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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 14, 2007 - 08:06pm PT
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I'm very glad to see that this thread has thrived (throve?) while I was away. It's the kind of thing that makes SuperTopia a special place.
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jgill
climber
Colorado
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Aug 14, 2007 - 10:08pm PT
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Thank you, Doug, Erik, Michael, Patrick, Justin, and Jody. I appreciate your thoughtful comments. And those of my old buddy, Pat!
John
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 14, 2007 - 10:46pm PT
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I completely forgot to mention what prompted thishread in the first place. A few years ago, one of the climbing magazines had a story about bouldering. It made some claim to the effect that John Gill had invented bouldering. (It wasn't a claim that he made - it was the magazine.) I had the temerity to write them a letter, noting that the origins of bouldering go much farther back than the 1950s, and gave the example of Oscar Eckenstein. The magazine published the letter - and then a few weeks later, out of the blue, an e-mail arrived from John Gill. He'd googled my name (not hard), and we had a pleasant exchange of notes about this. Naturally his website all along had mentioned Eckenstein and his role in the evolution of bouldering.
Eckenstein was a very interesting man, and all climbers owe him a debt for his ingenuity. There is even a boulder named for him, Eckenstein's Boulder, near the Pen y Pass hostel in Llanberis Pass in Wales, just up from Dinas y Gromlech. He gave climbing demonstrations on it in the 1880s and 1890s - but I believe there is now some doubt as to exactly which boulder it was. He'd be a good subject for a thread of his own. He even went climbing with Alisteir Crowley - the real one, that is. The Beast 666 etc.
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