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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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May 15, 2011 - 02:46pm PT
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Doug- Are Roper or Steck involved in the revival of Ascent or is it a rebranding of sorts with their blessing? Care to give us a glimpse of the proposed contents?
Sign me up for a copy or two!
Cheers- Steve
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F10
Trad climber
e350 / Bishop
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May 15, 2011 - 02:53pm PT
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Ascent wow, was just looking at my 74' Ascent last night
Looking forward to your article
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Topic Author's Reply - May 15, 2011 - 02:56pm PT
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I would call it more a rebirth. I know the intent is to carry on its fine tradition. And yes, I've heard it's with blessings from the founders Steck and Roper.
Steck even showed up in the Buttermilk one day as we were preparing to go out on the Rock Course, and his daughter Sara and his grandson Michael (in skateboard shoes) came along as we worked out Smoke's classic moves like the Flying Squirrel (three tries for me to stick it) and the Rubber Tester on our way to the first pinnacle, the Porcupine.
No idea what else will be in the issue. I will be as surprised as anyone...
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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May 16, 2011 - 03:27pm PT
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Doug: Do you have a projected date of availability for the up-coming Ascent?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 12, 2011 - 10:58am PT
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First available bump...
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Just read the smoke / buttermilkimg article. Nice work Doug! Can't wait to get back there. I'm in he shadow of deto, currently. Thanks for the kind words too, btw!
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cintune
climber
Midvale School for the Gifted
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Great article. Was just talking about it with a friend who climbs 5.12 and boulders V9; "but after reading that I just want to go out for the adventure; that's what I've really missed out on so far."
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 11, 2011 - 01:29am PT
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This is an excerpt from Walking Up and Down in the World; Memoirs of a Mountain Rambler by Smoke Blanchard, Sierra Club Books ©1985 by Smoke Blanchard ISBN 0-87156-827-6
BUTTERMILKING
"Hey, Smoke, got time to go Buttermilking?"
He should know me better than that. I've always got time to go Buttermilking. That's our coined verb for climbing in the local rocks. Please don't call it practice climbing. This is the real thing, even if it's walking. (We sometimes go Buttermilking to study flowers or to meditate.) And it's not bouldering; that's another sport. For forty years Buttermilking has been as essential a part of my life as any other ingredient.
No one knows the origin of the name Buttermilk. We borrowed it from the USGS, who splashed it across a large swath of the Sierra slope on one of their maps. Climbing locals restrict its use to a particular parade of small peaks.
The rock course evolved over a long time. I first climbed the Big Slab Pinnacle by the vertical four-sided chimney at its back, the one I now call the Aboriginal Chimney, in 1942. For many years, I corkscrewed into the great rock maze from all directions. The twistings and turnings of the holes, hollows, chimneys, and prongs of this vast jumble curl so complexly that even today I am the only one who can follow the exact pattern of all the routes. Bobby has been with me on more scramblings there than anyone, but he has always climbed as follower and has not yet learned the course. People who have spent a couple of years of winter week ends there still lose the way.
Obviously this is a source of pride to me, because mountaineering is an extension of my love of geography and exploring. The Buttermilk, though, taught me an appreciation of the grace of rockclimbing. Surprisingly, it seems to be this new skill that has gained this clumsy guide his local fame. Most people don't realize how easy it is to look good on moves done hundreds of times.
For decades I've taken out almost every person who has come visiting here. One beauty of the Buttermilk is that we can get there, climb, and return in just one hour. Or take the whole day. To go through the whole course takes from six to eight hours. Few people have the stamina and hand skin to complete the course in any amount of time; fewer yet can do it in record time. Climbing for records is stupid, anyway. It means no leisurely discussions on a sun-loved ledge, no time for trying a pitch over and over to smooth a technique, no chance to watch an owl mother's flight lesson, ear for coyote music. (On Su's first arrival at the second highest summit, she asked, "Why do you call this one Coyote Singing Summit?" Believe it or not, on cue with that stage direction, an obliging chorus proved the name appropriate.) It is good when one or six show up with time and determination to make a deliberately slow tour through all twelve pinnacles on the course.
