New and experienced climbers over 50 #38

Getting in on the photo fun.
Doing a pretty new route on Helen’s Dome in the South Platte, yesterday. . Helen Wheels, 7 pitches, 5.9.

Sheep Rock and Helen’s Dome. Beautiful day, nobody around. Far from the madding crowd.

A little fun on the approach. The creek was very high for this time of year.

 Mostly slab,  clean and beautiful stone. Reasonably well protected. What fun!

• Over one hundred years of climbing experience… as a team. Keep the photo reports  going.
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guy on the left looks a bit like Robbie Beers? 

I don’t know who Robbie is , but that’s me.  

Many local fires this week. My friend lost her place. Very sad. Seeking relief in the forest. 

That sucks. I live in fear of fire every late summer now. Summer used to be something I looked forward to and embraced now I just can’t wait for the first snowfall.

Great looking forest! Love those big trees.

It’s a wonderful mixed forest. Each picture represents a different species, all in proximity. 

Daniel Shivelywrote:

Yeah, I know of those areas.  Perhaps rarity is too strong of an adjective. How about, “in California, highly featured granite may not be the plurality of the known granite that climbers enjoy, but it does exist in ample concentrations”. Lol

lol….. are you some sort of attorney?

It’s generally true that well featured granite is semi rare but it’s sought after by discriminating experienced climbers.

@Nick…. Way to go. 

Guy Keeseewrote:

lol….. are you some sort of attorney?

It’s generally true that well featured granite is semi rare but it’s sought after by discriminating experienced climbers.

@Nick…. Way to go. 

Ha, no not an attorney. I do enjoy stringing words together in amusing ways though.

Robbie beers is a back country skier and climber who moved from VT to Utah twenty or so years ago. 

Lori Milaswrote:

...So I kind of think when summer is gone here I’ll be getting busy climbing and maybe spend some time up north with my family. Where will you guys be when winter comes?

Lori, you skipped a season! Summer, fall, winter... When summer is gone, it will be fall. We've got an entire good season of fall climbing to do, knock on wood. One of my goals for this season was to get a better lead head especially on 3s. There's been an improvement, but it hasn't entirely worked out. Maybe I'll get there in the fall, or maybe it has to wait for next year. Another goal has been to do a higher volume of climbing. That one is working out so far! Do you have a goal for the upcoming season?

These are kind of treacherous drops and I would probably freak out if I were stuck any length of time here alone.

I bet you would not freak out. You'd figure something out. Be careful out there, in any case.

dragonswrote:

Lori, you skipped a season! Summer, fall, winter... When summer is gone, it will be fall. We've got an entire good season of fall climbing to do, knock on wood. One of my goals for this season was to get a better lead head especially on 3s. There's been an improvement, but it hasn't entirely worked out. Maybe I'll get there in the fall, or maybe it has to wait for next year. Another goal has been to do a higher volume of climbing. That one is working out so far! Do you have a goal for the upcoming season?

I bet you would not freak out. You'd figure something out. Be careful out there, in any case.

Thank you dragons!  I love seeing so much of what you’re doing out there and I appreciate your question about Gunks versus Yosemite because I also would love to have some kind of comparison.  

Something I did not expect about outdoor climbing, especially as an older person, is the need to continually pull back from potential danger. It happens all the time and it’s really an inner battle. Where I was yesterday (just shy of Comic Book) I could SEE the place I wanted to be about 50 yards ahead and I knew I could get there. But there was some serious scrambling and potential for busted ankles and dropping into a chasm all along the way. I finally just said nah, not worth it. Damn!

we have talked about the use of a Garmin InReach and it’s beautiful SOS button but the truth is if help would be sent in an emergency it could be up to four or five hours before help would arrive and you could literally be there with a broken bone or worse for a long time.

I’d be interested to know what you experience where you climb and the degree to which you are in wilderness. Here I just know I better be packed to take care of myself, including any medical needs, hydration and intense heat, bites, stings, etc., and ready to self rescue.

We also talked about serious snake bites and the same thing holds true. I finally concluded that if I were bitten, I’d be on my own to scramble and hike back to my car (at least an hour hike) and make the 40 minute drive to the nearest hospital. Absolutely would not just sit on a rock in the sun and hope someone would get to me.

