Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2014 - 06:20pm PT
|
Hey folks,
I am going to engage in a detailed discussion with Lee Harrell about Big Rock history pretty soon and he asked me if I had any good shots of the various formations or an aerial shot so that he can touch on doing some of the more obscure satellite routes here as best he can remember them.
If anyone has aerial photos or good perspective shots please post them up or let me know where to find them to make our discussion as productive as possible.
Thanks for the help. This should be really fun and I will report the findings right here so that we can see what comes of it.
Cheers!
|
|
PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
|
|
|
Apr 10, 2014 - 07:39pm PT
|
Sorry Steve, no aerial shots.
Thanks for all your work getting this historical stuff recorded.
|
|
Pat Merrill
climber
Idaho
|
|
I did the topo sometime in the late '60's from a 35mm slide that I projected on a large sheet of paper. I drew in the existing routes, but I didn't rate them. Barry Briggs stuck it up on the back wall at Highland Outfitters in Riverside.
The only route I'm responsible for (guilty of) was Cheap Thrills, an excuse to try out Warren Harding's bat hooks. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
|
|
PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
|
|
Pat Merrill!!
No way dude! When did you get clued into Super Topo?
Good to see your off the farm enough to find your computer.
Hope you didn't mind me making your topo available.
The kid in action!
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - May 6, 2014 - 05:43pm PT
|
Welcome Pat and nice job on the topo!
Since we are trying to put names with as many of these routes as possible, who was your partner?
Do you remember personnel on any of the routes that went up while you were climbing here?
I will post a route list in the OP and we will see how many routes are accounted for thus far.
|
|
johntp
Trad climber
socal
|
|
Where is/was the nose? Spent a lot of time playing at Big Rock in the early-mid 80s but don't recall this route. Was it taken out for the dam construction?
|
|
PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
|
|
Yes, johntp, it was blasted into dust when they built the damn.
This is Keith's picture of the Nose
|
|
Keith Leaman
Trad climber
|
|
Phil, that's me on the 5.9 "Runny Nose". The 5.11 "Roman Nose" was slightly left, and the 5.11X "Sickle" went up the dark streak to the right.
It's clear from Dave Kos' link above, and from personal observation, that most of the "Nose" formation is still there. Here's an aerial view from that link. It was the "White Delight" formation that got blasted to smithereens.
The water level appears to cover the base at times, though. I went back there last summer and could see the thing from the fence. Note, I did not go through the hole in the fence which leads directly to the top of the "Nose", nor did I go to a formation which looks a lot like the old "Trapeze" boulder. :^)
VVVV Phil, don't you have a photo of the "White Delight"? It had that pure white rhomboid shape at the belay. Good to see your post Pat!!
|
|
PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
|
|
Interesting. I was sure the Nose was destroyed.
I stand corrected.
|
|
neversummer
climber
30 mins. from suicide USA
|
|
Mr. Grossman,
I live really close to B.R if you need any photos snapped i'd be willing to get a few for ya....pm me here if you're interested.
Jimmy
|
|
Pat Merrill
climber
Idaho
|
|
It may have been Kent Rose, also from Claremont, who was with me on Cheap Thrills. But I'm not positive.
Hi Sarge! That's quite the picture: blue knicker socks to match the blue suede shoes. And look, he's got hair! Wow, Big Rock is so much steeper than I remember.
I remember one day a bunch of us were in Jack Schnurr's van drinking beer and listening to his 8 track tape when somebody thought it would be a good idea to climb up to the ledge. So we're all crowded on the ledge hooting and hollering like fools, and this older guy belaying his wife on the Trough asked us to lower the volume. Jack started to give this guy a bunch of crap, and the guy responded, when I recognized him as Tom Frost. It took a moment for this new information to penetrate Jack's beer soaked head; a few seconds of shocked silence, and then the back peddling and apologies from all of us as we sheepishly vacated our perch.
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
I started climbing in 69 or 70 and got into it because a friend since elementary school who was then attending Harvey Mudd' had been conned into Andy Embick's "climbing club" that was really a way to con wheels to Tahquitz.
The main road to Hemet at the time had just been detoured from it's original course directly up the valley that would become the lake and there were no fences yet, just a couple of standard barricades across the closed road.
We both had motorcycles, He a Kawasaki 350 and I a Yamaha 350 two stroke.
The closed road became our drag strip. His Kawi had the power to weight ratio and would always out accelerate me off the line, but I always beat him to the crag as his shorter coupled bike would get scarey squirrely at about 120mph.
The only other people I ever remember seeing there included a guy that was starting up leading the trough with his swami tied around a plaster body cast. Other than that we always had the place to ourselves and were only interrupted once.
I was about half way up one of the problems on the Trappeze boulder when the CHP showed up.
He demanded that I, "get down from there"
My reply was that the only way down was up.
He was fortunately ok with that and we got off with just a stern warning not to come back.
|
|
PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
|
|
Great story Pat.