Better yet is a big picnic, which Su used to refer to as a "Buttermilk Bash." This means a general circus for all, sans program. A large but not atypical one gathered its population from Bishop locals, Allen Steck and colleagues from the Mountain Travel Company, and Yvon Chouinard and his crew from the Great Pacific Iron Works. The count was fifty-one, which may have included some dogs and most certainly included babes in arms. Maybe even George Miller's children's milk goats. That's okay. That is the special feature of Buttermilk ambience: the possibility of assembling in rock-inspired communion all categories of outdoor people, from the most sedentary of picnickers (nonambulatory, even) to the most acrobatic of overhanging boulderers.
Picnic Valley, twenty minutes by easy trail from the new sandpit parking lot just ten miles from 387 Willow Street, is as spectacular as any site in cragdom. It is not really a valley, just a picnic-wide sagebrush-and-boulder-strewn space between the frowning brow of the bold Big Owl Pinnacle, the overhanging wall of South Mount Klieforth, and the sheer cliffs of Big Slab Pinnacle. Here nonclimbers can laze in sight of friends who are clinging to walls and peaks on every side. The haul from the car is short enough that nonclimbing types can be persuaded to pack in the food and water and wine, so that climbers arriving over the Skin Diver, Henry's Hill, and other narrow, airy places can balance unburdened.
Because the usual course crosses twice through this valley, people committed to different routes can mix at lunch. Groups may use this recess to rearrange. Here are some granite gropers eager for chimney wrestling; here, kids bound for Mount Klieforth on a tight rope; there, upper-echelon athletes dangling from an overhang. When such madness was popular, two young guides streaked a mixed climbing party that was belaying its way up the Slab. Bobby topped the streakers by traversing the complicated route over the summit, down the rough backside chimney, and around by Patterson's Night Route and the Belly Tester Crevice fully clothed but barefooted!
Regarding climbing costumes, I tell visitors freshly arrived from the city, "'We used to say, 'Put on your old clothes, we're going to the Buttermilk.' But now we say, 'Wear your best suit. If your technique is correct, you won't hurt it!' " This latest advice recognizes the skills we acquired at keeping ourselves out from the rock and climbing using only feet and hands. Beginners tend to grovel in chimneys, which is detrimental to clothing. Buttermilk rock is rough, round, and relatively holdless. It requires different gymnastics than the high-mountain rocks and allows us habitués to look good.
It is hard to say who will look good on those shaggy round bulges or tight scratch cracks. I must hasten to add an important message: the Buttermilk Course has always been just for fun. We have but one rule: don't fall off. Confucius say: "He who fall from Buttermilk rock loses face (very scratchy granite)." The credit to be gained from completing the course or reaching the summit of any of the twelve major pinnacles? As Bodhidharma answered the Emperor Wu of Liang to his inquiry on the merit of religious works: "None whatever!"
Still, if part of the fun is perfecting one's grace and balance, then surely it is legitimate to observe and appreciate one's companions' efforts as well. The peculiar nature of that strange rock leads to many a surprise. Sometimes mountaineers of wide experience and great reputation come around and find the rock so unlike the clean-cut edges of the heights that they struggle embarrassingly. Among the hundreds of nonclimbers trying the rocks with me, there have been some surprises too.
A couple from one of my African trips showed up, and the woman was anxious to get back into rockclimbing. She had kletterschuhe and knew how to use them. Her man, though, wore shiny, brass-buckled, leather-soled fashion boots. Impossible footgear: the uppers would be ruined by gouging crystals, and the soles could skid a man to ruin. He was told to wait at the bottom of the Porcupine Pinnacle, but he got so excited watching us, he came anyway. He climbed perfectly safely and with consummate skill.
The "Ring-tailed Cat Man" was a guest lecturer at the Palisade School of Mountaineering. A shy, gangling, stringy, black-stubble-bearded , frizzy-headed speaker, who scuffed his toes in the dirt, stared at the ground, and mumbled inaudibly about high-altitude squirrel habitats, Derham Giulani is most comfortable with a high-camp audience held in the glow of his nocturnally bloodshot eyes. (He earned his nickname by staying up nights observing ring-tailed cats.) One climbing team of two clients, who hunkered by a small fire at Camp Robin Hood for a two-hour nature lesson, rated the encyclopedic animal lore, detailed with red-eyed intensity, the highlight of their entire week at the school. They were startled the next day (it's happened more than once) to catch sight of the loose-jointed cat man flapping by with his untied tennies and butterfly net right up through the course they were attacking roped, belayed, and protected. Yes, the Ring-tailed Cat Man also floats up knee-gouging Buttermilk cracks with perfect unconcern.
