New and Experienced Climbers over 50 #35

Brian in SLC wrote:

Whoa...mutual friend.  Drank a liter of red wine or two with her at Cinque Torri in the Dolomites a few years back.  

Any idear how she's doing?

Last I heard, she was living in Florida and kayaking.

Kristian Solem wrote:

After watching the direction of the GOP in the last 40 years, Reagan would be a welcome alternative.

Brian in SLC wrote:

The one on the right kinda looks like a MOAC.  Cool!

I believe it is. 

Guy Keesee wrote:

Good morning….. 

Carl thank you for sharing your photos of Arapiles. The climbing looks stellar! Is any of it choss or does it just look like it? I’m happy you found the real use for a bouldering pad.
Whenever I have gone on a road trip I’m always sad when it’s over and I just want to go home.

Ward….. Luck with your project.

Jaren ….. Thank you for voicing clear headed thoughts.

Lori…. Luck with your project. Though I think I recognize that corridor and just want you to know it was the scene of a mass assault by 14 stoned individuals back in 77.

 

TBH I no longer care what anyone thinks of me - that’s so juvenile- and I got over that about 56 years ago. I live my life the way I want to. My beliefs are mine.

Time to get going, I have 3 action packed days of Karting at Sonoma, one of the most beautiful venues for karting anywhere, up on a flat mesa with views of the bay, green vineyards and rolling hills.

Later all, Happily Climbing 

No not choss at all. Good solid rock. 

Alan Rubin wrote:

Actually in a climbing trip!!!! Feeling my age but still nice to be out with friends, and, so far, okay weather---if anything too hot, too soon!!!! We are at one of the many high quality but little know areas in the south ( pretty much everyone goes to the Red or the New---but many other worthwhile areas are relatively little visited---fine with me. Thus area is called Breaks Interstate Park on the SW VA/KY border/--Tim S. climbed here last year. I'll try to add some photos, but knowing my tech incompetence, not optimistic.

Before I do that, though. I think the thread is fine the way it is ( most of the time), including the politics---they are very much part of our lives for those both over and under 50, and does impact our climbing and ability to climb. Yes, some recent nastiness---these are very difficult and challenging times for many of us, but we will ( have already) move on, as we always have.

And, Phylp please don't leave!!! You add so much of value and interest.

Alan, that looks fun, and congrats on getting after it!  If you hadn't said where it was i might have thought it was some obscure crag at Farley. The rock looks kinda similar. 

And Phylp, i second Alan's entreaty. Please stick around if you can manage it. 

GO

The more time passes the more I appreciate a special thread for those over 50. I have three living children and seven grandchildren and I talk to them all the time. I remember those years of building a business and trying to pay the mortgage. But my kids have absolutely no idea what it is like to be 60 or 70 and beyond. I also have young friends who are variously certain that there is a “deep state“, One just sent me a lengthy essay on Cicero for some reason. A couple of my grandkids may be “on the spectrum“. All of these are worthy and Important to talk about – for them. I’m just trying to navigate my way through all the twists and turns of being a senior and many of those are more positive than I ever expected. I kind of like being an adult over 50.

I think it would’ve been helpful for some of us if we had had a vision of what life after 50 would look like. I honestly just expected to get old—certainly not to get the hairbrained idea of rock climbing! And the surprise is that with some shift in basic health practices some of us can do and achieve way more than we ever thought possible. But I’m not discussing it with a 20-year-old.  Everything is different for me these days. Everything. Sleep diet recovery.

I’ve received a lot of feedback over the last few days, and this is certainly not my call. Maybe the OP could do some modest moderating when things get nasty?  I really understand those who have come here to escape politics. They are already oversaturated with the constant news. They’d like to talk about Climbing. And there are those who say yeah but this is different. This is a completely novel situation that requires discussion.

I did drop a note to a MP moderator to ask if there was some way to link a sub thread to this main one. I haven’t received a response yet, but that would just be a programming issue.

GabeO wrote:

Alan, that looks fun, and congrats on getting after it!  If you hadn't said where it was i might have thought it was some obscure crag at Farley. The rock looks kinda similar. 

And Phylp, i second Alan's entreaty. Please stick around if you can manage it. 

GO

Rock is quite solid sandstone---similar to that in the New, but, yes, some of it looks and climbs a lot like Farley, especially the sloping holds on the lower angle ( but not that low-angle) routes.

Old lady H wrote:

Welcome, but geez, telling someone to crawl back in their hole, for your first post? And, RKM, of all people? He is truly a friend of mine, and has befriended far too many climbers to even begin to count. If you climb at COR, sooner or later you'll meet him.

All that said?

Politics, and by politics I.mean kinda everything that seems to get people all fired up and jumping onto Us and Them bandwagons, is....just sucked, lately. I still hope to live long enough to see statesmanship return, at the very least.

But hey, I also grew up belaying with an ATC, and have been a grigri denier in the past, so there's that 

 

On to important stuff. I expect to be over at COR approximately June 3-13, start and end not set in stone exactly. As always, really looking forward to seeing whoever is around, and willing to say howdy!

Dirt shoving awaits. Them tomaters can be planted soonish!

Helen 

I guess it's like this. I started climbing in 1999, and from then on I have (to my knowledge, and I have probed) only climbed with people who are at the least not republicans. Many would say they are libertarian or not really political, but nobody was out and out republican. Since 2016 I definitely haven't climbed with anyone who suppports trump. I guess I came to equate climbers with non-republicans, because the modern republican party's motivating principle is to move money to rich people, away from poor people. In large part, they do this by eliminating regulations on extractive industries like gas, oil, logging, deep sea mining, you name it. 

