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Ron Canty
Trad climber
Derbyshire, England
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Jan 21, 2007 - 01:58pm PT
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Two crazy Brits from Bolton, Ron & Tony, landed at the Gunks back in 1980. There we met Howie, Eric Janiscrat, Bullit Bob, Cal, Frank the Stoned Ranger, and many, many more, wonderful characters including Steve Levin, who kindly volunteered to be our chauffeur and guide right across the States E to W during the following 5 month climbing extravaganza. After a 3 week burn-out at the Gunks, Seneca, our first stop, was where Howie and Eric introduced us to a baptism of fire on what were some of the scariest climbs around at the time. We met up again later that year in the Needles, Boulder, and finally in Yosemite. What a memorable time we had!
Both Steve and Howie later visited the UK and stayed with us for a while - we also met Howie again in Switzerland and on another occasion Steve travelled with us to Verdon.
A huge gentle giant - what a tremendous loss to the climbing world.
Howie mate, wherever you are, from all the way across the Pond, a huge thanks for the wonderful memory of all those unforgettable experiences.
So long Howie - sincere condolences to your family and countless friends.
Ron Canty
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Jess
Sport climber
Prague Czech republic
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Jan 25, 2007 - 07:13am PT
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I got an email from Lotus telling me about Howie....and again I was blown away...seems like I got the same mail recently about another climber friend from Nederland CO..... and as I read through these other great letters, as I'm sure for all of you, the awesome memories came flooding in... but I guess my fondest and funniest memories are when Howie and I spent a long weekend with Kurt Albert at Bernd Arnolds house in Elbesandstein (old East) Germany...Kurt and Bernd were needless to say astounded at the amount of meat Howie could eat… for me, it was his strength and character that radiated from him and just seemed to pass on to those around him…I certainly can remember looking down at Howie, 50ft up with no pro, no chalk and scary sandy cracks, and still 10 more feet to the first bolt on the climb, shitting myself and Howie grinning up at me “you got it” is all he had to say… his strength made us all feel strong!...and his weakness made us laugh… for sure the funniest was when we were at a friends party in Garmisch Germany, and after a few proper German beers, and a few tokes on the funny cigarette Howie and I ended up in some funky disco, with this crazy chick , needless to say we went back to my mother-in-laws house, where we were staying, a bit late. I passed out, Howie spent the rest of the night puking in the bathroom, with my Mother-in law standing at the bathroom door, tapping lightly, “Howie…you not good?” the next late morning he was a bit embarrassed when she brought us coffee, and smiled…. I will truly miss you Howie! I only hope you’re hanging out with all of our other climber friends in some cool place, because I want to be with you guys when it’s my time!!!! Jesse Guthrie
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2007 - 03:39pm PT
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Just got done moving and had the time to look through some of my slides.
Weird...found this slide on the same sheet with photos of Pete S.
Howard following the crux pitch (5.11c) of Topnotch in RMNP.
I miss you Howard.
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JoeN
Trad climber
Rockville, Md
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I only recently learned about Howie’s death. It’s so sad that someone who seemed so healthy and kept himself is such good shape (his PhD was in an area related to physical fitness) died so young. This is a little long but I wanted to include some tales about Howie that you may not know.
Howie and I were good friends in the early ‘70’s. We climbed, skied and got together at each other’s places. The first time I went to Howie’s house was after stopping at “Travs” after climbing at Carderock. I didn’t know how to get to his house, so I was doing my best to keep up with Howie’s car going down the Clara Barton Parkway (then George Washington Parkway, Maryland side), when the federal police by the waterworks pulled us over and ticketed both of us. At a party, Howie showed me one of his party drinks—drink ½ a beer, refill the can with any available cheap wine, drink again—I only tried it once. I took Howie and a few others for an overnight in my sailboat. Howie and Lotus were among a few close friends at Stevie’s and my wedding 30 years ago.