I actually love this aspect of being outdoors, especially in the desert. It’s exciting.  But I guess I could say the same thing holds true about climbing and all the decisions around leading or not.  Weighing in age and relative strength and ability along with risk factors – – at this age, we don’t want broken bones, godforbid broken hips.  It’s just a constant real time assessment.  I have wanted to push as hard as I can without winding up in the hospital.  (in the last few years there have been several climbing deaths here and quite a few injuries leading to significant hospitalization. I think about those.) 

as for goals this season… I love to make a big deal of this, I like to have lists of routes!  But I have no idea really where my body is at at this moment so I kinda wanna test things out and see.  

Hey dragons, we are climbers. We don’t call it FALL we call it autumn.

Here in the north east it's Sendtember and Rocktober. Usually our best climbing weather. 

Somehow, I got on the Burning Man feed and it's been non stop daily posts and pictures and I'm seeing hordes of humanity just dying to get out on the playa as nearly naked as possible, and dance and have art, ceremony and rituals.  So the calling is still there, I guess, and it's heartening to see.  

This post really stuck with me.  I wonder if he found her.    

"The dust storm hit and the city disappeared. You stepped out of the whiteout in that tutu, goggles pushed up, laughing like the chaos was yours to command. You shouted, “Is this where the parade starts?” I yelled back, “Depends which parade you’re looking for.” That was it, we fell into stride like we’d known each other already.

We traded the kind of fast bios you only give on the playa: my dog’s quirks, your story about a moment that changed everything. You talked with your hands, tracing shapes in the air. We shared someone’s peach gasoline drink, named a dust devil and argued about the moon. You gave me your goggles and said, “You look like trouble.” I told you I was, but the good kind. We kissed because we were laughing too hard not to.

The night unfolded in perfect fragments, dancing badly but together, huddling under my blanket by an art car, Sharpie lightning bolt on your wrist, tea on mismatched cushions. You leaned against me and said you were still learning how to like slow. I said I’m great at beginnings and terrible at endings. You tucked your hand in mine and said, “Then let’s not end yet.”

At sunrise by the Temple, the desert went quiet. You pressed your forehead to mine and whispered, “Okay, trouble. This is where we let the night be perfect.” One last kiss, and you vanished into the morning dust, leaving me with your laugh, that lightning bolt, and the taste of peaches and fire.

If you see this, tell me what we named the dust devil and which shoulder I said always burns first. I’ll know it’s you."

Anyone lucky enough to dance in the desert, kiss a stranger, argue about the moon... that's riches right there. 

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

Here in the north east it's Sendtember and Rocktober. Usually our best climbing weather. 

Not today though, humid and a big thunderstorm heading this way (we need the rain).  

Training for my bouldering trip in November.  Did a long session on the Tension Board at 50 degrees and afterward I was happy to see that I can now do three pullups with an added 50 pounds.  Day 25 of no alcohol and I have lost 4.5 pounds so far.  Hoping to lose another eight pounds before the trip.

Ward Smithwrote:

Not today though, humid and a big thunderstorm heading this way (we need the rain).  

Training for my bouldering trip in November.  Did a long session on the Tension Board at 50 degrees and afterward I was happy to see that I can now do three pullups with an added 50 pounds.  Day 25 of no alcohol and I have lost 4.5 pounds so far.  Hoping to lose another eight pounds before the trip.

Ward, you will be 'transparent' if you loose another 8 lbs!!!

Cold rain but no thunder up along the St. Lawrence on the edge of the Gaspe. Hoping the weather improves, as predicted, for the rest of the week, so we can play outside---maybe even a bit of climbing.

Long cold rain here today. Much needed. 

Some time ago John Stannard wrote a short piece about his first visit to Devils Lake for my website. You might enjoy it:

A First Climbing Trip . . . Devil's Lake, 1959 . . .                                                                                                            
By John Stannard

"In order to get out of Chicago's southside I went to Devils Lake once in 1959 with a trip run by one of the University of Chicago staff. When I reached the top of my first top rope problem I found the leader sitting at the cliff face with the rope going twenty feet back from the face, running around the top of a small dead five foot tall bush, thence back to the cliff face and me. On that small face I could not have accepted the sudden addition of forty feet of slack. My experience with the use of ropes during haying and some elementary vector analysis led me to take up caving instead of climbing. Six years later I was back to climbing however.

I didn't have a car in Chicago so about all I could do was ride the EL down to the loop or walk over to the Museum of Natural History at the Lake. That was a great museum! I forget how I found out about the outing to Devil's Lake but jumped at the chance to get out of the city. We got up there after dark and just threw our bags out where we found ourselves. Some time in the early morning hours I woke up when the ground began to shake. As whatever it was got closer I was even more interested to hear the screeching of steel sliding over steel. We had bedded down a few feet from the outside of a turn in the railroad tracks. All of those loaded cars were shifting on the tracks - in our direction. More than forty years later I remember it well.