My life experience therefore led me to conclude that the cognitive dissonance required to vote republican, yet love nature and climbing, was too great. And in my personal life, that's what I observed: climbers don't vote republican. But this thread, over the years, has shown me there are lots of what I will call "freeloaders" who both like to climb and also don't give a shit about nature and/or the future. Or else they wouldn't vote for the anti-environment and anti-science party (I could bullet point hundreds of examples, starting with efforts to gut the EPA and de-fund the park system) 

I guess people like guy keese and RKM really do get to have it all - they can climb all they want, and still vote for the party that is destroying the environment because hey, not their problem. This thread has been sobering. And I can't stress enough how much I miss moderate republicans like we had in the 80s and 90s before the party lost its way and hopped on trump's back. I wouldn't  be writing any of this if the party hadn't lost its bearings completely.

A small contribution to offset my vitriol:. Getting the FA last week on a new mixed 5.10 at an obscure "brand new" crag in the Portland, OR area. I've never scrubbed so much moss (I usually aim for steeper and cleaner), but it's north-facing and of course the end result was worth it.

Bryan's, just wondering if you see any cognitive dissonance between scrubbing all that moss and protecting the environment?

I used to be a lot more tolerant, but I’m with Bryans these days. How can I be sympathetic to individuals who are just fine with or even openly cheering stripping my family of our citizenship?  My wife is a birthright citizen of Japanese descent, and I am a naturalized citizen from the former Soviet block. 

And here is some climbing…an obscure but excellent crag in Provence

Personally, I don’t mind the wide ranging discussions here, including politics. Personal attacks, though, we should be mature enough to avoid. We are definitely in “interesting” times so it’s very hard for folks to avoid expressing their feelings.
“Take what you can use and forget the rest,” as they say in some circles.
Headed out tomorrow with a group of similarly “old” guys to do some easy multipitch on limestone. The coffee and croissant before and the late lunch after are just as enjoyable as the climbing. There are at least ten lifetimes of climbing here in Catalunya alone (ni hablar del resto de España!). If any of you guys get over here, look me up. (Guys only per matrimonial agreement, sorry.)

An example:

https://www.dailycamera.com/2025/04/25/colorado-noaa-boulder-funding-cooperative-institutes-donald-trump/

What happened? What did I miss? There have been some very critical comments about the current President, some political opinions, but I haven't seen any personal attacks or vitriol. 

WF WF51 wrote:

What happened? What did I miss? There have been some very critical comments about the current President, some political opinions, but I haven't seen any personal attacks or vitriol. 

I have been thinking this too. I haven’t read any suggestions or demands for anyone to leave this forum because of differences in politics. 

I also haven’t seen “attacks on their (Guy and Kris) morality and intelligence” that Lori mentioned. I haven’t read any political discussion whatsoever related to Kris. 

Personally I am interested in the perspectives of the climbers here when it comes to different aspects of life.

Terry E wrote:

I have been thinking this too. I haven’t read any suggestions or demands for anyone to leave this forum because of differences in politics. 

I also haven’t seen “attacks on their (Guy and Kris) morality and intelligence” that Lori mentioned. I haven’t read any political discussion whatsoever related to Kris. 

Personally I am interested in the perspectives of the climbers here when it comes to different aspects of life.

In my case you'd have to go back several iterations of this thread and trust me, it's not worth looking. I posted something in defense of Trump. I don't recall what it was about, but it was a factual correction of a news report that was untrue. A simple fact. I was 100% correct. A popular poster here bit my head off (figuratively speaking) and accused me of lacking character. That was the end for me. Politics on this thread is an echo chamber. That's fine, I totally get it. Have at it. 

One discussion I'd find interesting would be about where people get their news and information. I've spent a lot of time studying the cold war. It started with a fascination with submarine activities and spread to an interest in he overall history of it. More recently I've been trying to learn everything I can about the situations in Ukraine and China. There is nothing worthwhile on any mainstream news outlet if you are a curious person trying to learn. For now, as an example of the kinds of sources I seek out, Stephen Kotkin is among my favorite historians and political commentators. His recent publications include the first two of a three volume biography of Stalin. You can find him easily online in many forums. I found this talk about China very interesting. He's advising the House Select Committee on China regarding foreign policy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aQfzDs7RzI

Jay Goodwin wrote:

Bryan's, just wondering if you see any cognitive dissonance between scrubbing all that moss and protecting the environment?

You got me there, Jay. I also drive a prius that uses gasoline. And eat animals and plants. I'm not sure where you're going with this. Life feeds on life and route development involves displacement, just like the roads and hiking trails and bike paths and ski trails people use. If this was a sincere question, I believe I've sincerely answered it. No personal attacks here

bryans wrote:

You got me there, Jay. I also drive a prius that uses gasoline. And eat animals and plants. I'm not sure where you're going with this. Life feeds on life and route development involves displacement, just like the roads and hiking trails and bike paths and ski trails people use. If this was a sincere question, I believe I've sincerely answered it. No personal attacks here

Not that I've climbed near Portland all that much but from the little I have done moss is one thing not in short supply.

Frank Stein wrote:

I used to be a lot more tolerant, but I’m with Bryans these days. How can I be sympathetic to individuals who are just fine with or even openly cheering stripping my family of our citizenship?  My wife is a birthright citizen of Japanese descent, and I am a naturalized citizen from the former Soviet block. 

It's like there is a blind spot. Reminds me of someone I know who brought up a quote from Thomas Jefferson to the effect that people should not let political disagreements come between them. I asked him how that worked with Jeffersons slaves but never got a clear answer.

Kristian Solem wrote:

More recently I've been trying to learn everything I can about the situations in Ukraine and China.....

Potemkin by Simon Sebag Montefiore is a very interesting read for the regions including Ukraine.

Oh: a hiking picture from Wednesday