I first met Howie at Carderrock in 1970 or ’71. I’m not exactly sure of the year, but he had just started climbing. I think he had done some climbing; perhaps a climbing class, maybe from Bob Norris, but I’m not sure. I had a rope up (I don’t remember who I was climbing with) and here was this big guy who looked very interested. One thing led to another and he was soon tied on to my rope. A few weeks later I took Howie and his then wife, Cathy, on their first trip to Seneca. We started on Breakneck. Howie was a natural. Cathy, who had been a gymnast, was also quite good. This started several years of climbing together at Seneca and the Gunks. Consider that Howie weighed about 185 then and I was 125. Did I mention we used body belays—at least until Howie insisted I get a sticht plate. Fortunately, he never bombed on me on a lead, but I caught him a number of times on top rope. Howie’s climbing ability eventually far exceeded mine and he started climbing with better climbers such as Lotus, Herb Laeger and Eve.
One day Howie and I were working a boulder problem on a wall perpendicular to the “The Aid Box” along the Potomac River. Neither one of us got more than ½ way. Then on one try Howie grabbed a flake part way up the climb and with his weight ripped it off the wall. That was the handhold that got me over that spot. That was as high as I could get after that. Howie could reach higher and therefore climb higher. Although we didn’t solve the boulder problem that day I seem to recall that Howie and another climber solved it on a later try.
On one trip to Seneca Howie and I started out on a cool, but promising, morning to climb “Tony’s Nightmare”. It was mild enough that we both wore t-shirts. Howie led. Before I got on the first pitch the temperature had dropped and the wind picked up. By the time I was coming out of the chimney it had become quite cold. I saw Howie shivering on belay. I suggested we bail to get some warm clothing. But Howie said as he shook “I-I-It d-d-doesn’t b-b-bother me i-i-if it d-d-doesn’t b-b-bother y-y-you.”.
Howie wasn’t a club joiner. For example, he never joined the Mountaineering Section of the PATC, although he occasionally showed up and gave at least one slide show there (climbing in Europe). He did, however, go on a ski club sponsored, Thanksgiving weekend, car-pool ski trip to Mt. Sutton, Canada. I knew Howie had skied quite a bit at Hunter Mt., New York And when he was in grad-school in Utah he skied the backcountry of what is now Snowbird by climbing over the ridge from Alta. Before the Sutton trip we called ahead and were assured there was snow on the whole mountain. Sutton is a 12 hour drive from DC. He and I were to take turns driving. There were two other riders who were not going to drive. Howie turned up for the trip with a painful lower back from teaching a rowing exercise in one of his classes. He told me this happened every time he taught that exercise. (Something about a muscular imbalance—In Howie??) Because of his sore back he couldn’t drive much and I had to do most of the driving. To top it off, when we got to Sutton the only slope with snow was the T-bar. It was probably just as good, since his sore bake made it difficult for him to turn in one direction. We returned to DC early. The next year Howie again had the problem after the rowing exercise, but he told me someone had shown him a yoga exercise that helped quite a lot.
One year Howie and I had decided to go to Seneca during the Petersburg White Water weekend to climb and watch the races. However, one of his friends acquired two tickets to the Explorers Club annual dinner in New York and invited Howie along. So the deal was that I would drive Howie’s wife, Cathy to Seneca on Friday night. Howie and his friend would go to New York for the dinner and then drive to Seneca as soon as it was over. (Howie later mentioned that there was a lot of one-upmanship at the meeting—a speaker might say, “…There were 63 villagers on the island when I was there six months ago….” And someone else might mumble, “…I was there two weeks ago and there were only 58….” Anyway, the next morning there was no sign of Howie. In fact, he didn’t show up until mid-afternoon. It seems that Howie went to sleep while his friend was driving from New York. When he woke up they were almost in North Carolina and had to turn around and drive all the way back. You can guess how peeved Howie was about that.
The last time I saw Howie was at Carderock. I had finished climbing for the day and was just leaving when Howie and a friend arrived. We talked for a few minutes until Howie said, “We have to go work-out”. We planned to get together, but never did before he moved to Salt Lake. I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to see him again.
