New and Experienced Climbers over 50 #34

rgoldwrote:

That's one of the Hagermeister boulders outside of the town of Estes Park.  I believe access has been closed for a long time now. The route is Fenton's Corner, named, I'm assuming, for Needles SD climber Renn Fenton.  The next boulder to the left is a slab; here's a shot  (taken early to mid 1960's) of Raymond Schrag on the slab route with Gill observing from below.  (Note: in those days, no pads and no spotting.) Raymond has a bit of chalk in his left hand.  This was in the days before chalk bags (and chalk buckets).  We'd carry a few crumbs in our pockets and fiddle them out (if we could) for a fingertip dusting.

Following up a bit on the (relatively) early use of chalk for climbing. Being a Devil's Lake climber in the mid-60s (and friend of rgold), I was lured into using chalk very early in my climbing career ( given the very slick quartzite at 'The Lake' chalk use was less frowned upon there than at other areas during that era). None of the few stores that carried climbing gear in those days ( and there were no such stores then in the Midwest anyway) sold chalk. Instead we had to go to the local pharmacies ( called 'drug stores back then) and ask for Magnesium Carbonate--which came in small (maybe 3 inch) cubic blocks. Since, as I understood it, the most common use for this item was to make 'milk of magnesia'---a common laxative, I'm sure that the pharmacists were wondering about the sudden prevalence of constipation among a certain group of young students!!!!

The carrying crumbled chalk in pockets quickly became 'old' --especially since many of us still foolishly climbed in tight dungarees, until someone came up with the brilliant idea of using a small nylon stufff sack for this purpose. You would cut a hole near the top of the bag for a carabiner that would then be clipped into your 'Swami belt' or other such place. This was a great improvement over the 'pocket method', though still far from ideal, as the openings for the stuff bags were never really big enough to permit easy entry for our hands( and all too often would 'tighten up' with the hand inserted therein at the worst possible moment!!!) and the biner holes had a predictable tendency to further tear. But as chalk use became more accepted ( though never fully) and widespread, further creative individuals started producing the custom designed bags omnipresent today.

Chalk use…. I recall that the standard practice was to have a community block of Eldo sitting on its wrapper. Before attempting the “problem” you would rub the block on your fingers and palms - this would let you grip better and I felt that on sharp crimps the chalk padded your tips to some degree.
Yes my first chalk bag was just a small stuff sack, one needed to have a no hands stance to chalk up.
My grandparents owned an awning business in LA. I would work there to make $$$ to finance my habit. I had seen a few real chalk bags- all home made- so I dug around the shop and found some white rip-stop nylon and with my Grandma’s assistance- she showed me how to sew with a narley commercial/industrial sewing machine- I made 3 or 4 bags and supplied them to my friends. I also made “butt bags”, at one time a necessary tool for hanging belays in pre harness days.

So to help Lori understand how things got to where we are at now I’ll say this. Nothing happened fast.
When I started, 73, the Josh GB was about 15-20 pages (maybe less, I could be mistaken) and the hardest grade listed- F10 - covered 2 climbs.
The park- as you know is immense- climbers had never ventured deeply into it. So it was all fair game. People started hiking out into the maze and discovering some amazing climbing.
But the only problem was this- you had nobody to give the information to. So for awhile everything was word of mouth.
Fortunately Randy Vogel picked up the baton and started keeping track, we all owe him a big hand for doing that.
Personally I only went to JT when all other places were “shutdown” due to winter storms in the Mountains.
So Lori to answer your question about grades, specifically why they didn’t just go up.
It was the shoes. If you gave Royal some modern boots- via a time machine- he would have been running up things. The man free soloed the Right Ski track in his mountain boots in 1953!!!!
So if you want a humbling lesson- go climb one of your favorite face climbs in mountain boots- not approach boots - but boots with a “welt” or better yet get some “EB’s” “RD’s” “PA’s” “Robbins” or some of the other footwear that was popular at the time. That should explain everything.

Fossil- come on your trying to get me to dig into the “slides”? At the moment they are buried in a box in the closet. My friends Bulwinkle and Shawn Curtis (RIP) were the photographers in my circle of friends. They knew what was up with lenses, F-stops, film speeds and most importantly they had access to photo labs.
He has the goods. Reportedly the Super 8 of John Bachar’s morning solo circuit has been located- that’s something I want to see.