My old friend Bob Swift once showed up with a friend who looked over each pitch very carefully and then climbed with ballet beauty. From the top of the short chimney above Sharp's Scenic Stroll, I threw down a rope for the stranger's protection on that airy promenade. He tied on without a word and came up with his usual aplomb.
When Swift got a chance, he inquired critically, "My God, Smoke, do you know who you tossed the line to?"
"I didn't catch the last name," I lied. "Chuck somebody."
"That's Chuck Pratt, perhaps the third-best rockclimber in all the world!"
He's a gentleman. The famous Stroll is a little nerve-tingling, but I'm sure he crossed it roped only to be polite.
One who should have worn a rope a time or two was our most spectacular climber of all. Helmut Kiene, in selecting a highschool exchange program from his native Germany, chose Bishop. A few locals imagine that the fame of Bishop's climbing has filtered all the way to the Alps. While this harmless conceit may be unjustified, no doubt German maps are detailed enough to show the capital of eastern California snuggling up to the Sierra Nerrada. Whether this inspired his choice I don't know, but Helmut came here for his senior year of high school. Within minutes he was out on the rocks, where with his natural balance and grace, he fit perfectly into Buttermilking. Skinny enough to rise up the narrowest of chimneys as if by capillary action, he was tall enough to finger the most distant hold and strong enough to hoist himselfwith ease. Soon he scampered up problem pitches like Spider Man.
His unroped antics nearly did him in one day, though. It was the great day Susan Denton and Jay Jensen were married just below the cragged peaks, and with hundreds of their friends at the ceremony it was not difficult to recruit Buttermilkers. We were all fairly full of wedding champagne, but rucksacked in several magnums in case of need. We had just begun the regular descent of the Big Slab Pinnacle when the bubbly momentarily captured Helmut's toes-on-ledge brain cells and off he came. Even here at the safe stance of the typewriter table, it scares me to think about that flight over those cliffs. There is one small, round, boulder ledge between take-off point and pancaking bottom. Helmut landed there in perfect knee-sprung crouch, bowed to the crowd as if twenty-five-foot jumps were on his program, and sprang down into the vertical chimney out of sight below in perfect control.
For a quarter of a century I knew everyone I saw out there, and for half of that time the only human tracks in all those hills were mine or my chosen companions'. Even today most of the traffic aims for bouldering on Doug Robinson's Peabodies. He hung that name on them and hung up most of the routes while spending weeks exploring their problems. Over a score of Yosemite hotshots have been attracted by Doug's boulder broadcasting. It is not my thing. I put on Doug Robinson's special rockclimbing shoes once and aimed them for Grandpa, but they didn't take me up. Bobby uses mountain boots like mine and climbs routes on Grandma and Grandpa that no one can follow.
The huge boulder Doug named Grandpa is famous now--featured in a photograph illustrating a Robinson essay on clean climbing. Most people think bold Grandpa the biggest boulder around the Buttermilk area. It is second. Number one we hide by geography and benign neglect. We hid it because the only way up will require bolts, and so far we've kept bolts out of almost all our rocks. Locals laugh because the rope in the Grandpa clean-climbing photo runs through a bolt, but that's okay because all agree that Doug is certified pure, and the editor needed the picture.
If we've only an hour or the new visitors want to climb only one pinnacle, I usually head for the first peak of the course, the one we call the Porcupine. That way we can use the old parking place, below where the weekend cars park.
Just before reaching the base of Porcupine, I take my party across a few shaggy rocks and past the Christmas Card Boulder. This sorts out the group instantly. Xmas Boulder can be climbed. Super experts gluing the tip edges of their boots to footholds too narrow to balance a bean appreciate that we have a parallel course for them where they can practice such absurdities without being ostracized. The rest of us check our rubber soles, adjust to the smearing of boots on slopes, and relax our bodies for balancing. I then know who needs a rope on the first pitch and approximately how much rockclimbing instruction to give.
Lately I've been carrying a fourth-class rack, which works fine--just a few nuts for setting up anchors. I don't climb fifth class routes any more. I've been told that my solo routes in the Scheelite Cliffs rank 5.6. Never did understand those numbers. If I like it, I class it 4.9, and if I don't I'll call it 5.7 and stay the hell off it. In the heroic words of Norman Clyde: "This can be climbed but I'm not going to do it." Yes, the rack fits in a belly-band pack and has all the anchor, prusik, and descending gadgets I need.
