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Janet Wilts
Trad climber
Moose
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Ah yes, Fitchen's folly.....he certainly went along way down.....but it ended up making a good climb (going up not down).
I remember when I was around 12 years old someone or something fell near the front of Tahquitz and killed someone. They kept us kids away...but I think it was a large piece of wood that came down and hit someone near lunch rock, not someone actually falling all the way down.
That's my mom's photo earlier in this thread....I remember doing the step around...and being scared to death and I had some sort of climbing shoes not tennis shoes........
Janet Wilts
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 11, 2009 - 11:49pm PT
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Thanks for the photo identification, Janet! How often did she climb with the Dolt?
Sorry it took me so long to bump this thread!
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Dec 12, 2009 - 12:04am PT
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Probably the longest fall that was survived. Several longer ones that weren't.
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dogtown
Trad climber
JackAssVille, Wyoming
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Dec 12, 2009 - 01:59am PT
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The best crag. In the world! What can be better than T and S ?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 29, 2010 - 07:29pm PT
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The Finest of Bumps!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2010 - 03:43pm PT
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Might get a Fitschen's Folly story soon enough!
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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can't resist adding some personal notes on the dramatis personae. having joined the RCS in 1981, i crossed paths with that old guard, now getting to be one myself.
glen dawson and his brother muir ran dawson's bookstore in hollywood for years, a family business. glen learned some of the book trade in europe, where he got hooked on climbing. they say the brothers never got along very well, but managed to keep the business going until they retired.
glen gave quite a program to the RCS once on his climbing career, which included taking ansel adams into the high sierra many times when ansel's photographic career was just getting under way.
chuck wilts was the epitome of modesty. i first encountered him while i was climbing great white book and my partner remarked, "that's chuck wilts on the route next to us". i couldn't help asking, "are you the chuck wilts?" his reply was "i'm a chuck wilts".
i interviewed him at his home a few years later in connection with a folkloric study i was trying to put together on climbing onomastics. he got to talking about the old climbers he knew and mentioned that john salathe had retired to a little trailer by the salton sea, one of those communities what move up and down grade depending on the water level. john would send him a christmas card every year, usually rather religious in nature. i guess it made me think that a good dirtbagger will always have an ace in the hole.
wilts published several editions of his tahquitz-suicide guidebook. i'm sure he lived to regret one declaration, that john long's ascent of paisano overhang "will probably never be repeated".
i never got to meet the mendenhalls, although i did have the pleasure of soloing john's historic route on laurel mountain behind convict lake a year ago. that long, beautiful couloir through the amazing geology of its east face was the first known belayed climb in california.
there's an enduring anecdote about john, however, which bears repeating. leroy russ, an RCS member, was probably one of the first african-americans to get involved in climbing out here. we had two in the RCS, leroy and virgil shields, and virgil became a longtime friend and co-conspirator on many an offbeat adventure.
leroy once told me the story of the day he broke the color barrier. he showed up at an RCS meeting and the tension was so thick you could cut it. not sure when that would've been, 60s perhaps, early 70s at the latest, a lot different world back then. no one said a word to leroy, and he felt so frozen out that he was getting up to leave when john mendenhall came over to him and made an obvious display of asking, "so when would you like to go climbing?" that's all it took--he became one of the gang from then on.
"switchbacks--one of the most difficult fifth class climbs on tahquitz" (1960). i second the nomination. one downsloping ledge after another, long runouts, difficult to protect. 5.8 and i don't ever want to do it again.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 17, 2010 - 02:34pm PT
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A couple of the local RCS lads, Don Wilson and Frank Hoover, from Summit August 1956!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 10, 2011 - 01:58pm PT
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The early bump gets the worm...
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frog-e
Trad climber
Imperial Beach California
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May 10, 2011 - 04:09pm PT
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Great thread.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
SoCal
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May 11, 2011 - 01:48am PT
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BUMPING. This here is why the forum is good.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Oct 16, 2011 - 09:34pm PT
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So then from the Smith 38 Sierra Club article the original name of the Mechanics Route was the "Booksellers Route?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 8, 2012 - 01:20pm PT
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Bump for the bookseller who just hit the century mark!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 5, 2013 - 06:21pm PT
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Bump for any stories about the Gorin Brothers who had three legs between them and still climbed all over Tahquitz Rock. You think that you're knackered by the approach! LOL
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 27, 2013 - 10:04pm PT
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Celebrated Bump...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 28, 2013 - 07:35pm PT
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Frosty Holiday Bump...
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Rereading the "super" description that is the White Maiden as generally done now.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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The first time I did the Maiden I took a n00b up. At the top I just
blundered on until an overhang stopped me. My 'partner' didn't like
my 5.9 finish.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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^
You should have pulled harder.
edit: or in respect for screwing the second, left a bigger loop of rope.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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The first time I did the Maiden I took a n00b up. At the top I just
blundered on until an overhang stopped me. My 'partner' didn't like
my 5.9 finish.
That direct finish has claimed its share of ankles. It goes from easy to "oh shit" in about one move.
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