So I hope everyone is doing well and having fun.

Buck - Thank you for your service. Without people like you I don’t think we would have the luxury to be climbers.

Later 

 None of the few stores that carried climbing gear in those days ( and there were no such stores then in the Midwest anyway) sold chalk. Instead we had to go to the local pharmacies ( called 'drug stores back then) and ask for Magnesium Carbonate--which came in small (maybe 3 inch) cubic blocks. Since, as I understood it, the most common use for this item was to make 'milk of magnesia'---a common laxative, I'm sure that the pharmacists were wondering about the sudden prevalence of constipation among a certain group of young students!!!! 

I never had to buy chalk BITD.

 My father was a HS PE teacher/coach and at the end of each gymnastics season he would bring home the broken blocks and pieces from school that I would carry in my first chalk bag

which mom sewed together from of an old pair of worn-out Levis, had a paracord drawstring closure that I'd clip to a biner on my swami belt.

Mr. Gill, my Dad was also a gymnast in HS, then at the University of Iowa, parallel bars and still rings.  

He stayed pretty strong later in life, at age 50 I watched him press into an iron cross on the rings and hold it for 5 seconds.

Cancer took him out at 80,

 Love and miss you Pops.

Carry on...

My first chalk bag was the blue and gold  cloth bag that bottles of Crown Royal came in. I worked in a bar.  those bags were not ideal as they did not have a stiff opening that stayed open.  But they looked cool. 

My first wife, Lora, stitched a denim bag for my chalk about 1963. I could clip it on my swami belt. I bought blocks of gymnastic chalk, not powdered.

I brought chalk to climbing directly from gymnastics, but a few years ago I made an effort to trace the history of the use of chalk in gymnastics and failed. None of the engravings of early gymnastics I came across show chalk containers or stands. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, the Father of German (and Modern) Gymnastics, invented parallel bars and vaulting apparatus, adding to horizontal bars, and nothing describes the use of chalk. I don't know if chalk was used in the 1898 Olympic games, but the 45 foot rope climb would have been super challenging without it. Chalk has been used in weight lifting for some time, as well, but I haven't tried to track its use. 

Lori has asked about progress in the sport in competitive settings. A short time ago I posted images of several medallions of the more the 200 small climbing clubs in Saxony alone by the 1930s. When Perry-Smith entered the game in the late 1800s it was highly competitive, and I suspect the Brits who began the sport in the 1880s got competitive quickly.

I think there were multiple factors in the grade increase.

1. Equipment.  Nuts and especially cams changed the protection situation, mostly for the better.  

2. Sticky rubber.  This made a big difference on nearly holdless slabs, but was not that big a factor in places like the Gunks and Eldorado that had steep face climbing with, however, better-defined footholds. And shoes evolved from board- to slip-lasted and acquired all kinds of weird shapes that made it easier to get more from less.

3. Changes in the rules of the game (often pretentiously called "ethics" but not in any philosophical way related to ethics). Since Nick referred to some of these rules as "stoopid," I think some perspective is called for.  First of all, climbing, however you do it, is pretty stoopid, so elevating one particular instance of stoopidity over all the others seems arbitrary to me.  But that's not the main issue.  Climbing, to exist as an endeavor, requires the voluntary renunciation of all available means.  There's only something we can recognize as climbing if we don't allow every possible way of getting up.  With that understood, whatever restrictions climbers adopt will seem stoopid to other folks in general and, in some cases, to some other climbers.  

I think the original strict American free-climbing rules go back to Royal Robbins and his Southern California crew.  But there was also a very British strain of "fair means," which meant that you had to "give nature a proper chance."  I think these rules were also influenced by the idea that climbing on small rocks was viewed as preparation for climbing on big rocks and mountains, and the demands of preparation dictated some of the protocols, like an insistence on ground-up ascents. (No one in their wildest dreams ever could have imagined Honnold top-roping El Cap for years before soloing it.)  

Another aspect was a strong connection to the outdoors (there being no other type of climbing at the time).  Most climbers were already outdoors people before they started climbing.  What evolved from all this is that free climbs should be done ground-up, should never rely on aid or top-roping to provide more information, and should only make use of what nature provided, both in terms of holds for progress and opportunities for protection.  If you fell off a pitch, you should lower, ideally to the ground, but at least to the nearest hands-off rest, and retry from there.  And there was, at first, a vague understanding that you wouldn't be falling off a whole lot.  These are essentially the rules that Nick called stoopid.

