Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
divad
Trad climber
wmass
|
|
|
May 19, 2008 - 08:20pm PT
|
Bumping for Lynne and everyone else.
Great TR
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
May 20, 2008 - 02:18am PT
|
I was commenting to scuffy yesterday as we wandered around in "The Land Of Climbs That Shall Not Be Named" (aka TLOCTSNBN, which is Aztec for "never you mind") that I hadn't climbed at Taquitz or Suicide since the early 80s...
...it would seem that a road trip would be in order, as I cannot stand to read such great TRs and not be incited to make a visit. And my very first climb was White Maiden's Walkway where, belayed on Goldline, I did my first lead and pounded in my first pitons... Letty French was the leader of this roped team, one other young guy who I forget... it was a Sierra Club outing, Riverside Chapter RCS.
There, that thoroughly dates me.
So it is time to reconnect with the ancient past and revisit a local that has always held a warm place in my heart.
Thanks Mike for the great story.
|
|
graham
Social climber
Ventura, California
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - May 21, 2008 - 01:08pm PT
|
Thanks for comments and the bumps
Lynne, thanks for the Kind words and all. I know Ian enjoyed meeting you and Amy in Josh.
Just got back from another fun couple of days of picking off little routes I’ve actually never have done (well most of them). There sure seems to have been a surge in the eighties at Tahquitz and Suicide. I have my own theories as to why, maybe you all have thoughts on it?
The Big stone across the valley from Suicide
I want to nominate the following route for at least one star in the next guide. Luckily I had a respectful enough group with me not to make any snide remarks about me climbing a route called “Thin Man”. Through the years I have collected quite the arsenal of wired nuts. With the choice my rack offers, you can seemingly make the “R” rating go away on this route. We all agreed the climb had a lot of fun variety and being completely protected naturally its as good as the day it was never done.
Walking past this one below I commented to John Sherman it was the first route I ever put up. Even with a broken finger and water running down the route he had to do it. I assured him the bolts are where you need them and having climbed the Eiger and Troll walls were a good prerequisite. We were all not sure how often “Ours” gets done but for me it was nice to do it a second time.
So Ed or anyone else, if you do make it down and need an afternoon diversion be sure to check these out.
|
|
F10 Climber F11 Drinker
Trad climber
medicated and flat on my back
|
|
|
May 21, 2008 - 02:31pm PT
|
Graham, I have done the last two routes you mentioned several times and always had a good time. Especially Thin Man with all those thin cracks toward the bottom. It is alittle different from the normal slab type routes. Lots of good times in the "other valley"
|
|
midarockjock
climber
USA
|
|
|
May 22, 2008 - 09:52pm PT
|
Graham Serpentine was my 1'st lead, thanks for the photos.
I thought the route was more to the center of the rock?
I don't remember the 1'st pitch of 10 Karat Gold traversing?
I have done the 2'nd pitch straight up version with possible
belayer takeout potential along with the variation that
traverses to the right, and I believe I only used a bolt
approximately 20' above the approximately 20' traverse to the
right? I don't remember rope drag.
The last time I did either variation of 10k gold was a little
over 10 years ago and almost 20 years ago Valhalla.
Note on Valhalla:(to the kid): If you can lead and flash the 5.10
(c) I believe just next to Serpentine and flash 10 Karat
Gold you should probably be ready to give Valhalla a try.
|
|
graham
Social climber
Ventura, California
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - May 22, 2008 - 10:10pm PT
|
That’s a good route to start leading on. Bold IMO for a first.
That's a variation you did on TKG I found out later from Clark Jacobs. He and Jack Roberts put it up some time back. They called it “white line fever” Hope I remembered that right.
Cheers
|
|
L
climber
La ora te natura E mea arofa teie ao nei
|
|
|
May 23, 2008 - 01:26am PT
|
"Looking back at my wide eyed son I heard him say “Damm Dad, you looked like you did that before”
Best line in the entire story, Mike. I'm still chuckling.
