Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
|
|
|
Jun 21, 2018 - 08:15pm PT
|
Jim accomplished a lot on the rock -- maybe not well known outside the Squamish climbing community, but nonetheless noteworthy -- but he did not write much about it.
But the one thing he did write is, pretty much hands down, the best encapsulation I've ever read of what it is like to be out there on the sharp end.
"Sometimes You Know -- Sometimes You Don't" is less than 1,000 words, but sums it all up perfectly. I don't remember where Jim published it originally, but we reprinted it in The Canadian Mountaineering Anthology.
I'll try to find a digital copy and repost it here, but in the meantime, anyone who sees Jim please give him my regards.
|
|
Mighty Hiker
climber
Outside the Asylum
|
|
|
Jun 21, 2018 - 11:11pm PT
|
Does anyone know how/why he acquired the nickname Big Jim?
|
|
Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Jun 22, 2018 - 09:03am PT
|
Big Jim. What a guy! Always a smile and a good story. Happy birthday and a big cheer, Jim!
|
|
Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
|
|
|
Jun 22, 2018 - 12:03pm PT
|
Called Jim from Atlanta yesterday to wish him a happy 85th and not surprisingly, he was hanging out at our place, one of his frequent haunts.
Jim has been a source of constant inspiration since I first met him in 76.
His CAJ piece “ Sometimes you know, Sometimes you don’t” fired my imagination and to this day, captures the feel of commiting to the kind of climbing experience that can only be found edging on dimes on the lower flanks of the Grand on a shady summer morning.
Although climbing gave me a sense of purpose, forged much of my character and created enduring relationships, I live by Jim’s advice that “There’s more to life than climbing.”
Thank you Big Jim and wishing you at least fifteen more!
PB
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
|
Jun 22, 2018 - 12:22pm PT
|
Big Jim. What a guy! Always a smile and a good story.
And what a smile.
l to r: Harry, Bill, Jim, Phil, Robert
|
|
Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
|
|
|
Jun 22, 2018 - 12:59pm PT
|
Okay, I dug out Jim's little story "Sometimes You Know -- Sometimes You Don't". Here it is...
Sometimes You Know – Sometimes You Don’t
By Jim Sinclair
I knew it was the crux. It had taken two days to get here, in some ways much longer. I was sixty feet out from Chris, between us was a tied-off knife blade, a small part of it into the incipient crack. The rest of its length protruded out and down, but it would have to do. It was like walking down Granville Street with every neon sign selling the same message… “It won’t hold a fall.”
I tried to calculate it. I’d drop twenty-five feet if the pin held, and could extract myself easily enough. But if it didn’t, I’d go one hundred and twenty feet, probably hit the ledge thirty feet below Chris and at best be seriously hurt.
Perhaps fifteen minutes had gone by, and I hadn’t moved; nineteen years of rock climbing was working in my head – I just didn’t know if I could get over this last bit or not. There was no bolt kit, no crack – not even a cliff hanger helped. It was free it or go down. Going down was tricky buy no major problem. But could we go up?
There seemed to be a microflake at knee level on the steel wall. Was that another six feet above it? Eyes inches from the rock, the hand caresses over it. Yes! A ripple perhaps a thirty-second of an inch… but a ripple!
Somewhere in the deepest being the pros and cons of justification are being weighed.
“You’ve stood on as small things before,” the pros say.
“I know, I know,” you tell your other self. “But this could lead nowhere. I wasn’t facing death then, or maybe I was. I don’t know. But that was then, this is now. World do I love life! Why do I come up here anyway? There stupid, up there, above the right hand.” The demon pros never let go.
The judgement must be exact, precise, infinite. I stood on tip-toe feeling very secure on the half-inch ledge I was standing on. Strange, when I’d first reached it I was apprehensive about stepping onto it. Now, twenty minutes later, it felt like a ballroom floor. I was safe, if only I didn’t try to use the microflake.
Yes! Yes! It was there – a little finger hold. I couldn’t quite reach it from the ledge but it was there, inches above my reach. The years of climbing, worn out kletterschuhe, discarded ropes, and the voice of judgement convinced me it was there. But I couldn’t quite reach it.
This was no boulder problem, no jump off and try again game. It was the ability to move up and the judgement of whether you can or not. You get one chance in the game. You judge right the first time or you don’t play again.
The left foot went to the microflake and immediately skidded off.
“How you doing up there man?” Chris secure on his ledge, two comfortable pitons for a station and basking sunshine.
“It’s HAIRY buddy, I just don’t know about this.”
No answer, then: “How’s that pin?”
“The shits,” I call down… no answer.
Again, for reasons unknown, the left foot creeps toward the microflake. Slowly ease my eight to it and even get a few pounds off the right foot before retreating back to the ballroom floor. It had held! Incredulously my left foot had held!
I lit a smoke, trying to get the green taste out of my mouth and waiting for it to happen. What a beautiful thing a horrible thing like a cigarette was at a time like this. Far down in the valley a crow glided. Below him little toy cars weaved their way through the forest following a white line that never ended.
