New and Experienced Climbers over 50 #35

I couldn't lift 420 lbs if I had a hoist to help me.  Sometimes in the gym I have to move an empty olympic bar (45 lbs I think) out of the way.  Every time I do it I think, "jeez, this thing is heavy!"

rgold wrote:

I couldn't lift 420 lbs if I had a hoist to help me.  Sometimes in the gym I have to move an empty olympic bar (45 lbs I think) out of the way.  Every time I do it I think, "jeez, this thing is heavy!"

My strategy? I can out run her...

Kris, Big congratulations to Barbara! So impressive.

Loving life…

I'll offer an alternative method to get into climbing.

I started hanging out with Mike Waugh.  We were surfers.  A friend of his got back from a trip with Outward Bound and took us rappelling at Stoney.  While there we saw people bouldering and tried it.  We were told we had a chance to do it well but would be better off with climbing shoes.  We bought some and started bouldering all the time.  We watched others do problems and then tried to do them on our own - the two of us.  We started reading about climbing.  The Chouinard catalog on clean climbing came out and we devoured it.  We also read Basic and Advanced Rock Craft.  We bought some hexes and stoppers and a rope.  We wandered around placing gear and standing and bouncing on it till we thought we had a good idea what worked and what didn't.  We went to Josh and started climbing.  We climbed up to 5.9 our first weekend and didn't quite manage to kill ourselves.  Eventually we hung out at Josh enough to be accepted into the tribe.  Later we met some nice potential mentors like Kamps.  But by then we were off to the races and self sufficient.

Jan, I thought Mike L. and co. took you under their wing and nutured you at Josh?

Not sure who Mike L is unless you mean Laughlin then I never really knew that Mike very well.  We ended up bouldering with Bearamia and Bachar, etc.  Quite a bit later started bouldering with Kamps and Laeger.  Basically fell in with the Stonemasters in Josh and spent lots of years with Bachar, Long, Maria, Dave Houser, Tony Yaniro, Randy Leavitt, Nick Badyrka and all the other boys.  Then Mike and Mari and Yabo and Randy Vogel, Dave Evans, Craig Fry and Fish showed up  Except for Houser teaching me how to bolt routes I never really felt like I had a mentor climbing at all.  Just one of the boys.

Alan Rubin wrote:

Apogee---do you know what year that Gerry ad was published---I'm guessing early/mid 60s ( what year did they go out of business or, at least, stop advertising)? It is noteworthy , in the context of Daniel's question, that the climber is using a Swiss seat and biner combo for his rappel set-up. The $3.50 price tag is also interesting---something like that would probably cost at least $25 today!!!!

Dragons---what year did you take the Boston AMC program? It is likely that Eric Engberg, who posts on here, was one of the instructors, and if it was far enough back in time, I might have been as well. It is worth mentioning that the 'modern' Boston AMC program ( since, at least, the early '70s), is very different than those provided by the AMC in earlier decades. While the fundamentals being taught, appropriately updated, are basically the same, the entire structure and attitude is very different---much more flexible and encouraging, especially once past the 'beginner' phase. So when rgold mentioned that he was fortunate to have avoided becoming 'indoctrinated' by the 'Appies', he was referring to back then, not now.

Alan - I took the Spring 2011 Boston AMC Rock program. It's a great course! They actually teach you the Dülfersitz, although of course it's not recommended. I don't recall meeting either you or Eric, but it's possible that I've just forgotten. However, I do recall that Willie Crowther showed up to help out on the last day - that made a big impression on me. I'm really bad at networking, and maybe I was doing something wrong, but I found it extremely difficult to find partners among the students. I suspected at the time that it was because I was older than the average student (I was in my 40s), and the younger people kind of stuck together. I could be wrong about the reasons. I was gung-ho to lead and started building a rack soon after the course ended or maybe even before it did! But I had trouble finding a dedicated partner; no one seemed to be as hooked as I was, or else they already had some other preferred partner. So I wound up climbing with a lot of randos for a while. Some were nice, some were kinda scary. About a year later I met my current boyfriend while climbing, and he's been my most reliable partner. But I still love climbing with a few swell people that I've met over the years.

