Amazing solo stories...

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climber

Oct 10, 2011 - 06:42pm PT

Dead is one thing. Gone is another.

jschwarz0

Sport climber

Oct 10, 2011 - 09:07pm PT

had to share this about Mr. Bachar.

So its 1984-ish and my first season in the Valley. I can barely climb 5.8, but I am having a blast.
My friend Jorg and I go to climb the first two pitches of Reeds Direct.
I manage to scrape by leading the first pitch (5.8?) and Jorg heads up the classic second pitch (5.9?).

Nodding off at the belay ledge I get scared sh*t-less when a chalked hand reaches up onto the ledge.
Its him...

He says, "sorry, didn't mean to scare you!". (He arrived you see, soundless, no gear clanging about, no grunting...)

So he starts shooting the sh*t, "where you from, what are you doing here, etc...", I was mostly rendered speechless.

So the rope gets tight and off I go on the second.

About halfway up, I am gassed, its hot, I am fat, its a mess.

I look down and there he is about 15' behind me... but there is a giant coil of rope at my feet!

"up rope"
"take"

nothing from Jorg, he must be napping (he will say it was the Merced!).

I do some quick math and realize, when I go, all the rope stretch is going to have me banging off him like a giant greasy haul bag.

So he must see my quivering (or was I dropping a rain of sweat?) and he starts, in a calm voice, giving me instructions on how the crack is various sizes, reach up or back and the jams are better, etc.

Did I finish from his help? Did I finish cause all I could think about was being the guy that killed JB?

I don't know.

RIP Mr Bachar, you were very nice to me that day.

Hofbrau

climber

Oct 11, 2011 - 01:12am PT

This brings back great memories of some moments I spent with JB an Peter. Early 90's climbing at Red Rocks, JB show's up at the Gallery to solo a bit. I talk with him awhile and asked if he wouldn't mind me taking a few shots of him cruising some routes. It was amazing to watch his effortless glide between every hand and foot movement. A real treat and a pleasure to see. He made Fear and Loathing look like 4th class. I spent another few days later on with an old friend of mine, Bill Freeman, to shoot photos of Peter Croft in Josh for his touring slide show. It was up to Peter to do whatever he felt up to soloing and we just set up for what was about come. I came away with the most rewarding photography experience I have ever had. One of the shots I took of him on O'Kelley's Crack was very inspirational to me and I had Peter sign it some time after.

Both of these guys have been icons for me and I am grateful for the chance to have crossed paths with them.

John Moosie

climber

Beautiful California

Oct 11, 2011 - 01:16am PT

Great story jschwarzo! Talk about motivation. Thanks for sharing it.

Big Mike

Trad climber

Oct 11, 2011 - 08:55pm PT

Wow! This thread is amazing!

RIP John Bachar

ms55401

Trad climber

minneapolis, mn

Oct 11, 2011 - 09:13pm PT

croft is so cool. and the photo in the first post is superb

Big Mike

Trad climber

Dec 21, 2011 - 10:56pm PT

Bump

Wade Icey

Trad climber

www.alohashirtrescue.com

Dec 22, 2011 - 11:57am PT

skating on stilts

this just in

climber

north fork

Dec 22, 2011 - 12:28pm PT

Pretty cool reading one of the best talk about more of the best. This is why I come back to the taco each day.

SteveW

Trad climber

The state of confusion

Dec 22, 2011 - 03:41pm PT

JB gave a talk in Golden a couple of days
before he passed. I was so lucky to see him there--and
hear him talk about the solo of the Moratorium. I just
about got sick listening to him tell of it.

Unreal.

perswig

climber

Dec 22, 2011 - 04:03pm PT

http://vimeo.com/22993356

Steve House
Repentance and Remission
(I think this also had its own thread at some point)

Dale

Doug Buchanan

Mountain climber

Fairbanks Alaska

Dec 22, 2011 - 05:51pm PT

There I was, mind you, and it was desperate indeed, albeit as usual. Exposed flesh freezes in seconds, you know. It was in the dead of winter in the heart of the Alaska Range, in the depths of a black moulin. The mountains towered above and the storm raged. To this very day I am not sure that I survived.

Nobody knew where I was, many miles from anyone, in the middle of a glacier in the middle of the eastern Alaska Range, in the middle of the winter, lost amid gaping crevasses. That is a superlative feeling. This was genuine solo. I dug my luxurious snow cave, made things comfortable, had a snap of cognac and set about to find two moulins (glacier ice caves) that I had earlier wanded before the winter snow covered the glacier.

A half mile down glacier from my cave I found the first moulin. I paced the correct direction and distance from the wand, and dug a hole straight down in the snow, looking for a big deep hole that went straight down in the ice. I found the hole when one foot suddenly went straight down. The usual adrenalin hit.

Moulin exploration was new at the time, and I later discovered that I explored more moulins than anyone in the world. Several trips were solo because finding moulin partners in the middle of winter in Alaska was, well, you know. Do what?!

I set up all the normal stuff, and rapped down into a black hole that led to the genuinely unknown, just as the short winter Alaska day turned to night. About 80 feet down, the section of wall against which I was rapping, suddenly collapsed and fell into the abyss, leaving me hanging in the waterfall that had formed the ice for that part of the wall. The water was from a glacier surface river that I did not notice under the snow.

It was 20 degrees below zero F outside, with a stiff wind. It was 32 degrees above zero in the water that immediately drenched me. I had X minutes to be alive, and much to do, before said water-soaked flesh, exposed or otherwise, froze.

