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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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I'd be here all day even without explanations, but the story BEHIND the name is often the best part of the tale.
I've already told of how my first big route Pervertical Sanctuary got its name.
But it is the second most popular route on a well known wall. The following story is about a route so obscure that it probably hasn't been repeated in a quarter century.
But before the route came the backstory which goes back over thirty years.
In May '77 with ropes fixed on what would become the Dorn Direct (no secret behind that name) I flew to NYC for my sister's first wedding.
It was there that I first met the bozo that she had tried to kill herself over when he had threatened to leave her. Obviously a bozo because he could be manipulated so easily with a little guilt.
Anyway, BIG wedding.
Turns out the Bozo has a cute teenage daughter from a previous marriage.
Yeah, you guessed it.
But it wasn't incest (at least not genetically...)
The cute daughter (who I am mercifully NOT naming) lives with her mom and stepfather in Indiana.
Well it turns out that the stepfather is a gun toting control freak. A fact that would be established in a bizarre series of incidents a few months later.
Anyway, the day after the wedding I fly back and the next day I'm jugging my ropes without a care in the world blissfully unaware that that morning George Willig was climbing the World Trade Center.
However, several hundred people who attended the wedding are now calling my mom to warn her that her crazy climber son was,...
and she hadn't seen me off to the airport or anything so she is totally freaking out!
Anyway I correspond hot and heavy with the cute daughter in Indiana, and after I'm back in Colorado we start talking about me going out there.
Very long story short;
The control freak stepfather sees "his" family threatened by "my" family sort of co-opting its members so the Indiana 'father' (he had already had several more with HER mom) actually has me followed by a private investigater from Colorado to Indiana but his plan to waylay me (and do god knows what) goes awry and I discover his machinations.
So the thing with the cute daughter doesn't last (eventually her younger sister marries a guy who becomes a paraplgiac from a fall), but years later I put up this beautiful Wingate sandstone crack climb in a truly obscure location and I named the route for the father from Indiana that had me followed.
The name of the route?
Hoosier Daddy
LOL
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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So I went to a Yoga class at a studio in south Seattle. I drove my stepmoms car - a cadillac (older one). I get back to the car after class and the key won't turn the ignition. An older black gentlemen decided he'd like to help (he saw me trying to fux with the car).
He says... "gimme the keys". I do.
He gets in. Trys to turn the ignition.
"ho man... yo' cars been jacked... somebody tried to steal your ca'".
I kindly explain to him I didn't think that was the case.
"Got any cigaretts?"
I say no.
"Buy me a beer".
I kindly do so.
So I decide the car ain't gonna start so we call in a lock smith.
While I'm hanging out it gets dark.
The brothahs and sisters start to appear on their street corner.
Well... a younger black gentleman decides he doesn't like me being there.
Yo! N-word, What's up with Whitey?".
I gulp.
The older black gentleman defends me.
"f*#k you n-word." - back and forth.
young gentleman throws a beer can at older gentleman.
I decide I should walk to the store a block a way and hang out.
Turns out the younger gentleman finally caught what was going on.
He walks down the block and talks to me. He says, "Hey man, sorry about that - I though you were moving in our drug turf".
I say it's cool. Locksmith arrives and gets me a key that works and I bail.
So... what ron said is so true, it's all about the story behind the route name.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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So what is the name of the route?
Honkey Skates?
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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What's up with Whitey?
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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I suspect you may have been better off if it wasn't a Caddy. lol
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TwistedCrank
climber
The banks of reality
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Long ago and far away we spent a day putting up boulder problems on some skank pile hidden in the waybacks of western Colorado and named them all after classic routes in Eldo Canyon. That was some fun yeah-soo-ree.
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Dr.Kodos
Trad climber
Tennessee
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Slappin TA's Eye Straight
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Bullet the Blue Sky....and then about 1,400 more.
Not my Cross to Bear
The Arms Race
Bob's Face
Bob
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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The Black Pearl
La Honda Wash
Yum Yum/Boom Boom
Lockerbie
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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Open Winfrey
Eddy
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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Sharon Stone
Turd Burgler
Jesus Saw You Take it
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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Craig
Proper B T
Baby Tool
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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Everyone But Larry
Water Babies
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inhisfootsteps
Sport climber
the heart of WY.
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 8, 2007 - 06:10pm PT
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you are a spectacular photographer...and route setter!!!
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Ksolem
Trad climber
LA, Ca
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Seamstress @ Courtright:
Booting up for the FA of Despairadoes, Gorge of Despair (that's Tehipite Dome behind and below...)
Despairadoes:
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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San Bernardinos
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ec
climber
ca
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The Romantic Warrior, The Warlock
White Punks on Dope, Voodoo Dome
Just a Rock in the Park, Angel Wings
Crystal Bonsai, Bubbs Creek Wall
Full Metal Jacket, Moro Rock, Sequoia NP
Moro Oro, Moro Rock, Sequoia NP
In the Niche of Time, Tehipite Dome
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rick d
Social climber
tucson, az
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frankenelly
"bill" (on "bill (rock))
best in west s (on Bill's neighbor (rock))
west of best s (on Bill's neighbor (rock), left of above)
oreo girls
luca and the fishes
the uvula of time
the waist of time
"the pratt route"
you can have your puddin' if you eat your meat
the bet (If I free it without cussing DDC will pay up)
..........
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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I don't even get to name my routes any more, they get named for me.
last one I did, two years ago, with Steg holding the rope, and COrbet and steve bitchey kibitzing, got named "Drama Queen".
I can't figure out why.
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