Guy - you said:

I hate those “ATC Guides” and refuse to be belayed by one “in guide mode”.

That surprises me! What did people do in that scenario before gri-gris? I used a BD ATC-Guide exclusively for several years before switching to a gri-gri. I didn't trust or like the gri-gri to begin with, but I quickly grew to love it, and now I can't believe that I used an ATC exclusively for so long. However, ATC in guide mode is great! You can totally lower someone without flipping it. It's kind of a pain, and it's usually not necessary, but it's built to be used that way. The person who dropped you didn't know what he was doing. I don't know how I'd belay from above if I didn't have an ATC with guide mode pre-gri-gri.

Went climbing with my bf today! We swapped leads on Rusty Trifle. What amazing weather!

P3 of Rusty Trifle:

rgold wrote:

I couldn't lift 420 lbs if I had a hoist to help me.

You just need a really long lever, Rich!

Guy Keesee wrote:

I hate those “ATC Guides” and refuse to be belayed by one “in guide mode”.

Yeah, I get it.  It seems that there are a lot of people who don't know how to lower with a guide plaquette, and the consequences of that ignorance are never good if lowering has to happen.  The most controllable release is with a DMM Pivot.

Like you, I dislike the upper belay I get from most people belaying with a plaquette on the anchor.  They're always yarding on you, and you can't step down.  These flaws aren't intrinsic to the plate; slack can be managed if the belayer is attentive, but one of the main "advantages" of the plates is that the belayer can "multitask," which means doing several things at once, each of them badly.  The result alternates between too much slack while the belayer is unwrapping their sandwich and too much tension when the belayer keeps hauling up the rope until it comes tight and the plate locks.

All that said, I do use a guide-mode belay some of the time.  I almost never feel the need to multitask, but the belay position can be more comfortable when the device is on the anchor.  I pay attention and don't pull the second up the climb, and if the second has to be lowered, I know several strategies for doing it safely.

Kristian Solem wrote:

Here are a couple for ya...

Guy Keesee atop Trash Can Rock, Joshua Tree, way back when...

Me, I think on the same day. Same place... Guy took the pic. Ken Gohegan, the veterinarian in 29 Palms at the time, made the tights. Ken and I put up a route up in Indian Country, a crag that Guy and I discovered uphill from Indian Cove, we called The Last of the Gohegans.

Guy and me atop Castle Rock Spire way back when...

That gear sling I'm wearing was made for me by Mike Caldwell, Tommy's dad. He called it a gear brazier. 

On another note, I mentioned a while back the my wife Barbara was off to compete in the IPL Masters Cup power lifting meet in Texas. Of course there are winners in various categories of age and weight classes, masters being divided into age groups beginning at 40. Of course she dominated in her class, age 66 at about 165. But she won the "Best Lifter" award, selected from the entire field across all age and weight classes. There were women there in their 40's who were twice her weight and lifted heavier, but in the end the judges pick one lifter who, when factoring how much they lifted at a certain age and weight, was the overall best. So, for now, Barbara Taylor is the best female lifter over 40 in the International Powerlifting League.

420 pounds on the bar...

This is awesome!  You must be so proud. Just ... wow! 

Also where's the rope on your Gohegans pic?  Nice looking route!  Was it part of a solo circuit?

GO

April blue skies above Murphy dome. Hayes range on the horizon all the way down. Just walking today. Sometimes I walk backwards for a few dozen feet at a time and hope that my footprints in the mud will momentarily confuse the investigators of some uncommitted crime.

Daniel and Alan:  I don't remember anything about the rappel, but I suspect the guys I was with prepared a webbing seat with a karabiner or two for friction descent. Nylon webbing and white or olive drab laid rope was readily available at an Army surplus store. I still have a couple of steel karabiners from that era. 

Play day at Castle Rock late 1960s and a climber's image from a German book published in the 1930s, I think. 

Royal and I in Boulder, 1992. Both far beyond our primes.

