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New and Experienced climbers over 50 #23
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I remember doing The Prince of Darkness in RR sometime in the mid nineties where all the protection bolts were rusty 1/4" ers. You could always tell where the crux was on each pitch by the bent bolts that were halfway out of their holes. Good times! |
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POD in 86 those bolts were pretty new and we thought it was overkill that the hanging belays had 3 of them but we were blissfully ignorant... 1/4"wedge bolts have about a shy 1/8th of an inch of meat left when they are done milling the threads and the cone. I don't even want to know how little the collar is... the worst rap I have ever done (except maybe that thing in Zion) was I think off the top of triasic sands??? is it a tower on the left side of the Black velvet wall? perhaps somewhere near Ixlan??? the two bolt anchor at the top had wobbly 1/4 inch studs with the rock fractured away from the outside of the hole in a reverse cone shape. the nuts were missing and the hangers were actually held on with sport tape wrapped tightly around the threads.... now that I think about it I suspect that someone took the nuts off because they thought the bolts were unsafe? anyways we rapped really slow and smooth to a dead twig with some tat around it on a slab near a single pitch 5.9 face that I led. |
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Seeing Guy's old bolts reminds me of the time I showed my first climbing partner, and mentor, around Josh. We'd only climbed together back east, so this was his first time doing the CA granite thing. He was a French Canadian guy by the name of Jean Guibord. When I moved out west, he went to merchant marine school, and when he visited me in CA it was between trips working as a bosun's mate on a Military Sealift Command tanker. MSC is made up of commercial vessels contracted to service the fleet. Typically an MSC ship would have one Navy officer aboard - not as Captain - and a civilian crew. As you can imagine, when something is bolted down on a large seagoing vessel, it's done with serious hardware. So, when I took Jean out to do Walk on The Wild Side he was not impressed by the 1/4" bolts. I lead, and by the time he got to the belay he was appalled that we would trust our lives to nothing more than staples. He wanted off, but refused to rappel from "staples," so I belayed while he down climbed. Later he told me a bit about his job. The tanker he crewed on delivered jet fuel to the carriers in the 6th fleet. They would transfer fuel, while underway, often in bad weather and rough seas. He was one of the crew out on deck making it all happen. "Dude, I do really hazardous duty at sea. Then I come out here and see this? You guys are nuts." We stuck to crack climbs after that and had a great time. |
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Kristen. That's a good example of a trades person knowing the limitations of hardware. With all the construction workers in climbing it sort of boggels me that it took so long for us to get around to using decent hardware.. perhaps it was because climbing was dominated by intellectuals in the early days but Layton kor was a mason and should have known how to place a decent bolt. |
Nick Goldsmithwrote: From my friendships and experiences with some of the climbers putting up routes back then, I can say that there was a trace of guilt involved in bolting. The fewer the better, and the less obtrusive the better. Somewhere under the surface, climbers saw bolts as a last resort, and the idea of placing large bolts was eschewed for a few reasons. One, of course, was the time/effort required to drill a larger bolt from a minimal stance. Two would have been the cost/availability of modern anchors. Three, and I don't think this is a small element in the equation, was a desire to have as little impact as possible. The evolution to doing routes which were seen, in advance, as being entirely protected by bolts continued the 1/4" norm. Walk on the Wild Side, EBGB's, and Loose Lady are examples. Stance drilling on the latter two was really something, and getting it done took priority over placing bigger bolts. Add that to the fact that most good climbers are existentialists, living in the moment, they weren't giving a lot of thought to the future... |
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the climber mentality sometimes seems to glorify bad protection ;) |
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I think that Kris has it exactly right. I know that in the Northeast, at least from the 60s until the 90s, bolts were definitely felt to be the ‘last resort’ by most putting up new routes—though there are far fewer expanses of crackless rock in this region than in CA. And, yes, Nick, there was that attitude as well, at least for some. |
