New and Experienced climbers over 50 #22

Russ Wallingwrote:

80m for Kalymnos, 70m for Potrero, 60m for Josh, and 16m for Spy.  Usually in the 9.1 range.

We use double 8m for Spy, to avoid rope drag.

Here I am traversing ice cliffs that formed during storms on Lakeshore Drive in Chicago, The cliffs weren't at all high, as the picture makes evident, but extended for perhaps 1000 feet along the shoreline. The extremely frigid water directly beneath constituted a new type of exposure, and the air temps that year were well below zero. The cliffs blocked out all views of the city, so that all we could see was the rather artic-looking expanse of Lake Michigan. And yet just over the top were the streets and highways of a bustling metropolis, a truly weird juxtaposition.

Sorry for the irrelevant reverie---the point, before I descended into a nostalgic trance, is the white laid rope, which is the Columbia yachting line I mentioned previously.
I don't know the exact year, but my best guess is 1962 or 1963, when I was 19 or 20. The bowline on a coil has been replaced by a swami belt. In 1960, the then 21 year old Yvon Chouinard (belayed by Bob Kamps) fell 160 feet attempting a new route on the North Face of the Crooked Thumb in the Tetons. He walked away with a gash from his piton hammer, but nothing worse, and credited the survival of his internal organs to the use of a swami belt. Almost overnight, it seemed to me that every American climber gave up on the bowline on a coil and started using swamis.

Returning to nostalgia, other items of note: I'm wearing what was, at the time, the iconic Holubar NP22 parka. The leather patch on the back was to protect the shoulder and upper back during rappelling. The belayer is using the usual hip belay, with plenty of slack---I had no pro in anyway. I think the idea, in this case, was that the belay was for reeling in a climber who had fallen into the icy water back to the shoreline, and in particular, we didn't want the belayer dumped into the drink as well; hence the slack. If we had any brains, we would have been wearing life jackets (except of course we didn't own any).

The belayer is anchored to a single Salewa corkscrew-style ice screw.  The idea of anchor redundancy wasn't established in those days, and most of our anchors on rock and ice were single-point affairs.  I think we only had three screws anyway, one for the belayer, one for a belay anchor at the end of the traversing lead, and one to place halfway along.  I had a single axe which is was in my right hand and isn't visible in the picture.  It was, I think, a Stubai Aschbrenner axe from Europe with a perfectly straight pick---it wasn't until 1969 that Chouinard introduced the curved pick. In some of the steep or overhanging sections, I cut handholds for the free hand, but I think in the picture I'm just trying to hold onto the ice.

Brandt Allenwrote:

Woke up this morning to snow on the hills behind my house!

Brutal conditions here in Joshua Tree. Might be stuck inside for a few days.

That looks like a very harsh place. Is that your fence?

My first trip to RR it was all  50m raps with two 11mm.  Lead ropes.. both exactly the same  color and rope  that was the only rope available at our  local gear store.

Baby blue  Beal.

rgoldwrote:

What routes at RR have full 70m raps?

The First Creek Slabs.  Routes like Lady Luck.  While it is possible to use shorter ropes (per the guidebook) it would be a long (1.5 hours per the guidebook) and sometimes exposed descent.  Double 70's get you down quickly and safely (assuming the extension rope on the rappel tree has not degraded).  Last time up we stashed a spare extension rope near the tree for the future.  Also in First Creek, Algae on Parade uses the "standard" slab descent gully.  Again possible to use single ropes (good luck finding the anchors).  Double 70's make it quick and safe. 

Carl - Yes that is my fence in the photo. The snow on the hilltops melted by mid-day. I'm happy to report that today is a bit warmer and temps for the weekend are expected to be back in the 70's. 

Life is worth living once again.

First rope was a 12 mm Bolex from Czechoslovakia circa the late 1980s. It was a very bad rope, but I didn’t know any better and it was mine.

Actually, the first rope we climbed on was a single Edelweiss half rope that my buddy bought in Frankfurt on some sort of super sale. We didn’t know any better, and were in the process of “learning by not dying.”  I still use parts of that rope as a QD sling and a dog leash. 