Thanks for an excellent TR and all the climbing history that tagged along with it.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
All that jitters is Gold...Bump!
|
|
eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
|
|
Nice, Mike...and I agree with Tar, well written. I'm still trying to work up some interest on the part of my youngest. I'd love to climb with my child.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Mar 22, 2009 - 11:44am PT
|
Bump for fathers and sons out together!
|
|
tntemerson
Trad climber
California
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2009 - 03:08am PT
|
Hi Mike.
Jeeze, talk about a blast from the past. What a BUNCH of memories! I've done a lot of things and been a lot of places in my life, but running over these is a definite highlight. I know this thread is a bit old, but that's just how time falls into place.
I was surfing around doing a search this evening for Clark Jacobs who I first met at Pasadena City College in the Spring of '73. I don't know why, but out of the blue I just found myself wondering what had happened to him, when I stumbled onto this series of threads at SuperTopo and found a picture of me joining the "Stonemasters" way back here http://www.mountainproject.com/v/california/tahquitz__suicide_rocks/suicide_rock/105788142.
Wasn't Clark there that day yelling up at me? I know Tobin was. Clark was there either that day or the weekend Phil Warrender fell so many times on New Generation that he gave up. Seems to me you and Tobin went back to finish it a few weeks later.
So I couldn't help but reply here as it's a pleasant surprise that you rememberd and attributed me after all these years! But like you, the "Valhalla Club" was definitely a thing to remember, even to this day.
Talking about shoes, I did that lead in an old pair of brown suede leather "RD's". I bought those after Bud Couch recommended them to me, and Valhalla was considered one of the hardest things around. The last time I saw Bud was late Summer of '73 at Tuolumne, when a bunch of us hitched a ride from Hot Creek to Oakland with Galen Rowell so I could fly back to LA. Galen lit up our fears by taking the turns in that road down from Tenaya pushing an old station wagon into full four wheel drifts, then laughing histerically at us as we protested, "we're all gonna' die!" Galen pushed me a bit further into photography, which is about all I do these days after retiring out of Hollywood. I was equally sad to hear about Galen when he passed, as I was when I heard about Tobin decades before.
But back to Valhalla, from '69 through '73 I had used PA's, but they were trashed, as the RD's were always a bit harder and I used the PA's to oblivion. So all I had that day I joined the Stonemasters were the RD's, but having worn them completely out as well, I sent them over to Wilson to resole in the Spring of 1973. Wilson put the hardest darn old "green dot" soles on those things he could find in his back room there in Bishop, even harder than the originals! It was like trying to climb on Teflon.
Do you remember I fell into your belay maybe five or six times trying to edge the damn crux because I could NOT get a handle on a smear? Valhalla might be a modest little 5.11a today, but I still wonder how many could edge it in really HARD soled ankle high shoes?
Now I haven't climbed seriously for twenty years now, except to lead a few things for new guys around San Luis Obispo around 2000, and was suprised to hear many young men talking about Tobin who had put up some fun things there. They had never met him and he was still a hero. All I could say was that he was one of the most memorable persons I had ever known as was sorry to hear he had gone way back then. Remember he used to boulder UPSIDE DOWN?!
But the last time I did Valhalla in about '87, I was about 40 years old and just skated through it using a beat up pair of Fires, following a pretty good climber buddy named Eric Charlton up so fast that I had passed the crux realizing I had failed to unclip! I downclimbed back below, unclipped, and did it again, still without a slip. That's the difference better shoes made even then. People today may not know about how much more difficult these climbs were using old shoes.
Few today could easily lead the Chingadera using Piveta hiking shoes, which if I remember right, is what Mark Powel told me he used when he put it up as a 5.10+. And I think Bob Kamps was still using Pivetas when I first met him at Stony Point in 1969. Think about all the slick FA's Kamps did in the 60's using lug Vibram soled hiking boots!
