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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Jan 18, 2010 - 04:38pm PT
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Hey Lauria start writing-we are anxiously standing by.
in the meantime some more photos.
Ok, what's so funny Herbert? Tetons 1971
Jan Herbert-Climbers Camp Tetons 1971
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Jan 18, 2010 - 04:49pm PT
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And one of my favorites of TM
"America Climb it or Leave it"
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oldguy
climber
Bronx, NY
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Jan 18, 2010 - 11:21pm PT
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People come, people go, but in 1957 there was more turnover in the California climbing community than any other year in the 1950's. Don Wilson went east after climbing the Totem Pole, and when he returned marriage and graduate studies precluded climbing in any big way. After the ascent of Half Dome, both Jerry Gallwas and Mike Sherrick went to the sidelines, content to do standard short climbs on free weekends while attending to marriage and college and work the rest of the time. It's noticeable when notable people leave a group. "Where's so and
so?" someone asks, and someone else is likely to know the answer. When new people come on the scene, however, their arrival is likely to be more significant to them than it is to the usual crowd.
At the first RCS practice climb of the season at Stoney Point, I corraled a covey of newcomers to teach them the basics of knot tying and belaying. I told the group about the rabbit jumping out of the hole and running around the tree and then back into the hole (the bowline
knot), but most of them didn't become climbers and don't remain in my memory. There were two, however, who stood out from the first moment. They were several years older than I, and no doubt to them I looked several years younger than I actually was. Those who possess knowledge can command a certain amount of respect, but we all know that the young can't know
all that much. So they laughed and joked around and pretended to be serious during key points of my instruction, but I didn=t mind because they were funny and having fun. Their names were Harry Daley and TM Herbert. Herbert looked like he could have descended from the Easter Island stone carvers. He had an elongated face and high cheekbones, and his features were composed of planes, facets, and angles, not rounded curves and dimples. In his most serious mood, usually a mock-serious mood, he looked like he could have been staring past the lens of Edward Curtis, so maybe there was an Apache or Comanche somewhere in his background. His
name argued for a southern lineage, but if so that was the only trace. "C'mon, TM, what does
TM stand for?"
"Tough motha'."
In contrast to TM, there was something of the elf in Harry Daley. His eyes frequently sparkled as if he were in possession of some riotous joke, but the joke was seldom forthcoming. Apparently, he just thought that life as it was normally lived was generally funny. The two had been in high school together and, looking for something to unbutton their lives, had pursued skin diving and varmint hunting. After they graduated, Harry went into the Navy for several years, and when he got out he got together with TM again. By this time TM was doing a lot of weight lifting and was also interested in astronomy. Looking for darker skies, they went over the Angeles Crest Highway to the desert around Lancaster (now a bedroom community, then next to nothing). During the day when the stars weren't out they climbed up a few small peaks and stumbled across a fifty-foot cliff that looked like fun. That was it. They spent four weekends looking for rocks to climb and finally contacted the Sierra Club and were told to call Chuck Wilts. Chuck told them about Stoney Point and Tahquitz and the club activities and where to get some equipment. They bought a two-hundred foot, one half-inch hemp rope, some soft pitons, a few steel carabiners, and Chuck's guide to Tahquitz and headed for Idyllwild. The easiest climbat Tahquitz is the Trough, 5.0, actually ascended solo in the early days by a local waitress who was looking for a way to the top of the rock. Harry leads, and when he gets to a ledge TM ties into the middle of the rope somehow. They hadn't received my instruction on knots yet, and, for that matter, had only the most rudimentary ideas about belaying. They finished the climb without
incident, but were scared by the exposure and thrilled with their accomplishment.
TM had a job delivering furniture six days a week, so they could only climb on Sundays. Harry was doing construction work. Both were in great physical shape, more so than the normal desk-bound college student. After they learned the rudiments of climbing that day at Stoney Point they went out on their own. Having been successful on the Trough, they decided to climb the next most difficult route, and then the one after that. Through the summer, one day a week, they worked their way through the guidebook in order of difficulty. By the end of the summer they were climbing 5.7s. This was a most logical approach to climbing, not only proceeding by easy
steps up the ladder of difficulty, but also managing to do all the climbs along the way. However, I never heard of anyone else who took that route. From time to time they met other climbers who asked what college they went to. At the time, even though Robbins, Powell, and Harding weren't
students, it seemed natural to assume that most climbers were.