My first rope, circa 1990, was a blue Bluewater 11mm.  Heavy as hell.  Handled horribly, and wore out quickly because I mostly TR'ed on it.  It was the only 50m rope I ever owned.  Next one was a 55m.  Nothing remarkable until late '94 when I bought a 60m 10.0mm Mammut Galaxy. I think it only came in red.  Most of my friends thought it was both too long and too skinny. I was talked into saving it for hard sport sends only, so it became my secondary rope.  But it is the cord I have most fond memories with, incl playing the role of rap line at RR in 1998,  I selectively lead climbed with it until 2004, at which poiint it was only about 45m long after two different end-cuttings.  I think I finally threw it into the thrash in 2008.  I remember it as a sad occasion.  I now wish I had kept the best remnant I was able to salvage from it.  
After a decade climbing on other makes, I came back to Mammut in ~2015, and have been exclusively Mammut since, 9.5mm outdoors and 9.8mm indoors.  They have been good ropes for me.

rgoldwrote:

Returning to nostalgia, other items of note: I'm wearing what was, at the time, the iconic Holubar NP22 parka. The leather patch on the back was to protect the shoulder and upper back during rappelling. The belayer is using the usual hip belay, with plenty of slack---I had no pro in anyway. I think the idea, in this case, was that the belay was for reeling in a climber who had fallen into the icy water back to the shoreline, and in particular, we didn't want the belayer dumped into the drink as well; hence the slack. If we had any brains, we would have been wearing life jackets (except of course we didn't own any).

The belayer is anchored to a single Salewa corkscrew-style ice screw.  The idea of anchor redundancy wasn't established in those days, and most of our anchors on rock and ice were single-point affairs.  I think we only had three screws anyway, one for the belayer, one for a belay anchor at the end of the traversing lead, and one to place halfway along.  I had a single axe which is was in my right hand and isn't visible in the picture.  It was, I think, a Stubai Aschbrenner axe from Europe with a perfectly straight pick---it wasn't until 1969 that Chouinard introduced the curved pick. In some of the steep or overhanging sections, I cut handholds for the free hand, but I think in the picture I'm just trying to hold onto the ice.

So awesome.  Funny and (deadly) serious at the same time.  Thanks for sharing.
To me, you all who were climbing in the 60's and 70's are incredibly bold and did nutty things.
Of course, the current gen think my gen ('80's and '90's) were/are insane for doing what we did.
These days, I get comments about old 1/4" or 5/16" bolts and lack of bouldering pads quite often.  I dunno.  Seemed pretty normal back then :) What were we thinking :) :) 

Brandt Allenwrote:

Carl - Yes that is my fence in the photo. The snow on the hilltops melted by mid-day. I'm happy to report that today is a bit warmer and temps for the weekend are expected to be back in the 70's. 

Life is worth living once again.

So JT is basically desert isn’t it? What’s the elevation? What’s your water source? It’s funny, I live in the driest state on the driest continent (apart from Antarctica I think) and it’s general green and lovely here in the Adelaide hills. It gets hot in summer, but lately it’s been very wet. Not as wet as the Eastern states that are all under water but very rainy.
Here’s my backyard today.

S. Neohwrote:

So awesome.  Funny and (deadly) serious at the same time.  Thanks for sharing.
To me, you all who were climbing in the 60's and 70's are incredibly bold and did nutty things.
Of course, the current gen think my gen ('80's and '90's) were/are insane for doing what we did.
These days, I get comments about old 1/4" or 5/16" bolts and lack of bouldering pads quite often.  I dunno.  Seemed pretty normal back then :) What were we thinking :) :) 

I feel like such a newbie here, having taken up clambering ten years ago at 50. I asked my friend Bill whose been climbing for 40 thousand years who Bob Gains was and he informed me.
Went to the bouldering gym today. Generally I like doing moderate problems but also doing a lot of roof problems and then down-climbing them and/or doing laps. Spotted a guy looking at my quizzically today as I joined three problems together in prices and then started down-climbing it. His expression was like “What IS this old guy DOING?” I find I can hang on straight arms for ages and roof problems are really good for working the abs. 

RG thanks for the great story.  Funny how folks freak out about being clipped to a single  modern bolt these days that is far stronger than the rope ;)

Carl: Nice back yard.

“learning by not dying.”

Yeap.

80m for Kalymnos, 70m for Potrero, 60m for Josh, and 16m for Spy.  Usually in the 9.1 range.

We use double 8m for Spy, to avoid rope drag.

How novel, I may have to look into something like that.  Possibly instead of a 100m.  Wait, if I get a 100m I can always double rope 50m pitches by leading on both ends.  Maybe that's what Russ does to avoid rope drag with his 16m at Spy?

These days, I get comments about old 1/4" or 5/16" bolts and lack of bouldering pads quite often.

