[Hide Comment] I wasted my time bringing a set of quickdraws, everything is fixed? im a fan of fixed draws but this place is crazy hahaa Feb 11, 2013

[Hide Comment] Beware rattlers during the Spring months! Check carefully amongst the boulders before you settle in to a belay stance. This last week was kind of gnarly. May 12, 2013

[Hide Comment] Vintage footage of The Owl Tor and The Castle on ESPN.

Featuring:
"Hollywood" Hans Florine (so cool he gets his nickname in FRONT of his real name) on The Natural and Chips Ahoy
Phil "Bambino" Requist on Strictly Ballroom

Unfortunately I can't be there for the first Owltoberfest, but this is my contribution.

Hans Florine at Owl Tor and The Castle - ESPN 1995 vimeo.com/75934681 from Bob Banks vimeo.com/user12828165 on Vimeo vimeo.com. Oct 2, 2013

[Hide Comment] California Climber NO. 07 Winter 2013, Owl Tor Feature: Quietly Local

californiaclimbermagazine.f… Jun 18, 2014

[Hide Comment] "lack of natural beauty"...

Hmmm. Disagree. Perhaps someone should un-invite the author to Owltoberfest. Jun 18, 2014

[Hide Comment] Sorry if you wrote that article Grover, but that magazine (and the article) is wank. I hadn't seen a California Climber since the first crappy issue and had forgotten about it until now. Hasn't gotten any better. Had the author visited The Tor more than once? He couldn't pick up a guidebook, or use Google to find out how to spell Phil's name? "Anonymous locals?" (all of whom have names and are easily found in at least two guidebooks). Can be climbed in harsh winter conditions"? Ummm...huh? The place seeps like a sponge and can be totally shut down for 2-3 months after storms and if you try climbing in the rain you'll be in trouble at rain filled clipping jugs.

And The Brickyard article that follows it? Jesus, what a pile. The author spends 2 paragraphs waxing about how the devastating Jesusita fire burned down The Brickyard and unleashed it's "full potential". Except that The Brickyard actually burned over a year (and another fire) before that in The Gap Fire (which burned no structures and inflicted no injuries). I guess you can't build up the drama if you actually know what you're talking about. And saying it took a fire to realize The Yard's full potential might be the stupidest thing I've heard in years, evidenced by the fact that every photo and every problem recommendation are the same classics since the 90s. Anyways....rant off, the mag has nice photos, but that's about it. Jun 22, 2014

[Hide Comment] Bob, don't turn the rant off.

By the way, Grover didn't write the article; some out-of-towner did. Don't know him.

Grover loves the Tor.

To add to your comments regarding the B-yard: after the Gap Fire, the old B-yard trail disappeared and the new path hightailed it to the Yeti area. Basically, traffic at the Yard' thenceforth consisted of Yeti, Charlotte's Web, Grotesque Old Woman, Watch The Dog, Smooth Criminal, and Dancing Outlaw. Other areas fell in to relative obscurity. After the fire, the focus of climbing seemed to favor select classics, not the greater area. Prior to the fire, we were much more apt to explore, and thought of the Brickyard as a "circuit" area, like Font.

But this is just the anecdote of one aging climber. Maybe other climbers had a different experience. Jun 22, 2014

[Hide Comment] Yes, no doubt The Brickyard is actually 'less' fully realized than before the Gap Fire. It's so overgrown you can barely get to The Far Left Area or The HST problems, all good stuff that used to be on the circuit, now never gets climbed. Every time I walk down there I miss the old trail. C'est la vie. Jun 22, 2014

[Hide Comment] The article is very shitty, but the pictures aren't bad, the grades and names of climbs sited on the pictures are almost all wrong. I probably shouldn't have posted it here out of respect for the Tor, but the pictures speak for themselves. Jun 22, 2014

[Hide Comment] The guy that wrote the Article is from the Bay Area. I thought the article was completely lame - he basically just talks trash, and posts some photos of his friends hangdogging up some hard routes. Maybe it's the fact that he has an injury that doesn't let him climb anymore, that he goes around shooting photos and writing articles about areas he doesn't climb at, or research on mproject for that matter. The keyboard can be quite shouldery after watching other people send - ask anyone serious about climbing. Perhaps working a route at the Tor would be exactly what he needed to appreciate the amount of effort involved in a serious redpoint, not to mention creating a route, not to mention the entire Tor with all its effort and beauty. I don't mean this in his defense one bit, because, well, if someone misquoted me and it was something that mattered to me, I would tell them to either correct it, or to print nothing. Basically, he said that his article is at the whim of his editor. But, as with any good excuse...it's still on him. Jul 2, 2014

[Hide Comment] It took a three-year off-and-on-again battle with Chips for me to appreciate the true nature of the Tor. And if you were lucky enough to watch Elijah wage war with Hardboiled (I was) then you really understand how long and protracted redpoint battles can be. The Tor is a brutal mistress, and will not be slandered. Jul 2, 2014

[Hide Comment] I wish we'd taken photos prior to beginning work here. Poison oak running 40 feet up the wall that, when touched, rained sand like a Sirocco on the Sahara. I've never been as dirty in my life as after a work day at the Tor. It's the Taj Mahal of climbing, only we couldn't afford slaves to do the work. Jul 3, 2014

[Hide Comment] Owltoberfest 2015, October 17 & 18
The Revenge - This Time It's Personal

Details here philtraining.com/2015/08/ow… Aug 11, 2015

[Hide Comment] Here's a list of the variations at the Owl Tor: drive.google.com/open?id=1M… Aug 25, 2015

[Hide Comment] Hopefully the roads improve before the fest - currently not 2WD friendly. Any suggestions? Shovel? Sep 4, 2015

[Hide Comment] The roads have recently been regraded and are accessible by all vehicles except mopeds (but who wants Mods at the cliffs anyway). Oct 19, 2016

[Hide Comment] Just visited over Thanksgiving 2018, and the area was badly burned around 3 months ago... Rock and bolts were all unaffected from what we saw thankfully. Posted a picture above. Nov 23, 2018

[Hide Comment] Video of Phil Requist on Strictly Ballrooom 5.14a: youtu.be/f8QkEiP0T_0 Apr 1, 2020

[Hide Comment] Any beta /topo of new routes ? Specifically rumored 5.10s? Aug 27, 2020

[Hide Comment] There are no 5.10s at the Tor. Perhaps you're thinking of Mr. Lee's: jessery.com/2015/09/moderat… Sep 2, 2020

[Hide Comment] 3 rattlers on the approach trail last Saturday 5-14-22 May 18, 2022