it's a small world ... do you know so and so?

JCM always has the best thread ideas, but i thought i might give it a try as well.  i have had this happen a few times, but yesterday was probably the most far out example, and i am curious to see other people's experiences in this area.

so, my wife and i crept in to kind of a schwanky place to hit the hot tub.  there are 3 huge dudes with a bunch of gals in bikinis, lotta tats, and a lot of empty bottles. we get in the hot tub and this big dude looks at my wife's hands and asks "why are your hands so fucked up?".  she replies "oh, just doing a little rock climbing".  they ask us a bit about where we are from etc.

then this other big dude asks, "do you know george bracksieck?"

i am kind of a little stunned here, and manage to say something like "well, not in person but we have a lot of friends that know him and a few that climb with him.  he's kind of a legend."

instantly it's like we are celebrities.  they are trying to hook us up with booze, weed.  they were even trying to give us some cupcakes. it was pretty crazy.  apparently george has some major street cred!

My favorite "small world" experience relates to a Mountain Project interaction:

Sometime in 2012 or early 2013, there was a thread where a climber was looking for advice for a long road trip. Young guy, 6 months free, big climbing trip; you know the story. I responded to the thread with some road trip planning and destination advice (as I tend to do), and later we followed up with a few PM's on further planning and destination advice.

Fast forward 6 months, summer 2013, and I'm at the very start of a long trip to Rifle. No detailed plans or partners lined up. I drive into town and go to City Hall to buy my annual pass for the canyon. Down in the basement at the Parks and Rec department, there is one other person in front of me in line, also buying a pass. I hear him say his name, and I recognize the name - it's the same guy I had given advice to for his climbing trip! I do a "Hey I know you" (though we had never actually met before). He was also just arriving and solo, so we spent the next 3 weeks climbing together.  Awesome guy.

----

I also have a story of the time I picked up a hitchhiker in Yosemite, and 4 months that led to me getting a job that I worked at for a year. I'll type that one up another time. 

About 20 years ago I was sitting on the rim of the Verdon Gorge bringing up my second after an 8-pitch route.  All day, a guided party had been climbing the route next to us, and soon after I topped out, the guide did too, who clipped in about 15 ft away.  We start talking... 

"Where you from in the U.S.?"  

I say Colorado.  He says, "Oh, do you know Craig Luebben?"  

"Yes, we've done quite a bit together."  

"Amazing!  I know him too. I climbed with his wife in Italy, before she got married...."   Small World.

Climbing is very much a small world, especially if you limit it to folks who actively climb outdoors and have been involved for more than a year or so. I'd guess that for this group the '6 degrees of separation' is more like '3 degrees'.

So George likes the ganja and hot tubs with tatted babes, is my take away.

I see his point.

Me: "This person wrote a terrible route description"

Other person: "Ya that puppy lover is a f*** idiot"

slimwrote:then this other big dude asks, "do you know george bracksieck?"

how did they know george batshit? (no offense, he told me that is what people call him)

and how do u know george batshit?

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

So George likes the ganja and hot tubs with tatted babes, is my take away.

I see his point.

i tried many times to get george to smoke pot, but nope he doesnt smoke, but u can buy him a beer though

I'd totally do it, just to thank the man for all the info and enjoyment he brought into my climbing life.

I’m a has-been who never was. All I can think to say is slim could get a job as a writer for SNL.

Maybe I need a pseudonym. How about “ripped?” It describes my physique as well as the C1 gear I just pulled on. Batshit is too common. And some people think it’s caused by lightning strikes. 

Long ago, a partner and I were waiting in line at camp 4 for a campsite.  The 2 guys in front of us and 2 guys behind us were also from Boulder.  We all shared a site.  Years later, one of the guys was working at Neptune's and I would see him occasionally.  Another one of the guys went on a few trips to Hueco with our group of friends.

Also on that Yosemite trip, we were a couple pitches up the East Buttress on Middle Catherdral when a guide started up below us, basically soloing in approach shoes and belaying 2 clients up at the same time.  They were moving pretty quick.  Where the '50 crowded variation' splits off, they tried to make a pass, but we made it to the shared belay first.  The guide introduced himself as Hans.  We tried our best to stay out in front and not keep him waiting!  

Ran into Ron Kauk Bouldering in camp 4, super chill guy.

Lived in Boulder for many years, but seeing the great climbers there is just "meh"!  

George Bracksieckwrote:

I’m a has-been who never was. All I can think to say is slim could get a job as a writer for SNL.

Ouch, that hurts!

I think he is maybe your wife's cousin or something. Super cool guy. He definitely thinks highly of you!

I have two, one celebrity, and one non.  For the first, I ran into James Pearson and his lovely wife at Beauty Mountain, NRG, a popular single pitch wall for sport and trad routes of pretty much all grades.  I was sitting there gushing, and went over and awkwardly said hi to him and told him I knew who he was and had followed his career a little bit and he genuinely seemed surprised and humble.  Needless to say, I didn't fall off shit while James Pearson is 8 routes to the right climbing something insanely hard, making it look easy.  I'm sure plenty of people have a story about someone big in climbing circles being holier than thou, but I was happy that wasn't the case that day.

