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Truthdweller
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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These photos were taken yesterday up in the Baby Robbins corridor. My five year old and I gathered up these fresh pieces from the base of Jaws. They came from the upper face to the right of the Jaws crack. They were obviously pulled from the face to create a line up the arete.
I was present with a party about a month ago who was "projecting" this line before the modifications were made. Some suggest that this may have been the result of a natural process. You be the judge!
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Mark K
Social climber
San Marcos, California
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Had a great couple days up on the hill this weekend with Doug, Lauren, and Phil. Doug had the idea to climb a big chunk of the hard finger cracks in one day, so we made that our goal Saturday. We warmed up on Hear my Train (or should I say Doug and Phil warmed up on it). Then we went down to Aids Victim, up to Lie Detector, then to Driving South, out to Widow Bereft, then finished up on Starving in Stereo. Doug got five out of the six, falling on the outro move on Starving (he got it easily on the one hang). It was definitely one of the most inspiring performances I've seen up on the hill.
Sunday, Doug, Lauren and I headed for the summit with a brief stop at Milkbar (which was a blast as always). We also met up with Johnny and climbed with him for a big chunk of the day. We got on Bat Flake, the Sail, and Airstream. We even managed to work on a few projects. All in all, a great weekend as Woodson.
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Doug Tomczik
climber
Bishop
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Here's a couple more of Mark on the sail
p.s. good climbing with you johnny. hope the rest of the day went well
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henny
Social climber
The Past
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 7, 2011 - 01:46pm PT
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Nice. Good pictures, again. Dang, I hate being on the outside looking in.
Doug needs to find something new and challenging. Obviously the thin cracks aren't even raising a sweat anymore. I asked him if he really had anything left for thin cracks the last time I saw him. That circuit proves the accuracy of his answer. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, good job guys.
Anybody do the arete left of Airstream? I can't believe Johnny would have let anybody get away without pushing them onto that. Not too hard, but good.
Gary, were those holds just loose or would they have required excessive force to remove?
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Doug Tomczik
climber
Bishop
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Thanks Henny. I have a whole list of woodson climbs (that never gets smaller) that I'd like to get and one project in particular that I would really love to do.
Johnny did point the arete out and said it was really good. The four of us went off to the sail though and then down to bat flake. After Bat Flake Johnny headed off and Lauren, Mark, and I decided to just go up to Airstream since we are hardly ever up at the summit area. Mark and I scoped the arete, but didn't have the foam or cajones (or both?) to get on it. It does look amazing though. I need to go up there with the mondo.
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Truthdweller
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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I have to comment, as well, on that crack circuit...that's HARDCORE! Are you guys bouldering the start of Lie Detector or ? Just a note, Mark and Doug, the guy I was with, Andrew, he does all those cracks in that circuit as well. You guys need to get together. I wish I could stay up with you guys, *sigh.* Maybe you can share some of that talent and motivate me one day.
Darrell, to tell you the truth, I've never banged away on that section of rock in 30 years and never thought of "banging away" on that rock neither. There was obviously some space behind the layer but I'm tellin you...the kids created this line and not only that, its an "eye sore" next to the single splitter, Jaws, that fractured that gorgeous orange textured rock.
So, what's next, bang away next to Mother Superior and break away any potentially loose flakes to create another line? Or what about any of the other classic crack lines up there? I'm sure there is some potential exfoliation going on somewhere next to those cracks. Scar up the whole mountain that way and double the amount of "lifetime" problems at Woodson!
Wait till you see the mess Henny.
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Truthdweller
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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...and not that this has anything to do with "the price of tea in China" (or does it?) but the guy(s) I'm suspecting of doing this, when asked if he was going to do Jaws that day, responded, "Oh no, my crack skills arent up to par right now." So, I can't climb a 5.11 finger crack but I can destroy the aesthetics next to it by prying away flakes to create an overhanging face route? Doesn't this ring of placing bolts next to a crack or what? I'm trying to liason with this guy as we speak to see if he was indeed the culprit. If I'm out of line, please stop me and get me off this horse for I've never taken this stance in climbing before.
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Truthdweller
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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On a more positive note, we went down to the "Sherwood Forrest" area and checked it out a bit. I changed my mind earlier in the afternoon and decided against it but ended up back down there way late and racing the daylight. We bouldered the dark, coarse finger/hand crack (classic 5.9) and tried, and tried, ...and tried,...and tried to stick the finishing moves on the overhanging face/arete next to it but couldn't finish it (what's up with reaching the top of that thing?)! That overhanging, diagonaling seam looked pretty hard too! Didn't get on that nor did we have time to try that decievingly easy crack on the end of that triangle face (the topout looked a bit sketchy). We'll have to return.
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Horvath
Trad climber
CA
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cripes I leave town for one weekend, and looks what happens
nice work guys!
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gonamok
climber
dont make me come over there
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"The Sail" is a perfect name for that formation. The names of the routes seem to have been lost to time however, so Im going to correct that. The righthand route is "I Spy", and the left is "The Man from UNCLE" Me and Allenby installed the 1/4 bolt with leeper hanger and did those things in 1986. I think we graded them 11c and 11d respectively.
