John Rosholt, RIP

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 81 - 100 of total 127 in this topic

<< First | < Previous | Show All | Next > | Last >>

ydpl8s

Trad climber

Santa Monica, California

Nov 20, 2010 - 01:37pm PT

Peter, great pics of John! This is causing a lot of old friends to reconnect, which I'm sure John would approve of.

I was with Bob Dickerson a couple of weeks ago and your name came up. It seems like we have a lot of friends in common, have we met, am I just having oldtimer's disease?

Scott Mossman

philo

Trad climber

Somewhere halfway over the rainbow

Nov 20, 2010 - 01:57pm PT

Moss, earlier you mentioned John's bout and hospitalization with tick fever and his rambunctious misbehavior in the hospital. I had to laugh. He and I both contracted tick fever doing a first ascent in Taylor Canyon. The cyclic nature of tick fever is like malaria. If you had seen him an hour later he would have probably looked horrible. He was the lucky one, I had a simultaneous case of giardia. While John was cavorting in the hospital I was holed up at my girlfriend Christine (yeah the one of the dream) at her parents ranch in Hartsel. After a day of me redecorating their bathroom and hall way and stairs and "clean up on isle 3", they politely invited me to make my self at home in the old farm house out back. The one with the outhouse. After recovery John and I joked that with tick fever for a week you fear you are going to die and then for another week your fear you will live. Nasty stuff that. Anyway that climb became known as Tick Fever.

meLoco

climber

Las Vegas,Nevada

Nov 20, 2010 - 03:22pm PT

John rented a room from me for a while and was such a pleasant person to share the property with. He was so easy going and I miss our talks about first ascents, the Zone diet, and high-mileage Toyotas.I was always so impressed with how he reinvented himself into a 5.13 Sport climber in his later 40's, with the same ambition that he had for putting up new routes in Velvet.He was kind and generous, and in fact as I type this out, my laptop is sitting right atop a large desk he had given me. He will be truly missed.

TwistedCrank

climber

Ideeho-dee-do-dah-day boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom

Nov 20, 2010 - 11:23pm PT

Bump.

I just had dinner w/ pthurston (Zippy - of the photos upthread) on my way though SLC. We reminisced quite a bit about the Gunny connections. We are both pretty impressed by how many have come out of the woodwork at the news of John's finality. John was one of those people who seemed to connect many otherwise unconnected individuals.

philo

Trad climber

Somewhere halfway over the rainbow

Nov 21, 2010 - 08:41am PT

Hit me bump.

Here is a nice right up about John and his disappearance by Pete Takeda for Rock and Ice.
http://www.rockandice.com/news/1245-john-roshold-qthe-gamblerq-identified

Chief

climber

The NW edge of The Hudson Bay

Nov 21, 2010 - 10:57am PT

Thanks for all the photos and remembrances of John, I know there's more coming. Peder aka. "The Bear" sent me some great ones going all the way back to the seventies and he promised to post them. I'll see if I can scan the ones of John and I being happy geeks at the top of Geek Towers.
Best to all, RIP John.

rottingjohnny

Sport climber

mammoth lakes ca

Nov 21, 2010 - 01:49pm PT

didn't know Rosholt , but have to admire his accomplishments and life style of living on the edge...if his remains were found at the base of a crag , wouldn't this mean he fell while soloing?

Mighty Hiker

climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Nov 21, 2010 - 02:38pm PT

rj, that seems a plausible hypothesis. It sounds like the police and coroner are doing what they can to investigate and reconstruct the scene, given the lapse of five years. For example, the bones may have been washed some distance downstream in the canyon in flash floods, from wherever the body first was. And there may always be some loose ends, e.g. how John got from town to Black Velvet. There seems no need at this point to speculate, and hopefully more information will clarify what happened, although it may take a while.

peder ourom

Trad climber

vancouver canada

Nov 21, 2010 - 08:02pm PT

/Users/pederourom/Desktop/rosholt.doc[photo[photo[photo[photoid=179010]id=179008]id=179007]id=179006]

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Nov 21, 2010 - 08:11pm PT

Peder,

You can Edit your post so that all the photos show up - the Upload feature causes this problem a lot - you need to move the cursor over to the right each time you upload.

Edit your post so that the text looks like:

[photoid=xxxxx1]
[photoid=xxxxx2]
etc., where xxxxx1 = 179006
And then all the photos will show up.