The second is more of an amusing anecdote.  At Pilot Mountain NC ~fall of 2017, a belayer stops me and two friends and asks us for help.  Her husband or bf or whatever is stuck, somehow, about 40' up, with the rope wedged in something up and to the left of him at a greater than 45 degree angle.  He can't pull the moves up and left (probably wasn't even a route) and the rope is semi-loaded over a sharp-ish edge.  I climbed up to him placing a few pieces, built a quick anchor and went into it and put him on it with my rope.  Had to cut his rope off (knot was welded and there was zero slack), which he didn't seem happy about but oh well.  Long story short, their rope was shortened but everyone got out fine, nbd.  6 months later I see this same guy at the New and he looks at me funny as I say hi when I'm passing and he's like "hey, don't I know you?" and I'm like "nah, I don't think so".  When we got to our warm up route, my buddy is all "hey, wasn't that the guy from Pilot?  He had two thirds of a neon-green rope!"  And we just laughed.

Edited to add:  Pretty sure both of these were in the same year ^

Maybe Considerwrote:

 how do u know george batshit?

I sold him a 90-meter Beal Joker in Durango! He wanted to be able to link pitches off the ground with his wife belaying.

slimwrote:

Ouch, that hurts!

I think he is maybe your wife's cousin or something. Super cool guy. He definitely thinks highly of you!

Thanks, slim. I truly meant SNL as a compliment, because I thought that you invented that hilarious story. Now I’m wondering whom you met. And where. 

F r i t zwrote:

I sold him a 90-meter Beal Joker in Durango! He wanted to be able to link pitches off the ground with his wife belaying.

Hey Fritz! We did go climbing!

Years ago I was in Chamonix where unbeknown to me a friend of mine was living with her boyfriend. It was a coincidental that I ran into her and I spent several evenings at their home catching up and getting to know her boyfriend, whom I had never met. Or so I thought. That fall, my father asked me I if knew so-and-so? I told him about meeting him that summer. My father corrected me and said no you meet him some 20 years before. 

At that point my father asked me if I remembered a family from before I was a teenager. Though we had moved right after and I not seen them since I replied yeah they lived over on such and such street and I remembered we had dinner with them. Our respective fathers were colleagues so over the years kept in touch seeing each other at professional meeting. During one gathering our fathers learned their respective sons were climbers and wondered ... The other climber Marc Twight. I later saw Marc and neither of us remembered each from when we were kids.

2001 or 2. I was spending the summer in SLC. One of my buddies I was living with came home and asked me if I knew who John Bachar was. Apparently he met him at the hotel bar he worked and mentioned that his friend climbed.

My friend gave him my name and he said he’d put me on the list for the tradeshow.

True to his word, there was a Scarpa badge waiting for me at the entrance. I never ran into him, he went climbing I think. It was pretty cool as a n00b to wander around the tradeshow though.

Two quickies.

Was talking to my neighbor, guy in his late sixties at least. He said he learned to fly fish in the Sierra from two old Italian WWI vets who drove ambulances and knew the young Ernest Hemingway quite well!  Cool 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon thing.

A couple of years ago, climbing at City of Rocks, I see a guy on the next climb over. I ask him if he ever climbed in Washington State and knew a woman (long,long ago gf of mine). He thinks for a moment: Holy shit!  It's a guy I introduced to climbing and spent only a few days with --- FORTY YEARS AGO! He said that experience changed his life.  Climbing is still a small world.

Climbing is definitely still a small world. I’ve had many such interactions.

A few years ago in Tensleep, I ran into a Welsh guy who was living in US for couple years. He was on a month-long road trip before flying back home for good.

We started chatting, the usual stuff, where are you from, etc. I introduced myself. He says, you climb at the Red, right? Do you know David A (from Spain)? He’s a friend of mine, said he climbed with Lena at the Red.

Sure enough, I knew David. We climb together every time he makes it to US for his work, or when I travel to Spain.

As we were talking, I commented on the guy’s clamshell pack, and asked where he got it. He offered the pack to me! Said it was a bit small for him, and he wasn’t going to take it back with him when he flew home, but he needed it until the end of his trip. I didn’t think he was serious, snd it seemed like too much of a logistics trouble to figure out how to get the pack from him, so I told him not to worry about it. 

But a month later I got a package in the mail! He got my address from David, and sent me his pack! I have happily used it until the belt broke a couple of years later. 

I was rappelling off the summit of Seneca Rocks when my partner and I got to the shared anchors at the top of pitch 2. The two guys there were friends with a guide who helped me develop some climbing programs in Northwest Ohio and was working to develop kelley's Island for bouldering and top rope