The cigarette finished, with no conviction to do or die, but rather attracted as to a magnet, I again brushed off the little hold. The left foot went up, weight eased over just right, right hand reaching for the sky. I touched it, tips of fingers deep into its ripples. The right foot ten inches from the ballroom floor… fifteen inches! Don’t come off now left foot Please don’t come off now. The neon signs are exploding in the head and you know, absolutely, that the piton will not hold a fall. You’re committed, it’s only fifteen inches to the ballroom floor, but there is no going back.
To the onlooker, you are suspended there, climbing to nothing, defying gravity to the extreme. Perhaps a suicidal maniac with a death wish, at best a misled youth surely to die. The tricouni set would call you an engineer, safe on your ladder of pitons and hardly climbing at all.
You reach a state of near total fusion with what you’re doing. Evert fiber of the body is instinctively controlled to place the fingers a few inches higher to the hold, and so to be a part of it. No longer is anything done consciously. The years of training have taken over. The instincts are in control of your body, mind, nerves, and soul. They creep your fingers upward even as you know you’re moving off, you’re on the brink. There is no time but the minute part of the second difference in which is first, the left foot coming off or the fingers touching the ripple above. There is no distance but the fifteen inches back to the ballroom floor. There is no problem in life greater than the placing of a finger an inch higher. Then it’s there, the left hand goes out, a good hold, mantle up… it’s over.
We were on easy terrain, moving fast to the top and I wondered. What if we’d climbed to the crux and retreated off? Did we climb to the crux, or were we leading up to the climb? Did we do a two-day route? A two-hundred-foot wall? Or did we do a one-hour climb, fifteen inches high?
|
|
Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
|
|
|
Jun 22, 2018 - 01:07pm PT
|
Classic!
|
|
Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
|
|
|
Jun 22, 2018 - 02:07pm PT
|
I always wondered what climb that story was about. The Phew?
The Phew seems pretty obscure now, that's for sure.
|
|
Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
|
|
|
Jun 22, 2018 - 04:08pm PT
|
Hardly!
The Phew (and Mislead) was the inspiration for Cruel Shoes which incorporates the exquisite original second pitch of The Phew.
PB
|
|
Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
|
|
|
Jun 22, 2018 - 04:18pm PT
|
Right - so everybody climbs Cruel Shoes now and nobody climbs the Phew. Sorta like The Crossing or Climbers Must be Crazy vs the original Grim Reaper
|
|
Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
|
|
|
Jun 22, 2018 - 05:27pm PT
|
It may be fair to say that most people who climb Cruel Shoes don’t know they’re climbing the second pitch of the Phew in the process.
Andrew Boyd found a free line around and through the bolt ladder on the first pitch and forged on above the third pitch and would most likely agree Jim pointed the way by establishing The Phew.
Whether today’s climbers are aware or not, when they’re on their way to the Split Pillar they’re climbing routes Jim established and/or inspired.
|
|
hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
|
|
|
Jun 22, 2018 - 11:29pm PT
|
I hear that the new Squamish guide is out, and that it costs $49- plus tax. Maybe Jim received a free copy, but maybe not. Perhaps 'someone' (Perry? Anders? Glenn?) could check this out with Kevin. If he did not get a freebie, then perhaps we could buy him one. I would be happy to start this off by kicking in $15-. If we raise more than $49- then we can add a case of beer or two, or a coffee voucher somewhere. If we raise less, then I will cover that too.
However 'someone' local will have to co-ordinate this, handle cheques etc.
Thoughts? Volunteer?
|
|
hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
|
|
|
Jun 22, 2018 - 11:33pm PT
|
^^^^^^^Anders asks about the origin of the nick-name Big Jim.
By all accounts that may well be a personal question!
|
|
Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
|
|
|
Jun 23, 2018 - 05:20am PT
|
Hamie,
A generous consideration on your part.
I’ll bet dollars to donuts Kevin has already provided Jim a copy and will verify this and report.
Re the origin of his moniker “Big Jim”, I always assumed the Hardcore coined that one.
Maybe this was a result of the profile Jim developed following his starring role in The Vertical Desert?
He’s of average stature, maintains a mild disposition and although he’s a living legend hardly comports himself in a “Big” way other than having a big heart.
PB
|
|
Timmc
climber
BC
|
|
|
Jun 23, 2018 - 08:19am PT
|
Happy Birthday Big Jim!
Taken a month ago when he hiked up to The Bears new crag just to hang out and chat.
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
Thanks for the good news!
|
|
Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
|
|
|
Jul 10, 2018 - 09:47am PT
|
Rest in peace Geoff Creighton.
You were one of the greats. Everything from 5.13 sport routes to the Thunderbird variation to Hummingbird Ridge on Logan.
|
|
Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
|
|
|
Jul 10, 2018 - 10:11am PT
|
Sad news.
What happened?
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
first ascent of Diedre with Jim Baldwin
Let us know!