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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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pete- again, read your own threads, but not just your own posts (look for JMs posts in the last thread). i am out.
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deuce4
Big Wall climber
the Southwest
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Hi Pete-
MSmith reported that 10-20 percent of the hooks were enhanced. See the original forum posts way back in 2005.
That's the source. It raised my eyebrows, too.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Tarbuster said, "Richard and Mark are part of our community, part of the grand narrative: as climbers we can do well do mend our fractious ways. It is good training for survival as a species on a global scale."
wow. It is worth reading all the WoS threads for this one nugget.
Matt, the way I interpret what you are saying is that despite whether WoS was a blasphemy, there were few if anyone from the early 80's that even attempted to see their side of things. Too much negative emotion seems to have prevailed. It seems fair to right that wrong depsite what one may feel about their climb.
With regards to visitors at your home crag, it was a time in history where locals seemed to band together a bit. In Little Cottonwood Canyon in the late 70's to early 80's we had a visitor come through and do a few new lines. One as a bolted(on lead) face climb that started near a classic crack. It was not a squeeze job but did raise a little ire. Then the dude proceeded to add a couple other lines and while they were good, many of us wondered when Climbing published his article on LCC. Who the hell was this Ed Webster dude anyway? Acually, he had climbed with a couple youngsters who were duly impressed primarily with his hunger for climbing. Besides they were good lines that dude put up. If LCC had not been so laid back, I could almost see some of his lines getting chopped first. Instead the locals tried to climb them and discovered that they were great climbs.
When one judges another to a fault, they sometimes need a mirror placed in front of them to show them the true source of their angst, frustration and other negative emotions. But I am sure Tarbuster can say this better than me...
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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That number sounds high to me, John. Having spent a week with Mark and Richard, and asking them every possible question I could think, what I recall was they were uncertain as to how many enhancements they made.
They did say that their enhancements were of the microscopic nature - and if you saw the stuff they hooked, and actually tried it yourself, you would know exactly what I mean. Believe me, John - if you go back and read my posts before I met these guys, and before I had a look at the route myself, you will see that I was quite facetious about it, and ribbed them somewhat mercilessly! Words to the effect of, "Oh, OK - I get it. You only enhanced it a little - kinda like being just a little bit pregnant, eh?" and words to that effect.
Man, I'm eating those words big time having seen the route. Those guys hooked some scary hard sick stuff for a long long way. SO much harder than Jolly Roger.
If anything, I think these guys were "too honest" - if they said, "we made no enhancements," then you could go up there like me and Ammon, and see none. If they made any enhancements in the first pitch, they were invisible to me.
I repeat - two guys checking two pitches, zero enhancements seen.
I believe Mark wrote somewhere, not sure where, that he believed he may have made somewhere between three and eight enhancements in the total 151 hook moves.
But it is a valid point worth clarifying, for sure.
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elcapfool
Big Wall climber
hiding in plain sight
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Are you factoring in 25 years of erosion on a slab that courses like a waterfall?
Did you see any of the spots that looked like someone just beat on the rock with a hammer?
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deuce4
Big Wall climber
the Southwest
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Pete-
I suppose the issue of enhancements is at the root of my doubt of the first ascentionists' cry that their route deserved a better reputation in the media, and from the "Valley Boy" conspiracists. The number of admitted enhancements is ever-changing; and it is core to the argument of the style of the route, in my opinion. Of course, the 1982 modifications to the original rock will now be invisible.
(EDIT: Evidence of the modifications will have become invisible over the years due to micro-erosion and the return of some patina).
It seems that the slab will offer additional routes. Perhaps just as back then, it will require a new style and boldness to climb without enhancements, and perhaps new tools--custom designed hooks? The question to me is really, could the slab be climbed in better style, and if so, who will be the one to "step up to the plate," as Tom Frost has always prompted.
Then again, I was (and still am) an advocate of Bachar's argument that rock should be left alone until climbers had advanced thier skills and abilities to the best possible human style. Bachar lost that argument in Yosemite, and perhaps the WOS boys were visionaries in the same sense that Kauk, Chapman, and others were, when they brought sport climbing to Yosemite.
By the way, I understand the lower Jolly Rodger pitches have been modified (enhanced) by subsequent ascentionists, so Pete, unless you climbed the second ascent, it seems like it would be hard to comment on Grossman's original difficulty. I inspected one of the pitches on rappel soon after the FA (coming down from Heart), and it looked terrifying to me!
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Apocalypsenow
Trad climber
Cali
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This is really going on? You boys need to get out of the ditch for a while. Really..............
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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bottom line is that if a rout is established ground up you got no buisness chopping it unless you climb it first. The only exception to this rule that i can see is with a horrible squeeze job that alters another rout.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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if the enhancements are so small that you can't see them now then what is the big deal??? Climb it first, then spray if you have to......
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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JM,
I think what we need to do is make very careful consideration of the true nature of the enhancements. It is my understanding that they are more or less microscopic, and it's possible no longer visible after twenty-five years' erosion.
