Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2012 - 01:22am PT
|
I enjoyed this topic. A lot of mutual respect, a lot of respect for the climbers who did it with minimal or less-than-perfect style, too.
Clint, you are one dedicated didactator (I like the word), keeping up with the current, looking under rocks for the past.
Pat, I just finished a novel by Alice Adams titled Almost Perfect this week. Too bad the title is taken.
It is not hard to be honest with yourself. To take it to the limit and then admit you could have improved, that's positive.
Having said that, I thought you were kind of a jerk, an egg-head intellectual who knew it all. Total misread on my part.
Thanks for schooling us.
Alice Adams rocks, too. The one I read that got me started on her was, get this, Second Chances, about a group of senior citizens remembering the past.
So many coincidences, so few brain cells left to appreciate them.
|
|
phylp
Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 26, 2012 - 10:01am PT
|
Jstan, I see this thread as being about celebration, not competition.
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2012 - 03:50pm PT
|
P:
According to the thread title, we are focussing here only on climbs that were at one time the hardest in the US. Which is absurd on the face of it. Despite the YDS there is no way actually to quantify difficulty. At the minimum the difficulty that is experienced will vary from person to person.
If the OP had started by saying the author "has a fixation on this topic and thinks others share this quirk and would like to speculate mentally", I'd have no comment.
I could understand a thread about the hardest thing I ever did. There are 5.3's out there that would be pretty stiff if covered with verglas and off which there was no retreat. Those kinds of things
are real.
That stuff is on the trip reports. Cool.
In any event people are interested in whatever they are interested in.
Carry on.
|
|
klk
Trad climber
cali
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2012 - 09:45pm PT
|
According to the thread title, we are focussing here only on climbs that were at one time the hardest in the US. Which is absurd on the face of it. Despite the YDS there is no way actually to quantify difficulty. At the minimum the difficulty that is experienced will vary from person to person.
which is why the thread quickly became a list of short, difficult technical rock climbing routes which is one of the styles of climbing most subject to quantification.
and it's a good thing that we are concentrating on US climbs, because if we concentrated on short, technical rock climbs in a global context, there's only about two decades in which us climbs would appear on the list. i shudder to imagine what that would do to the self-esteem of the nationalists on board.
but it's fun as a drinking game-- like who was the greatest quarterback or what was the best single-malt ever?
|
|
mike m
Trad climber
black hills
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2012 - 10:00pm PT
|
The first known ascent of Devils Tower by any method occurred on July 4, 1893, and is accredited to William Rogers and Willard Ripley, local ranchers in the area. They completed this first ascent after constructing a ladder of wooden pegs driven into cracks in the rock face. Bad ass by anyones standard of the day.
Certainly one of the boldest most audacious ascents done before 1900.
What about ice? Green Gulley in MT in the 60s.
|
|
ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2012 - 10:01pm PT
|
Dance of the Woo-Li Masters is pretty hard, I hear
NW Face of Devils Thumb is 2 legit 2 kwit
|
|
Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2012 - 10:14pm PT
|
...or what was the best single-malt ever?
Thank God I can at least get one right.
Curt
|
|
klk
Trad climber
cali
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2012 - 10:15pm PT
|
^^^not until you can bribe yr way into the tasting of the shackleton's reserve.
