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scuffy b
climber
Where only the cracks are dry
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Mar 12, 2010 - 11:20am PT
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I-13 is slightly easier than I-12.
I would think that if you had downclimbed the meat of I-12,
traversing left to I-13 might seem more reasonable that traversing
right to the really insecure moves back into the notch.
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Mar 12, 2010 - 12:51pm PT
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thanks scuffy b.
Yeah, that start to I-12, with your feet at, what, 20' up, would be delicate to reverse. Still, for RR to venture up I-13 as reported above showed some major sack, not to mention endurance. He had to feel pretty confident that he could back off I-13 and go back up I-12 if needed.
Or maybe he didn't think much at all, and just climbed...
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scuffy b
climber
Where only the cracks are dry
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Mar 12, 2010 - 03:49pm PT
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Or maybe he'd already done I-13 and knew it would be better than the
moves back to the notch.
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Mar 12, 2010 - 04:22pm PT
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report makes it sound as tho it was his first go at the two routes.
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oldguy
climber
Bronx, NY
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Mar 14, 2010 - 08:02pm PT
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I detect a sliver of doubt about my account. I admit it can't be verified, except by RR, because none of the few other climbers who happened to be around that day were paying any attention to what Royal was doing (they didn't even know it was Royal). This also shows that he wasn't playing to the crowd--I was the crowd. And to clarify, this was his first trip to Indian Rock. He didn't know that I13 was a climb; he just figured that he could climb it, and doing so meant more climbing as opposed to going back to the notch. Earlier, Royal did some impressive free soloing at Stoney Point, and he used to use some kind of self belay at Tahquitz when there was no one else around to climb with, so he was used to being out on the edge.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Mar 14, 2010 - 08:21pm PT
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Thanks for sharing what happened, Joe.
I didn't think the rumor of him falling was very plausible.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Mar 14, 2010 - 08:45pm PT
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RichR,
the image of David Brower is reversed; here is the correct orientation:
just below/starting The Great Overhang
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Mar 15, 2010 - 10:19pm PT
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Sidebar: kinda like a real climb
Well, thread really isn't about IR per se, but a little general lore is always fun. At Mortar rock, there is a small boulder with a nice traverse called Pipeline because there used to be a pipe at its base, maybe for irrigation. Some years back, O maybe 70's, I was working on this problem with Chris Vandiver and a couple of other regulars, just who I can't recall(maybe Fred will help out here). We tried not to work sections, but rather kept trying it from the first move (working right to left) until we fell off and had to start over, kinda like a real climb. Not sure that approach kept going very long, but anyway one Sunday I came back to have a look and started off to find a little piece of paper stuck behind a crucial flake. I pulled it out and it said something like, "Got it today, Chris" with a date on top. I think he had come out on the previous Wednesday, I guess after one of his carpenter jobs at the end of day. So, Chris got the FA, kinda like a real climb, and his note kinda like a summit register, and that’s the history as I recall it. Hard to know about FA’s for other climbs, since there is no record, and maybe that’s fine too, all in the name of foggy history.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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John Morton
climber
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Mar 16, 2010 - 12:44pm PT
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To correct a minor detail in Tom's short bio of Bruce Cooke: Bruce actually worked at Mare Island, the enormous naval shipyard in Vallejo which dated back to the Civil War. I always imagined Bruce as a man from another era, when people arose from obscure beginnings to make lives for themselves in the West. A fantasy, I guess, but a heroic figure somehow.
The Mare Island blacksmith shop had huge steam-powered hammers: 19th century tools which belched clouds of steam with each stroke. Bruce gave me 2 pitons he made in the shop. One is a Salathe-type horizontal which I drove and removed many times with no wear or fatigue. The other is a sort of horizontal RURP for which I never found a use. Jerry Coe really wanted to get one of those steam hammers for his shop when they decommissioned Mare Island in the nineties, but there was no room for such a monster.
John
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scuffy b
climber
Where only the cracks are dry
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Mar 16, 2010 - 03:31pm PT
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Tom,
it was Nat and Scott who were in the Pipeline race.
I'd heard, from Scott and Tom and Chris, that it was just a little note
announcing the achievement. Diagonal chalk streak, I have to think that
story sprouted on its own.
Nat and Scott were a little miffed at Chris's gamesmanship, but, you know,
if you're going to be competitive about a boulder problem first ascent,
you have to be willing to be second. He may have rubbed their noses in it,
but not all that hard.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Mar 16, 2010 - 03:40pm PT
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ok, that pipeline story is hilarious.
it only gets v6 these days, but that last move is fairly low-percentage for me.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Mar 16, 2010 - 03:53pm PT
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John,
Bruce must have worked at Hunter's Point as well, because when they announced that they were closing it around 1972, he told me they were closing his "alma mater."