Big Rock was a great place to act wild, and Jack sure was a wild dude in those days.
By-the-way that picture is on Sentinel. Grandmothers' in tennis shoes free solo that route these days.
|
|
Pat Merrill
climber
Idaho
|
|
Yeah, that's what I thought, the knickers disappeared after that 1st summer. The hair lasted a bit longer.
Hi Keith, it's really interesting to find out what directions you all took after the Big Rock days.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - May 8, 2014 - 10:25pm PT
|
Thanks for the offer Jimmy.
I will see what works for Lee when I chat with him in a couple of days.
|
|
Keith Leaman
Trad climber
|
|
Steve~ All our best to Lee if you see him.
Pat~ Hope Idaho is treating you well. On page 2 of this thread I listed my best recollection of who did what at BR. Do you remember who did:
K- Boogaloo
L- Wedunett
P- Pudnurtle
R- Mind Bender
S- African Flake
I always wondered what the route looked like that Haney and Barker did high on the hillside north of the road, ca 1970. They may have placed one bolt? I heard it was 5.9 and run out friction and edging. Thanks to Kos' link I cut a screen shot of the crag's west buttress. Anyone else hear about this route?
Here's another overview of the area.
In the seven years that we climbed there (1964-1970) we found myriad boulder problems on every aspect of the hillsides, like the ones perched on the upper slabs.
Looking back fifty years, as Lee commented recently, who would have thought that Big Rock would become so popular. But that's what we thought about other places like Holcomb, Lake Arrowhead Pinnacles, Rubidoux, Horse Flats etc...
|
|
rmuir
Social climber
From the Time Before the Rocks Cooled.
|
|
|
May 10, 2014 - 10:50am PT
|
Ours is a small and incestuous circle of climbers, Pat. Kent Rose did my taxes for twenty-five years or more here in Claremont and, though I knew that he had done some climbing BITD, he never spent much time talking of it.
My first trip to Big Rock was within a few weeks of my arrival in Riverside to attend UCR in September, 1970. I learned of Big Rock from Paul Gleason at Highland Outfitters, and I was keen to check out the area. Back before the dam, the dirt road headed smack-dab through the center of the eventual lake. An obvious right turn took us up to a nice clustering of pepper trees below the face, and there was a much more substantial hike up to the base of the climbing. (Well, 'substantial' is a relative term…)
Do I accurately remember tables scattered among the trees? Cars and trucks were casually parked among the trees, picnic lunches were laid out, and there were some pretty cool boulders down there including the excellent Rings boulder. Now, only the very top of that boulder is down at your ankles—and if you know where to look, you can just see the upper bit of the upper ring.
The drive from Riverside was pretty casual, and it was common to head out there in the afternoons and climb until the the sun set into the much too thick smog. It was a place to go if you wanted some roped climbing when bouldering at Rubidoux wasn't enough and Tahquitz was too much of a day. Lots of challenging slab routes could be found that eventually were transformed into crazy and casual third class hikes. I do recall, early on, watching (in amazement) as a wild-haired Phil Gleason—just back from forty days in the desert wilderness out near Amboy—was soloing everything in sight. Rat Crack and Edger Sanction became warm-up boulder problems before the flaking of the ropes…
During the construct of the dam, the area was closed, but we continued to trespass our way in there. I recall hitting Big Rock several times on the way home from Idyllwild; the approach trail was pretty well-established by then, though the snakes were worthy of attention.
When entrance to the area was once again permitted, the Powers That Be instituted some lame-ass system of checking for climbing competence before we could tie in. One of the better stories was when a few Stonemasters arrived for an official inspection, and out poured we scruffians from a panel truck chockablock with climbing crap. Someone pulled a spatula from the van and hung in from the rack, convincing the most uncertain of officers that it was, indeed, a serious essential for the climber's craft. A few expert knots were tied to show that we knew our stuff, and we were on our way.
|
|
Pat Merrill
climber
Idaho
|
|
|
May 10, 2014 - 10:55am PT
|
Keith, it seems to me that I named the route "Boogaloo" for the topo, but that it was already there. That doesn't help with the FA, just one more bit of historical trivia.
|
|
Pat Merrill
climber
Idaho
|
|
|
May 10, 2014 - 11:10am PT
|
Robs, I met Kent through my wife, as they were friends in high school. He came to the Valley in the spring of '70; the climbers were in Camp 11 (?) across the river from the family camp. He had a monster bag of institutional pancake mix, and gallons of syrup. It was horrible stuff, but we ate it for weeks.
A small world indeed: Marty Roberts is my nephew, and a better climber than I ever dreamed of being.
|
|
mooser
Trad climber
seattle
|
|
|
May 10, 2014 - 11:37am PT
|
Pat - in all the years I climbed at Big Rock (roughly '75-'85), Cheap Thrills was one of my faves.
Keith - loving all the photos, and the big picture perspectives they offer!
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!