In my mind I’m sure that wherever Howie is he’s doing the hardest, most exposed trad in the region, onsight.
Joe Ney
Cross posted on SuperTopo and Rockclimbing forums
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ChattanoogaSandstoneClimber
Trad climber
Chattanooga, Tennessee
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Oct 23, 2007 - 07:06pm PT
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I'm sitting here with my old and beaten copy of Bill Webster and Rich Pleiss's "Senecea Rocks West Virginia/ A Climber's Guide" (published in 1976.) This slim volume, its red cover featuring a pen and ink drawing of the now collapsed Gendarme, served as a passport of sorts in that it provided ready access into a vertical world of backwoods climbing insanity: Seneca Rocks.
On page 18 of the guide, 5.8 and 5.9 routes were described as "extremely difficult", 5.10 was described as "approaching human limitations" and 5.11 was "unbelievable!" If you think that smacks of exaggeration, you have, quite obviously, not climbed at Seneca.
Lording over this mysterious realm were a cast of characters I came to revere as virtual gods of the climbing world: Howard Doyle, Eric Janoscrat and Cal Swoager. Chief among them was Doyle who, according to Janoscrat, was a retired semi-pro football player who began climbing at the late age of 38, and who -- due to injuries suffered on the field -- climbed "with a lot of pain." He was a huge strapping man who looked like he was the kind of guy you wanted hanging out with you in the parking lot or camp ground after hours drinking beer. As was often the case. Sleeves rolled up, he had a set of forearms on him that looked like he could twist your head off like it was a scrawny chicken. But Howard was a gentle soul, and I don't think he would have ever done something like that, unless of course he had some reason to. There was that time....
It was hard to look up at some of Howard's Seneca testpieces and not sh#t your pants just thinking about what was lying-in-wait for you -- even if you were confident you had the balls, the brass and the guns to go for it.
In the margins of my guide I wrote under a list of new routes I was repeating names like Drop Zone, Welcome to Seneca, Superstition, and Snickers -- just to name a few. On the FA (or FFA as was often the case) of some of these extremely long, gear intensive and, at times, psychotically scary routes Doyle reportedly carried with him a ball of parachute cord which, when he found himself in extremis and running out of biners and brass, he could toss down to his belayer in order to pull up a back up rack. Brilliant, eh? How anyone could do something like that -- strung out on the nubbins of, say, the pitch two corners of "The Supe" -- was, frankly, beyond me. I chose to heft a monster rack, weight be damned.
Eventually, Doyle and other members of the Seneca crew began flitering down to visit me in "the Deep South" to sample the rock we had in a sort of quasi exchange program among kindred spirits.
The last time Howard was here he was in his mid 50's; he was carrying a bit of extra weight. Yet I watched him float up a tricky, mostly overhanging pitch of 5.10 as if it was simply another day at the crags.
On his last evening with me and my wife he cooked us one of his classic Italian dinners. He dumped about a half bottle of extra virgin olive oil into the pot, whereupon my wife grabbed me by my arm, pulled me aside and gave a little laugh. "Boy he sure puts a lot of oil in it doesn't he." I replied, "Well, that's what makes it good."
We miss you Howard.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Oct 25, 2007 - 05:44am PT
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Rob, Your post was a great and personal tribute to Howard. I remember you speaking about Howard Doyle, Eric Janoscrat and Cal Swoager with such reverence during the years I climbed with you in the SS belt. Their exploits at Seneca, the Gunks and as you described in the Deep South are legendary. Howard was a football player from NJ but he won a place in the Southern Climber's Hall of Fame. He still lives on in the imaginations of those who knew him. Geno
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Howie Doyles Nephew
climber
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Aug 30, 2012 - 05:04pm PT
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Hello everyone my name is Jesse Doyle. I am Howies nephew and my sister had been researching our family online and came across this forum/thread. I just wanted to take a moment and thank you all for the stories, pictures and prayers you have shared on here. I am always looking for more stuff on my uncle and if anyone has photos could send me it would be greatly appreciated. We never got to see alot of photos of him climbing or as many of you got to see him. Because whenever he came to visit it was always photos with us. Sadly a year after Howie had his heart attack to the day we lost his brother/my uncle Robert as well. Any pictures/anything you would like to share can be sent to dublindevil83@gmail.com. If you are willing to send reprints or doubles you have please email me with details and i will provide an address. Again thank you so much for this thread and sharing all of your memories of my uncle!
