New and Experienced Climbers Over 50 #15

Love your pictures Nick!  

So today is canceled due to weather.  It’s supposed to be a horrible nasty day with wind gusts up to 60 mph.  My day out with Jeremy postponed to a better day.  

HOWEVER... I think I want to test this theory and go out anyway.  Looks good to me!    What could possibly go wrong... 

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

Seneca is one of my favorites. 

Nick

Seneca is where Jean and I first learned to climb. At that time, we did not carry any back packs. We would chase the shade in the summer. Hike up the stairmaster and climb on the west side and then rap over to the east side to climb. The stairmaster did not bother us then. Now it is a different story. We need to take a couple of breaks getting up to the climbs.

We used to sleep on Roy Gap road for free or go over to Buck Harper's place and pay $2 to sleep on his pavilion. 

Picture on me on Discrepancy on the lower slabs

When I was in shape trying to climb in the Cave area. I could not even start to climb in the Cave at this point in time.

John

Lori Milaswrote:

Love your pictures Nick!  

So today is canceled due to weather.  It’s supposed to be a horrible nasty day with wind gusts up to 60 mph.  My day out with Jeremy postponed to a better day.  

HOWEVER... I think I want to test this theory and go out anyway.  Looks good to me!    What could possibly go wrong... 

JT is beautiful in/after a good rain. I love it when the washes get run with water, all the footprints are gone in favor of the fluting the running water leaves behind. 

Lori- go find the climb “Perpetual Motion” - on windy post Alaska storm days the wind can be howling- 30mph+ - and you can sit down in the hole, in the sun. It’s funny watching folks climb it - they get to the top and can not stand up cause of the wind. 

If you go out there look around for a climb we did that goes up a flake “To Short to report” 5.8... find that, if you do, spend some time poking around.... shimmy on the ground into a small slot and you might just find some stuff left behind by the “people who came before” .... 

Enjoy the desert! 

Suddenly, I have an appointment to get vaccinated this week, yay.

With my doc half a block from another errand, I walked in to ask about whatever list they may have. They said my group just opened up, wanna appointment? Woah! 

So, Pfizer, two parts, but I'll be started in two days and done in April!

Eyeballing the reservation availability at City of Rocks....hmmmmm.....

This is such a relief. The earlier timeline, was maybe late May, probably before fall, lol!

:-)

Old lady Hwrote:

Suddenly, I have an appointment to get vaccinated this week, yay.

With my doc half a block from another errand, I walked in to ask about whatever list they may have. They said my group just opened up, wanna appointment? Woah! 

So, Pfizer, two parts, but I'll be started in two days and done in April!

Eyeballing the reservation availability at City of Rocks....hmmmmm.....

This is such a relief. The earlier timeline, was maybe late May, probably before fall, lol!

:-)

I just got my first dose this morning. And the weather in the Gunks looks good for next week. I haven't climbed since August. Things are looking up :)

Old lady Hwrote:

Suddenly, I have an appointment to get vaccinated this week, yay.

With my doc half a block from another errand, I walked in to ask about whatever list they may have. They said my group just opened up, wanna appointment? Woah! 

So, Pfizer, two parts, but I'll be started in two days and done in April!

Eyeballing the reservation availability at City of Rocks....hmmmmm.....

This is such a relief. The earlier timeline, was maybe late May, probably before fall, lol!

:-)

It is a relief Helen, for so many reasons. Glad you can get it and just “gitterdone”.  I don’t know that life will ever be ‘normal’ again. All we can do is one step at a time, one day at a time.  So glad you got an appointment!

It was crazy windy out today... I had no idea how to climb through whipping gusts of wind so deafening I couldn’t hear a word from my belayer. I had to seriously hug the wall at times until a wind blew by.  Bees seemed to be migrating somewhere and their little bodies were just slamming into the wall. What else could I do but break into giggles.  

Then we revisited this miserable route of Bob’s on the backside of Feudal Wall. He said “When you can climb this route EASILY then you can climb RFYL.” Ok. Let’s not get picky. I climbed it. This is like eating your liver: you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it. This time I ‘believed’ my feet would stick and they did. I didn’t know it was a religious experience.

It looks SO easy. It’s not! 