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Then there was the camp of "bolts are only to be used to protect groundfall, then chopped after the FFA in order to keep the line pure for the next guy." I believe that guy Jimmy Beyer is still playing that game. |
Todd Berlier wrote: Great pic. Where was this exactly? Picked a bad guy to go to the coast |
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Too hot to climb outside but a nice sesh inside. |
Carl Schneiderwrote: LOL, we are too cold here to get in a pleasant outdoor day. |
S. Neohwrote: It’s just colours in most of the indoor gyms. Some try to correlate colours with the V grade one gym tries to use the V grade but doesn’t really succeed. Of course outdoors in Aust it’s V grades. |
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Home Depot’s selection of cabbage and kale plants. Do we have to pay extra for leaves?  |
Lori Milaswrote: Thats what the chipmunks do to mine |
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Checking in. How is everyone? Tony and i are just finishing up Season 5 of Friday Night Lights AGAIN and I was thinking of Wendy and wondering whether you ever had a favorite… Riggins or Saracen? After all this time I still cannot decide. Maybe i’d be Team Saracen…. But dang that Riggins has ‘the look’. I just contributed to a GoFundMe campaign for a climber…. Shipoopi??? Sounds like he has had a bad string of injuries and mishaps. Not to glory in anyone’s hardships, but it helps to remember that we all have our share. I wouldn’t want to be a young climber and get sidelined for a year or more. But it’s not easy being an older climber, either. i guess I have to say that i still have no big advances to report. I wish it were different. I think my doctor(s) have settled on the diagnosis of Epstein Barr (chronic) although they are also calling it Long COVID. It would help if I knew I had ever had COVID. Whatever it is, crushing fatigue, weight loss, insomnia, and frequently fevers and feeling overall sick. I’m trying to carefully suss out how to get well… today I decided to try the ‘let’s push a workout to the limit’ idea. I went for a long walk/jog and then came home and butchered a large bush in our front yard. I can see why they warn against this… So, as Andrew mentioned, Acyclovir is the drug of choice for Epstein Barr. Only one small problem. A side effect can be total destruction of the kidneys. “In approximately 12-48% of cases it can present as acute kidney injury…” and a whole bunch more. So, I have the prescription, just contemplating the risks. The other drug offered is Ivermectin. A surprising number of Long COVID and EBV patients swear it is the only thing that helped. ———— Thinking how patient Guy was, waiting to be healed enough to climb… and so many others here on this thread who have had to sit it out for awhile, helps me not to feel so left out. Whoever this Shipoopi is… now it’s his turn. I hope we all have our days back in the sun soon. Loved the discussion on Figures. Hard to believe I never ventured back into the Wonderland…but hope to this year. |
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Lori, definitely Team Riggins. I was at the rock gym today. Half the time was spent climbing, the other half standing around with the old guys talking about our injuries. |
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Steve Schneider, aka Shipoopi, recently fractured his tibia. |
S. Neohwrote: https://enormocast.com/2021/10/enormocast-229-steve-shipoopoi-schneider-blonde-ambition/ They did a really good, funny, slide show about that called the Blond Ambition Tour which I saw at an Access Fund dinner, IIRC. Steve used to regularly set routes at Peter Mayfield's original City Rock gym in those days - he's a good guy. Edited to say, Shipoopoi was Steve's Supertopo name and Shipoopi is the name of his Meadows route to the left of B-Y, in case people are wondering about the spelling differences. |
Lori Milaswrote: Alive and kicking. Doc reluctantly gave the go ahead to start climbing again (he said if I screw up the ankle again it means more $$ for him ), so I ventured back in gym 2x last week. Easy stuff, obviously well below what I was climbing before the injury, but definite progress noted and climbing is just "funifying" what most of PT involves (lots of varied calf raises and balancing on one foot stuff). Still can't handle any single track on the bike, but pavement and gravel is just fine. Weather has been really nice for this time of year, so I've been able to get out biking several times already this new year. Good thoughts to everyone in N&EC+50 land who are also hurting, sick, or injured. Stay the course. Hopefully I'll see some of you this year. TS |
Tim Schafstallwrote: Tim, are you by any chance thinking of a cross-country climbing trip in the new van once you take possession? (PS Daphne says hello back) |
