Wings of Steel

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couchmaster

climber

pdx

Jul 19, 2011 - 01:37pm PT

Thanks Couchmaster! You rock!

You're welcome Kaitb, the pleasure is all mine!

Ammons pic almost had me spraying coffee on my monitor, worthy of a repost!

Lastly, Werner, thanks for all the wisdom over the years.
Werners and Merrys dog

ps, has anyone preordered the next book yet? I hear that the working title is "Wings Of Steel part 2 : THE SH#T CONTINUES"

LOL! thanks all! (PS, per Werners suggestion, lighten up everyone)

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Jul 19, 2011 - 05:01pm PT

Yeah, you can claim it was all about the miracle and potential for 5.12 and above climbing and movement, but you'll excuse me if I can't help but suspect the out-of-the-gate popularity was way more about all those folks who were always nervous about leading on gear than about the potential for great advances in climbing.

I'd have to disagree with the above based on my experiences as someone who started climbing in the early 90s in Colo Front Range. The "sport climbs" in existence around here all seemed to be very difficult, somewhat runout by modern standards, and not really approachable to newbs. The bolt-every-few-feet, really 5.7 but call it 5.10, stuff came later, at least around here.

I didn't say the initial rush was about noobs, but instant crossovers from trad where I said they were nervous, not pussies - if they were they wouldn't have been climbing at all back then, but they at least were still sucking it up, dealing, and getting out. That's the deal, prior to sport there was a relatively high bar to climbing and you either sucked it up and dealt with leading on gear or you were out of climbing almost before you started; it definitely wasn't for everyone. If the data were available I bet you could plot the growth of the demographic against the average bolt density / spacing and they'd lay over each other like a glove.

And WoS influencing the transition to sport in any way? I think you guys overestimate the Valley's influence. Eldo, the Gunks, NC, Smith, and any other number of places were microcosms unto themselves and WoS never rose above the level of an amusing sideshow at best. The French v. Smith locals, Bachar v. Kauk? Now those had people sitting up taking notice by comparison.

Studly

Trad climber

Jul 19, 2011 - 05:14pm PT

Healyjoe, are you talking about nervous pussies again? Its ok dude, its ok. I'm glad an authority on the subject can elaborate on this little known problem.

StahlBro

Trad climber

San Diego, CA

Jul 19, 2011 - 06:10pm PT

Hey Couch,

Do you know the person Werner is talking to in the second picture. Looks like an old friend of mine.

tradmanclimbs

Ice climber

Pomfert VT

Jul 19, 2011 - 06:51pm PT

Joe is full of sh#t once again. The high bar of the good old days before spurt is just so much BS
In the good old days before spurt we had shoulder stands to get past those pesky bouldery cruxes, we had gobbs of easy routs where you could find most of the climbers weather it be Baxter Pinnacle, Chapple Pond Slab, High Exposure, The Flat Irons, standard rout on White Horse, Thin Air Old Man's rout, All those wiissner routs, etc Etc, Etc where you could find 95% of the climbers. A very few climbed harder routs.

Now thanks to feckin spurt climbers we have to pull the rope after every fall for our FA to count. back in the good old days you could lower from your high point and your partner could tie in and enjoy a TR to the high point gear, climb through and you still got the FFA. also thanks to feckin spurt climbers makeing eveyone train hard you have to wait in line on feckin 10's instead of just 5.5 and 5.6 like the good old days AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG..

PS. When I say Joe is full of sh#t I am refering to his ultra rigid interpretation of trad climbing and underlying resentment of sport climbing.

It's all spurt climbers fault :)

BASE1361

climber

Yosemite Valley National Park

Jul 19, 2011 - 07:28pm PT

Piss on me pile...... I was just told another nick name you have is "The Canadian ASSassin" and Pedophile Pete. Maybe you should interview yourself while drinking a hot cup of shut the f*#k up and let Ammon and KAIT speak.