If you have stories in your rosholt.Doc file, Copy/Paste them from the Doc file to your post:
Ctrl-A to select all text from your file, Ctrl-C to copy, then click on the edit box of your post and Ctrl-V to paste in the text.
(Actually this assumes you have a PC, but the filename looks like it's a Mac? I think it's Control- instead of Ctrl- on a Mac?)

Crimpergirl

Sport climber

Boulder, Colorado!

Nov 21, 2010 - 08:44pm PT

Been off the grid so I feel late with my condolences. While I'm happy for the closure that the family now has, it's still a sad ending.

peder ourom

Trad climber

vancouver canada

Nov 21, 2010 - 08:58pm PT

Sometime in the now somewhat blurry mid seventies I first met John. Their were 2 climbing centers of the world in NA at this time, Eldorado in Colorado, and the Valley. ( sorry Henry! ) Being a Squamish climber, the magnet was the big walls, as it had been when for the previous generation of Canadian Valley climbers. For John, the pull was the free climbing. Sure he was talked into the occasional big wall, ( I climbed the movable feast with him the year after the Plunge, it crosses underneath, just for him to show me where his wall ripper happened! ), but John was a free climber from the free climbing center of America. Valley climbing was swollen hands and full grunting, just keep trucking . In Colorado the style was finesse and patience, working out the moves off tricky gear..trying to keep it together. Colorado climbers had style. They could face climb scary places like Perilous Journey. And only real climbers want anywhere near the Black.

And he was the real deal. I was one of the lucky ones to play with John on Kloberdance. He flowed it in runners. with a swami belt for a harness. Without chalk. ( to be fair Barber, Breashears, and a barefooted Guerin probably also could and did )

John just wanted to free climb and do first free ascents. He had this little book where he wrote down details on all his climbs. John was the gear master. He could tell you the exact placement details for a route he had climbed years ago. Every single one. In perfect order. And he searched guidebooks for the magical letters: 1 PA or maybe A0. Early on before cams 5.10 and 5.11 gear climbing was the real sh#t. And these climbs still are. Even with cams.

You always gave John the offwidth and chimney leads. We all wore the goofy thick kneepads wall climbing, but John had a really thin pair that he always wore on long free routes. They were his widecrack secret. His calm way of suffering in a wide was legendary. Once I belayed him on a nasty one in the Black. 5-6”. Steep!! Hexes and stoppers. A pegmatite band of sh#t midway. A dangerous and ugly lead. Grunting up and slipping down repeatedly. After 30 minutes - Peder to John: how’s it going? John: okay. And he was. Sure glad it was not my f*#king lead.

I spent a season in Colorado in 1977, at times staying at his dad’s place in Lakewood. His dad was a famous geologist, one of the first to touch the moon rocks. John also started out on this path. However, after doing some geology field work, he decided to move on. And become a gambler. At least until his $500 was gone!

And maybe it never was( to tell the truth, with his well trained poker face on, john could tell you anything and you really had no choice but to believe him! ), so you never really did know the truth.

We climbed all over Colorado that season, eldorado, boulder canyon, the black, Lumpy ridge. Serious climbing. Multipitch trad routes on hexes and stoppers. Pulling buckets unroped on the bulge. Stiff green Chouinard shoes that edged like a dream. Outer Space on the Bastille was choice. Praying not to be abandoned on some long scruffy solo climb above Denver that john had dialed years earlier. No chalk to follow, no john. But he saved the last doobie for the summit so it was okay.

We also stayed in Gunnison, craching in an upstairs apartment. I think maybe Jimmy Newberry’s? Or Doug Scott’s ( the real doug scott, not the british one that stole woznys stash ). Peter or Gary probably remember. Downstairs, a deli. Every night in the wee small hours we descended like mice. And we made subs. Huge subs. Deluxe subs. Heavenly subs. 4 a night max. Trying hard to not slice off our fingers in the dark. And then cleaned up immaculately. Nice clean dirtbags we were. I am not making this up, honest! The peyote was creating some things at the time that maybe never happened, but this did!

John didn’t really like that mountain and ice Canadian suffering kind of thing, but we did make it to the Bugaboos once. we camped at the Bugaboo Snowpatch col, with the big packrat, about the time American alpine wannabes were beginning to show up and fall into the schrund at alarming rates. And it sucked. Battling mosquitoes hiking huge loads up the col. F*#king snow and rain and wind and snow. Again. Never go to the Bugaboos with Peder. Looking right at the amazing sunshine offwidths through the storm. Avalanching.

