Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
|
|
|
Jul 12, 2007 - 11:28am PT
|
Hey Doug,
Welcome. It’s been several lifetimes since we sat at a real campfire together. The last one I remember was late fall in the Valley. Tim Harrison and I had just scored a free meal from the dish washers at the lodge. With full bellies and warm, we sat and listened to tales of adventure of being caught high on a wall in lightening and cold rain.
Kids! For those of you too young to know, Doug did as much (if not more) than anyone to start the clean climbing revolution that has preserved those wonderful cracks your jamming your hands into.
|
|
Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
|
|
|
Jul 12, 2007 - 11:57am PT
|
Doug's focus lies at the core of what it is for many of us to sense & seek joy at the crags, in the hills, in the mountains.
He's played a bit of the piper for us in this regard.
There is a 5.10 ad out right now that says something like "Thank You Mr Robinson" and it is set in the Buttermilks. I thought, hey, what a perfect homage! Alas it seems the ad tributes not DR but a young lad who rips it up in the 'Milks and thats OK too -and also part of my point and yours too PhilG.
|
|
Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
|
|
|
Jul 12, 2007 - 02:36pm PT
|
Phil,
Long time, bro!... Thanks for bringing up our campfire with Tim Harrison. Last fall I got to meet his Mom and his sister and spend a couple of hours with them. I took them each a gift of this photo, but they already knew it! Filled me in on the secret garden and the guy his sister had been dating who took the photo. Which just goes to show that, no matter what, MOM ALWAYS KNOWS.
Tim's sister, btw, had lived in Vegas and known Randall Granstaff. She remembered his rat-shack house off the end of the runway down by the airport. The one where a little sand dune always blew in under the kitchen door. I stayed there a couple of nights when Largo lived there with a 19-yer-old Lynn Hill. She would put on Bob Marley's "Jammin'" -- loud of course -- and dance around the living room miming jam moves.
|
|
k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
|
|
|
Jul 12, 2007 - 02:40pm PT
|
Doug, that is such a deep photo, Mona Lisa-esque.
Let's go climbing!
:- kelly
|
|
Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
|
|
|
Jul 13, 2007 - 05:08am PT
|
Wow, it just hit me. That's reefer he's holding.
Doug, when you say Chuck was the finest person you knew, I realize that's the kind of thing I want to hear. That's the message the world is looking for, to see a person in a celestial light, to get beyond the superficial realities that so cloud our daily judgments, to see into the heart, to love. That's when I begin to think climbing is progressing, not by any rising number grades but rather, when I hear such words as you have spoken, when I hear people sing your praises, as well, or others are given tribute, or when so rare a spirit as Higgins whispers something poetically toward me. In the final light, the last day as we look back at the incomprehensibly beautiful, complex, enigmatic, mysterious, and sometimes very tough path we have traveled, if we are at all worthy of the experience we will thank whatever spirits that govern things for our having been able to meet so many marvelous spirits, so many good souls, so many creative fellow creatures who shared our lot in the dream...
|
|
PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
|
|
|
Jul 13, 2007 - 12:39pm PT
|
Doug:
That is such a beautiful and wonderful photo of Tim. That photo brings back a whole flood of great memories and stories. Tim was a great climber and an even greater free spirit. That story (unbelievable but true) of him hitch-hiking with a trailer is so classic. Much to the envy of the other bums in camp four, Tim had that same kind of luck with women.
Also, Doug, that’s a great piece on Chuck Pratt. Of my many climbing heroes, then and now, Chuck Pratt still tops the list.
|
|
Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
|
|
|
Jul 13, 2007 - 04:09pm PT
|
...such a deep photo, Mona Lisa-esque.
Nice line, Kelly. Says something I've always thought, never crystallized. Yes! Let's go climbing.
Pat,
You said a fine thing very well. Me too:
Came for the stone,
Stayed for crack!
(Brit-icism for conversation.)
And in speaking of people meeting, building connection, increasing understanding -- it's not only the best of climbing, but kinda the main hope for holding together and even patching up this creaky old civilization.
But...don't dare drift away from our roots on the rock. Keeps us grounded, offers ceaseless opportunities for humility, cranks up that floaty, don't-call-it-adrenaline feeling, sharpens thoughts, helps access our feelings. Focuses the self and, thanks to shared strong experience, drives our selves toward those connections with each other.
Kinda grateful we stumbled onto the stone.
|
|
tonym
climber
Oklahoma
|
|
|
Jul 13, 2007 - 05:03pm PT
|
Howdy Doug!
Glad you're on the taco!!
Hey just a quick heads up... Lori and I along with a friend will be valley bound in a couple months, if you can make it we would love to share some Oklahoma hospitality with you over a nice bottle of wine in C4.
Cheers,
Tony
|
|
Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
|
|
|
Jul 13, 2007 - 07:21pm PT
|
A very aesthetic photo, but the bunk he's holding would make better rope than reefer.lol
|
|
Anne-Marie Rizzi
climber
|
|
|
Jul 13, 2007 - 10:39pm PT
|
Another sorrowful event in my young climbing days was Tim's death.
I have this great photo, with him as the central figure, of the climbers vs. rangers baseball game. 1971? I think Gene Foley took it. Anybody have a postable copy?
Wow, Doug, great that you were able to visit with his family after all these years.
Anne-Marie
|
|
Enzo
climber
California
|
|
|
Jul 16, 2007 - 08:07pm PT
|
"One I haven't IDed publicly yet is a classic 5.9 on the Hulk, done with Mike Farrell about '77. Because I'm not sure where it is. I have to go back and match up my slides of the climb with the wall. Then I'll topo it out for y'all. Great climbing on featured orange rock, right side of the wall, goes straight to the summit. Like the easiest cool line on the whole Hulk."