Two more areas where gear advances have been a plus, IMO.  

I'm surprised that after all my pre-pad years bouldering I have any knees left.  Got lucky there.

I used to think that if you had a bolt, even if 1/4", nothing could possibly go wrong.  However, once I started doing ASCA replacement work it became obvious almost immediately that what couldn't be seen most certainly could hurt you.  On two occasions I've even had 1/4" bolts literally come out from the stress placed on them by simply clipping them (maybe I'm using draws that are too heavy for 1/4" bolts?)

Perhaps the scariest pitch of old bolts I've seen was on Unfinished Symphony at Squamish when I did it in the 80's.  Becky had used 3/16" bolts and flimsy homemade hangers on the bolt ladder that became the crux 11 slab pitch.  The following exchange sums it up:

KP: "Watch me, I'm way runout".

Me: "You're clipping a bolt ladder and you have 9 of them clipped, how can you be runout?"

KP: "I said watch me.  I'm on a full pitch runout."

The bolts had degraded to nothing more than slightly bumpy rusty spots (I'm not exaggerating) on the funky old hangers.  Doing it free at least gave you a chance of surviving as long as you didn't fall.  Aiding it would have been terrifying.  Actually, that trip had multiple sub-optimal bolt encounters.  I'm glad that's changed.  Regular steel right next to Howe Sound with the saltwater fog and all?  Not.  

Darrell Henselwrote:

How novel, I may have to look into something like that.  Possibly instead of a 100m.  Wait, if I get a 100m I can always double rope 50m pitches by leading on both ends.  

Yeah, I have used my 70m for two parties at the same time, where the sport routes are packed in and short.  Got weird looks once in a while.
You might need a larger rope bag for the 100m. My 80m is a tight fit in a regular one.

On another note, wild weather.

I drove across Wyoming yesterday, 1-25 Cheyenne to Casper, then down to Rawlins. It was highly exciting.

https://cowboyst100mph-winds-cause-mayhem-and-chaos-on-wyoming-highways/

My jeep was fine except for when the plastic liner in the left front fender got blown to pieces. It sounded like hell when the tire shredded it.

To their credit, a lot of the truckers heeded the closure, but some of the dumb asses that drove through paid a price. One trucker pulling an empty cattle trailer pulled off into a parking turnout, and got blown over standing still. When I rolled up he'd already climbed out of his cab, and I offered him a lift to Casper. Right then another rig rolled in pulling a low profile heavy load on a flatbed. He rode with him instead.

Tony might find this interesting...

Any more crazy wind stories out there? I've got a wild one from Josh I might post up later. Right now I gotta drive Beaver, Utah, to home. Looks like fine weather.

Kristian Solemwrote:

On another note, wild weather.

I drove across Wyoming yesterday, 1-25 Cheyenne to Casper, then down to Rawlins. It was highly exciting.

https://cowboyst100mph-winds-cause-mayhem-and-chaos-on-wyoming-highways/

My jeep was fine except for when the plastic liner in the left front fender got blown to pieces. It sounded like hell when the tire shredded it.

To their credit, a lot of the truckers heeded the closure, but some of the dumb asses that drove through paid a price. One trucker pulling an empty cattle trailer pulled off into a parking turnout, and got blown over standing still. When I rolled up he'd already climbed out of his cab, and I offered him a lift to Casper. Right then another rig rolled in pulling a low profile heavy load on a flatbed. He rode with him instead.

Tony might find this interesting...

Any more crazy wind stories out there? I've got a wild one from Josh I might post up later. Right now I gotta drive Beaver, Utah, to home. Looks like fine weather.

It's crazy wind here!  I was out walking in it this morning.  I fell asleep to it howling last night, but for the first time here it felt peaceful.  Comfy inside all warm.  

Kris, Tony has stories and you guys could swap tales, I'll bet.  My favorite is of Tony driving his rig on the Macinac bridge in Michigan, at midnight, in the winter.  He said the bridge literally sways and trucks get blown off to the side when they can't hold onto the ice.  He said he drove through a pile-up of 18 trucks one night.  Tony is so confident behind a wheel... that doesn't make me a great passenger.  He takes it personally when I don't enjoy the rides.

Please be careful, Kris!  

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I hesitate to leave more updates... like, does anyone care?  (I mean that in the best way, like, who wants to hear all this stuff? I probably wouldn't) 

But off I go on a rave, I guess.  I was thinking this morning how absolutely worthless my doctors have been in figuring out what ails me--and it's no wonder how the alternative medicine business grew up.  All the specialists and visits and messages I've had... only to have my Primary say "Maybe you should just take the weekend off and do something else."  That's honestly the best they have come up with.  