Hi Everyone - in case you aren't aware of this tool and are trying to find appointments for vaccine, it works pretty well. https://www.vaccinespotter.org/ 

SOME TIPS: If you try it, be very patient, refresh frequently, and if you happen to get directed to a Kroger or City Market page, hang in there. Keep refreshing the pages - I was getting different options with almost every refresh (appointments would appear, disappear, and appear again). Keep trying if you get kicked out on the 2nd dose scheduling (it won't book your appt until both dates are selected), and if you do get lucky and get the 2nd dose option - click ONCE and wait.  It may still crash on you. Traffic on the Kroger site picked up a lot around 4 PM and it got a lot slower and fussier. Both Kroger and Walgreens seemed to release a bunch of appointment options around mid-day today. Wal Marts scheduling page is a breeze, but you only schedule the 1st dose (all of the sites seemed to have manufacturer information).

Jim becomes eligible on Friday, and I spent several hours over the past 4 days trying to find him an appointment. In the Front Range of Colorado, appointments are booked almost immediately. I actually had scheduled one in a town 4 hours away, but then today I kept trying (took 2 more hours) and got super lucky to score an appointment that is less than an hour's drive. He has been teaching university classes in person this semester which has been super stressful, and their school is having an actual spring break, so at least he will have some protection when students return. I'm sure availability will increase over the next few weeks, but we were super anxious to get his done given his exposure to large numbers of 20-year olds.

I'm so happy to hear many of you are getting your vaccines - I hope this information might help if you are having difficulty in finding an appointment.

Erika

I've had both shots and am past the two week or so period following the second shot after which the vaccine is supposed to have full effect.  Being over 75, I got in the early doses in NY State.

That said, not doing much any differently, just enjoying a bit lower level of background anxiety.

Here in the People's Republic, and being over 70, Bruce and I were able to schedule shots through the BCH portal. You get the appointment for your second shot when you get the first one. It's a well-run assembly line operation. Bruce was two weeks past last week and today was the big day for me. (Not a moment too soon because the CU frat boys are at it again with their partying/rioting.) Not planning to do a lot differently, but a haircut appointment tomorrow, in-person shopping again, and back to the BRC to see if I can climb my way out of a paper bag. (At least I don't think anyone has ever suffocated being stuck in a paper bag.)   

Lori Milaswrote:

and campfire stories and climbers who set the bar a long time ago. 

So this is two places.  Grateful for them both.  

A bit about that bar... In no particular order the climbers who I look to as the greats of the time were...

John Bachar. He moved like a Nureyev. We used to follow him around Hidden Valley watching him, from a discrete distance, doing his solo circuit. Spider Line, Left Ski Track, Hot Rocks, Leaver it to Beaver. Those were the warm-ups. The beauty of it was that, as the observer, it was comfortable to watch. No anxiety. He could not fall climbing as he did. But he wasn't particularly interested in first ascents. All he did was climb. Like a God.

Hidetaka Suzuki. Unique. He was a magnificent climber. I say was, because last I heard he was in Hawaii playing on the ocean. I spent a lot of time with him, and while we continued to climb after the fact, the death of his wife at such a young age from cancer changed him. But it certainly didn't slow down his climbing. Like Bachar, but in a different way, a true master. In a kind of controlled fanaticism, he did hard leads, FA's, that I honestly think Bachar wouldn't have tried. I belayed him on some of those ascents. OMG.

Scott Cosgrove really set the bar for new routes. Father Figure being the easiest of his significant routes. G-String (next to Bikini Whale). New Deal. Cutting Edge. Legit Josh 5.14's. New Deal went un-repeated for about 20 years (?) and was finally repeated recently by Alan Moore.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105723166/g-string

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105805988/new-deal

Scott's comments on these route pages are fantastic. What a guy. And what a loss.

Scott fell 30 feet to concrete in an accident while rigging for a movie shoot. He lived, and although I was not in his inner circle my friend Jeff Constine, who was, drove me out to visit Scott in rehab a few times. Each time we saw him he was markedly better. His hopes, and ours, were high. He died, most likely in seizure, hiking in the Santa Monica mountains.

Interesting. When Scott did the New Deal, he got flak for lowering in to place bolts. Serious flak. Thank God someone wasn't stupid enough to chop it. His response on the MP route page is good.

Kristian Solemwrote:

A bit about that bar... In no particular order the climbers who I look to as the greats of the time were...

John Bachar. He moved like a Nureyev. We used to follow him around Hidden Valley watching him, from a discrete distance, doing his solo circuit. Spider Line, Left Ski Track, Hot Rocks, Leaver it to Beaver. Those were the warm-ups. The beauty of it was that, as the observer, it was comfortable to watch. No anxiety. He could not fall climbing as he did. But he wasn't particularly interested in first ascents. All he did was climb. Like a God.

