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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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No.
I don't consider what I do particularly daring. At least thats not why I do it.
Its fun.
People who climb to impress others are missing the right audience.
People who claim climbs to impress others are poseurs.
Roberts has an interesting take on the subtexts behind frauds.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2007 - 02:29am PT
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For those who want to know the facts, when I was about 17 or maybe 18, still pretty insecure and young for my age, Mike Stults approached me one day in front of a couple other climbing friends and said, "I hear you soloed Athlete's Feat." He started raving about what an accomplishment that was. He often put people on, and I thought he was doing so again. So I played along and said, "It was scary in places. I really had to stay focused..." or some such. I didn't know how else to react, at that moment, and I didn't think I needed to deny it. To my horror, in a day or so one or two friends congratulated me. I realized I was in over my head. Then, to my shock, I got a letter from Royal complimenting me on the greatest solo in America. Layton approached me in the Sink (our hangout beer joint near campus) and confronted me on it. He couldn't believe anyone could do such a thing. I had to tell him it was something started by someone that had gone very wrong. I hadn't lied but rather been a bit stupid. I wrote Royal and of course told him the same. He appreciated me telling the truth, especially since he had felt utterly outclassed by such a solo. In fact I had done the climb several times, and it was not all that far-fetched that I could have soloed it. I had done the first pitch entirely without protection one day, and the third is mostly runout, and the fourth pitch I could have soloed, I think, but I wasn't quite ready for the second pitch solo. Of course little gutless enemies, the actual frauds, through the years have always enjoyed warping and distorting that little happening... as though it had any significance, really, whatsoever. Only in their minds. If I had in any way been a fraud, I would not have had the enduring friendships of Rearick, Robbins, Pratt, Higgins, Kamps, Frost, and others. Any good spirit will know (and somewhat based on their own experience, as well) that growing up is a process...
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2007 - 02:42am PT
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Kevin, I don't have any regrets at all about drifting away from climbing. I am fully absorbed in life, with my three girls, music, poetry, art, and other things. I did every climb I ever desired to do, and many of them many times. If I have the urge to climb, I go out and do a little. Climbing will always be a part of me. I have endless numbers of cherished memories. I can look at a rock and climb in my heart and mind. I can see a face and know how I would go about it. I can visualize and imagine, and most of the time anymore that is perfectly satisfying, and the actual experience of getting on the rock is sometimes less "actual" and a bit of a let down by comparison. I did many thousands of climbs and even more boulders through the years, and I feel no more compulsion than to remember and appreciate, and to look up there where my soul still resides in many respects... with all those good friends and in all that light and beauty. My son and I did a little wall we discovered about a year ago or so. I was totally out of shape, and he was training in the rock gym, fit and strong. Just on experience I climbed this wall my first try, and he couldn't do it. It might have been around 5.11 or something. I don't have even one tenth of the strength I once had, but I have other kinds of strengths, such as the mental training one gets from years of karate, or the technique that one has practiced for years on rock and that distills in front of you suddenly when you need it... I no longer view myself as a climber, though, and haven't for a few years, though people call me one and I don't deny it...
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Good Morning, Pat.
Happy Un-Birthday. Maybe a better opportunity, 'cause it's just another day, not freighted with specialness, to step to the open dooorway and breathe in the sunshine. Mine just came. Bare feet chill on the stoop, those odd little rainbows glance off a stray eyelash.
More interaction with you this last year than ever, thanks to this Taco Stand. I like that, thanks.
Last night my daughter Kyra wanted to take a birthday card to her friend Sage. Mom pushed dinner (not quite in either the chess or the mantling sense), then it was twilight. Kyra got on her unicycle and I gulped down my urge to also ride (on two wheels) and followed in the car. Dirt road, pavement, traffic, hills. Half a mile to Sage's house. Her feet were spinning, down the creek road in the headlights.