|
|
TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
|
|
|
Apr 27, 2012 - 12:47am PT
|
In the late 1950s in Yosemite, the East Chimney of Rixon's Pinnacle was an often attempted challenge for the valley 5.9er regulars. The understanding in Camp 4 was that it would be the first 5.10 in the valley once it was freed. Roper's 1964 red cover guide credits Royal and Dave Rearick with the first free ascent in 1960. Royal recently told me he first took a long fall nearly to the ground while attempting a variation left on the lower section. I freed the next ascent of the climb belayed by Margaret Young; and then later in the season led it again belayed by Frank Sacherer, watched by Chuck Pratt and other valley regulars. At the time, Frank told me the first free ascent had actually been done by Yvon Chouinard, late on a moonlit night after they ran out of wine in Camp 4. Royal may have understandably figured that a gallon of cheap wine constitutes direct aid; especially as Yvon was later not able to repeat the route...lol
|
|
skadder
Big Wall climber
Rio Oso
|
|
|
Sep 25, 2012 - 04:12pm PT
|
Patrick, It sounds more like bragging than a history lesson. climbers today have better equipment so you wouldn't have any idea of how it felt climbing with "gold line" rope, etc. Every sport evolves. In 1968, hanging from the West Face, Sentinel, did I ever think someone would free climb El Cap The equipment doesn't deminish the effort and will of the climber. We don't need climbing critic's. If I need to be saved off the top, personally I don't care how you get there to do it. Bottom line, you climb within your skill level, no shame in that, as long as you can cover my back and hold me on a fall. Climbing isn;t sophisticated, you take the shorted cleanest path to the top.
On belay, Climbing
Skadder
|
|
donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
|
|
|
Sep 25, 2012 - 04:15pm PT
|
What do you mean by hardest climb? Technical difficulty, fear factor or a combination of both....do you mean a single move, pitch or multi pitch?
|
|
phylp
Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 25, 2012 - 07:44pm PT
|
The magic 100! Thanks, Jim, that was generous of you, seeing that my thread was SOOOO close and taking me to the next level!
It's a silly thread, of course. There's no way of comparing these things and it's meaningless to do so. But people seem to have fun talking about how hard this or that is, and I think there is some historical value looking at the topic. Clint's list (and others who added their stories and perspective) provide a starting point for learning about how all kinds of climbing have evolved.
Phyl
|
|
Alan Rubin
climber
Amherst,MA.
|
|
|
Sep 27, 2012 - 12:32pm PT
|
Though I know that this topic drives Donini and others crazy, in the spirit of the OP, and those of us who are interested in such trivia, I have another contribution to Clint's list. The guidebook to cragging in the Jackson Hole area rates Gill's Crack on Blacktail Butte, SOLOED by the Master in 1959, at 5.11 b/c.The guidebook mentions that John likely soloed other even harder routes on the crag that have now been lost to history. This is true of other contemporaneous routes that John put up on Disappointment Peak in the Tetons, at Devil's Lake, in the Needles, and elsewhere. I'm sure---maybe he'll post-up to confirm or deny--that to him he was just "playing around" when he did these climbs. Still this climb, and those now lost, were incredible achievements by an amzing climber.
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
|
Sep 27, 2012 - 01:54pm PT
|
Thank you, Alan. But I don't remember those climbs on Blacktail well enough to confirm them for Clint's list.I visited the butte a number of times in the late 1950s, with Yvon Chouinard, Bob Kamps, Dave Rearick and others and did a few hard moves there, sometimes solo, but it's just as well we leave the documentation to later generations that firmly established routes there.
;>)
|
|
slabbo
Trad climber
fort garland, colo
|
|
|
Sep 27, 2012 - 02:55pm PT
|
if Alan says it's documented,, then it must be ! I think he invented the guide book.
Cheers to you all !
John
|
|
hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
|
|
|
Sep 27, 2012 - 03:56pm PT
|
"but I don't remember those climbs ... well enough ... i visited with ...
and others and did a few hard moves ... sometimes solo, but it's just as well
we leave ... to later generations that ... ;>) "
that's a quote i could try on with eerie satisfaction. like rattling around in
the old man's shoes ... or "dancing" with ma, little bare feet atop hers.
no really, there's a template of humility so sincere that
it aptly frames a lifelong string of feats extraordinaire
|
|
SeaClimb
climber
|
|
|
Sep 27, 2012 - 05:21pm PT
|
Alan Watts' ascent of East Face of Monkey Face has to be up there somewhere...
|
|
donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
|
|
|
Sep 27, 2012 - 08:35pm PT
|
Soloing on Blacktail Butte, especially in 1959, is not trivial- way crimpy.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!