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Wonder
climber
WA
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I say "Postem if you gottem" MightyHiker how about a scan&post of the Mountain cover shot of the SM's before they left for the nose in a day. Thats a tell-tell shot. It made us all think twice.
BTW, Jim told me BITD when we were living in little calcutta that when he got back from cerro toro (please correct my spelling) his roids were so bad that they hung down so far that he had to stuff them back up. This might be just a Bird story but I doubt it.
sorry my posts are so late but my keyboard died and I had to pull out my I-Book and learn how to use it.
rw-edit - and remember all my passwords. cheers.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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*bump with photo*
A modern Bridwell:
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
Otto, NC
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...and the Bird brought along the purple berries?
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john hansen
climber
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A bump so A Crowley can learn about how to post..
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Jan 10, 2007 - 12:48am PT
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I'm laughing too much! Hemmoroids are funny! I know from experience! It only hurts when I laugh.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jan 10, 2007 - 03:20am PT
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Just a little point. Steve, Rearick was a California climber from the beginning, climbed with Royal at Tahquitz, etc. He later moved to Colorado, when he took a job teaching math at C.U. His ascent of the Diamond on Longs was while he was still a Californian.
Werner, you are really a good writer. Very imaginative and poetic.
Pat
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jan 10, 2007 - 03:30am PT
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I'm not sure, but Eric Beck and Frank Sacherer might have been the first to use the white painter paints. I'm probably wrong, but I can't think of anyone before that. Kor had a pair, I know, when I was climbing with him in the Black Canyon and elsewhere in the earl 1960s. Beck was wearing them when he and I climbed together in Estes, in the mid-1960s...
Pat
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Jan 10, 2007 - 08:41am PT
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I also have a rusty memory of Eric being an instigator for painter's pants. But it is based on comments he made rather than any direct experience. I don't ever remember Royal in white pants but I knew him in the 70s, when he was a bit older and settled (and an upright member of the community). He did wear a white cap.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Jan 10, 2007 - 10:19am PT
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"GEEK"
a quote, not an evaluation.
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Jan 10, 2007 - 10:30am PT
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BTW - those white pants in the photos are sailor pants - we all used to get them at the army-navy surplus stores for $1 to $2 a pair. They were lightweight and cheap and caught on quick.
"Wheat Thin" is too fragile for bouldering...
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jan 10, 2007 - 11:13pm PT
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Just some musings:
An earlier question by Peter, about the Split Pinnacle lieback. Dave Rearick did that lead on June 29, 1961. Mort Hempel was his partner. Rearick aided part way up and placed the bolt at what he felt was the only place where a leader could get one hand free to clip it. He then descended, removing all the pitons except the bottom one, to back up the bolt. He then led the pitch. It was, as he years later surmised, the first "sport route" in Yosemite.
John Bachar, but these white pants of which people are speaking came before your time. Maybe they were the same painter paints to which you refer. Who knows?
John Long. I'm not sure I know what you're talking about, when you seem to suggest that no outsiders could climb all that well in Yosemite, except a couple of Brits, and a few others (I forgot how you worded it exactly, and I'm sorry because I probably butchered it..., but...). I think quite a few people have come to the Valley and done perfectly fine, you know Layton Kor, Henry Barber... I could name others, such as Madsen and Schmitz. I recall having a great time and doing some hard climbs, pretty much, I think, near the top of the grade for the time. I loved climbing with Higgins and Kamps and Robbins and Pratt and Bridwell. We had lots of good times and good laughs, also bouldering, with my good friend Barry Bates. He actually published it somewhere that I was the best boulderer he'd seen. I was simply focusing a little harder maybe at that moment than others. I loved bouldering with him, though, and with Bridwell. But you have to realize what a tremendous inspiration Yosemite itself is, and how one so benefits from living there or spending lots of time there and what an advantage that is. One can't help but get better and better, just in the presence of those incredible rocks. We are all blessed with our own areas. I've seen the best from Yosemite struggle on Eldorado rock, because it was foreign to them and they weren't used to it, and likewise the best in any other area find the Gunks difficult for the strenuous, steep climbs, and then turning it back again even the best climbers from any area will usually be overwhelmed at the first sight of a Yosemite offwidth. Each area has its masters, and always outsiders will be at a disadvantage, and yet those masters all were equally worthy in their own ways, I think, in the fairest light.