So I have been left with my more intuitive, non-mainstream doctors... with a grain of salt, but still, slowly we have made progress.  

While I disparaged the New Mexico docs for some of their testing and bedside manner, I absolutely do know I had several parasites (by conventional lab studies here), and it turns out I also have/had Hookworm.  As of Friday's lab results, the parasites are gone.  However, continued blood, weight and iron loss made me take the Hookworm (and Roundworm) infestation seriously... I was able to get a prescription of Albendazole from a doctor client of mine, left the hotel I was staying at Friday night, and raced to Rite Aid to pick up the prescription.  I popped the lid and took it even before I paid for it.  I spent one miserable weekend, stomach in knots, fever, chills... on a drug that is supposed to be 'well tolerated'.  I woke up this morning finally feeling like something has truly changed... a weight has been lifted.  So, I don't know what is left for me to do on the parasite/worm front... but I think they may be close to gone.  

That leaves me with my quite current Epstein Barr and possible Lyme.  WHY DID I HAVE TO ORDER THESE TESTS FOR MYSELF?  I suspected the fatigue and all other symptoms could be a new case of EBV... I ordered the whole panel from Qwest, and boy was I surprised when every test came back positive, with a hugely high titer. I have it.  I sent it off to my Primary to ask what I should do about it.  He doesn't know.  I guess me and Dr. Google will figure it out.  

The Lyme thing is a question only because I had it once... and what I have been going through feels a lot like I felt then.  There's no real way to know if it is active again.  I have been wanting to ask who here wrote that his wife had Lyme and wrote a book... I'd like to get that book.  

So... .here's the kicker.  Even though I can do 'woo woo'... I was not about to blame my COVID vaccines.  But I have been sharing notes with my daughter, who had COVID and now has long-COVID... she has gotten to know folks in that community.  She said "Mom... half the people here never had COVID... they got sick immediately after their vaccines!"  One such person, her son's soccer coach who was a young, very healthy fire fighter.  Within two days of his last booster he simply got sick, and never recovered.  He has been on total disability now for a year.  Cannot even walk.  My last booster was in October, 2021.  I could make a case for connecting the dots. 

On the heels of that, I received an 89 page report by a researcher I have known of for years titled "How to heal from the efficts of COVID vaccines".  The report is so thorough, certainly culled from interviews and reports of hundreds of very sick people.  The theory is that the spike protein continues to replicate and exhaust the systems (of some people).  It  triggers past infections, and acts very much like EBV.  

So... what started my journey?  And what will get me well again?  The consensus with the vaccine theory is that at some point people start to get well.  They just do.  I think that's my future, too.    

The biggest lessons here are spiritual ones for me.  To wake up in the morning and accept that this day may be shitty and I will have to deal with it. But that stronger forces watch out over me, and I am covered.  And Sugarloaf awaits. 

CARL!!!  May I ask?  Do you eat kangaroo???  I was looking for a list of heme iron sources... how is it kangaroo showed up on the list?  This list must be from Australia.  I can assure you that we do not eat kangaroo here.  We are too cultured for this.    

. 

Tim Schafstallwrote:

Since we're strolling down rope memory lane...Anybody climb on Goldline ?

Yep.  Was my dad's from the 50's.  Beautiful cord.  Painful to do a dulfersitz with...(!).  Still have it.  Bit thinner than the rope I learned to rock climb on, which, was similar construction but a lot fatter.  Used it a bit on easy routes and TRing.  

My first nylon rope was an Edelweiss I think.  Used it for ice climbing in the early 80's in Bozeman.  I think I still have a chunk of it I use for a tow rope or to hold stuff down on a roof rack.

Kristian Solemwrote:

Any more crazy wind stories out there? I've got a wild one from Josh I might post up later. Right now I gotta drive Beaver, Utah, to home. Looks like fine weather.

Last year, driving back from RR, we took an unusual route across the Mojave from Barstow to Mojave City. I'd never driven that way. It had been quite windy the night before and halfway along that route we passed a broken down train. It was one of those flatbed trains that they put either full semi-trailers or shipping containers onto. Every single container or trailer had blown off the train and was laying there by the side of the tracks. The train cars themselves were mostly not derailed, just their cargo blown straight off. That's a crazy crosswind.