New and Experienced Climbers over 50 #33

John Gill wrote:

I don't want to belabor the point, but apparently I got off on the wrong foot back in the 1960s at COR. I found another photo where I am on top a spire I think is above the place where I had a couple of ropes hanging to grab if I got into trouble. Identify it anyone?

I thought maybe City Limits but with the pinyon pines its gotta be up higher.  Maybe Creekside Tower?

I can't place it.  Come on, Pizza Guy, Dave, Jay...what is this?  Almost looks like something in the Castle Rock area.

Look at the photo on page 74 of Dave's latest guide.  What's that tower to the left?  Morning Glory area?

John any idea if you were near the main road into the main City?  Or over toward Twin Sisters?  General area info...which side of the road, etc.

Brian in SLC wrote:

I thought maybe City Limits but with the pinyon pines its gotta be up higher.  Maybe Creekside Tower?

I can't place it.  Come on, Pizza Guy, Dave, Jay...what is this?  Almost looks like something in the Castle Rock area.

Look at the photo on page 74 of Dave's latest guide.  What's that tower to the left?  Morning Glory area?

John any idea if you were near the main road into the main City?  Or over toward Twin Sisters?  General area info...which side of the road, etc.

Looks like it might be Crack of Doom on Morning Glory.

rgold wrote:

"The California lads, people like Bachar and (the Workout from Hell) Long got heavily into training."

Ah yes, I remember the Workout from Hell. 

I was one of John's climbing partners during that time frame (1980-1985) and got suckered into being his training partner (along with Dwight Brooks) for the Workout from Hell. John was buddies with Joe Gold, who owned the famous Gold's Gym in Venice, so oftentimes we worked out alongside Franco Columbo of Mr. Olympia fame. John called the regiment "supersets" - lot's of reps and lots of sets. I could barely hold the stearing wheel to drive home.

I guess it all paid off, since we were able to pull off some first free ascents during those years: Stairway to Heaven on Tahquitz, Hades at Suicide Rock, and what we thought was the first free ascent of the Lost Arrow Tip in Yosemite (which turned out to be the second free ascent). Good times!

John Long on Hades, 1984

Lost Arrow Spire

John wrote an article about the incredible history of the first ascent of the Lost Arrow and our free ascent in 1984 for Mountain Magazine, titled Flint Hard and Flawless.

John at Stoney Point, 1984

Idaho Bob wrote:

Looks like it might be Crack of Doom on Morning Glory.

That was my first thought but it doesn't quite look right.

Brian, KM, Idaho Bob, thanks for your efforts. The only memory I have of my visit there is the nocturnal stream beside where I parked our VW bus.

The kind of granite I really enjoyed had horizontal holds and didn't require cracks or chimneys. This is Lovers Leap in Hardscrabble Canyon in southern Colorado, an area where I scrambled around for many, many years without seeing another climber.The second photo (by Pat Ament) is of the sunny face of the first photo. I challenge you to find me in it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HELEN!!!  

Happy Birthday Helen.

Happy birthday Helen. I hope you have a wonderful trip around the sun. 

Happy Birthday, Helen!

fossil wrote:

Further down you reference, “ and now the best efforts of my generation, which came in around 5.12 trad, are now regularly achieved by "average" climbers of all ages and genders. I don't think this would ever have happened without training.”  This is not necessarily true, I get to see lots of today's youngsters throwing themselves at 5.12 and above, and most are spending considerable time hanging and falling to eventually achieve it. It is still rare to see one of them flash that stuff, and even the brightest stars that do flash those grades often will fall out of a 5.10 crack because they became brilliant face climbers without ever having to go through a diet of cracks that we all did.

Maybe this is just the particular youngsters you're seeing? My daughter was a team kid. During her teen years she went climbing outside with me a lot as did some of her team friends. The first few times there was an adjustment period but the ones who stuck with it started crushing pretty quickly. A few of them climbed 5.13 as teenagers. That was mostly sport of course but one of them has climbed 5.12+ trad as well. I think when kids start climbing before puberty their bodies adapt to it in a way that is just not possible for people who started later like most of us old timers. 