Let's leave it to Mark and Richard to clarify precisely what they enhanced, how, how much, and how many.
I'm still rootin' for Ammon!
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deuce4
Big Wall climber
the Southwest
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True, Pete.
Let me ask you this, since you are still willing to terrify yourself on hard aid: would you feel different about climbing the second ascent if you were able to "microscopically enhance" (with a selection of sharp chisels in your shirt's pocket protector) any particular hook placement you came across?
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Gunkie
climber
East Coast US
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Of course, the 1982 modifications to the original rock will now be invisible.
Dartmouth/Stanford pedigree... right? And you wrote the above statement?
Wow.
EDIT [morning after]: Beer turns me into a sarcastic prick. Sorry.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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darod, healyje, golsen, and anyone else who picked up on that:
thanks for the concurrence on my nod to humanity.
i hope R & M get that, along with a few others.
(maybe i can walk sum talk too)
matt said:
"tb- part of my point, i guess, is that the ethics of the climbing community serve to passively preserve the resource for everyone, sometimes through brash and unfriendly actions, true enough. the overall priority would be to keep things at the highest common denominator, rather than the lowest (not that WoS is/was either)"
i say matt, once again, tagged a highlight.
i'll add that ethics can also serve the quest for standards.
it can also simply serve the style in fashion at the time.
in modern times we have all this great diversity of styles.
a bit more tolerance.
still no small amount of bickering.
ironically: now in the flatirons i am not permitted to do a run out bolt route. period. game over. routes are for the lowest common denomiator. nobody gets hurt. everything is sterlized. no more ego wars.
Ha!
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Mimi
Trad climber
Seattle
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Don't worry Tar, there's plenty of scary hard routes in Boulder that you can get run out and crack your head on.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Don't try teh trick me Meemers,
I got a nice tidy thought process goin' here.
Yah.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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I must say that I am genuinely grateful for the obviously honest attempts on the part of many to find a solution and to integrate Mark and I into the community. While I'm sure there will remain disagreements between us and some of you, there has been a very productive sea-change in understanding (I think) over the last year and a half, and from many I have felt genuinely listened to.
The question has legitimately been raised: exactly what does it take to make us feel "satisfied" or that we have "closure?" The request was for NO (sorry) all-caps and a clear bulleted list. Ok, there will be NO all-caps IN my bulleted list.
I can only speak for myself on this list, although I expect that Mark thinks much the same. But Mark will have to make his own list, if he cares to.
* I want the climbing community (of course, that subset of it that is represented here) to acknowledge that WoS was not the "rape" or "crime" that it has been cast as for over two decades. (This is starting to become a consensus, but there are still some vociferous critics that have cleverly made satisfaction here a moving target. More on that point shortly.)
* I want the people responsible for the chopping, etc. that was done to us and the route to publicly acknowledge and apologize for their role in those activities. (Many seem to think that this would be "good" but very unlikely. And there are some critics who continue to think that such "exposure" serves no good purpose, or they have other arguments to undermine the validity of this desire. This is an ongoing topic, but I wish to separate my "ideal" goal, which was requested, from what anybody might think is practically possible.)
* I want the people responsible for the ongoing smear campaign to publicly acknowledge and apologize for their role in that campaign. For example, I want to know who applied pressure to Ed Leeper. I want to know who the editors were turning to in their decisions that we lacked the cred to publish certain things. I want to know who started what slanderous little Intifada rumors managed to gain their tiny footholds. And so on. (Everything I said about the previous point applies here as well.)
* I want the climbing community to demonstrate an awareness of what are appropriate and inappropriate methods for addressing ethical/stylistic disputes. (This is clearly happening and is particularly reflected in a number of the more recent posts, but, again, my total "satisfaction" on this point is denied because of the "moving target" syndrome."
Of course, I have more personal desires as well, but I take personal responsibility for their satisfaction. In the right climate, such desires will be quite easily satisfied.
The next post will address the "moving target" syndrome, and will take some time to compose, but I'll get there.
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Richard Large
climber
sneaking up behind you...
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"How many angles can dance on the head of a pin?"
Depends on whether we're talking baby angles or four-inch bongs.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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John Midd,
Ah, what a tempting thought, but absolutely not viable. Why? Because for all reasonable intents and purposes, as determined by the visible eye, Mark and Richard made NO ENHANCEMENTS on Wings of Steel.
In their continuing crusade to be completely honest in reporting everything they did, they talked about making virtually-microscopic enhancements to a few crystals behind only a few hook placements - 3 to 8 total in eight pitches I believe was their estimate, but they will clarify - in order to make a placement work. And when a placement required anything more than level of enhancement, they drilled a bolt or rivet on lead.
I basically laughed in their face - you can find the posts - because my premiss was simple: "an enhancement is an enhancement - if your drill touches the rock, then it's cheating, plain and simple." In my smart-assedness, I even proposed a rating system for the enhancements - E1, E2, etc.
I was a total skeptic.