John
edit: How could I have missed the rest of this thread? Even though I spent only four years in Berkeley, and left in 1973, I still dream (literally) about Indian Rock. It's great to hear from so many who loved the places as I did. Seeing those pictures of Andy Lichtman reminded me of when I first met him there. He was in tennis shoes demonstrating Watercourse center and, of course, Lichtman's Lick, among other things.
Incidentally, Galen Rowell demonstrated the technique for a one-handed ascent of Watercourse Right to us. In addition to a dynamic start, it had a key move of using your knee, just like all the textbooks said you shouldn't.
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Mar 16, 2010 - 04:39pm PT
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John,
Yes, Bruce used to talk about his blacksmith exploits, working near major heat and I believe injuring himself once, perhaps pulling a tendon from a bone in his arm, perhaps trying to catch something going wrong. Beautiful picture of the environment in which he worked. I also remember his pitons and had a couple myself, and maybe still do buried away.
Randisi,
No, I don't know where Chris is these days. He was living north of Tahoe still doing construction, last time we connected, but his e-mail has not returned in some time. We had some great first ascents together in South Yosemite and Pinnacles and I'd love to get back in touch.
As for the chalk arrow, I didn't see it, but I was a weekend climber, so I got there a few days after he did the route, according to his note. Good to know from Scruffy b who else was working the climb in those days. Well of course we were all competing to get the route and he was proud to get it first and we wished we had instead, but that's the deal with bouldering and climbing. You win some FA's and you don't. The main thing for me was I did get it that weekend, maybe spurred by Chris's achievement, and that too is part of the game, getting motivated to follow where one knows someone else has gone, maybe pushing harder for it.
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FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Mar 17, 2010 - 12:55am PT
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Oh Man!
In the photo under the Great Overhang (no one has called it that for many years, the Great Traverse too has been de-valued over time, alas) from the direction of the rope I would guess young Mr. Brower is doing that nasty, edgy traverse to the left. In those horrible looking boots with the big overhanging soles! Probably 5.15 at least.
Tom,
I do remember when that traverse got done. That was classic, I don't remember anyone else leaving a note or arrow (I don't think he left one) to mark a first ascent. Mostly they happened on the weekend when the whole gang was there. Inspiration runs high at times like that. I liked the V6 rating comment too. I have never understood rating boulder problems but it seems inevitable. I found that traverse to be pretty hard when I was not real fit.
I think maybe it actually got harder, like sun spot cycles or something.
I always thought of that boulder as the "Haan mantle boulder". There was a mantle (scary before pads...still scary actually) that I attributed to Peter. I did that route about a zillion times over the years.
I always thought that boulder had more good hard problems per linear foot than any other boulder in Berkeley. For a while Scott was adding new nasty routes about one a week. Most went up the left, tallest part where the Girl's Problem goes. Those routes are all forgotten (thank goodness).
Fred
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Mar 17, 2010 - 11:59am PT
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The Haan Mantle still gets done, although I hadn't known it by that name. Pipeline is moderately popular, mostly because it's right next to Nat's.
The bar is very high in the Bay area-- if you don't consistently climb v10-12, you just aren't in the game. I still haven't done Stan's (Nat's backwards), about 13d or so-- there's one move on it that's very low percentage for me. Last night I watched someone I didn't know simply float it in a handful of tries.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Mar 17, 2010 - 01:36pm PT
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We started going up to Mortar in the mid-late sixties. It seemed there had not been any serious consistent climbing before that point. And of course the main rock was caught nearly completely up in a net of vines, trees and bushes. So over time of course we denuded it, separating the geology from the botany and asserted our preeminence. As it has turned out, it has some really seriously hard routes---- longer, harder and better than Indian Rock itself down the street a block. By 1972 we had three routes on the main rock over to the right by the obscure short stairway and a bunch of ways of messing with Pipeline and the Tiny El Cap boulder at the curve. The real meat, the Nat’s area, was still to come.
Also I agree with John Eleazarian; Bruce definitely worked at Hunters Point at least at some point.
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Mar 17, 2010 - 01:37pm PT
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well, there's Nat's, and now there's Not's traverse. Not's uses some sneaky pinch and reach-through beta to avoid the layback match move at the start that I always thought was what makes Nat's hard. It's also what makes Stan's really hard, especially if you are over 6'. Or you could just do Ston's...
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Mar 17, 2010 - 02:02pm PT
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yeah, almost no one does the original shoulder move or even the rose move on nat's anymore. a few exceptions. glen park mark still hucks laps when he's in shape, and i notice that he always does the shoulder move.
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Mar 17, 2010 - 02:34pm PT
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serious thread drift and minutiae, but...
Harrison Dekker pointed out to me that Nat did the traverse without the smile. Someone excavated the smile later. Very hard move without. Footholds at the bulge were better then, though, Harrison also mentioned.
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