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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 17, 2007 - 07:54pm PT
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Yes, Jeff, that was so far back in time we were still hammering in those soft, silver Simond knife-blades. They were virtually impossible to get out, because they conformed to the inside of the crack. They were great pitons, though. Kor loved them. You could put one in a tiny rurp crack, just by the tip, and it would be bomber. They were great behind thin, loose flakes, not hard enough steel to pry the flake off. I still have visions of some of Kor's upsidedown Simond knifeblades under one of those roof routes... They never pulled out on you like those inferior Chouinard pitons invented later by those wierd guys in California...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 17, 2007 - 07:58pm PT
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Thanks for the story Oli. Route names are usually a mixed bag of meaning, whimsy and outright absurdity which makes the question worth asking.
Eldorado cracks are anything but granite-like, so those soft iron noodles make total sense. Besides, if they held Kor's weight, you had to like your chances.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 17, 2007 - 08:22pm PT
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A little more photo flavor from Glenn Randall's Vertigo Games 1983. Skip Guerin barefooting it on Wendego.
Still makes me wince at the thought...
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Jun 18, 2007 - 08:40am PT
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A few years ahead of his time ... Roger Briggs attempts Wendego, mid-70s. Note the complete absence of chalk.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 18, 2007 - 10:54pm PT
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I taught that kid Briggs how to climb, and he thanked me by freeing some of my routes.
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Jun 19, 2007 - 12:43am PT
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great pic Chiloe - thanks
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 19, 2007 - 01:33am PT
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It's one thing to climb up that first little dihedral to the start of the big one. My grandmother could do that. The next thirty feet, though, are pretty stiff.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 19, 2007 - 11:11am PT
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Ahh those nice clean and capable hands! Compare and contrast. Eldo is the reason that I quit using chalk in the early seventies. Birdshit covered buckets everywhere on that beautiful stone, even back then. Steve Antel, if you are out there, you created a monster by suggesting the clean alternative to me early on.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 19, 2007 - 12:58pm PT
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In many places Eldorado does pretty well washing the chalk away, or keeping it relatively undiscernible on those faces that are open to the rain. Under the roofs, though, as with Wendego or the roof routes, the rain doesn't reach in there very well. I have always endorsed a colored chalk. There could easily be various colors, choose one to match the route. Red, as with the Wendego dihedral, so that the chalk isn't so offensive. No one cared to follow up, I guess. Yosemite's white rock is great for chalk, though the darker rock is equally bad as Eldorado red for holding the chalk all over holds... Could there be a darker or gray chalk for that rock?
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 19, 2007 - 12:58pm PT
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I was, of course, joking about Roger Briggs. There is one who deserves a thread. He was one of the true Colorado stonemasters. Try his route Higher Wisdom sometime. Some really solid 5.11 climbers I know said they couldn't make an upward move on it with a tight top rope, and it was horrifyingly scary, and they couldn't even find ways to make any kind of move upward... I think I might have taught the kid a little too well.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 20, 2007 - 12:19am PT
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I didn't think that Briggs could rise any higher in my estimation and whammo, no chalk too. Amazing! Any idea how long he stayed clean handed?
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 20, 2007 - 03:18am PT
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I never saw him without chalk, after it came out (Gill and I were the guilty ones, to introduce it, in the mid '60s). So probably about a minute past this photo of him there on Wendego Roger was digging into the bag... (not to disillusion you, he is still one of the great ones).
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 20, 2007 - 03:22am PT
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P.S. -- I never thought of being without chalk as "clean handed." In fact, in bouldering, just one person trying a certain route without chalk could ruin that route. The slime, grease, and sweat of such a person's hands would get all over the holds. I saw lots of routes on Flagstaff ruined by people trying them without chalk. The chalk, I found, served as a protection to the rock, as much as to make the holds more usable, though we all agree it can be a little unsightly at times, especially in those places where the rain doesn't reach the rock to wash it off...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 20, 2007 - 11:29am PT
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As I said earlier, Roger is stratospheric in my book, birdshit or not. Curiously, when I would go bouldering, I would take along a trash towel and water bottle to clean off the holds, especially the footholds. People were so tunnel vision about chalk that you would see them chalking up their shoes! Having trouble, use more chalk! That mindset is why the stuff became an eyesore. No thought about the wider impact or aesthetics, all collapses into immediate need. I had no interest in adding to the mess personally and so gave it up.