TM=s stature in our group was based as much on his sense of humor as it was on his climbing ability. Herbert turned a practice common at the beginning of long climbs into a rite by giving it a name: the Piss of Fear. His face was unusually mobile, capable of achieving the exaggeration of key features that cartoonists are noted for, and this ability perfectly fitted his brand of humor, based as it was on emotional exaggeration. When the climbing got dicey, he would put on a gaze combining fear and awe similar to one of El Greco's upturned faces, and in stentorian tones he would proclaim, "I see the great, dark wings of the angel of death beating
above me." Then in a flash his visage would change to that of a child awaiting punishment with a voice to match. "Please, don't take me now. I'm just a baaaaaaaaby." Needless to say, after such a performance the climbing didn't seem so dicey after all. Or he would pontificate on how
he would overcome the difficulties, this time adopting something of a Charles Atlas pose.
"I'll just take that rock and crush it with my bare hands until it begs for mercy."
Or he would goad you into admitting the limits of your courage. "C'mon. Let's go climb Sentinel. We'll do it really fast. We won't bother with ropes and pitons and all that sh#t. Are you a man or a mouse?"
More flexing of his impressive muscles.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Jan 18, 2010 - 11:31pm PT
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Classic Joe, I take it this is an excerpt from your book?
Ok Lauria your turn.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Jan 19, 2010 - 02:48am PT
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Really good! More, please?
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oldguy
climber
Bronx, NY
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Jan 19, 2010 - 07:52am PT
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It is from the book. I should have mentioned that Bob Kamps, Dave Rearick, Yvon Choinard, Chuck Pratt, and Charlie Raymond also joined the California climbing community in 1957. Add to that the Totem Pole, Half Dome, and the start of the Nose route on El Cap and you have a pretty good year. I think it was also the first year that Powell camped out in the Valley a lot, turning bus boys into belayers. The rest of us, including Harding, were just weekenders. Also, Royal and I did the first two-day ascent of the Arrow Chimney and Spire over Labor Day.
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Dick Erb
climber
June Lake, CA
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Jan 19, 2010 - 11:15am PT
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Excellent writing Joe. You are whetting my appetite for your book.
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John Morton
climber
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Jan 19, 2010 - 11:33am PT
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Thanks for posting that piece, Joe. It really worked on me, and every detail brought TM before my mind's eye. I appreciate the background on those folks, fascinating stuff I had never known until now.
So about the "piss of fear" ... once I heard Steck mutter something as he was pissing before tying in. I asked him, "What was that?" "Ah ... la miada del muedo, the piss of fear". It has a beautiful and ominous ring in Spanish.
John
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Jan 19, 2010 - 02:52pm PT
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Guido I'm working on it.
Joe, Tom Limp and I, without any knowledge of the Daley-Herbert method, also approached Tahquitz one step at a time. We started at the 5.6 level - did 'em all. Then the 5.7s - all of them. Never finished ALL the 5.8s, but by that time I was climbing with Mark and Beverly and was taking anyone interested up the Open Book.
Just finished a complementary, but not so complimentary story on Warren. TM is much more difficult to capture - too many cracks and crevices.
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Jan 19, 2010 - 03:06pm PT
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The Harding story is posted under the "Wanted Warren Harding climbing stories". It's not a climbing story.
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rotten johnny
Social climber
mammoth lakes, ca
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Jan 19, 2010 - 04:39pm PT
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Lauria.....what about the TM - Don Whillans story?
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Jan 19, 2010 - 06:36pm PT
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I am on the verge of finishing a brief Herbert anecdote or series of anecdotes, but I do not remember the Whillans story to which you refer. Give me a hint.
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Jan 19, 2010 - 08:42pm PT
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Where do you start with TM? Let’s start with his name. As related to me by TM himself, his parents never attached names to the initials. According to his version, his birth certificate has only initials on it. Now it’s not unusual for people to be called by nicknames – sometimes by their initials. My son Don was usually referred to as “DJ” by his immediate family, but Herbert took it further. He says his name is “TM” and he should never be referred to as T.M. Herbert because the T and the M don’t stand for names. Okay, we got it, but do we believe it? I always have taken him at his word, so I believe it.
Okay, that’s a start. Now to explore the character. Talk about characters! TM is The American Climbing Character. Anybody professing knowledge of American rock climbing history knows of TM Herbert.
TM is the guy who wore a swami belt of 1-inch tubular nylon for part or possibly all of a climbing season without realizing the webbing had a splice maintained by masking tape somewhere around mid length. TM is the person that wrote those outrageously funny notes to me in the 70s imploring me to climb with him - stories funny enough to be published and republished. How can one forget his description of his physical prowess: “… I now weigh 103½ lb. and can still lift the front end of a D-9 tractor. And also I can hold a full lever on the high bar with my wee-wee.”