And he was cheap cheap cheap. Once in Vegas after a days climbing with Hamish we went to Johns to make dinner. He said he had enough food for the 3 of us. And he did. A can of beans.
Instead we went to a buffet at a casino. Surrounded by 300lb Zeppelins, we went right to the head of the line, for free. You see, when a card game was about to lose a “loser”, and needed another player, they would call John to come and join the game to keep it going, playing for the house. With his battery powered fan blowing the cigar smoke back in the face of the high rollers. We did have to find clean gambler kind of clothes to make this scam work.

John lived the dream he wanted. Not to be tied down. Climb when you want. Gamble when you want. Stay where you want. Not for John was the “regular” life of jobs, wives, kids, mortgages, and taxes. John only ever wanted to own 1 key ( for his Toyota ), he felt more comfortable when his house was able to move. Eventually with his sisters help he did have a real place of his own, and went to 2 keys. This would not have been easy for him to adjust to. How many keys do you own?

Around the time John disappeared I had been trying to contact him to try and fit in a Valley trip that spring. He never answered. I miss him a lot.

Love you bro,
peder

footnotes:

1 john kept that shredded piece of Plunge rope for years. I think it is probably at his house with my dolt cobra hook that he never returned. Jane if you are reading this, Please, I want it back! ( just kidding )

2 the posted story about john going to the local casino to raise money is mostly true. Some details have been changed but I like this version even better.!

3 The pack rat at Bugaboo col had a name, I just can’t remember it

MH2

climber

Nov 21, 2010 - 09:54pm PT

Thanks Peder.

ydpl8s

Trad climber

Santa Monica, California

Nov 22, 2010 - 10:35am PT

Peder, what a great narrative and pics, that's the John that I knew! I love the pic in Taylor Canyon where all you can see of John is his 2 arms sticking out from behind Peter giving the "double bird" salute. Was that upstairs apartment in the Columbine? I did a stint in there, used to keep my beers out on the fire escape to keep them cold (no fridge).

o-man

Trad climber

Paia,Maui,HI

Nov 22, 2010 - 06:21pm PT

Sometime back in the mid 80’s we had an especially long and drawn out winter.
We hardly climbed other than occasional bouldering sessions at Morison.
My primary climbing partner in those days was Maurice Reed.
We were planning a road trip to somewhere with better weather.
After hearing about our plans our friend Pierrette wanted to go.She was a great cook and had some cash to help with expenses.
This put us with a party of three so we set out to find a forth.
After exhausting all of our usual possibilities Maurice said,” How about Johnny Rotten? He‘s always up for something”.

We go over to where John was living at the time.
His truck was parked in the street out in front of the house.
We left a note on the door. GOING CLIMBING NEED A FOURTH, J-TREE/RR.
There had been a lot of snow that year and the shady side of John’s truck still had a drift against it. There were no tire tracks. It obviously hadn’t been moved in a very long time. In passing we peeked in the passenger window. Maurice said,” Man check this out!” I looked inside and laughed when I noticed that out of the debris and dirt on the flour there were a number of healthy 6 to 8 inch plants growing directly out of the carpet.

John found the note and he was totally up for a climbing trip. His only request was that when we were in Vegas he would like to sit in on a poker game or two just to offset his expenses. Maurice, Pierrette or myself knew nothing about John’s poker interests so we said, “sure no problem”.

With our team assembled we maintained the van and packed the camping and climbing gear for a great early spring climbing road trip.
Our first stop was going to be Indian Creek near Moab but it was so cold that we decided to keep going to Las Vegas.

We pulled on to the strip and John asked if we could stop at a casino just to look around a bit.
The next thing we knew he was absorbed a game and we couldn’t get his attention. When we finally got him to acknowledge us it was way late and he said that he was on a streak and if we would bear with him he was sure that he would make enough to pay for all the expenses for the trip.
Well,we wound up sleeping on the parking lot of the casino that night.
At daylight there was a knock on the door of the van and it was John ready to go climb.

This scenario went on for the whole trip. Several times we dropped John off at the casino in the evening and picked him up in the morning. There was no such thing as just a few hands with John on that trip.