Arizona had a strong no chalk ethic among the Syndicato Granitica old guard so I was in keeping with tradition by adopting their leave no trace stance.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Jun 20, 2007 - 11:58am PT
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Quite a visual contrast, looking back at those Wendego photos ca. 1983 with its pre-chalk state ca. 1975!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 20, 2007 - 12:08pm PT
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Character assasination and little left to the imagination. Just where the chalk deposits were supposed to go in a rainstorm has always been a mystery to me as a chemist.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Jun 20, 2007 - 06:17pm PT
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Another scene from the time before chalk: Roger Briggs attempting a first free ascent of South Crack on the Maiden, 1974.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 20, 2007 - 06:41pm PT
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That isn't the "time before chalk." You just don't see it there on the rock in that photo, because that's an open face, and it washes off pretty well. Roger is using it there, I can assure you. Chalk use started with Gill in the early '60s and then me in the mid 1960s. Roger certainly picked it up quickly and liked it.
I don't really disagree with you Steve, in principle, though you make me feel like such a scum bag for using chalk.
I think I was always sensitive, and more so than most, to the environment and to aesthetics. A certain spirit people leave in a climbing area has always been more offensive to me than chalk. Indeed much of what is ugly in the world or in climbing is not visible to the eye. It's always been a compromise for me. We could quickly ruin all the climbs by having the masses climb them with sweaty, greasy hands, or let the chalk buildup be an unsightly layer of protection. I'm not sure what ultimately is right or the best course, but wouldn't it be great if one of the mega-rich companies could do some research and find a way to put a chalk into the climbing world that was invisible? I don't believe it's impossible.
In the meantime I agree that we all could do so much better at eliminating these chalky lines of holds, etc. That's one reason I tried hard for a while to get colored chalk going, but it didn't take, in part because in Eldorado, for example, the rock changes so many different colors, you'd need ten chalk bags.
Erickson used to criticize everyone for chalk use, until he finally succumbed to the reality that he could climb a lot better with it. Often ambition, greed, ego, etc. win out in the climbing world...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 21, 2007 - 12:05am PT
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I moved up to the Northwest in 1987 and started using it again after climbing indoors. I used to needle folks extensively on the matter and fortunately little residual vitriol beyond a good ribbing ever came of it. I did get my commupance, however, when Steve Quinlan gave me and my little bag a long and pitying look before declaring "I've never chalked at Indian Creek." Pause...."Okay, okay, back to the old way," I replied in mock humiliatiion before we both bust up laughing. Gotcha, gotcha good.
Oli- you might be amused to hear that I tried to get a very young Christian Griffith to forsake his chalkbag. He was camping in Camp Four with his parents who had clearly brought him to climb. We had an interesting chat about chalk and its effects but he really wanted to know about Valley 5.10's above all. I could tell by his frequent blinking that I wasn't undoing his tutoring on leading Eldo 5.10's at thirteen or fourteen years old. We both have a good laugh when it comes up.
I always liked the puzzle and discovery of clean stone and tried my best to leave it that way. But Boulder was full of climbers even back in the early seventies and chalk use has never slowed. Bigger fish to fry these days in the area of route preservation.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 21, 2007 - 04:16am PT
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Christian became my "student" or protege, or whatever, when he was 14. I took him up lots of 5.9-ish stuff, and he was fast becoming very skillful. I think his first serious lead was at age 14 when I let him try a short new route I had spotted on the south wall of the lower ramp. He ran it out, in part out of fear, and was so overwhelmed by the head (adrenaline) rush he could hardly anchor properly to bring me up. It was a serious little lead, I think named (by him) Zombies on the Lookout. Within a year's time he started following 5.10 and probably leading a few. I would take him to Flagstaff and lift him up to feel the holds. Little did I imagine how strong he was to become later, as he grew more than a foot and thinned out...
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