Hidetaka Suzuki. Unique. He was a magnificent climber. I say was, because last I heard he was in Hawaii playing on the ocean. I spent a lot of time with him, and while we continued to climb after the fact, the death of his wife at such a young age from cancer changed him. But it certainly didn't slow down his climbing. Like Bachar, but in a different way, a true master. In a kind of controlled fanaticism, he did hard leads, FA's, that I honestly think Bachar wouldn't have tried. I belayed him on some of those ascents. OMG.

Scott Cosgrove really set the bar for new routes. Father Figure being the easiest of his significant routes. G-String (next to Bikini Whale). New Deal. Cutting Edge. Legit Josh 5.14's. New Deal went un-repeated for about 20 years (?) and was finally repeated recently by Alan Moore.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105723166/g-string

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105805988/new-deal

Scott's comments on these route pages are fantastic. What a guy. And what a loss.

Scott fell 30 feet to concrete in an accident while rigging for a movie shoot. He lived, and although I was not in his inner circle my friend Jeff Constine, who was, drove me out to visit Scott in rehab a few times. Each time we saw him he was markedly better. His hopes, and ours, were high. He died, most likely in seizure, hiking in the Santa Monica mountains.

Interesting. When Scott did the New Deal, he got flak for lowering in to place bolts. Serious flak. Thank God someone wasn't stupid enough to chop it. His response on the MP route page is good.

I love these stories!  Please keep the stories comin', Kristian.  Every story creates more questions, but I'm glad some of you are there to fill in the blanks.  

My little buddy Jeremy Schoenborn was, I believe, the 3rd and 4th ascent of Cutting Edge.  I became fascinated with this route when I climbed SW Corner... having NO IDEA that there was even a backside to this rock.  I would love to go back and do the routes that I can do... Cryptic, and maybe South Face Center.   But Jeremy and some of the newer climbers have such deep respect for Scott Cosgrove, and the early climbers here in Josh.  Broken record here: we need a book. 

I love this video... one of the few where I can watch and learn technique up close.  Do you think that specific climbing technique has changed, from the days when Scott and John were climbing?  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lboIxo_u-E

One day when I was out with Jeremy (as a guide) I asked him to show me Integrity, another Cosgrove line, which he was working on.  We walked over to the far side of Turtle Rock, and he pointed out the line... all I could do was shake my head in amazement.  I don't think Jeremy went back to complete it.  (Jeremy Schoenborn photo by Adam Stackhouse)

-------

I'm not sure if there is an equivalent to 'mentorship' today.  This is such a complex sport, and everything from fitness to navigation to understanding rock takes SO MUCH time to learn.  Maybe the learning curve is faster when you are younger?... I don't know.  I have to work hard not to get overly frustrated with myself, thinking, I should know this by now!  I should be stronger by now!  And then, there's the constant decision-making regarding danger and risk. Both times I had a tiny slip while climbing yesterday I had the thought "That would have been a leader fall..."... and maybe it's this that defines the struggle of 'climbing over 50'.  

I had some bone studies done over a decade which showed progressive osteoporosis.  I will never forget the lecture I received, literally a finger shaking in my face by my doctor, telling me that "one fall, one broken hip, and you have a 50% chance of death.  If you don't die, 25% of women with broken bones wind up in nursing homes forever."  He was furious because I wouldn't take the meds for bone loss.  I went on a mission to learn about aging women and bone loss... determined to fix this myself.  Interestingly, since climbing outdoors, my bones have gained mass... I am out of the 'osteoporosis' range.  But that entire lecture was BEFORE I started rock climbing.  OMG, I wouldn't have wanted to be in the room if that doctor knew I was about to undertake this!  

So where's the line today, when we have so much to gain, but so much to lose?  How far to push, what limits... and when to surrender.  

------------

Neither here nor there (rambling this morning)... looking back on last summer when we had just moved here... roaming around the Park alone, learning to distinguish between snakes and 'stick snakes'... figuring out some kind of GPS because I got lost so easily... how magical that was!  And I felt the support of this community as I roamed alone, even without a pack of friends waiting in Hidden Valley.  I guess we get what we need.     But of all the images in my head, it will be this most haunting of places (for me) Bikini Whale.  I edged out further and further trying to find a bottom, to orient myself on this rock.  Pretty amazing... this desert.