This book intrigued me. Helmut Rohrl, a visiting math person at U of Chi and a climber, knew Buhl and told me outlandish stories about him, which I believed.

dragons wrote:

Thanks for the perspective and additional info - I didn't know that about the EUV. I'll respond to you further in a DM. This is not a great forum for discussing politics, I should have known, too bad.

I’m not really politically motivated, it’s more about restricting technology and BOTH parties are great at stifling it.

The only reason I opted to back Harris over Trump is to avoid Tariffs and the outright racism, and once again stifling trade and progress.

The issue described by Guy is not as rare as you would think. 

I once took a self rescue class. Learned a few tricks, but one thing that stuck with me was the section on dealing with an injured party hanging on the rope below you. The instructor had each student use whatever belay device each they usually used, in whatever configuration they normally belayed from above. Several of the participants used some variation on an ATC guide in "guide mode".  Everyone was paired up with a variety of other participants. When it came time for smaller people to lower a larger "unconscious" climber, they were typically unable to control the belay. It was very difficult to "break" the fully locked up device in guide mode with the weight of a heavy climber on it. In order to do so they had to rig up a sling and stand on it in order to get the power and leverage they needed. And then what typically happened was an uncontrolled descent. These belayers had to practice until they could be somewhat safe, but at least one of them never got there, and all of them had second thoughts about using the guide mode when belaying a heavier climber in the future. 

GO

Li Hu wrote:

I’m not really politically motivated, it’s more about restricting technology and BOTH parties are great at stifling it.

The only reason I opted to back Harris over Trump is to avoid Tariffs and the outright racism, and once again stifling trade and progress.

One can say that they are non-political and it is fine to be focused on economic considerations, but I think that it is getting to the point where we need to start asking what country we want to live in.
Currently, US born citizens are receiving emails from DHS to deport themselves. A Georgia born citizen is being held in Florida prison on an ICE hold. The Florida county will not release him because of the ICE hold, even though a Florida judge found that it is undisputed that he is a US citizen. ICE will not release him because he is in a county prison. And, birthright citizenship is in front of the Supreme Court.
One also needs to wonder where all of the first amendment warriors who were screaming from the rooftops about being “canceled from Facebook and Twitter” are when the federal government is engaged in genuine, free speech retaliation against institutions, corporations, and even private individuals by name?

Just who are we and what do we stand for?

Frank Stein wrote:

One can say that they are non-political and it is fine to be focused on economic considerations, but I think that it is getting to the point where we need to start asking what country we want to live in.
Currently, US born citizens are receiving emails from DHS to deport themselves. A Georgia born citizen is being held in Florida prison on an ICE hold. The Florida county will not release him because of the ICE hold, even though a Florida judge found that it is undisputed that he is a US citizen. ICE will not release him because he is in a county prison. And, birthright citizenship is in front of the Supreme Court.
One also needs to wonder where all of the first amendment warriors who were screaming from the rooftops about being “canceled from Facebook and Twitter” are when the federal government is engaged in genuine, free speech retaliation against institutions, corporations, and even private individuals by name?

Just who are we and what do we stand for?

The current overall direction looks pretty bleak, and I’m not really sure what the 31% of Americans whom think we’re doing good under Trump really think? If it drops to 2% approval, we’ll know for sure, won’t we?  

If things continue down this path, I’ll retire and move back to Canada, and the rest of you folks would be welcomed with open arms to the only other free country in North America besides Mexico.   

Trump is going to push Congress to end funding for NPR/PBS. Much as I appreciate their journalism, in principle, this effort doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable. Having the federal govt funding any kind of media source is a fundamental conflict- and I sure as hell wouldn’t like to see this ‘balanced’ by seeing those federal funds support a media source that was as right leaning as NPR/PBS is left leaning.

If I recall, part of the original rationale for funding of NPR/PBS was to make information available to a swath of the country that couldn’t access it otherwise. Maybe I’m wrong on that, but at this point in time, information is available to anyone very easily (too bad so much of it is bad information), and NPR/PBS can surely find funding sources to keep themselves afloat like any other media source. 

Shawangunks. Climbing with Rich Perch.

Rich with the coke bottle glasses and warm heart. What a great guy. Where is he now??