John Bachar... Inspirational Tales

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Double D

climber

Jul 25, 2009 - 03:41pm PT

I'm not sure this qualifies as "inspirational" but it's a classic Bachar tale (copied from an earlier post).

Back in ’76 or 77, Max Jones, Augie Klein and I decided we wanted to do Tangerine Trip. For those of you who didn’t climb in that era, the Trip had a reputation of being a bad-adzed route that there was no possible way to retreat from… it was thought to be too overhanging. If I remember right we figured that our’s was the 7th or 8th ascent. The only first hand beta we had was from Bachar, Kauk and Bard who both scarred the crap out of us sent us reeling with their comical tales of hanging bivi’s gone awry.

So we show up at the base to fix the 1st 4 pitches and there’s a frigg’n party ahead of us. It’s Jim Orey and Jack Roberts. He assures us that they’re just doing the first 5 or 6 pitches and then venturing out to a new route (that somewhat became Aurora). Cool, we’re back on track.

So he’s on the 4th pitch, which at the time was supposedly the crux and we’d just fixed the first two. Not wanting to crowd the belay we hang for a bit…and then a bit more…and then a bit more and finally after a good four hours we’re able to proceed. I knew that Jim had done a bunch of “hardman” stuff and at this point I was somewhat concerned about leading the 4th before darkness set in as we only had about three hours left. It ended up being fine, only took and hour to lead and I’m thinking to myself what could have taken him so long? Just about that time I notice that there was a fairly steady stream of empty beer cans floating downward that I most likely didn’t notice earlier in the day so I assume that they must have been a little hammered.

The next day we launched with a couple of pitches between us. There’s a non-stop flow of empty beer cans coming off rivaling horsetail falls. Jim hollered down that he had not done much climbing in a few years and made certain that they didn’t “suffer” too much in regards to their ample supplies. They must have gone through a case that day…it was way too funny!

That night we had an amazing lightning storm. We watched a wall of water ungulate to and fro but rarely hitting us due to the severity of the overhanging wall. The next morning it became obvious that the storm was going to last several days. Being on an overhanging wall and staying dry we figured that it was no worries though. So Jim and Jack are two pitches above us and he yells down that they are going to bail because they’ve run “drastically” short on beer. He asks if they could tie their two ropes with our three and shoot for the ground. We were at the top of the 6th or 7th pitch and because of all the meandering of the route we reckoned that the ropes would make the ground. So they proceeded to rap out into space from the anchors never coming close to the wall. In fact where the rope hit the talus was a good 200’ out from the base. Pretty wild rap, that’s for sure!

So Augie, Max and I were getting ready to pull up the ropes and lead when it struck Augie and I that we could rap down to the creature comforts of the Mt. Room Bar that evening and come back after the storm. Although the bar didn’t have any appeal to Max, Augie and I became master-salesmen and in just moments we too followed suit rapping down into a seemingly endless void of air. As I descended the wall just got further and further away. The undulating wall of rain was still way out beyond our reach but the dense clouds surrounding me were like being in a white room with no corners. All I could think of was how much fun this was going to be to jug back up.

Now the morning comes for us to blast off again after waiting out the storm in the luxurious comforts of camp 4. We opt for an alpine start and arrive at the base just after first light only to find Mr. Bachar with this sh1t-eat’n grin on his face. He immediately explains that he thought it might make for some good pictures and he knew we were blasting off…”so here I am” he says.

Strange, I thought, why didn’t he just come with us? Nothing else was said and soon we were underway jugging the endless jug way out in space. I was so busy taking pictures that I didn’t really think about it anymore. The picture I took that ended up in Yosemite Climber of Augie jugging came from that morning.

We eventually finished the climb with mostly crappy weather and topped out in a horrendous snowstorm on May 1st, dug a hole around the base of a tree to bivi in and decided to slog down the Falls trail rather than getting diced out on the East ledges.

So about a month after this, John comes up to me and fesses up: he’d clipped into our line, scrambled up the 3rd class ledges on the 1st pitch and proceeded to go for the largest rope swing possibly in Yosemite’s history. He wanted to do it on the sly because he feared that I’d be really pissed off about it. He’d just finished taking off his swami minutes before we arrived and was so pumped with adrenaline that he couldn’t think of any better excuse for me than the picture scheme. Of course I busted up and wished that I’d thought of doing the same with such a rare opportunity!

So indirectly, Mr. Orey and Mr. Robert's brush with a no-beer drought set the stage for a historical, albeit little-known, feat in Yosemite.

RIP John

guyman

Social climber

Moorpark, CA.

Jul 3, 2014 - 10:03am PT

Five years……

I will tell this tale.

John wasn’t always the superstar rockclimber, at one time he was a gumby, just like you and me.

John, Bullwinkle and I were heading to Josh in like early 74. On the drive out there we were on a mission. The mission was to climb a F10. And we were determined to do it that weekend or die.

Early Saturday morning, after a few boulder problems, we were ready.

Judas, a F10 was the target. At the base we determine that it was Bullwinkles turn to lead this sucker, John has his brand new rack all ready to go and he placed the first piece up a few moves. Dean fires up to the crux after clipping the “pro”,tries to do the hi-step and promptly falls off.

I’m on belay, but the rope never pulls tight! Johns well placed stopper had blown and Dean is on the ground! Dean is a little shaken up and is moaning some as John helps him to his feet.

Now what are we going to do??????

The Yo-yo is on, I climb up to the spot and install a better stopper and down climb, we both hang on the rope to make sure the stopper will hold……

John ties in, and with a look of desperation on his face he starts up and with just a bit of hesitation, he fires the crux hi-step and cruses to the summit.

We both follow.

The rest of the day, we walked around HVC as proud as new dads because WE were now F10 climbers.

peace to you.

Mark Force

Trad climber

Cave Creek, AZ

Jul 5, 2014 - 09:02am PT

I was only a second (oh,wait, make that third) string player (nah, not really a player, either, but I was there) BITD. Wasn't on JB's radar, but he was amazing to be around. He was all physical energy and power, nerves running high wattage, a fierce consciousness; a mix of d'Artagnan élan, Bruce Lee physicality, and Miles Davis cool. He inspired and then he got on the rock..... He so got that it was, at the core,mall about the essence of it all; it was the art that mattered.

Saw him and Kauk climb the Rostrum pre-cam (~1976?) with binoculars from Reed's. It was masterful.

ron gomez

Trad climber

fallbrook,ca

Jul 5, 2014 - 09:35am PT

Heavy sad heart today, but I feel his spirit. Lots of cool fly overs this morning on my bike ride by hawks. Peace to pa, Little Bachar, The Yerian, Peter, Karine and John Jr today.
Peace

Mark Force

Trad climber

Cave Creek, AZ

Jul 5, 2014 - 04:05pm PT

Here's a pic of JB bouldering in the Buttermilks (~1974?). Got this pic from Bullwinkle. He got it from a guy who used to live on the east side who isn't around anymore. Think Bullwinkle might still be tracking down some originals from that day for printing up.