Kristian, nice recollections....I miss those guys. Bachar's precision and strength was something to behold. He was an inspiration to my generation, way ahead of his time. Most climbers don't realize that he was free soling 5.12 back in 1983!

I wrote this obituary shortly after Scott Cosgrove died.

One of the most memorable climbs I've ever done was with Scott, when we did a new route on the west face of Sentinel Rock, ground up, over 6 days in the summer of 1995: How the West Was Won, 16 pitches, 5.12b. What an adventure that was!

Coz on Reed's Direct, Yosemite Valley (10a)

Here's one of my old Supertopo posts, replying to one of Scott Cosgrove's posts on How the West Was Won:

"Nice memories Coz! Of all the climbs we did together I think this was my favorite...although freeing the Chimney of Horrors on the North Face of Higher Spire with you was also quite the adventure. I think what made How the West Was Won such great fun was the uncertainty of the ground-up style, never knowing for sure what we'd encounter; scoping it out with binoculars from the valley floor and wondering...will it go?"

Here is the piece I wrote for the Nov 1995 Climbing Magazine

How the West Was Won
The first free ascent of the West Face of Sentinel Rock by Bob Gaines

"From Camp 4 all of us had stared endlessly at the north face of Sentinel, especially at dusk, when the oblique light lit up thousands of tiny features, creating a lovely sight indeed. So entranced were we by these possibilities on this face that we ignored the right-hand profile: the west face. This narrow prow of white granite, some 1600 feet high, is not particularly steep - perhaps only 70 degrees, yet smoothness is the middle name of Sentinel's west face. Hardly a ledge mars the upward sweep; not a single tree or bush disrupts the integrity of the soaring cliff"
-Steve Roper in CAMP 4

In the summer of 1960, Yvon Chouinard and Tom Frost first climbed the West Face route on Sentinel Rock. Originally rated VI 5.9 A4, in the early '60s the route was notorious for its dicey expanding flake aid traverse and the 80-foot-long, eight-inch-wide Dogleg Crack, led by Frost who used a single wooden block for pro. Ten summers later, Royal Robbins, on the first solo of a big Yosemite climb, added the second route on the face: In Cold Blood (V 5.8 A4).

Concerted free attempts at the West Face route began 13 years later when John Bachar came tantalizingly close to success. He freed the horizontal expanding-flake traverse with a 5.12 undercling, only to be thwarted by a short, blank dihedral at the top of the pitch. The rest of the route was no harder than 5.10c. Next in line were John Long and Bill Price, who made several mighty efforts, placing a bolt on a face climbing variation to bypass the expanding flake. Not wanting to resort to placing protection on aid (ethics were stringent in the early 1980s in Yosemite), they gave up their attempt. In 1988, Scott Cosgrove and Jonny Woodward, two of America's best free climbers, added a bolt to Long's variation, only to be shut down by a single move.

In June 1995, the days were getting longer and a winter of guiding at Joshua Tree left me craving something bigger than 100-foot crags. Scott Cosgrove was up for a project in Yosemite, so I suggested we give In Cold Blood a try. Scott was fit from a winter of bouldering at Joshua Tree, where he developed a secret new bouldering area. Scott bagged Josh's first 5.14 the winter before, so I figured if the route was freeable, he was the man to pull it off.

We scrambled up the approach ramp. The rock loomed overhead like a gigantic gray tombstone, causing us to speculate on where Derek Hersey fell while soloing the Steck-Salathe two years before.

In Cold Blood began ignobly, traversing through a malevolent manzanita, then passing a loose section up to an immense, 400-foot high, right-facing dihedral, where the route quality drastically improved. The dihedral resembled that of another Robbins classic, Tahquitz's Open Book, both in size and stature, except that at the tip, instead of turning low-angle, In Cold Blood's crack overhung, with a 5.11+ layback/jam capped with a smooth, ass-kicking offwidth. From the ledge atop this pitch, with the sun sinking low, and our forearms spent, we leaned back to scan the possibilities on the upper wall before zipping down fixed lines. It appeared as if Robbins' A3 aid section could be bypassed by traversing straight right.

Two mornings later Scott redpointed the pitch, an improbable variety of underclings, sidepulls, and edges; sustained to the end, where a 5.12 face move gains the belay. The crux was so devious that when I pulled it off I felt as if I'd done a magic trick. At the belay we were both smiling. Certain elements combine to make a pitch memorable. Here, it was the stunning backdrop: 2000 feet of electrifying exposure, amplified by the roar of Sentinel Falls cascading 4000 feet down the adjacent cliffside, with Cathedral Rocks and El Cap dominating the horizon, the Merced River snaking through the meadow below.