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Aug 31, 2012 - 01:46am PT
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Howard was one of the best partners I ever had.
I'll have to get some old slides scanned and add them
to this thread.
I still miss him. And Charlie F, . . . .
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Aug 31, 2012 - 02:32am PT
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I was just back at Carderock teaching my niece and nephew about climbing. I recognized none of the other climbers but had many wonderful memories of climbing there for so many years. Howie was part of that recollection.
The Carderock crew of the 1970s I remember did so much to help my climbing and make it fun. Ben Mealy, Ray Snead, Steve Glenn, occasionally Charlie Fowler, John Stannard, and others were super encouraging. Now Trav's on the way back to Baltimore, a whole other discussion...
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jstan
climber
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Aug 31, 2012 - 03:08am PT
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While you are living through a time you generally can't be sure you will remember them as "The Good Times". Carderock was different. We knew they were good.
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little Z
Trad climber
un cafetal en Naranjo
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Sep 18, 2012 - 06:32pm PT
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as a realtive newcomer to ST, just stumbled across this thread...
so sorry to see that Howie has passed away. Never got to climb with him but always enjoyed his humor when I would run into him there at Carderock, or hanging around the Mouth of Seneca after a day of climbing. I remember McGowan and I were taking karate lessons and we used to spar in the Carderock parking lot. We found out Howie knew some karate and he promptly put us in our place by kicking the sh#t out of us, but it was in an instructional and fun way, so you couldn't be pissed off... Howie: "so you just grab the guy here and apply a little pressure and then you can kick him in the head"...BAM! a big Howie foot to the face.
Just one more reason to be in awe of the guy.
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Howie Doyles Nephew
climber
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Oct 27, 2015 - 11:00am PT
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I just wanted to jump back on here and see if anyone could send some photos of my Uncle on his climbs. Next Nov will be 10 yrs since he passed and i would like to put something together for the anniversary. Simply postings them here would be great, i can do the rest. Thank you in advance if you can.
Jesse Doyle
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Oct 27, 2015 - 07:55pm PT
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Jesse
I'll have to go through my slides one of these days,
but I'll post some. I was so lucky to climb with
Howard. . . (and be one of his friends).
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Oct 28, 2015 - 07:58pm PT
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Jesse,
I got a number of slides out and have to get them scanned.
I hope to have them done in a few days!
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Oct 29, 2015 - 01:32am PT
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What read!
The man was such a chiseled piece of stone for some thing like twenty years his tone with me was a mix of humor and awe that I survived.
At the passing of Kevin B he and I made peace with the fact that a great force had left us face to face . We climbed at a few of Kevin's secret places. He cajoled me to lead, so he held my largest whippers and we laughed about it publicly the shrimp and the anvil climbing in the woods. .
I had heard, but never looked for this thread
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Nov 12, 2015 - 07:24am PT
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Jesse
Here goes (Thanks to BrassNuts for scanning these for me)!
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Nov 12, 2015 - 09:44am PT
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Great classic old photos Steve! I guess we really were climbing back then.....your memory does play tricks with you.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Nov 12, 2015 - 01:55pm PT
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Thanks, Jim!
(I was following hard stuff--Howie did most
of the leading. . . 'nuff said)!
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Gilroy
Social climber
Bolderado
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Nov 12, 2015 - 02:26pm PT
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Gawddamn! SteveW, FTW!!1111!!! Thanks for getting those pix posted. I have gobs of respect for Howard. And his climbing partners because they had to do some real climbing to keep up.
RIP
Keith
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Nov 12, 2015 - 04:37pm PT
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Very nice tribute photos SteveW.
Any stories to go along with them? How did you two partner up in the first place?
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