I can hardly believe what a confident little athlete she has become at eleven. Half a life ago she was much more whine and can't. It's the local 'hippie school' she shifted into. Goes to school barefoot. They let the kids climb trees, jump off roofs, take real risks. Getting hurt is OK. Unicycling in the Circus Arts class. Self confidence heads the curriculum, trumping 'rithmatic.
She had climbed a bit at your daughter's age, but not much. Now she's asking to go, and we're about to take her whole class for a weekend trip to my favorite Wamello (Fresno) Dome south of Yosemite. Beginning of the school year bonding and all that. It works such wonders for how cloyingly cute 'team building' sounds. Kyra will help teach her classmates, and get to encourage them, just like she did when she made me dust off the Jumars and set a rope on the playground. (Just realized how much her whole school is play-ground.)
One of her older buddies Zev who rides an off-road 'mountain' unicycle and who caught fire so much on climbing (he's 13, go figure) that I've been teaching him to lead, will also guide with me on that trip. So will my son Tory; he did the classic South Buttress with me at 9. Seven pitches (5.8 ***, I might have put it up 35 years ago guiding for Royal -- nobody seems to recall. Or care.) Tory will tear himself out of the surf for that trip; he still digs to climb...occasionally.
Well, I got off onto spinning out my life and my kids, but you triggered me Pat with the stories of your daughter and your son. Thanks for that, a gift from you on your birthday. what a cool life, a gift to/from our kids.
Keep it above ground,
Doug
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2007 - 12:22pm PT
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Doug, thank you for those images. That kindred sense of family life swallowing us up... and our enjoying it... I can hear T.M. making some joke about it. I remember when he was raising Tommy and going off on his role as a father... Our children... Yes their very lives are gifts to us... beyond understanding. Kallie, thanks for that vote of confidence. I would happily make peace with all my enemies if they didn't find so much enjoyment in their hate... If they can't remove themselves from the "discussion," then certainly I can and have done so. The latest ruse is to represent me as saying I was in the C.I.A. Too funny, really. I have never said a thing on the subject, not one word, though Bryceman, the Joshua Tree giant, I understand asked the question, innocently, wondering out loud. That being utterly distorted now comes to us as my saying something like I was in the CIA?! Well I did train extensively in California with my friend Tom Muzila, one of the greatest martial artists in the world (has had his photo on the cover of Black Belt magazine about 8 times), and he was, at one time, a noted CIA operative. That's the closest I can say I ever came to having any connection with that organization... no connection at all, really. Distortion of what I say, distortion of the facts, distortion... that is the best way to describe the onslaught. My friend John Gill keeps reminding me that I should not care, that everyone who matters knows the truth, and you know, more and more I don't care. To have even just Doug Robinson as my friend is enough to elevate my spirits all day long.
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poop*ghost
Trad climber
Denver, CO
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Pat -
You share the exact birthday (year as well) as my father. Happy b-day to you sir!
Jason
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Keep it goin' Pat.
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Hey DMT,
I always loved that line about Gill boulders: "I could grasp the holds, but not the problem." He's floating above us, for sure.
Was it Pat who wrote that?
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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DMT,
Orchard School, 60 kids grades K-6. Grounds were once a commune, hence carrying on a fine tradition. It's in Aptos, where I live. Santa Cruz County, so I usually just say I'm from the Cruz for a quick hit. I'm up Aptos Creek, on a ridge looking across at redwoods and down a mile at what the realtors call "a peek of the ocean." Kyra's school is 2 miles further inland, up Trout Gulch, another tributary. Before there were hippies it was an old apple orchard. They're getting ripe. Come over and check it out if you're interested.
Cheers,
Doug
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2007 - 06:31pm PT
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Thank you Roy and Steve, and Doug, and Kevin, and Dingus, and everyone...
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Sep 11, 2007 - 05:05pm PT
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also happy Birthday Sunday, to my mon and to Lev Tolstoi, though only one is above ground.
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