I was climbing Nutcracker Suite with TM back in the 70s. Above the crux somewhere we caught up with a couple of young climbers who were obviously finding the climbing a tad difficult. They were intently watching TM. As Herbert approached them finishing a difficult pitch involving a little lie-backing, he began what I have always referred to as Herbertian whimpering. Gasping, agonizingly, “Watch me here! I’m losing it! Waaaaaatch me!!” The young climbers were beginning to anticipate a catastrophic fall and visibly trembling. TM began muttering, for their benefit as he moved cautiously upward, “Five-eight … five-eight … oh, oh, 5.9 … No only five-eight … Watch me here!”All of a sudden, with his arms flailing, TM leapt from the lie-back landing right in front of the frightened spectators and began strolling up the steep face toward them gleefully dragging the rope behind him. His hands outstretched toward them, he broke into a trot, throwing in a few of his patented fake stumbles, “Fourth class … fourth class .., I’m saved ... Thank the Lord, I’m saved.” When I got to the belay spot shared with the kids, one of them whispered, “Is that TM Herbert?” I answered, “You think?”
TM hates RVs, house trailers, and the people that drive them. He once got so irate while trapped behind an RV on the Tioga road out of Lee Vining that he started pounding on his windshield. He pounded one too many times and it cracked. He told me that he once over took a guy in a house trailer coming up to Yosemite on the road out of Fresno. It seems the guy had passed up one too many turnouts for Herbert. He reached into the guy’s window grabbed his keys and flung them far out into the brush and left him there with his mouth agape. These were the things that raised his ire.
Herbert can be and often is a very stubborn person. He has his way of doing things and it is near impossible to change his mind. He has his rituals and don’t try to modify them. I don’t know how many times he has insisted that I stop at the dwarf Cedar on the descent off of Stately Pleasure Dome. “You’ve got to look at this tree. It’s almost as wide as it is tall.” I have repeatedly told him as we approached the tree that I am aware of its aspect ratio and that he is merely repeating himself. To no avail, “You’ve got to look at this tree. It’s almost as wide as it is tall.”
For years TM refused to buy a down jacket. He believed, because Chouinard convinced him, that wool was the only thing for bivouacs. “Stays warm even if it gets wet!” For that reason he never slept on a bivouac because he was too cold. I’ve mentioned before how he became a convert on the first ascent of BHOS Dome, but I didn’t mention that the conversion was successful only because he forgot his wool sweater and was forced to accept the loan of a down jacket.
Just ask his former wife, Jan. Anything inside the house was “squaw work’. “Braves” chopped wood. Braves did manly things. None of that girly housework for this brave. In fact, to some extent, Herbert was drawn away from a promising teaching career because carpentry was a man’s job – none of that wishy-washy political maneuvering in the educational field for him.
Don’t expect Herbert to accept your hospitality. He has ingrained in his sculpted cranium that it is an imposition to eat at your dinner table or sleep on your sheets. He often has insisted that he be able to heat his can of Dinty Moore stew on your stove while you ate your separate dinner. If he accepted a bed to sleep on, he always spread his sleeping bag on it – never turned the covers. Rather than eat at your table he will insist on going out to dinner – on him. In the old days that meant taking you to Sizzler because, “They have a great salad bar”.
As a climber, he was as safe as any I’ve ever climbed with. He didn’t take chances with the weather. He always placed bombproof belay anchors and never trusted a single rappel anchor unless it was a tree or a new bolt. That’s not to say he ever rappelled off a questionable anchor. He did if he had to, but he still didn’t trust it.
TM’s ability as a climber relied heavily on his strength. For someone who never weighed more than 160 pounds he had incredible strength. I use the past tense because he has quit climbing and working in Patagonia’s shipping department is not like working out at the gym. He quit climbing when his eyes got so bad he had trouble focusing on the holds and climbing with glasses was out of the question. Last time I saw him I noticed his hearing aids and listened to his complaints of dwindling strength. If you’ve ever experienced the firm grasp of your wrist by an adamant TM Herbert, then you know how insistent he can be. I would guess that at his age he’s still relatively strong, but he’s not up to his old standards and that means he can’t do what he used to do – climb.