Write about something you know about..... Like child porn???

couchmaster

climber

pdx

Jul 19, 2011 - 07:43pm PT

StahlBro said: Hey Couch,

Do you know the person Werner is talking to in the second picture. Looks like an old friend of mine.

Yes I do. I'm proud to know him. Real good guy, honest and extremely smart, very strong and technically proficient climber - for an older guy I mean. LOL): name is Andrew Trzynka. In the pic Werner and Merry had come over to do a lap on Sacherer Cracker and we talked after we'd gotten down. In this pic they are talking about some earlier collaboration or discussions they'd earlier had on some electronic thing. Andrew had designed and built an LED light a long time before I'd seen a commercial one made, maybe that was the talk dejour, but I don't remember: as I understand Werner is a pretty quick study on that kind of stuff too.

My only complaint on Andrew is that we don't climb together enough, this is my bad as I'm generally to lazy to call folks. But we've been climbing on and off some for maybe slightly less than 30 years, I've had nothing but great days with Andrew. He's the kind of guy that makes it seem sunny and fun even when the rain is pouring down.....

Is this the person you think he is? Need an email?

Mighty Hiker

climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Jul 20, 2011 - 01:34am PT

Looking at it another way, Wings of Steel may be one of the longest-lasting routes on El Capitan, if not Yosemite. Or at least the feature it's on will be long-lasting. The Great Slab is a somewhat monolithic feature, with fractured rock to both sides and above. That rock also protrudes - the Great Slab is sort of an 'interior' feature, somewhat like the lower part of the Nose. So when all those fractured things have crashed down, along with the related routes, the slab will still be there. Of course, it may take a little while, and cause more than a few enhancements along the way, and erase the bolts. Plus the rock piling up at the bottom will make it shorter. But long after the Nose, the Salathe, the Dihedral and all those other temporary routes crack off and plunge, Wings of Steel will still be visibly there.

StahlBro

Trad climber

San Diego, CA

Jul 20, 2011 - 01:40am PT

Thanks Couchmaster. Not the guy I was thinking of, but sounds like a great person. Great picture. Cheers.

Chinchen

climber

Way out there....

Jul 20, 2011 - 01:48am PT

Is this the part where all the old haters turn on each other?....lol

Good Job Ammon!

Mighty Hiker

climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Jul 20, 2011 - 02:05am PT

I thought warblers could only warble.

dogtown

Trad climber

JackAssVille, Wyoming

Jul 20, 2011 - 02:37am PT

I too was in the Valley at the time and took the popular position of (how could they do such a thing.) Now after so many years and ethics that we all new so well have changed, rape bolting, so called sport climbing all common place now. I feel one can only stand by ones own ethics and not judge others. Climb by your own standers. Climb for yourself instead of impressing others. This is all most impossible to do. Because of the” A” personality most of us are. That being said Mark and Richard do Climb for themselves. Their mistake was to try to explain it all to us so they mite fit in. Which is impossible because their a couple of f*#king dorks! Truly.

But Great Climber. No BullShit!!!

Daug.

Matt

Trad climber

primordial soup

Jul 20, 2011 - 03:49am PT

i always feel that one thing gets lost in these protracted "WoS is a PoS" debates on stupidtopo-

the protective, locals regulate, higher ethics vibe of YV bitd served a purpose.

what if in fact, these fellas came in and were, in fact drilling a ladder, like in an amusement park.

who would stop it?
who would have stopped it?

the mechanism for enforcing the defacto regulation was quite informal, and yet it served to hold YV to a higher standard as sport climbing grew in acceptance, as rap bolting became common, etc.