But then I got up there. I looked at what these guys hooked on, and John, it is beyond comprehension how small the stuff is that they hooked, and how far they did it between bolts and rivets! It is far far harder and more serious and scary and dangerous than Jolly Roger. My logic is thus - if they were able to use such terrifyingly little placements, whatever enhancements they might have made up higher must be so small as to be virtually invisible. They weren't kidding - to change a non-hookable edge to a hookable one [by the ultra-sick Mark and Richard definition of "hookable", which few sane men would agree with!] indeed would require nothing more than the removal of a few grains at the microscopic level.
I don't know what you'll find above, but if those boys enhanced on the first two pitches, neither Ammon nor I could see it.
Tom actually did make some custom Wings of Steel hooks. It was a clever design, in theory. In practice, they were too aggressive, and sheared off the rock. I didn't use them on the route, I merely tried them along the base. The middle hook on the talon seemed about best. Mark and Richard used Leeper narrow hooks, but I don't like those.
John, you write, "let me ask you this, because you are still willing to terrify yourself on hard aid...."
I am not sure this is true! It depends on what you call "hard". I was able to climb Jolly Roger, and it was Pretty Darn Hard with plenty of DFU sections. Wings of Steel is much much harder.
Here is the difference - when I climbed Jolly Roger, I found that by thinking my way up and using my experience, I could turn the hard aid pitches into what I considered to be "reasonable" excursions, in that I felt I had a reasonable chance to reach the anchors without taking some monumental and scary fall. This turned out to be the case.
On Wings of Steel, the hook placements are so small that in order to make the second ascent, you WILL [not might] take many long and scary falls down an 80-degree "slab". On Jolly Roger, I figured I probably wouldn't fall, so I was willing to climb it. Hard, but reasonable. On Wings of Steel, I knew without doubt that I would fall again and again, and that the falls would be long and scary and dangerous. There are several ankle-breaker ledges on the first pitch, and if you've seen my ankle X-rays, you could appreciate my reticence!
Mark and Richard took many long falls on this route figuring out the hook moves. Ammon told me he took three fifty-footers on the second pitch using the left start.
And you know what, John? That's too hard and nasty for me. So that's why I bailed.
I only went back up to try toproping the first pitch basically to keep Mark and Richard happy. I was pretty sure I didn't have the skill or balls to do the whole route, but they convinced me to give it a try. My reasoning was that if I practised the hard hooking moves, and learned how to do it, then maybe I could run a few laps, learn the necessary skills, and then send the "headpoint" lead. I was willing to compromise my usual good style to be sporting for Mark and Richard, but the truth is I just wanted the hell off the damn thing.
Toproping is cheating, no matter how you look at it. For this reason, I almost never toprope. If I have toproped more than two pitches in two years, I would be surprised. I never go to the gym and more. One of the things that perplexed me was how incredibly gripped I was practising this thing on toprope. I was using my Grigri, and well aware of how much slack was in the system down low. I guess I just wasn't willing to trust the rope. Crazy, eh?
I was so focused on climbing the thing, and figuring out how to do these crazy-ass sick hook moves that would barely stick, all I could think about was actually being out on lead, which of course was the object. And I knew, beyond all reasonable doubt, that no matter how much I practised, I would with certainty take several long serious whippers if I tried the headpoint, and I just wasn't willing to do it. I can tell you I was so scared I felt pukey, and knew if I tried to lead it I'd need to bring a barf bag.
Ammon has stepped up to the plate - he's climbed the first two pitches on the left start. He even said the right start didn't look too bad. Tom replaced the bolts and rivets in the first two pitches on the right start. Ammon told me this spring that he intended to fix fairly high, and then send the route solo. But by the time he finished his filming project with Alex and Thomas Huber, it was getting pretty hot, and his brother Gabe told me he intended to finish up in the fall when the weather gets cooler.
Go Ammon Go! Five 2-4's of beer so far, eh?
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Nefarius
Big Wall climber
Fresno, CA
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Ammon has also plainly stated that he has very little interest in the route or continuing it now. He has expressed the same to me on the phone.
Ya gotta remember, Ammon like to climb hard stuff fast. While this is hard, it aint fast.
"Arguably, there is a difference between enhancing a hook placement to link two A4 seams on an overhanging piece of rock, as Bridwell often did, and enhancing hooks repeatedly on a slab."
I think if we're going to use the word "ethics", then you can't seperate degrees of enhancing, or bestow upon some person the "special" crown of enhancements... To be "ethical" either all enhancements are bad or they are not. I mean, lying is lying, right? No matter how many times someone says a little "white lie" is OK, it's still flat out, just another lie.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand, Man.....
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 8, 2006 - 12:14pm PT
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Thread drift...sorta...
Pete:
You keep talking about Jolly Roger. Why do people keep telling me you drilled on that route to get past some hooking or a crux or something? Not sure why they tell me this stuff, but they do... and a few of them. So I ask.
True or bullshiit? There is a big elephant in the room. Please advise.
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