Although changes in equipment help, I think most of the increase in grades comes, as Nick has said, from changes in the rules.  Such changes are, in my view, inevitable, because an ambitious and active generation is going to get about as far as is possible under their self-imposed restrictions, and the only way for a younger generation to make progress is for them to change the rules (an activity the previous generation calls "cheating"). In the Gunks, the ground-up no aid and few or no falls philosophy got people up to 5.10d (or really 5.11a but no one wanted to be the one to propose a new grade). The next generation stuck to the old rules, but took a far more aggressive stance about repeated falling and group sieging, and these early approximations of contemporary projecting got us somewhere into the 5.12 region and represented about as far as anyone was going to get with the rules in place. And so the stage was set for a rules change.

Along the way came a shift away from the nature-based orientation.  Climbing shifted in emphasis from an adventure to a performance perspective, and the rock shifted in perception from a natural object to a potential apparatus for a performance. Sport climbing accelerated the rock-as-apparatus perspective, and then climbing gyms cemented the idea by cutting nature entirely out of the equation.  Freed from the original restrictions, with hangdogging, top-roping, and projecting now an intrinsic ingredient, climbing grades inevitably jumped a grade or two higher.

Although the original concept of the free ascent abides, virtually all the restrictions on how we get to that point have been eliminated.  This means that further progress is unlikely to come from rules-changes because there are no rules left to change. (Of course, individual areas have clung to some aspects of the older rules associated with the restriction on protection.  The Elbsansteingebirge and British gritstone outcrops are prime examples.)

4. A change in demographics, brought about especially by climbing gyms.  Climbers were originally a very small tribe outside the mainstream of outdoor activity.  Gyms are now exposing a vastly greater slice of the population to the sport, and at much younger ages, with the inevitable result that more exceptionally talented individuals are identified and brought into the fold.

5. Climbing-specifc training. This involves both a growing appreciation of and acceptance of training for climbing as well as an enormous increase in information about methods and training tools.  I think it fair to say that in the 1950's--1970's, John Gill was arguably the strongest climber in the world.  Nowadays, thanks to both demographic selection and very sophisticated training protocols, there are probably hundreds of climbers stronger than Gill was.  But also the general level of climbing fitness has rocketed up since the first hangboards in the 1980's unlocked the notion of specific training for climbing.

In the '60s when I started, and, I believe for long before ( at least in the English-speaking countries), the standard mantra ( frequently stated) was 'climbing is a non-competitive sport'---and for some that was undoubtedly true, but you didn't have to dig very deeply at all to find just a bit of competition happening. And it wasn't just the 'modern rock climbers' chasing grades that were competitive; after all, Whymper rolled rocks from the summit of the Matterhorn to 'notify' Carrell, then climbing the opposite ridge, that he'd reached it first!!!!

Edit to add: Since rgold posted his comments while I was composing my post, I want to add that I completely agree with his points ( as usual), though I want to add, consistent with the competitiveness discussion, that throughout the history of climbing, small intense groups of like-minded and talented individuals, have somehow come together and pushed each other to advance standards, usually for at least a short period, noticeably in advance of most of their peers. Perhaps the most well-known example is the Rock and Ice Club in the UK in the late 1940s/1950s, but  the JT scene in the 70s was another example.

Alan Rubinwrote:

After all, Whymper rolled rocks from the summit of the Matterhorn to 'notify' Carrell, then climbing the opposite ridge, that he'd reached it first!!!!

Maybe it was a karma kickback, but here’s what happened next (excerpt from my book Advanced Rock Climbing):

“Mountaineering’s first golden age ended abruptly on July 14, 1865. For Edward Whymper, who led a team of seven climbers up the first ascent of Switzerland’s Matterhorn—at the time the last great unclimbed peak in the Alps—both triumph and tragedy were his fate on that great and dreadful summer’s day. Theirs was the first ascent of the icy pyramid—the greatest achievement in alpine climbing at the time, and for Whymper perhaps the sweetest victory, for after a dozen attempts he now stood on the summit, jubilant, gazing down on the tiny gingerbread town of Zermatt far below.