Pure luck offered a 2 inch wide ice ledge a few feet below my feet. I descended and skittered sideways to a foot-wide part of the ledge, out of the water flow. I instinctively looked around in the darkness, to make sure nobody saw the dumb mistake I just made, a trait of those who do solo things at the edge. I sank an ice screw, clipped in, and perhaps a bit too hastily I rigged a pre-fabricated Gibbs ascender system (foot, knee, chest) to run up the rope.

I swung back into the water, and up. At the top edge of the broken ice, where I had to awkwardly push out from the waterfall to get up over the ice curtain that covered it, a carabiner gate twisted out, and let loose of a Gibbs.

Back down in the water, to the ledge, and off to the side. Re-rigg, back into the water, and up.

If you want a story to tell, pull yourself up out of a comfortable 32 degree (F) vertical ice hole, into 20 below zero and a stiff wind at night, totally soaked.

I have no idea how I got my crampons off and my skis on, if I did, and got back up glacier a half mile in deep snow. I remember the darkness, the feeling that my clothes were made of heavy boards, and thick ice covering pockets, zippers, cords, snaps, velcro, beard, toes, etceteras. Most of my effort was to break the ice cocoon of my clothes. My crampons were tied on with webbing, not clamped on. I remember anguishing over the decision to start slogging up glacier with the crampons on, or somehow get them off and get on my skis. I have no idea what I decided.

Such events (embarrassing dumb mistakes) give "solo" its story value, or something like that.

The advantage was my luxurious large snow cave with my sleeping bag already laid out on my pad, and stove set up, if I made it back to the cave.

If the details do not match the story I told elsewhere, that is because I am not sure I survived, or if memory works in those conditions.

Now therefore, do not forget to rag the pitiably repugnant National Park Service thugs who charge war veterans and their families up to $360 each for the RIGHT to walk on their own public land, on extremely durable rock and ice, after said veterans slaughtered people, mostly civilians, and saw their friends die horrible deaths, to defend American RIGHTS, at threat to their lives and often profound psychological damage. If there is anything more repugnant than that, add it to the list of what insatiably greedy government thugs maliciously do to the common people, since inherently corrupt, self-serving government was invented.

A "right" is not lawfully taxable (any fee), or it is not a right, by prevailing law. But Park Service thugs have never known a law they did not violate with contempt for law and the people. Do Americans hold the right to walk on their own public land? If not, and because the government bankrupted the nation with Presidential Ego Gratification Wars, the public lands shall be sold for less expensive and less restrictive private management. Or at least abolish the National Park Service and return the land to its lawful managers, the States. (That is going to happen, without escape.)

If you want to laugh at gullible people, ask why only the mountain climbers have groveled so low as to pay such a high tax for such a basic, non-damaging human right, while other outdoor groups do not allow themselves to be victimized as such gullible fools. Other groups defend their RIGHTS.

The Alaskan Alpine Club is on schedule to publish the list of those "stinkin rich kid climbers" who pay the new climbing tax for Denali and Mt. Rainier, starting January 2012. They thus support that repugnant denial of American rights, and display contempt for the lives of poor people who could only find military jobs. Those arrogant climbers will be declared a "disgrace to American mountaineering history", on permanent record (etceteras), distributed to international climbing organizations.

The Access Fund contributors and American Alpine Club sorts will be added to the list, since they supported the tax for what the Access Fund described as its goal of a "fully funded National Park Service", in the name of the climbers. Laugh at the obviously dumb climbers who thought the Park Service's crony Access Fund and American Alpine Club represent or support climbers.

Those public record names and residences which are required for the accounting of fees collected by a government agency, cannot be denied to the public, unless a new law classifies climbing information as national security secrets, and precludes the climbers from bragging about or verifying their climb of Rainier or Denali.

The Park Service may squander more tax money to attack the Alaskan Alpine Club program, as usual, but the list will be published. Other climbers support the program. The reasoning, to which the common people already agree, especially military chaps increasingly betrayed by every government agency, is not deniable. Well, do Americans hold the RIGHT to walk on their own public land? If not, who owns that land? The owner holds the RIGHT to walk on his own land, by law.

As more people inherently learn about, and become more disgusted with, the insatiably greedy and malicious National Park Service thugs and the Washington DC War and Police Regime, more common climbers will hold that list of arrogant rich kid climbers in contempt for the rest of history. Fools attempt to support government corruption, including those of government. The names cannot be erased from public record.

And there we jolly well have it for a fly-by of the cool SuperTopo.

Keep on having entirely too much fun, and always have an extra carabiner.

Doug Buchanan
Alaskan Alpine Club paperwork guy and chief rabble rouser (war veteran).

hairyapeman

Trad climber

Fres-yes

Feb 21, 2012 - 07:41pm PT

bump

Big Mike

Trad climber

Nov 5, 2012 - 11:12pm PT

gnarly!! bump!

zBrown

Ice climber

chingadero de chula vista

Nov 10, 2012 - 04:25pm PT

couchmaster

climber

pdx

May 21, 2013 - 04:36pm PT

Rock and Ice has reprinted John Longs masterpiece online, The Only Blasphemy. http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/the-only-blasphemy

Still great stuff.

"Most all climbs are easy for Bachar. He has to make his own difficulties, and usually does so by doing away with the rope. He dominates the cliff with his grace and confidence, never gets rattled, never thrashes, and you know that if he ever gets killed climbing, it will be a gross transgression of all taste and you’ll curse God for the rest of your life—on aesthetic, not moral grounds."

Great thread here. I'd missed (the now late) Doug Buchanan's great post a few up thread about soloing glaciers in Alaska 1st go round.