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hashbro
Trad climber
Not in Southern California
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Dr. F, I urge you to take a very deep breath or BVB will ask all of us what tiara we are wearing.
These events you mention were far too long ago for me to remember , and besides which I personally don't care. Go ahead, steal my route, just don't make me live in Orange county again.
Shall we have a group hug now?
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Latitute 33
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Now back to your regularly scheduled reality...
I'm off to Mussypotamia -- just your normal drug addled crowd over there.
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de eee
Mountain climber
Tustin
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Whew! Thanks Mike, things were getting tense!
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Oddchick? Wingnut? Strangechick? Freakazoid?
Trad climber
Pollack Pines
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Dec 17, 2007 - 12:51pm PT
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I heard that a group of ex-stonemasters had started a new website. The rumors flying by suggested the site was sorta "alternative."
Is this true?
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graham
Social climber
Ventura, California
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Dec 17, 2007 - 02:04pm PT
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There’s no alternative to Super Topo but feel free visit and join. Everybody has a story and we want to hear it. We’ve been collecting some good ones
The Stonemaster Site
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 24, 2008 - 12:16am PT
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bumping this thread so folks post here instead of the recently bumped part 6
Post up masterstoners!
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Jul 24, 2008 - 03:46am PT
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When are the shorts coming out?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 16, 2013 - 01:15am PT
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bump
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Leeper
Sport climber
San Diego
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Feb 27, 2014 - 03:07pm PT
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I started climbing in 1956 in the mission gorge area. I was just reading over some of the posts and saw some old friends names.
I just wanted to post that Thomas Compare passed away January, 2014. He was living in Seattle. He put on the very first Great western bouldering championships when he owned A Striving After Wind climbing store in P.B. he also had several first ascents in the 70's as well. I do not know if he is remembered or not, but he was part of the climbing scene in that time frame.
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Feb 27, 2014 - 04:58pm PT
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Oh, I remember Tom, though he was more legendary elder than member of our unruly bunch a decade younger than he was. I bought my first "real" harness at A Striving After Wind, a green seat belt webbing swami that was a step up from the old bowline on a coil. I'm sorry to hear of his passing, seems a little early to me. Never Intended was a brutally hard TR at the Gorge, and though Waiting For Bruce only gets one star on Mountain Project, I thought it was more entertaining than that. I think we came up there later the same day Tom put that one up and got to do an early repeat.
Edited to add a photo (cause everyone loves a photo) of Your Lead circa 1977, a fair representation of those days, crackly memory included as special effect. Compare's Waiting for Bruce is just to the left.
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goatboy smellz
climber
लघिमा
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Feb 27, 2014 - 05:15pm PT
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graham
Social climber
Ventura, California
Dec 17, 2007 - 11:04am PT
There’s no alternative to Super Topo but feel free visit and join. Everybody has a story and we want to hear it. We’ve been collecting some good ones
The Stonemaster Site
$78 bucks for pants?
$28 for a t-shirt?
That is obnoxious.
Bring back the $30 Gramicci shorts and maybe I'll buy climbing specific clothes again.
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Feb 27, 2014 - 05:20pm PT
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Its small output domestic clothing production, of course its not priced like low quality goods sewn by underage workers in oppressive regime countries, which is what you have come to consider normal. It's not obnoxious, its just the facts. Have you ever tried to make a living sewing clothing? I have, and there's a reason I'm a general contractor now.
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Leeper
Sport climber
San Diego
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Feb 28, 2014 - 12:50pm PT
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Joshua Johnson:
I climbed in the Mission Gorge area twice at different times. The first time was in the late 50’s around 1956 to 1960. I found an old climbing guide that Werner Landry published in 1973 and it had a lot of names that I remembering from the 50’s. I was very young and could not join the Serra Club climbing section but they let me hang around and climb with tem. I grew up in Coronado and there were several climber living there at that time. They would let me catch a ride out to the Gorge when ever they had a climbing get together. They let me take the then required climbing test to be a member of the group. The test climb was on the Stairs a 5.3, I had to climb it as a lead and install pitons that would be tested by one of the members who would climb and clean the route.
Now remember the best shoe we used were old basket ball high tops a size or tow small. They worked ok back then. Some of the guys had fancy climbing boots as well.
One of the most remediable get together was the weeks end we all got together in Coronado at Bud Bernard’s shop that was then down by the old ferry landing. We spent the entire weekend making pitons and angles for the first accent of Half Dome that Jerry Gallwas, Mike Sherrick and Royal Robins were planning (1957). It was Omar Conger who showed me how to use the forge and shape the pitons. What a great time for a troubled teenager. I remember shaping a piton that had a lot like a spoon and Jerry looked at it and told me to make a bunch more just like it. So my only claim to fame is that I may have some old hand made pitons still in place on Half Dooms front face. Back then we made almost all of or own gear.
I came back to the gorge in the 70’s, I was just hiking up to sit and remember things from the past and ran into Marty Warner and his friends. We talked about my old times for awhile and they invited me to give it a go again. So I came into a much changed world of climbing. I really liked the no piton use rule and I began to make my own chocks and nuts. We used to go to Tahquitz and or Joshua Tree almost every weekend it was fun climbing in both of those spots. I think that I stopped climbing when Thomas left for Seattle to find a different style of life and Marty left for Arizona to work and climb. I know that he did a lot of first accents, but I can not find any record of him. In those days we just climbed with out regard for first or 100th accent. I know that I did several first accent, but who cares it was all about the climb.
I have gone on way to long, so I will just finish up with this page of words all started because I lost a very good friend and climbing partner and was just in a remembering mood. I can only wish for all you young climbers to find as much friendships and good times as I remember, when you are 74 years old.
Belay Off
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Leeper
Sport climber
San Diego
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Feb 28, 2014 - 02:07pm PT
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Off White:
Thanks for remembering Thomas, I do not think that there are to many folks left in the area who would remember him. He worked very hard to make his climbing shop a success, but there were two other big sporting goods stores that also carried climbing gear. Stanley Anderson down town and the A16 El Cajon store. That is a really great picture I like that it is in black and white it sets an old time mood.
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henny
Social climber
The Past
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Feb 28, 2014 - 02:30pm PT
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I have gone on way to long
No, I don't think so.
I find posts like that great reading, so much better than the standard nonsense on this site. There are many of us who are interested in exactly this sort of thing. After all, the past did influence what the present is. Those of us who have an interest in the history of climbing also like hearing the experiences and observations of those before us.
I would love to see a picture of one of the spoon shaped pins. Great stuff to hear about. I can relate to that in a small way, I remember spending time in my shop class making my own passive gear. Funny how there are some aspects of the climbing experience that seem to completely transcend any given generation.
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Feb 28, 2014 - 03:12pm PT
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Leeper, I'm with Henny, you haven't gone on too long at all. This sort of real historical connection to the folks who were actually there is the most important piece of Supertopo for me, capturing first hand reports from ephemeral essentially underground history is difficult, and this site is a repository for a lot of that. Thank you so much for your posts, and I can only wish I'd met you back when I lived down there and got your stories in person.
The Stairs was in my experience the first lead for anyone at the Gorge, and I had a peculiar Ny-Chock nylon nut on webbing, sort of like a larger peck nut made out of black plastic, that was the perfect piece to place as you moved around the arete to the left on that route. Memory is fuzzy, but I think its likely that was my first lead too, circa early 1974.
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