The Porcupine Pinnacle gives us a chance to climb cracks, faces, ledges, and chimneys. Most likely I'll give a running commentary on all the different types of jam and cling holds we use. I'll demonstrate a jump we call the Flying Squirrel, teach manteling, show how to wedge , and give an example of the lieback. Probably there will be philosophy, deep or shallow; undoubtedly there will be gossip about famous climbers. I'll criticize Royal Robbins for claiming to have invented the elbow lock in the 1950s. I hope he meant that he had progressed far enough in his climbing experience and athletic agility to rediscover what my friend Gary Leech showed me in the 1930s, when he rediscovered what A. F. Mummery had probably used early in this century in his famous crack on the Grépon, and what no doubt was used before him by old Pithecanthropus J. Erectus when he deserted his tree to try a little rock-crack problem in pursuit of dinner.
There will be many anecdotes. A lot of them I tell to illustrate something about climbing in the Buttermilk. When we thrash in the chimneys, I point out that they come in all sizes, like people. The beanpoles gripe in Charcoal Chimney, the shortlegged have trouble reaching across the wide chimney under the Breakfast Porch. The Frog Wedge is supposed to require great arm strength, but Mary Sharp and Marlene Miller squirm out of it on coordination rather than biceps. I tell how the first two guys to straddle-leg the entire Bobcat's Passage were tall, skinny Tex Mock and a sawed-off Yvon Chouinard. I may offer the rope with a story about how Bob Swift and I assured a client at the climbing school that "you can't fall out of a chimney," and she did.
If all goes well, my chatter sparks my friends into talking too, and we jabber all the way. This uses up climbing time and leaves some unclimbed pinnacles to beckon them back.
If I charted every hold, mapped every move on the course, asterisked all the alternatives, compiled a large book with the most accurate evocations of the moods of that molded granite paradise, and managed accurately to portray by character sketches the people who sometimes inhabit the Buttermilk, I would still sell it short. There is no way that I know of to pass on by paper the feeling that permeates the person who steps out of the shower with epidermis cleaned and tingling from crystal scrapes, muscles pleasantly tired, joints well-oiled, and mind and spirit glowing from a full day of Buttermilking.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 11, 2011 - 01:55am PT
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Thanks for posting that Ed.
What a writer Smoke is!
See you out there.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 11, 2011 - 12:56pm PT
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That last bit reminds me of this
"If you understood everything I said, you'd be me,"
-Miles Davis
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 17, 2011 - 11:56pm PT
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October 15, 2011
Smoke Blanchard's Rock Course
After driving in from the Bay Area with Jaybro and Linda and spending the night as guests of Em's at the "Old Climber's Home" we awoke to the beginning of another glorious day in the "Range of Light."
We had gathered to follow Doug around on the "Rock Course" which was the subject of the "Buttermilking" section above. The crowd had grown with Ken and Russ tagging along with scuffy, Gary, Jaybro, Em, Linda and me, along with Jillian, Luke, Paul, Christie and Marsha, spanning ages from the 20's to the 60's. 14 in all with the additional knowledge of Paul, who had also learned something about the course from his years on the East Side.
We had descended on the start of the course which was the camp of Hannah's for the preceding week, which was solitary... Hannah was leaving for Squamish BC to meet up with a friend that same day, and left us with stuff she could not transport on the plane... I assured here that if she got in touch with Anders that he would compensate her for all of the stuff she left behind... she just had to mention my name...
Here is her picture, Anders, put the expenses on my tab...
The course as described above is through the rock labirynth ascending something like 12 pinnacles with various names. The course itself began as part of Blanchard's "mountain walking" in 1942. I can relate to the difficulty of following the course, and remembering it and the names for the various pinnacles, I've found that I've already forgotten some of it.
The beginning of the course starts as a warm-up of sorts, and increases in difficulty as it goes through the various bits...
I think this is Porcupine Pinnacle...
My recording was split between the camera and the video camera... so I didn't get everything in still images... but other's did and hopefully they'll post here too...
Paul soloing up a different way from other recent journeys...
which added a touch of spice to this part of the course. There was plenty of time in a group this large to have conversations waiting for everyone to surmount the particular problems...
and many places which evoke old pictures from the past...
lots of fine scrambling in chimneys and various activities that reminded me of being a kid and climbing around in the desert and just having fun.