Emil Briggs wrote:

Maybe this is just the particular youngsters you're seeing? My daughter was a team kid. During her teen years she went climbing outside with me a lot as did some of her team friends. The first few times there was an adjustment period but the ones who stuck with it started crushing pretty quickly. A few of them climbed 5.13 as teenagers. That was mostly sport of course but one of them has climbed 5.12+ trad as well. I think when kids start climbing before puberty their bodies adapt to it in a way that is just not possible for people who started later like most of us old timers. 

Agree, if a face climber is easily pulling 5.12s, 5.10 cracks should be pretty easy?

Happy birthday, Helen.   

Helen: let there be cake! Phyl

Helen,  just remember you're not really "O"LH.  No "O" that I've seen.  Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday Helen!   

I’ll add my “Happy Birthday, Helen” and also my thanks for this ongoing thread for us mature folks. (Wasn’t she the original instigator?)

K M wrote:

That was my first thought but it doesn't quite look right.

 Yeah, not the incisor/morning glory spire. I also thought perhaps creekside but I don't think it is. Where's Bingham to sort it?

And happy birthday Helen!

Happy birthday, Helen, from the birchy woods north of Fairbanks at sunset.

Thanks all, for the birthday wishes (plus wombat?)!

Tomorrow I will be on a search and destroy mission involving chocolate, most likely.

Geez, with the COR heavy hitters weighing in, I al.ist hesitate to toss this out, but, maybe Bracksiecks? I'd guess the ranch road out to Fenceline has been there forever, and there's a creek or two out that way also.

And, ummmm, a VW could maybe probably, maybe only maybe, get up the hill to Castle area, eh?? 

Building project is done, I'll post some pics soon.

Re strength training and old people, think general population and functional mobility. I forget what the list is, but, walk the length of a hall, stand up from sitting, get up off the ground, stuff like that. Unlike the very fit peeps on here, broken hips often mean the end of mobility, and the end end is just around the corner. Hence all those 'fit and fall proof' classes.

Re weights, they have one real advantage. They are a set thing, and consistent. A 5 pound weight is a 5 pound weight, a 45 pound bar is a 45 pound bar. Anywhere. Any time. That is always what it is. Unlike climbs.

A second thing about this, is some muscle is working, sure, but usually so is a joint. A squat means my cantankerous knees are getting bent, like it or not, and a barbell added on might mean I'm convincing them to be just a wee bit more bendy then they would be just going up and down stairs.

You are also working balance, grip, other muscles you don't even know you own, especially with free weights.My personal experience with pt is that it was lots of little things I didn't even know I owned that got worked on, not the big glamour muscles glistening in the sun.

Last, climbers have their own styles. I've learned this, taking pictures of you people. Ah yes, there's that left foot, now they'll lift their head, grab the shot. Which means, we are often doing the same little things in the same way, more often than you might think! Ever notice a parent and child may have the exact same walk, or physical mannerisms, things like that?

Oh, and climbing team kids would be very similar to gymnastics program kids. Starting really young is indeed profoundly different from doing so as anything approaching adult body size/weight.

H.

fossil wrote:

Li says, if you are climbing 5.12 a 5.10 crack should be easy, and I would agree. However, in practice quite the opposite is true, jamming is a learned technique and even if you are wicked strong you are going to suffer until you learn the techniques. Once they get those techniques they move along quickly and then I have new rope guns in the event I lose my spine.

Got it, yeah, it depends upon how you define your climbing ability.

Flash or on-sight grade more than 50% or more of the climbs at a specific grade may be one definition, and clean TR ascents may be another, and projecting grade yet another?

In my mind, if a person declares that they climb 5.12, then they can likely on-sight more than half the climbs at that grade.