A Day in Eldo! .......plus: A Visit With Sibley

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Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 11, 2007 - 12:46pm PT

So on to the hole at the back of the house.

Prior to Chiloe and I having our climb, I had Paul on the phone to try to get him to go out with us. He said he’d be too busy doing some renovations to his house. (Gabe has been in a college program, working on his doctorate in robotics and hasn't been living in the house for a few years now). So upon our arrival, of course, we see Paul in the big digger getting after it!

It happens that the house’s rear wall is abutted to a very large slab of sandstone and it is through the back wall and into that sandstone that the cave’s hollow was formed. So Paul, along with an "expert" demolition crew, had developed a strategy for blowing off the cave's roof, so that they could calve the edges of the cave away and produce a nice open building space behind the house.

“Okay boys, we'll drill a bunch of holes in the roof of the cave, so that when we blow the cave, the weak point will be the lid.” So far so good. Yup.

So they proceed with that plan, set their charges. In fact, they decided to do a test and began with what they estimated to be a very light charge. But first, Paul did a very nice job of sealing up the cave door so that no dust from the blast would filter into Gabe's room. First, he bolted the door securely. Next he further shored up the door with dimensional lumber. Then carefully and sensitively he sealed the whole thing with clear plastic sheet and taped all the edges to keep the fine silt from blowing through the cracks.

Well, you can see what was coming: that old sandstone is a strange stuff of unpredictable composition, as you can try to chip it with a shovel, hack away at it as you like and it just sort of crumbles into sand. But you can drill all the holes in it you want and then try to blow it up and the material just won't budge.

So after their test, the cave's roof stood strong, with myriad little drill holes sprouting shafts of light, while the door of the cave was blown off its hinges, and it lay across the other side of Gabe's room, leaving the bedroom filled with dirt, rubble, and settling dust. One of the side walls of the house may have been compromised...

Gabe's cousin, a nice young teenage gal, happened to be staying in the room that week. Although she wasn't there for the blast, she did have her clothes neatly arranged in a suitcase, with the lid open, sitting nicely atop the bed.

So when the young girl came back to her uncle's house and saw these burly guys standing around the blast site scratching their heads, she went into the bedroom, looked in her suitcase and said to Paul:
“Golly Pablo, if you would have told me you were gonnah fill the room with dirt and rocks I would've shut my suitcase!!!”

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 11, 2007 - 01:25pm PT

Gabe, in his early teens, engaging his own project somewhere in Sibleyville:

Paul, back from Italy after the shooting of Stallone's "Cliffhanger"

Photo of Paul by Chiloe, early 70's, Rocky Mountain national Park:

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 11, 2007 - 01:47pm PT

Thanks Crowley.

Uh Oh, the boot thing again...
Not Super Guides, I once knew who made them and what they were called.
He had two pair: one for ice sized a little bit large and a tighter pair for rock.
Not Galibier, Trappeur, or Glockner...
Maybe Mollitor.

These are Super Guides,
Roy Boy in the Pacific NW at Goat Rocks on the slopes of Mount Adams in '76:

Oli

Trad climber

Fruita, Colorado

Aug 11, 2007 - 03:04pm PT

Sibley is a good man. I remember one day he and Bill Roos and I went up to Twin Owls to climb Twister. They had little experience at off-width or chimney type cracks, so they went along with doubts. I led the first pitch, which has a 5.10+, if I recall, or maybe 5.11-, move right at the bottom. I can still see Paul's sadistic little smile as he started up but immediately decided he would rather hang out at the bottom and enjoy the scenery. Roos, who I thought would never be able to do such a climb, followed right up, to my surprise, and also on up the big arching 5.10 crack above... Where is Roos these days, anyone know? He looked exactly like my grandfather, when he (Roos) was in his twenties... (I don't mean old, I mean facial likeness).

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 11, 2007 - 03:16pm PT

Varieties of Klettershoe

Kroenhoffer
Spider
Cortina
Galibier Calcair
Black Beauty
Zillertal
Voyager Directissima
Vasque Shoenard

What am I missing Oli?
What else were you edging about in during the 60s and early 70s?
Corrections and additions please…
Which of the above were made by Fabiano?

And what are these that Paul is prancing about in out in Eldorado?
(don't tell me Pivetta 8’s, because I see a rand...and not the later tan Shoenard)

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 11, 2007 - 03:22pm PT

Bill Roos was living in New York state working for Outward Bound the last five years.

He and his wife Janet are now living in his house out in Eldorado Canyon again:

A very young Billy:

(I just love this one of Billy as an impertinent youth)

bob d'antonio

Trad climber

Taos, NM

Aug 11, 2007 - 05:03pm PT

Tar...Black Beauty.

unimog

climber

windy corner in the west

Aug 12, 2007 - 12:39am PT

RoyBoy
you never cease to amaze my with what you dig out of the photo closet at you house in ClubNed.