The route above appeared much easier, going through a lesser-angled recess in the face for several hundred feet. All those years of run out slab climbing at Suicide Rock payed off for me on the next pitch. Propelled by adrenaline, I led a 5.11b R section, drilled a bolt off a tiny stance, then ran it out again on a deceptively steep 5.11 R section that ended 80 feet shy of a huge sloping ledge. We felt like we'd nearly solved the puzzle, but a colossal cumulus cloud exploded over El Cap, and we quickly retreated, fearing an epic thunderstorm descent of the ramp. Sure enough, just as we hit the Four Mile Trail, lightning crackled over Sentinel.

From the Valley floor, through binoculars, the next pitch appeared vertical, yet studded with those gargantuan gray knobs peculiar to certain parts of Yosemite Valley. Scott laybacked around the corner to the right, balanced upward on 5.10 knobs, sparsely protected by three hand-drilled 5/16-inch bolts, then belayed from the top of the sloping platform. Our ledge celebration was cut short when we gazed up and saw the immense wall above us. Scott volunteered to lead the next pitch, a "moderate" crack ending at a knobby headwall. As was often the case on this route, the moderate section was a nasty 5.11, replete with a strenuous offwidth and an overhanging layback.

Scott quickly scanned the rock above the belay, then immediately rapped back to the ledge. He didn't have to say anything, I knew we'd gotten off-track. The angle above was near vertical and the knobs were yards apart. Dejected, I led a 5.9 pitch to rejoin In Cold Blood at the base of a huge, detached block. Above this soared the infamous "Incision," a 200-foot knife blade crack that split the headwall. When Robbins reached this point on his solo ascent, he felt blessed by good fortune, but free climbing it looked impossible.

Scott jammed a 5.10 offwidth to the top of the block, hammered a couple of pins into the hairline crack, then took a closer look. "It'll go for sure," he yelled down. "How hard?" I shot back. ".12d, maybe .13a." Since 5.12 is my max, I eyed the face to the left. An easy traverse led down and around a corner. What was on the other side? Surely the West Face route wasn't far away. Linking these routes would give us an all-free ascent.

Not wanting to add bolts to Robbins' classic nail-up, Scott rapped from the precarious block and quickly disappeared out left around the corner. He was yelling, but with the wind and the roar of the falls I couldn't make out a word. It wasn't until I heard a very faint but distinctive tap, tap, tap of the hammer and drill that I knew he'd found the missing link. Moderate, but classically exposed, a 5.10 tip-toe dike traverse led to the heart of the upper West Face. A 5.11 layback flake and a two-bolt face traverse left led us to the 5.10c offwidth pitch on the West Face route. Two hours later we were standing on the summit. We called our 16-pitch route How the West Was Won (V 5.12b).

Scrambling down the descent gully, Scott commented that Yosemite was in another Golden Age, when the big walls first climbed in the '50s and '60s were now being free climbed. When we hit the paved trail we stopped for a moment and looked back at the great north face, its features highlighted by the afternoon light, then we shuffled down among the thronging Fourth of July tourists back to the car.

Coz

Bob, that's a worthy obituary. Somehow I missed it when it first came out. And what an experience doing How the West Was won. Thanks for the write-up.

Rain yesterday here in Vegas so it was limestone sport climbing again today.  I've always avoided the Gun Club, as I assumed that an urban crag with a 10 minute approach must be greasy as hell.  But the rock was very nice and although it was somewhat crowded, the vibe was quite pleasant.

phylp phylpwrote:

Rain yesterday here in Vegas so it was limestone sport climbing again today.  I've always avoided the Gun Club, as I assumed that an urban crag with a 10 minute approach must be greasy as hell.  But the rock was very nice and although it was somewhat crowded, the vibe was quite pleasant.

I was climbing at a new crag, about 1/2 mile south of you.  No one else there but our team.  Perfect temperatures, but really sharp rock.  Heading to Lime Kiln today.

Bob are you going to be climbing in town Thursday? Brandt is here and might want a partner for tomorrow!

Number one! Number two scheduled.

Hi Bob Gaines, I was directly the comments to Idaho Bob who is here in Vegas! Thanks though. Brandt and I had fun today at Suburban Crag, although I don’t love that cherty rock as much as the sharp white-grey limestone.