And speaking of lug soles, consider Rebolting Development. How many today could edge that climb wearing Robins Aid shoes with lug soles, standing on those tiny quartz corn nubbins and banging in the bolts with an old wooden handled Yosemite hammer and a 1/4 inch bolt kit without a hand guard in traditional lead?!!! Again, if I recall, that's what Mike Kaeser and Greg Bender wore when they put it up!! Mike, Greg, and I migrated on up to Tahoe in '72 when we found out they were paying house framers something like $400 a week, at least $3000 in today's dollars because you could buy a brand new car off the showroom floor for $2500!! So we pounded nails the entire Summer of '72, burning through about everything in the basin and at Lover's Leap. Talk about memories. Wow. So it was the next Summer before I got back to Idlewild and did Valhalla with you.
Those were the days we used to "tie off" onto the tip of the drill bit with a little loop of 3/8 webbing and would find ourselves hang dogging a tiny bit here and there from the drill just barely introduced into the rock to ease the edge we were standing on. At least once I leaned onto one of those loops a little too hard and broke the tip of my drill bit off and found myself airborn for quite a fall. I think I remember Phil Warrender telling me he pretty much quit climbing doing the same thing into an 80 foot fall or something on Witney Portal Buttress. That was Trad climbing, looking backward.
And like you, by the mid 80's I found myself pushed beyond mainstream climbing, married and working full time as a sound engineer in the film industry down there in Hollywood, house payments, two cars, 90 hour work weeks. As I remember, I did end up working on some commercials with Largo, John Bachar, and Lynn Hill, and maybe an old "That's Incredible" episode too. But I still climbed on for a while, watching 5.11 falling way back into oblivion under 5.12, 5.13, 5.14, and on and on.
But still, in those old RD's, Valhalla was a difficult lead, a memorable moment, and it was a priveledge to have become a member of the Stonemasters. I was very proud. Thanks for belaying me through it, as in all the things I've done and all the places I've been, that was still a pivotal experience that evokes some of the most intense nostalgia from my youthful days. It's only a highlight, but it does fairly represent that period between 1969 and 1989 when I could reasonably call myself a traditional climber.
Happy to see you're still at it.
BTW, the last time I saw Clark Jacobs was on a climbing promo film I did at Suicide in about '90 or so for Allstate Insurance, as he was the guide on the job for Bob Gaines or something, as he pretty much made his life a full time climbing adventure. If anyone has a handle on how to get in touch with him, I'd like to say hello. Don't know why he came to mind after all these years, but he did.
Terry Emerson
http://www.HighSierraScenics.com/
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2009 - 12:29pm PT
|
Awesome, Terry. Great to hear from you.
Terry wrote: "People today may not know about how much more difficult these climbs were using old shoes."
Most of the harder Suicide and Tahquitz routes went up before EBs, meaning we were using either the old red PAs or the leather uppered RDs. Neither boot was worth a sh#t for smearing. You had to edge everything, and the slightest miscue and - ping! You were off for the big one.
Might be an interesting exercise to get a few modern day climbes and fit them up with PAs and let them loose at Suicide. Ten Karat would be a nice start.
JL
|
|
Jamulian
Trad climber
Jamul, CA
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2009 - 12:36pm PT
|
Terry,
I spoke to Clark. He would like to speak with you. I sent you a PM with the info.
|
|
tntemerson
Trad climber
California
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2009 - 06:56pm PT
|
Hi John!
Thanks for the reply. Jeeze, but it's been a while.
I stumbled in here looking for Clark, and talked to him this morning, first time in 20 years, and we ran over a lot of ground, terra firma where your name came up more than once! I had not known how close he came or how tough he's had it recently. But his stories are miles deep and oceans wide, as just about the main thing he's done with his life was Stonemaster adventure climbing, guiding, and search and rescue.
I advised him, perhaps a bit boldly, that one of the most valuable things he owns today are all those carfully crafted memories, and on a fit of inspiration suggested that with his good natured, wry personality and boxfull of world class golden experiences, he ought to begin to put them to paper himself. His consistent perspective and life saving moments really do pulse with intrinsic blood. But he's an honest soldier and wasn't sure he was qualified.
Really, says I? With an entire milk crate full of old bolts he'd replaced from trad climbs over thirty five years, each one numbered and categorized by climb and FA, and his years of S&R out of both Camp 4 and Idlewild, his fine FA's, Charthouse memories, his 130 ascents of Valhalla, his 24 ascents of the Vampire, his thousands of guided climbs, bodies who's lives he virtually breathed life back into, bodies carried out, body PARTS carried out, bodies finally burried....NOT qualified?!