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gonamok
climber
dont make me come over there
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Woodson Rennaisance...I like it. Nobody turns a phrase like BVB. I think the long awaited 3rd wave of development has begun in earnest on the hill.
The first wave bagged the mega classics and ebbed around 80-81. The second wave applied the Santee mentality, mopping up the hundreds of obvious shorter and less aesthetic routes and problems (and plenty of classics as well), and was roughly the mid 80s through late 90's.
Development never stopped, but has been in the ebb mode until the past year or so, and now the boom. Being old, fat and weak (theres a good case for dimwitted as well) now, I can only participate from my lawn chair (any help in getting it in position would be appreciated) and cheer on the young guns of the 3rd wave. Hats off to ya!
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henny
Social climber
The Past
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 8, 2011 - 11:01am PT
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Are there 3 main problems on the Sail? I ask because I only remember 2 major ones, plus the left edge. And I believe the right hand one is a Bedford creation named "Spellbinder" (?), 5.12 something - if I remember correctly (for some reason I have a hard time remembering the name of that problem).
When I was there with Bedford a while back it seemed like the standard problem hadn't been done in ages as there was a lot of scale on it. Probably cleaner now that it's seen more traffic. Elegant boulder in a great location, that's for sure. And as Ron noted, aptly named.
(Edit: But seriously folks, what makes it as good as Uncertaintly? Did we fall down and bump our heads or something? Don't shoot me, don't shoot me, just saying..., IMO, and all that. They're kind of different aren't they?)
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henny
Social climber
The Past
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 8, 2011 - 11:56am PT
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How and why did it come about that the name of American Gypsy was changed to Fallen Gypsy?
I have a philosophical question of sorts.
Should problems, or routes, where a hold breaks off be renamed? If the difficulty was reduced instead of increased would it still have been renamed? I find that doubtful, so why rename it because it got a little harder? Was Cool Jerk renamed after the knob broke off? Let's say a hold broke off Uncertainty, would it be acceptable to rename it because it got a little harder? I say no. Changing the rating is certainly acceptable, and even taking note of who may have done it if it increased substantially in difficulty, but renaming it seems odd to me. It is the nature of problems that use face holds to potentially change over time. Renaming something every time it changes seems pretty chaotic and pointless. Yes, there are tangents here: aid/free renaming, naming a variation of line, and the likes. But the Gypsy doesn't seem to fit any of them. Isn't it really still the American Gypsy, only a little harder? Thoughts?
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gonamok
climber
dont make me come over there
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Im with you Henny, once the route has been created and named it becomes a topographical feature foreverafter. If a hold breaks it really cant be a new route. Imagine the new routes some unsavory type could rack up by breaking holds then being the first to reclaim them. The exception being if the author of the route breaks the hold and renames the route, or consents to the renaming. One of the founding tenets of free climbing is that all rights to a given route are the inviolate property of the first ascent party. Meaning that any retro protection, renaming or whatever has to be done by, or with expressed consent of the author(s).
In the case of Fallen Gypsy, Greg never seemed to have a problem with the renaming, but Greg's ethic is of such lofty standard that he may have disowned the route after a hold broke (that is meant as a compliment of the highest order btw). Greg? Wanna straighten this out?
On The Sail, I can only say that Rick and I put up 2 routes on the south face of the formation; I spy is to the right (east) of center, the most obvious line, and The Man from UNCLE starts just left of center and diagonals right.
Dont ask me about Bedford creations, because I could never do any of them. If Donny did either or both of these routes before we did, it wouldnt surprise me, and if that be the case, I (and Im sure Rick too, tho I havent talked to him about it) would be happy to return the routes (slightly used) to the rightful owner.
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gonamok
climber
dont make me come over there
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Footnote: When the rotten log on Royal Arches disappeared, the route went from 5.6 to 5.9 and it didnt get renamed.
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Johannsolo
climber
Soul Cal
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Another great weekend spent at Woodson. Saturday was too hot for hard climbing in the sun but there are always shady climbs to get on. I tried my latest project 1st thing in the morning but it was already way too hot. The handholds felt horrible, the foot smears even worse. Spent most of Sunday messsing around waiting for the clouds to roll in. Sure enough, around 4:00 PM the fog started to cover the upper half of the mountain and the temperature dropped considerably. I got on my mini-trax and second go, sent. The climb is called "The Vision" and was shown to me by Ron Amick as it was something he had worked on BITD. It's hard to tell the dificulty but felt impossible and unclimbable at first. Slowly the sequences emerged and everything came together. I would guess some sort of 5.12. It faces due South and is located on the big boulder NE of American(Fallen) Gypsy. An excellent climb, top ten on the mountain. Smears, edging, and small knobs, classic Woodson. Thank you Ron.
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gonamok
climber
dont make me come over there
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My pleasure, John. Im stoked that you sent that thing! Good work.
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Johannsolo
climber
Soul Cal
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What a perfect find, Ron. Remember this old friend?
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henny
Social climber
The Past
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 9, 2011 - 12:29am PT
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Good job, Johann.
Dang, you sent that thing before I even had a chance to come down and try to snake it from you. Bummer. (haha).
Problems getting repeated, new problems getting put up. Cool.
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deepnet
Boulder climber
San Diego
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Nice job on "the Vision"
Cool you kept the name.
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