Sasha

WBraun

climber

Aug 12, 2007 - 12:44am PT

Tar you outdid yourself on this one.

Damn fine thread .... a real beaut.

Sibley a fine man indeed. Worked with him on Star Trek V.

Oli

Trad climber

Fruita, Colorado

Aug 12, 2007 - 03:30am PT

Sibley is wearing the Chouinards, light variety, as opposed to the green variety, both horrible shoes, too stiff, no friction, not bad in Yosemite cracks or for aid slings... Climbers today should try a pair of those. A route would be four grades harder.

There were lots of shoes, but among the best during the '60s were R.D.s, a good edging shoe and not bad friction, good in cracks... Rich used them a lot, I used them. Gill used them... They didn't experience wide use, though. I can't recall what year the Robbins boot came out, very stiff good shoe for big aid walls, good in cracks, not very flexible, heavy, awkward... Some people thought they edged well and swore by them.

Great shots of Bill. Say hi to my old friend for me. I can't believe I lost touch with him. Stupid of me.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Aug 12, 2007 - 08:31am PT

wiclimber:
Nice pic. Morning Thunder?
Can you tell I love the "name that route" game?

I love that game too. In this case though, the route is Weevil's Walk.
Roger Briggs, whose name keeps coming up in this thread, is the climber (1974).

wiclimber

Trad climber

devil's lake, wi

Aug 12, 2007 - 09:38am PT

Thanks Chiloe. Interesting name, Weevil's Walk. Similar to Verner's Viggle :)

Perhaps Oliver would share his 1st ascent experience with us.

Greg Jacobson....never heard that name before.

Prod

Social climber

Charlevoix, MI

Aug 12, 2007 - 09:44am PT

Roy,

Great thread. Sibley is still a big kid isn't he... It's amazing how much stuff goes NOT as planned in Sibleyville or under Sibleyvision. I worked with him making doors and windows for Duncan Furgeson a long time ago. There was tons of Rube Goldberging happening back then, plus an occasional Sibley mission which usually lead to some minor bending of the law for the sake of "preserving history", or adding to the piles of sh#t behing the barn. Like the time he wanted/ tried to "Liberate" the sandstone man hole cover holders from Denver by Karls shop as the city was switching to concret ones....

Did he mention that I printed and sent him the thread about Sibleyville?

Hey Pat A,

Is there some rib joint in Fruita? I think a guy I used to guide with opened a rib place there a few years back.

Prod.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Aug 12, 2007 - 11:52am PT

Photo of Paul by Chiloe, early 70's, Rocky Mountain national Park:

The story behind this photo, coming soon. I gotta scan a few more photos showing how he got to the top of that mountain.

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 12, 2007 - 12:37pm PT

Scan 'em up!!!

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 12, 2007 - 12:38pm PT

Thank you very much for the complements everybody I'm glad you have been entertained by the show. I very much enjoy putting these together and I must say we climbers provide excellent material for the campfire tale.

Yes Oliver I am familiar with the RD, as my first climbing partner wore a pair on routes. They had those nice brown leather uppers and although built much like an EB they were probably of higher quality and quite a bit stiffer. Looking back, it is a bit surprising that with those RD's available people continued to climb in the clunkier Klettershoe style footwear.

I'm a bit of a romantic and if I could, I would own a good fitting pair of all of the historic Klettershoe, and I'd get out there and find out what they could do, partly to inform me as to the efficacy of the old tools, and more so to appreciate the particular experience with the routes of the day. Those pictures up thread of those gray shoes made by Vasque, the model I believe is Directissima and also the green Shoenard's: I take those out of on my local boulders from time to time, scurrying up steep grassy slopes and teetering about on the granitic edges.

Tools, like language, inform and shape experience and although I might be able to get part of the historic feel through using the old shoes, perhaps an even more important feature of the picture, which I would never be able to isolate for myself, would be the linguistic component; meaning the running narrative of times passed, which would include the level of the game to that point and likewise the notions available about what was possible to attain in terms of goals. To my mind this is what really describes, sustains, and contains the unique flavor of each generation’s timely internal experience on the stone.

426

Sport climber

Buzzard Point, TN

Aug 12, 2007 - 12:51pm PT

Nice post and thread there, Lamoyroy...

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Aug 12, 2007 - 01:19pm PT

Obviously Four Believers, V, 5.8, A4. FA 1967 by Mike Covington, John Marts, Rick Petrillo and Jim Standon.

Below, Paul Sibley approaching Spearhead in Rocky Mountain National Park, 1971.
We had our sights on the second ascent of Covington & company's route,
which climbs right side of the "Eye of Mordor" clearly visible above and right of Paul here.
Walls were bigger in those days, or seemed it.

Our bivy gear was a $4 plastic tube tent.