Discussion of his incredible strength brings to mind one of TMs few winter mountaineering excursions. It was 1969. Yvon Chouinard, Doug Tompkins, TM Herbert, Bill Lang, Eric Rayson, and I spent about a week in the Northern Selkirks of Canada. We did a little climbing, but before making any attempts we warmed up on easy terrain with some snow and ice practice. On a steep, firm snow slope, we practiced self arrests. TM had very little experience in this venture and on his first running start he flung himself at high speed down the slope. In a fruitless attempt at rolling onto his axe and plunging the pick into the snow, he gave up and while descending at breakneck speed, he rolled onto his back and with his right arm outstretched, ice axe gripped firmly, he plunged the spike of the shaft into the snow and came to an immediate arm wrenching stop. How anyone could have maintained a grip on the shaft under such circumstances still boggles my mind. But then I remember his firm grasp on my wrist and I understand.
Thank god TM doesn’t have a computer and probably never will (did I say he was stubborn?) Unless someone, maybe his eldest, shows him this stuff, he’ll get it all word-of-mouth, subject to the usual inaccuracies. So I’ll always be able to claim that it was not quite what I said or that I didn’t say it at all.
So to finish up this brief series, there’s the time I and Susie Condon went to Baja with the Herbert family. We were all packed into his Chevy Suburban or International Travelall or whatever - TM, with his crewcut, Susie with her very blond hair, Jan with her infant son in her arms, and clean-shaven me along with chaise lounges, coolers, boxes of food, water containers, camping stove, sleeping bags, and tents. We went as far south as San Felipe and had a wonderful trip. On the return, as we were passing through the border station out of Tijuana, the border guards, for God knows what reason pulled us over. If there was ever a more straight-laced looking group, I couldn’t imagine it. Herbert was flabbergasted. Why me? Look I’m an American, a veteran, a father, an upright citizen. Why me?
All to no avail, they took everything out of the car and then began taking the inside side panels off. They used mirrors under the fenders and the frame. In all we were delayed over an hour. When they finished looking they said, “Okay, you can put it all back together now.” Then it took us another half hour to put the panels back on and reload the car.
The entire 125 mile trip back to Los Angeles was a non-stop Herbert tirade. The language was colorful and descriptive. The adjectives flowed eloquently from TM’s lips. I had never heard the Border Patrol described in so many different ways – all derogatory. I had no idea Nixon’s parentage was so questionable. I learned that there was a conspiracy against all of us with its protagonists firmly entrenched in Washington, D.C. And finally, when we arrived in LA I was totally surprised to learn that the Border Patrol hadn’t found a pot stash some unknown friend had left in TM’s glove compartment - a remnant from a party at which TM was the designated driver.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Jan 19, 2010 - 10:38pm PT
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hey there say, to each and every one of you all, thanks for all these wonderful shares, that i may now know who this is...
wonderful things, shared here!! ...
much appreaciation for the shares about TM herbert, and appreaciation
OF HIM, too:
wow, thanks so very much for sharing about your friend...
god bless...
:)
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rotten johnny
Social climber
mammoth lakes, ca
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Jan 19, 2010 - 11:13pm PT
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Mr. Lauria....regarding the whillans story...correct me if i'm wrong as i'm recounting this ancedote from a story TM shared with me while under the duress of a high stress carpentry project , but TM is leading some crack climb ? Braille book? 5.8 ? and he's about to hammer an angle in on the lead and this toxic vibe floats up from the belayer , Whillans , who quips in a guilt inducing british accent ; you OT NOT be doing that...TM's imitation seemed pretty authentic and conveyed the fear that Whillans must have instilled in his partners...?
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Fritz
Trad climber
Hagerman, ID
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Jan 20, 2010 - 12:22am PT
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Great Stories!
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rotten johnny
Social climber
mammoth lakes, ca
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Jan 20, 2010 - 01:01am PT
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TM is in the big city , on the freeway , driving solo in the diamond lane....a cop pulls TM over to write him a citation and points out to TM that he is driving in the diamond lane....TM bewildered , looks at the cop and responds....... diamonds?
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Jan 20, 2010 - 01:34am PT
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Okay Rotten John, I've don't remember that Whillans story. You ought not do that coming from Whillans would shake up most of us. Is there more to the story?
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rotten johnny
Social climber
mammoth lakes, ca
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Jan 20, 2010 - 11:10am PT
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Don...that's all there was to the whillans story....there were plenty of lunch time stories about southwest climbing trips and trucks stuck in the quicksand and TM's renditions of country western songs. TM's layed back personality, stories and humor annoyed the hell out of the overly serious boss. Finally TM had had enough of the guy who was now crying and on the verge of a breakdown..TM raised both of his hands and waved them towards the boss as if to say , " phooey " , then got in his beige toyota truck and drove off.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 17, 2010 - 12:45pm PT
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Tough Mutha Bump!
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