of the groans and cries were mine.
People in a wide radius were also smitten. Some fled, their mournful cries fading into the distance. Others threw hard or sharp objects, intending, I believe, to drive the "blast radius" far from them.
Much of the physical damage I endured from climbing during those years was from injuries sustained from these thrown objects, as I was invariably unable to do little more than slowly roll, crawl, or knee-hop away, unable as I was to get enough fresh air to clear my head sufficiently to stand and run.
Even fresh socks and shoes for the drive home couldn't keep the car from slowly filling with the fumes emanating through the layers, hell bent as they were on making my head spin, resulting in a mental condition not unlike DUI. And the stupefying effects so eroded judgment that it often was beyond me to simply roll down the windows.
Worse, I confess that within 20 minutes or so of driving, the odor so destroyed even normal aesthetic judgment that I came to almost enjoy it... something like scratching your armpit and then smelling your fingers. And only during the eventual shower at home did my head clear enough that I could objectively assess with fascinated horror the liking of it.
The pain, ruined nails, risk of liver failure, actual brain damage, and deep-seated psychological after-effects. Ahh... the good old days! EBs rocked!
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steve shea
climber
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Hey, Madbolter that was hilarious. We used tincture to offset the odor. A couple off good inhales on the tincture bottle would take the edge off the smell you so eloquently describe.
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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I had 3 from the first picture
PAs were my first
EBs
RRs
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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madbolter, I love a good chuckle with my first cuppa, even if it is also
tinged with ruefullness. I never thought about how my toe fungus first
started in '77 but now, thanks to you, it all becomes clear, so to speak.
I am still fighting it to the extent that I spent 3 days in hospital last
August when the fungus enlisted help from some no few bacterial allies.
My doc assured me The Pill's threat to the liver is not that bad and worth
the risk. I am also here to report that my three month course did not
cure it.
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Roots
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Just bought my first pair of EBs last week...LOL! Couldn't believe it when I opened the box - Brand new, never used! Almost perfect condition for being so old.
Fun stuff, you guys are climbing routes in those pictures I couldn't even climb today with modern footware.
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ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
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Edit: That's the 2nd resole on those RR's, courtesy of Mr. Komito in 1973
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TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
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My first shoes were Blue suedes
My first friction shoe:
The friction RR's
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Keith Leaman
Trad climber
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From Blakey's "Facebook Vintage '80s" thread. Some of these bootmakers (like Scarpa, Morotto, Brixia) must have been producing in the '70s. It would be interesting to see more of what the rest of the world-outside the US- was climbing in at the time-like Carlos' Paragots upthread. Note the colored chalk too.
Those posters/ads are all familiar, as are all the shoes in the first photo. Larry Reynolds was developing huge photos in a bathtub then as I recall. I liked the stiffness of RDs for alpine type climbs in the Zirkel Wilderness where snow was frequently found in summer. Swami, wool socks, rack of homemade and commercial nuts, Eiger ovals, and no chalk bag. Fun stuff.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Thanks, Storer. When I saw your reference to John Morton, I figured you were predating me. I remember the buildering projects you mentioned, but we also used the expansion cracks at Memorial Stadium for hand jamming, and rigged a Tyrolean Travers from Eschelman Hall to the Student Union.
My favorite buildering exploit, though, was done by two others on a Sunday night in May of 1970: They managed to put a Mickey Mouse body and hands on the clock on the south side of the Campanile.
The method was a combination of clever climbing and Cal Tech lock-picking. After cutting the power to the Campanile floodlights, picking a lock into a storeroom and waiting until dark, after the elevator rides for the public ended, they got to the viewing deck, jammed the flared crack between the pillars and the anti-suicide glass, rappelled down the side and placed the Mickey Mouse on with latex paint as an adhesive (so water would remove it).
The next Monday at noon, the carillon played the mickey Mouse Club theme song.
Ah, the good old days.
John
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carlos gallego
Ice climber
Spain
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In the "made in Spain" market... the first company to use sticky rubber (goma cocida) was CALMA (1980)... with models "Adherencia", "Precisión" and "Lince".
These climbing shoes were distributed in USA by Climb High.
Months later... BOREAL, with much better marketing style, produced the "Fire" and became number one.
The other spanish manufacturer in those years was KAMET.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Remember the first thing you did with EB's was to sew leather patches on the sides?
Also if the soles didn't last 3 years you felt ripped off?
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storer
Trad climber
Golden, Colorado
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The UCHC Campanile "decoration" goes back to the '50's, I think. I was part of the '65 (pretty sure) Easter endeavor. The plan was to put a 10' tall balloon-filled cloth bunny on the topmost spike. We entered as any tourist would during normal hours and hid inside. After the attendant left for the day we let our compatriots in and we all went up to the top floor. There we endlessly blew up many balloons and stuffed them into the rabbit. The leader slinged one of those corner spikes for pro and climbed to the top, hauled up the bunny, and positioned it on the top spike. We all exited down the stairs and out to await daylight to see our prized Easter bunny.
Unfortunately, the wind came up and blew all the balloons to one side. It was lots of fun listening to observers guess what it was; a pregnant woman, a trash bag,.....? Even more interesting to us was watching the professional steeplejacks rigging the top and removing the "thing" taking hours to do it. It must have cost U.C. much more than my tuition which was $112 per semester, as I recall.
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jabbas
Trad climber
phx AZ
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I still have My Fire Cats with very low mileage cuz they just would not stick on granite . They , um, "sucked" and we got herded into the "Fire" marketing campaign and immediately resoled our Skywalkers with 5.10 resole rubber.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Well-patched EB's...
...and a failure to fully embrace clean climbing (nuts plus three pitons, short-thin, short-medium, and short-thick).
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jabbas
Trad climber
phx AZ
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A fortune hanging around your neck in that cool pic !!!
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Incredible photos and memory flash backs.
I wish I would have kept my fires. Those suckers fit perfect and being a 5.9 dweeb at the time were such a step ahead from EBs. I recall Duane Raleigh coming into my shop in Norman,OK and rubbing the soles together to warm them up and then pasting them together.
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jabbas
Trad climber
phx AZ
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Yes indeed johntp original Fires were astounding and I burned thru 2 pair. Cats did not fair so well as we were told (after the fact that the factory had some manky rubber that was in use at the time.)
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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1959: Zillertals, in the wilds of the Little Rockies, MT
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richross
Trad climber
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Some more EB's action!
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