We did quite a few notable first assents on that trip. In fact everything we climbed was ether a new route or we had no knowledge of it being climbed.
Back in those days there was no guide book to Red Rocks.
Also in those days Red Rocks was not a park. It was rugged, drive anywhere, unimproved trails out in the desert.

I woke at dawn one morning to the sound of automatic weapon fire right next to our camp.
There was a Cadillac convertible with the top down parked no more than 50 yards away from our van. Standing next to the Caddie was a guy the size of a box car dressed in a business suit with a machine gun in his hand and he was just mooowin the desert down with blasts of gun fire.
We hunkered down in our sleeping bags and prayed that he would go away.
Maurice and Pierrette were having mild desert romance so John and I usually teamed up for climbing after he had played cards all night.
He never minded taking his leads but was more than happy to second when I wanted the sharp end. Back in those days I was somewhat of a lead hog any way.

One particular climb that still stands out that John and I did on that trip was in Oak Creek Canyon.
The details of the first pitches are a blur but the final pitch will stay in my quiver of unique climbing memories.
This pitch was Johns lead.
The climbing up to this point had been on those solid dark purple, almost black, mushroom holds that are unique to Red Rocks.
The pitch before was mine and the shrooms had been getting exponentially lighter in color and protection scarcer by the meter. In fact I had a hard time finding enough pieces to construct a sound belay when I finished the lead.
At this point I expressed to John,” I think we should bail and leave all this stuff in as anchors!”
John wasn’t having any of that and started setting up the rack for the next pitch!
He set out climbing on brown shrooms and getting very little gear in. The further he climbed the gear got scarcer and the shroom holds got lighter in color.
I didn’t mention that we had NO bolt kit.
Silently John calculated the hold sequences and face climbed with smooth deliberate progress.
He never backed down or even looked down.
That’s when it started to rain!
Not water, but, white sandstone mushrooms!
Every time he unweighted a hold to move to the next one it fell away!
I was terrified by the fact that he hadn’t placed a single protection placement for a very long time.
The dynamics of a leader fall from that far out would have ripped my belay anchors right out of the rock.
Every hold that he unweighted dislodged and to make matters worse he was nearly out of rope.
It seemed the he was way past half rope since he placed a piece.
At one point the thought of untying from the rope crossed my mind.
I held on in stupefied silence for what seemed like a long time to me. Finally I heard him say that he was off belay.
I didn’t even ask what the belay anchor was like. I just pulled the gear and started climbing.
The same thing happened as I climbed but a lot sooner. Each hold that I used popped from the face as I unweighted it all the way to the belay ledge!
He had found some cracks for a belay so I was protected while seconding that pitch. We found good rappel anchors for the decent.

Around the fire that night I asked if John if he minded calling the route, “Toxic Shroom Syndrome”.

taorock

Trad climber

Okanogan, WA

Nov 22, 2010 - 06:48pm PT

My old friend o-man has inspired me to add a Gambler story.

In the late nineties I was doing alright on the ever increasing stock market. I had got to know John as an Arizonan and he was very curious about trading. It was around the time that the stock high tech bubble burst and John was putting up routes at the Homestead.

He queried me for what I knew, set it aside and then got into the bear market as a short trader. From all accounts (his own and others) he excelled at it. I think it fascinated him the same as gambling. He loved to tread in a down market.

That sort of trading is not dissimilar from your disintegrating hold story Olaf.

RIP John and condolences to family and friends.

Brent

TGT

Social climber

So Cal

Nov 22, 2010 - 07:06pm PT

Some time in the 90's a climber hitched a ride with us from the LA area to Vegas/ RR. A friend of mine at the time was day trading for a living and had gotten me into reading a couple of books on technical analysis. We had a long really insightful conversation on the subject during the long drive. This guy also spoke of making a living at gambling for a while. We were a fairly large group and he may have climbed with some of our bunch, but I think Ed and I had our own agenda and we split off from the rest of the group. I don't remember climbing anything with him.

Can't remember for sure, but in some of the photos he looks vaguely familiar, and there can't be to many climber/pro gamblers out there.

Ever since the first disappearance posts I've wondered if our passenger was John.

ydpl8s

Trad climber

Santa Monica, California

Nov 24, 2010 - 01:00pm PT

I was told that there was a profile on John, that I've never seen, in a back issue of Climbing. I looked it up and it looks like it is in issue #174 from March of 98. Does anyone have this in their stash? I'd love to read it.