The pinnacles keep on happening as the day wore on, beautiful weather, warm with high cloud cover to keep it pleasant, and just enough of a breeze too.
After real poetry from Ken the art of the moment and the movement once again take hold.
Russ on a chimney traverse
Our intrepid leader carefully ascending an offwidth bit...
with relics of the past witnessing the passing of yet another generation on the course
and with the last of the group off this pinnacle, we arrive in Picnic Valley and enjoy a wonderful meal while viewing our next objective.
Some of our group departed at this point, and the rest swarmed over various approaches to our next objective.
scuffy "birthing" from the Belly Tester Crevice,
and Luke making his way across Sharp's Scenic Stroll eschewing the rope
after which we had one last intimidating move to the top...
Which marked our final summit for the day. After getting instructions from Doug on the final third of the course... we descended a long chimney that Paul knew about
got a group photo
and departed for a wonderful meal that Paul and Luke prepared at Paul's... whose home we apparently converted into "Trad Daddy Central" for the evening.
It was wonderful, thanks to Doug for the invitation to come out and play. Meeting new climbers and seeing old friends was delightful!
We had fun.
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H
Mountain climber
there and back again
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Oct 18, 2011 - 12:19am PT
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Great report Ed. Yeah I remember hearing that Doug was doing this. I have been working way too much lately so I could not make it. But I am go glad that you and some of our friends could too..
Doug is so kind to lead you all up this classic route. Thanks for getting me there through your pictures and words. I remember reading Smoke Blanchard's book and wondered where this and many other special places were on the East side.
Great read if you get a chance>
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 18, 2011 - 01:43am PT
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Ken recited this on the summit of the "Skin Diver" from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book
Road-Song of the Bandar-Log
Here we go in a flung festoon,
Half-way up to the jealous moon!
Don't you envy our pranceful bands?
Don't you wish you had extra hands?
Wouldn't you like if your tails were--so--
Curved in the shape of a Cupid's bow?
Now you're angry, but--never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two--
Something noble and wise and good,
Done by merely wishing we could.
We've forgotten, but--never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
All the talk we ever have heard
Uttered by bat or beast or bird--
Hide or fin or scale or feather--
Jabber it quickly and all together!
Excellent! Wonderful! Once again!
Now we are talking just like men!
Let's pretend we are ... never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
This is the way of the Monkey-kind.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 18, 2011 - 01:45am PT
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"The way that can be known is not the way".
But guys like Doug can show us anyway...
Em, Linda, Doug, Luke, Ed
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 18, 2011 - 02:12am PT
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Thanks, Ed!
I'd be happy to talk with Hannah, and help her out as feasible. She need only call or e-mail.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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Oct 18, 2011 - 04:00am PT
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Thanks to Doug for leading this little expedition and to Ed for the intitial set of pictures and his narrative. It was a wonderful gathering even tho it sorely tested my out of shape muscles and out of tune techniques. Still, it was a most memorable experience, and I really enjoyed seeing those whom I'd met before and meeting new friends as well. Here are some more pictures to add to the thread and a few more words as well.
That's all folks!
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scuffy b
climber
dissected alluvial deposits, late Pleistocene
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Oct 18, 2011 - 11:39am PT
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Yes, eKat, when I got to those and smelled them, my out-of-touch self said
"that must be Chrysothamnus nauseosum." Boo was mildly skeptical.
An interesting take on rappel methods, or maybe we were really abseiling,
is that Ed is doing the Dulfersitz the wrong way, which I also showed to
Gary. When I jumped into my Dulfer it was obvious that I had goofed on my
instruction to Gary.
A most, most, MOST ENJOYABLE outing, based on the mix of traveling modes,
general camaraderie, and sky-high aesthetics. Add in the bonuses of meeting
Mr. McClinsky, getting to climb with Boche for the first time (he was one
of my early heroes because of all those 5.9 face climbs in the green Roper
etc), reuniting with Jill and Luke and Marsha, I was blissed out.
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franky
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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Oct 18, 2011 - 12:00pm PT
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It was nice having you all over at The Zoo for dinner!
Crusty trad dudes have the best stories!
It didn't hurt that you brought beer.
Wish I had been able to get out on the rock course. It is always fun.
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Oct 18, 2011 - 12:07pm PT
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First... DAMN! I wish I could have been on this expedition!
Second... DR is sure styling' in that Dolt shirt!
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