But that's Clark. He needs the boost of noteworthy credit and a little fire built up under him, it seems.
I suggested he look to you for a hint of guidance, as that's been your forte for decades, offering him all the support I had. It would be nice to get him online with a laptop or something. That would be fun. I think he could put together his own collection of brain fissures, and it might help him pay all those med bills.
But I did get a hold of him though. Aint' it something, the Inet?
And yes, with respect to the Suicide and Tahquitz trads, those climbs were definitely MUCH harder in "old shoes", more than most newer people realize.
But then maybe PA's might be too much of a break for all the adrenal substance out there today, as those are the shoes we favored most long before sticky stuff and hot pink laces; the GOOD shoes. I'm wondering if those who really want a traditional challenge test the metal by hunting down a pair of Pivetas instead, then try one of those Kamps or Powel climbs that everyone thinks are just too easy, the one's the hot doggers of the age just hike by. Lug soles had even LESS edge footprint than PA's! But then maybe I'm being a bit vain here, and ought to just reign that old passionate arrogance back in a bit before it leads me to some wellspring of my own embarrasment.
But I do believe you're right. 10 Karat in PA's might be a bit of an eye opener for many modern climbers, maybe even the hardcore soloists who never seem to suffer a trembling thought of trepidation.
And remembering Tobin too, when I said he bouldered upside down, I really mean UPSIDE DOWN! Do you remember that!? He used to begin at the base doing a handstand facing the rock, and digging his toes into the hand holds, and palming the footholds, inch his way up the problem and pull himself up over the top of the rock with the insteps of his feet.
But if I may, I'm beginning to think -- especially now in retrospect -- that it really seems that many early Stonemaster, busy or quiet, well known or obscured, were just naturally crafted from some very rare elements, not just those readily evident by first glance at the Periodic Table. For me, just realizing the depth of soul and colorful character the survivors all seem to have today, is an eye opener in itself! And that doesn't even consider the true gems that are no longer with us.
At least I'd like to think so.
Meanwhile, thanks again for the thoughtful reply!
|
|
dogtown
climber
Cheyenne,Wyoming
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2009 - 07:16pm PT
|
Bump. I just had too!
|
|
graham
Social climber
Ventura, California
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 1, 2009 - 12:39pm PT
|
Terry,
Great to here from you and see you surface here. I might have missed it if you hadn’t sent the email.
Here is a shot of you leading. I have never seen a more impressive set of calves on anyone since.
Great stories and memories you have of those days. I had totally forgotten Tobin’s upside down stuff. He really clowned around when we all took bouldering too seriously. Too funny!
The greatest thing to come out of using those old shoes were the lessons in footwork they gave. It’s the ace up the sleeve today and allows us old-timers to pull off the improbable. Funny though the really hard stuff still today at Suicide needs a good edge.
You flushed out a lot of stuff there thanks. I was always wondering where you went off to next.
Stick around we would like to hear more.
Cheers,
Mike Graham
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Oct 29, 2009 - 10:00pm PT
|
Me too!
|
|
guyman
Trad climber
Moorpark, CA.
|
|
I was there yesterday, it was big fun.
Suicide is really becoming a backwater-climbing place.
The weather was perfect for hard slabbin, about 60 degrees, and the stone was clean with no traces of chalk.
The friction was there, the rock was holding your hands.
I counted about eight people climbing; one old dad was wearing a swami belt!
I bet they were lined up, fighting to get on climbs at Josh.
I just love Suicide, the forest, the views, the friends and all the memories I have of the place makes me feel like I am at home.
But it’s all fun and games in till somebody pokes out an eye.
Serpentine claimed another one yesterday. Russell from Hemet, slid down a ways and hurt his ankle, I hope it’s not broken. It was the size of a cantaloupe and I could see the pain on his face as he crawled up the stairs to get to his car.
And Mike, congratulation on Emily’s engagement, does the new “son” climb?
gk
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!