Pat
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john hansen
climber
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Jan 10, 2007 - 11:19pm PT
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Oli.. Looks like your Gall bladder is doing fine,, Just joking man.. Keep those stories coming. Got to keep those young guys in line.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jan 10, 2007 - 11:38pm PT
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Well I wasn't trying to put anyone in line. Just throwing out a few thoughts. I have only respect and appreciation for the people this thread has been talking about. I was thinking also that maybe Roper was one of the early white pants guys. I seem to recall they believed the white would reflect the hot sun on the big walls and keep them cooler.
Mind you I wasn't any great genius climber, but I tried pretty hard in my hey-day. If anyone else had tried as hard as I did they would have been ten times as good as I was.
Pat
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Jan 10, 2007 - 11:57pm PT
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Oli - maybe you're right. Those pants that Henry has and the ones Dale have sure look like sailor pants to me - could be wrong. I know a lot of people wore painter pants as well, but I remember them coming after the sailor pants started getting scarce....
Where's Henry when we really need him?
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john hansen
climber
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Jan 11, 2007 - 12:14am PT
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Mr Bacher,,, is Henry Barber still alive?
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 11, 2007 - 01:26am PT
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It's beginning to sound like we may need a "who first wore baggy white cotton trousers for climbing" thread.
Is there any substantive difference between painter pants and sailor pants? Apart from who allegedly wears them, that is?
ps I don't know him, but saw Henry Barber at the Outdoor Retailer last summer.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jan 11, 2007 - 03:54pm PT
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My point isn't to question whether they were sailer or painter pants, as that doesn't seem important really, nor does this whole question seem all that important, but I tend to be interested in historical tidbits. My point is more to wonder where the trend began. Someone had mentioned it might have begun in the later 1970s, or thereabouts, and my mind then began to flood with memories of friends of mine wearing white pants. I have no idea what kind they were. Layton wore white pants when he and I climbed in the Black Canyon and in Eldorado and Twin Owls in the early 1960s. In 1962 on Standing Rock, Kor wore white pants -- as did Huntley Ingalls. I think one reason was because they were planning an article and taking photos. They wanted the climbers to stand out against the rock, but also somewhere in Yosemite Beck or Roper or Kor, who knows, started wearing them to be cooler on the big walls. The old knicker pants were usually a thicker material (corduroy, often), which got pretty hot. There is an interesting set of photos on page 144 of Beyond the Vertical (Kor's bio). They are both taken by Steve Roper, of Kor, on the West Buttress of El Cap (first ascent). In the top photo, Kor is wearing some kind of dark knicker pants. In the lower photo he appears to have white pants. I never knew of anyone to do a change of pants during a climb. Perhaps these photos represent two different attemtps?
More back to the subject of this thread, Peter is not only a great climber but a fine writer -- as you're seeing in his notes here. I very much enjoyed climbing with him one year in Yosemite, just after his solo of the Salathe. He roared up Ahab, as though it were 5.4, and I could only pretend to try to be as relaxed as he. On a couple other similar climbs farther up along the base of El Cap, Peter Pan maybe one of those, if I remember right, he had absolutely no trouble. He was the first climber I had ever met with the ferocity and power and speed of Layton Kor, but with a real Yosemite master's flair for all the nuances of technique. We even shared a tent, and during the late hour conversations I was amazed at how insightful he was about Yosemite and its individuals, each person's styles and quirks. Then later when I was broke in a San Francisco airport he came to the rescue with a few dollars and shared a number of great thoughts about me and Higgins some of which I incorporated into my last section (the airport section) of Tom's and my Nerve Wrack Point article. Peter has been an inspiration on many levels.
Pat
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Jan 11, 2007 - 08:15pm PT
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John hansen - yes, Henry lives and still climbs hard.
Peter Haan too...I saw him recently - guess what, he was wearing these cool white pants...couldn't tell what kind they were however.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jan 11, 2007 - 11:00pm PT
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I always preferred black, for some reason, long before Johnny Cash got the idea.
Pat
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Rags
Trad climber
Sierra foothills, CA
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Jan 12, 2007 - 12:26am PT
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Maybe one of you elder :) statesman can tell me what this quote from the caption in Mountain refers to -
"Bridwell's hands are bound and chalked and treated with chemicals
in order to resist wear on the jamming..."
My uncle used to box in 1920's. He said they used to soak their hands in brine to toughen them up. What chemicals was Bridwell and others using. NOOOO, I'm not refering to the psychoactive kind....
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