The euphoric climbers, all seven tied together with manila ropes, began a tedious descent. One of the party suddenly slipped, pulling several of the others off. While Whymper held fast, clinging to a rock outcrop to avoid being yanked into the abyss, the rope broke, sending four climbers to their death. The three survivors were saved from a tragic fate by the weak rope, since they were unanchored and had no belay. Some speculated that the rope had been cut with a knife, but a formal investigation and inspection of the rope revealed that the cord had simply parted—broken under the strain.

The fallen were later buried in the Zermatt cemetery; the Matterhorn soars above them as their tombstone for all time.”

Rgold… wow.  It’s kind of overwhelming to fathom these changes.  Thank you so much for taking the time.I’m wondering how you felt about the changes as they were happening to you personally? I guess that’s an open question for anyone here.  

I did know that John Bachar had a strong belief in ground up ethics here and there were fights over bolting. By the time Scott Cosgrove started putting up his 5.13 and 5.14 routes I think the disputes were settled. Or at least they weren’t having brawls.  

I tried to find a pair of original EB’s last year just so I could see for myself. I don’t think I ever found a pair, but also it’s hard enough for me to climb with the best sticky rubber on the finest shoe.  But if I could ever get a hold of a pair, I would buy them and try them out.

After my first camp out here in Joshua Tree and my first guided climb for a couple of hours, I knew I wanted to come back , but I lived in Sacramento and it seemed the only thing to do was join the gym. That first night when I pulled up and saw all the young city folks getting out of their cars with their fancy climbing outfits I sat in my car and cried.  It was not what I wanted at all. But I did go in and thereafter climbed twice a week for a few years. But I saw no Similarity between the rugged outdoors and a downtown climbing gym.  I was told that less than 5% of the gym members ever climbed outside.  That makes this experience all the more precious. 

Aside from shoes and equipment maybe my own experience is unique with grades is instructive. Ever since I got a taste of a sort of steep slab, it haunted me – – what if it were steeper? What if it had fewer holds?  What if it were smoother like glass? And I guess it has become an obsession with me… Wondering what technique, what rubber, what strength I need to take it a little farther. And the same goes for crack climbing here, face climbing, and now I can’t stop thinking about stemming on those crazy dihedrals.  If everyone bitd was challenging themselves to go a little harder, a little deeper, that would certainly push grades, right?  If you saw a friend climbing an astonishing route you might think “maybe I can do that too.”

I bumped into the below formation yesterday (we talked about sometime ago) and all I could think was who looked at this and thought “I wonder if I can climb this?”. I stared at it for the longest time because it’s dead vertical if not overhanging and as far as I am concerned, impossible. (The culprit was Kris).

—-

It just happens that I’m watching a movie called Wild Life tonight about a guy named Doug Tompkins and his wife, Kris who moved to Chile and bought up a ton of land for conservation. Yvonne Chouinard is a big part of this movie commenting on his Yosemite climbing days with Doug, and climbing the Fitz Roy in Patagonia. 1968. These guys were building companies and climbing big stuff.  So there must’ve been a fever.  

RG. To be fair the only rule I called Stoopid was the hang dogging rule which with a little bit of introspection on my part is probably pretty good idea because the endless belaying required for some folks to project something is rather mind numbing. Perhaps that was part of the origin of that rule. Give it up mate and let me have a go. Usually when I project something I do it by myself with a gri gri to spare Isa the pain of project belaying. There is no doubt though that projecting raises the level that any individual can climb at hence my observation that prohibiting projecting is rather Stoopid. 

There is so much great history and writing in this thread. I’m very thankful for all that is contributed here.

I always found that projecting got you a higher grade on your resume, but unless you were pretty relentless about always increasing the difficulty it didn't necessarilty make you a better climber.  After all, practice makes perfect.  There are boulder problems that I have worked on for months or years, and while I might eventually figure out the exact movements and strengths to do them, I'm not sure very many of them made me a substantially better climber other than the benefit I would got from all the work.  And that to me is where you stand to gain as a climber, by really specific training, including a ton of endurance.

Lori Milaswrote:

Rgold… wow.  It’s kind of overwhelming to fathom these changes.  Thank you so much for taking the time.I’m wondering how you felt about the changes as they were happening to you personally? I guess that’s an open question for anyone here.  