I have no idea what we did that weekend and I remember nothing special about the rope. It might have been hemp but I doubt it. Immediately as I first saw the rock I was struck by how hard and compact it was. I don't remember it having any crystalline structure like you find in most quartzite. At the time I imagined it would ring if struck while cold. Obviously we were put on easy routes. I do remember a short steep face with a hold about a centimeter deep. Who would have thought such a hold would one day be considered a belay ledge. The day was glorious, the air was clear, and the exercise welcome. Unforgettable." 

More from Supertopo: supertopo.com/climbers-foru…

Lori Milaswrote:

...
Something I did not expect about outdoor climbing, especially as an older person, is the need to continually pull back from potential danger. It happens all the time and it’s really an inner battle. Where I was yesterday (just shy of Comic Book) I could SEE the place I wanted to be about 50 yards ahead and I knew I could get there. But there was some serious scrambling and potential for busted ankles and dropping into a chasm all along the way. I finally just said nah, not worth it. Damn!

we have talked about the use of a Garmin InReach and it’s beautiful SOS button but the truth is if help would be sent in an emergency it could be up to four or five hours before help would arrive and you could literally be there with a broken bone or worse for a long time.

I’d be interested to know what you experience where you climb and the degree to which you are in wilderness. Here I just know I better be packed to take care of myself, including any medical needs, hydration and intense heat, bites, stings, etc., and ready to self rescue.

We also talked about serious snake bites and the same thing holds true. I finally concluded that if I were bitten, I’d be on my own to scramble and hike back to my car (at least an hour hike) and make the 40 minute drive to the nearest hospital. Absolutely would not just sit on a rock in the sun and hope someone would get to me.

I actually love this aspect of being outdoors, especially in the desert. It’s exciting.  But I guess I could say the same thing holds true about climbing and all the decisions around leading or not.  Weighing in age and relative strength and ability along with risk factors – – at this age, we don’t want broken bones, godforbid broken hips.  It’s just a constant real time assessment.  I have wanted to push as hard as I can without winding up in the hospital.  (in the last few years there have been several climbing deaths here and quite a few injuries leading to significant hospitalization. I think about those.) 

Hey Lori,

I'm mostly climbing in the Gunks these days. It's pretty gentrified, probably compared to almost any climbing venue in the world. You can still get yourself killed or severely damaged, and people do, even competent ones.

Somewhere upthread I've mentioned climbing in > 90F heat. You have to bring enough water to deal with that. And actually, I'm not sure it's possible to drink enough water for the human body to deal with heat at those temperatures. At some point, depending on the person, you're just trying to reduce the damage.

We do have copperheads, and maybe a rattler or two. I'm pretty sure I'd just rush to the emergency room myself if bitten. You might have to walk 45 minutes to get back to the car, but mostly it's shorter. Generally, we have cell service. I don't carry a Garmin inReach. That seems overkill.

I have also climbed in the White Mountains, and it's certainly trickier there. But, I don't think I've ever climbed somewhere more than about an hour's hike from the car. In NH, you do hear of people having to hike down under their own steam with an injured leg. The emergency service will check to see if it's possible, and only make special efforts to get you off the mountain if you can't walk it. At least, that's what I've heard/observed. In the Whites, cell service is a lot less reliable. We never carried emergency beacons, but there are two of us, so we figure there's a backup.

OTOH, I have on numerous occasions solo hiked for several (6-8) hours up 4000-footers in the Whites. That is more dangerous. There were times when I could have been screwed if something went terribly wrong (no beacon, no cell service). I didn't consider that risk to be realistically probable. I was pretty well prepared, with extra water, clothes, a small emergency pack. It wouldn't save me in all circumstances, but you're never 100% safe anywhere. I've also done some slightly stupid things (looking back on them), and survived. I don't know how I'll feel about all this later in life. Maybe at some point none of it will seem worth the risk. For now, I try to stay fit enough to keep at it.

Ten years ago, I was very interested in doing adventure climbing (treks involving one or more days of effort). But, none of my partners were interested. And at this point, I'm probably too realistic to attempt stuff like that. Maybe.

One time in Colorado many years ago set up the tent in the dark and was woken up with the ground shaking from a very close train seemingly coming straight at us.  A few months ago I pulled the van in behind a church to sleep (I challenge them to kick the weary traveler out of a church parking lot) when the train went by it was close enough to shake the van.  Trains are memorable to those of us who don't live near them.