But you didn't lead the OW.
|
|
scuffy b
climber
Bates Creek
|
|
|
Jul 16, 2007 - 08:14pm PT
|
Hey, long time no see. Still on Arch?
|
|
Enzo
climber
California
|
|
|
Jul 16, 2007 - 08:33pm PT
|
Yes- And you?
|
|
scuffy b
climber
Bates Creek
|
|
|
Jul 16, 2007 - 08:48pm PT
|
Soquel now. Was in Jackson Hole for the 90s.
|
|
Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
|
|
|
Jul 17, 2007 - 12:51am PT
|
Enzo,
I don't remember an offwidth?? Tell me more. Did you lead it? You recall where the route goes, or do we have to go back and find it again?
One moment I do remember is you coming up to my belay, pausing a pregnant moment, then pointing out that while I had built an anchor, I forgot to clip into it! "Good thing I didn't fall," was your dry comment.
The photos I have show stellar rock...
Doug
|
|
Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
|
|
|
Jul 17, 2007 - 12:55am PT
|
Doug you may not remember me but we met when I was working at Chouinard Equipment in the mid 80's helping out w/ pack development and stuff - it would be great to see some pics man!
Cheers!
|
|
Enzo
climber
California
|
|
|
Jul 17, 2007 - 06:40am PT
|
Doug-
I remember most of the line, and certainly the OW.
I'll write up a Beta and hide it at the base of the climb.
Like to see your pics sometime.
M
|
|
LongAgo
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jul 18, 2007 - 04:05pm PT
|
Doug,
Your tribute to Pratt is superb. May I suggest you post it as a separate thread titled "Pratt"? It deserves to stand alone and get direct attention. Or is it already standing alone somewhere else in cyberspace or on paper or will it be soon? I have sent links to this thread to several I know who loved Pratt as you did. Thank you.
Once, long ago, I put together a little three act play with Pratt in the center displaying the characteristics you describe. It's somewhere in an old Ascent and entitled "In Due Time." He has a final line, "In the end, climbing is nothing, integrity everything," which seems a little hack to me now, but still true to who he was. He had a way of making you think about climbing and life as wonderful and absurd all at once, a message all the big egos of the day (including mine) much needed. As parents know, example is far more persuasive than lectures or rants, and Pratt provided the example for all of us flinging about with hormones, grand schemes and often inflated views of ourselves and the world of climbing. His loving, exacting climbing style, quiet, smart, humorous, and, yes, sometimes sad self brimming with passion and humility pulled us all toward him, calmed us down, made us laugh at ourselves and stand back from the hubbub.
I have few regrets in climbing, but one of them is how I never thanked Pratt for, well, being Pratt. But I will thank you, again, here, now: thanks.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
|
|
Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
|
|
|
Jul 18, 2007 - 05:28pm PT
|
Hi Tom,
Thanks very much for your appreciation of the Pratt piece. I'll post it up by itself, a good idea.
An abbreviated version of it was published in Mountain Gazette. By the time I emerged from shock, the climbing mags had both assigned stories. But I still had to write something. I shed more tears over Chuck dying than the recent breakup of my marriage. Something to do with integrity.
I've always admired your integrity too, man. Never had opportunity to get to know you well, but your writing and the silent example of your climbs spoke volumes to me. Thanks for that. I like feeling the warmth and sensibility coming out of your posting here since I joined. You seem more relaxed now.
Which reminds me for a moment of your old partner Bob Kamps. I never met him, but felt a similar respect for the simple directness and huge skill and even moral force of the man. So a few years ago I just cold called him. My excuse was asking for beta on his climb of Clouds Rest. As exppected he claimed not to recall anything. So I said, "I guess you're telling me to just take the proverbial rack of three knifeblades and go see for myself?" Think I caught a twinkle shooting back across the phone line.
I did get to tell him how much I admired his climbing. And now I've had a chance to tell you too.
Cheers,
Doug
|
|
Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
|
|
|
Jul 19, 2007 - 04:15pm PT
|
These aren't "strokes," as some young fellow described the way some of us speak to one another. My friend Tom, and Doug, thanks for that exchange.
Kamps, to my astonishment, phoned me the day he died, to say how much he liked my book (Everything That Matters). We spoke a good hour, laughed, remembered climbs and bouldering we had done together. I thought it was impossible when Gill contacted me and told me Kamps had died. No way.
These friendships we have are sacred, in any sense of the word you might wish to have.
When I last spoke to Pratt, it was for more than an hour, an unusually long time for Chuck to be answering questions. He was at his mother's house in the hills east of the Bay area. He was cleaning out her things, trying to figure out what to do with it all, settling her affairs, as she had recently passed away. She was a devout Mormon to the end. He seemed willing (and he wasn't always with everyone) to share details about his Yosemite ascents, including the Twilight Zone and other climbs, for my history. I also asked him if he would choose his best article, for my anthology Climber's Choice. He didn't hesitate to say, "The South Face of Mt. Watkins." He added the slight disclaimer, "Maybe because Deadhorse Point has already been used in several places." I was so glad to be able to have him and his work in that book. He said he was soon going to leave for Thailand. He explained to me how he had been in the habit of going there, as it was a lot cheaper to winter there... Soon after I got the bad news of his passing.
Will you be here tomorrow, Tom. And Doug? And will I? No man knows the hour of his death, the saying goes. So we must live it now, live the joy, the amazing miracle, of our various meetings, or times together in the sun, and in the dark, and marvel that any two spirits should find one another in an endless universe at a single place along the plane of infinity... Yes I am an incurable romantic, but if not love, respect, and appreciation, then what?
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!