Lori, the answer is that I liked the old rules; they were closest to what I appreciated about climbing.  When people started projecting with lower-offs, I increasingly lost interest in that kind of climbing.  I managed only a very few 5.12's and those without a huge number of tries, but the whole process didn't really appeal and so I was pretty much out of the game somewhere between 1980 and 1990, enjoying doing my own thing but not in any way keeping up with or even staying anywhere near the leading edge. By the time I fully separated from the frontrunners, I'd already been climbing for 25 years or so---that's an entire career for some folks---and then I've bumbled along for another forty+ years at decreasing levels of difficulty.

So the answer is that in many ways I've been a spectator as the changes have swept over the climbing world. But I will say that the gear has made things far safer and a bit easier, so the technical changes have been most welcome, because they've helped to keep me in the game. If I had to lead now, as I was in, say, 1970, with nothing but a small rack of nuts, I'd probably have given up or at least retired from leading anything.

My grandmother was born in the horse-and-buggy era and lived to see us land on the moon. I've often reflected that I would probably not witness such a huge leap in technology, and although computers that took up entire rooms now fit in my pocket, I still see the span of her experience as unique and special. But in climbing I think I and my octagenarian peers have lived through a grandma moment in time. Starting with laid ropes tied around the waist, soft iron pitons, climbing shoes that wouldn't be considered to be decent approach shoes nowadays, hip belays and Dulfersitz rappels, and then progressing through all the technological upgrades in the last 68 years has been a journey I don't think modern climbers will ever replicate. The transition from hard-steel pitons to nuts was an especially unique moment, when the entire community, in a very short period of time, gave up everything we had learned, understood, and practiced about security for a new technology we knew almost nothing about. It felt like a new (and often scary) day, and I can't imagine anything analogous happening anytime soon, if ever.

rgoldwrote:

 I think it fair to say that in the 1950's--1970's, John Gill was arguably the strongest climber in the world.  Nowadays, thanks to both demographic selection and very sophisticated training protocols, there are probably hundreds of climbers stronger than Gill was.  But also the general level of climbing fitness has rocketed up since the first hangboards in the 1980's unlocked the notion of specific training for climbing.

Excellent post Rich,

I don't know anybody from that era who did not look up to John Gill. That would include everyone i can think of who were thought of as the best climbers in the world anytime after Gill.

Here's one of today's uber strong kids using the new tactics as he goes for a stroll on America's first 5.14.

fossil, your home turf.

wendy weisswrote:

fossil, your home turf.

yes, my pics from 3 or 4 days ago.

I my self, stick with the 1920's level of cutting edge according to the chart John linked above.

In terms of Smith, that would mean I'm climbing at a solid 1961 level.

total badass I tell ya...

Bob Gaineswrote:

The euphoric climbers, all seven tied together with manila ropes, began a tedious descent. One of the party suddenly slipped, pulling several of the others off. While Whymper held fast, clinging to a rock outcrop to avoid being yanked into the abyss, the rope broke, sending four climbers to their death. The three survivors were saved from a tragic fate by the weak rope, since they were unanchored and had no belay. Some speculated that the rope had been cut with a knife, but a formal investigation and inspection of the rope revealed that the cord had simply parted—broken under the strain.

The museum in Zermatt has some sobering artifacts...

Hadow's boot.  Possible that the slick soles contributed to the accident...

"The day the rope broke."  Pretty thin cord.

According to the senior Taugwalder, "I have to add that to be more secure I turned towards the rocks and as the rope that was between Whymper and myself was not taut I was fortunately able to wind it around a projecting rock, which then gave me the necessary and life saving anchorage; the rope that connected me with Douglas and those ahead gave me such a pull from their fall that I am still suffering a lot at the place where my body was tied with the rope."

fossilwrote:

Here's one of today's uber strong kids using the new tactics as he goes for a stroll on America's first 5.14.

So whatever happened to Scott Franklin? When I started climbing in the mid-80s he was a rockstar on the cover of R&I…

fossilwrote:

yes, my pics from 3 or 4 days ago.

I my self, stick with the 1920's level of cutting edge according to the chart John linked above.

In terms of Smith, that would mean I'm climbing at a solid 1961 level.

total badass I tell ya...

Smith is the best sport climbing area in the West. The first 5.14, cool!

rgoldwrote:

 like an insistence on ground-up ascents. (No one in their wildest dreams ever could have imagined Honnold top-roping El Cap for years before soloing it.)  

??? I thought Honnold led it many times before soloing.