YV (and TM) is/are special for the character they hold, for the pure and natural feel of the climbing itself, as is dictated by the weaknesses in the rock, which afford NATURAL protection...

so why, if the goal of the informal, unstructured, defacto mechanism was to hold YV to the higher standard, to maintain the character of the place, of the climbs, of the stone itself, why is it the fault of the mechanism itself?

where is the "mea cupa" of these men, who just point fingers at everyone who "mistreated them" so? what about their half of the interaction?

why is the debate always around the actions of the people who sought to protect the character of the stone, of the valley itself?

if you read this thread, you might think these guys were persecuted because they are religious... maybe they were persecuted because they didn't give a rats ass about the culture of the place? maybe that culture served a valuable purpose, one that we are all still reaping the benefits of?

what if everyone in YV bitd had just been cool with everyone else, anyone else, cruising into town and doing whatever they wanted, where ever they wanted, however they wanted? what would YV be known for? how would the climbing stand out now?

so it's just such a horrible thing that these poor way-ahead-of-their-time-slab-hook-master guys got their ropes poopoo'd on, and got talked down to, and it's such a shame that they never got credit for a hard FA...

but in your life-
in the REAL world-
how often do you really see a f*#ked up situation that's all just one side of the story being f*#ked up? how often do you see disfunction without significant co-disfunction? i think rarely is that the case.

there is a cost to an absence of regulation.
(regardless of what the tea party may try to sell you)

is there a cost to regulation? sure, i agree, there may be.
but in the end, is that cost worthwhile? i'd argue that yes, it is.

did these guy pay a price? perhaps.
could they have mitigated it by understanding, even respecting the culture, the mechanism by which the resource (the stone, the valley itself) was regulated?

i guess i wish some more people would ask that question.

pretty easy to blame sophomoric acts and the "locals" in retrospect, especially if you get to tell the story in your own terms (sure looking fwd to pete's tell-all expose'- not!)

go ahead and show up now at an active, productive, high level climbing area anywhere in the US, make no effort (or no successful effort) to know or understand the local values or traditions, or to weave yourself into the local community of climbers or route developers, and then set out to put up a route in some kinda style, on some kinda terrain, that is not what people in that area expect to see.

good luck!

(and go ahead, blame the locals for how they react to you, that's far easier that the alternatives)

YOU CANNOT GO BACK IN TIME

Aamon y Kait can have their say, more power to them.
At the end of the day, they are rad, and whatever they say will be what some climbers in 2011 thought of their 2nd ascent.

THAT IN NO WAY CHANGES WHAT THE CLIMBERS IN THE VALLEY THOUGHT AT THE TIME OF THE FA!!!!!

What's done is done.
What's past is past.

The best you can get now is some sort of "if it was done today" comment.
History cannot be rewritten by those who do not like it.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Jul 20, 2011 - 04:13am PT

History cannot be rewritten by those who do not like it.

I don't know, in this particular case it seems to me a whole passel of history was rewritten by those who did not like it and who had no direct personal knowledge of the route whatsoever.

The best you can get now is some sort of "if it was done today" comment.

Actually, the best we can get now is the opinion of a couple of people who have actually climbed the route and can finally speak objectively to the truth of the matter after all these years.

survival

Big Wall climber

A Token of My Extreme

Jul 20, 2011 - 10:08am PT

the kid

Trad climber

fayetteville, wv

Jul 20, 2011 - 10:28am PT

it seems like the proliferation of bolts on el cap has been going on for a long time. bolts added to belays, added to leads, now added by the boat load to make it go FREE. Where is the outrage for all these new free routes with many bolts added?

The nose is a good example, many many bolts have been add over the years, most recent times for the first free ascent. same for Salathe and now half dome.

is their crime that they drilled holes to put hooks in? or the fact that they took a "blank" wall and put up a line. HArding did that and was lam blasted by Royal and the lot, until Royal went to do the route, chopped some and discovered the route was legit and stopped chopping.

Second ascent will confirm the route and style.

as one who was busted for a power drill, i can say first hand how the hypocrisy feels like when your under the micro scope. bolts here are ok, but not there. power drill is ok but not in wilderness, el cap is wilderness? it goes on and on..

WBraun

climber

Jul 20, 2011 - 11:12am PT

The kid

Weren't you busted only because you were using a power drill that was illegal.

And ... you guys were reported to NPS by a climber and that's how NPS got into the picture.

So it was some pissed off climber who ratted you out .....