Early history of Tahquitz

I hadn't realized that Fingertip Traverse was actually the first roped climbing route at Tahquitz. Although the 1974 edition of the Wilts guidebook calls The Trough "an important route historically since it is the first one found on the Rock,"  Bob Brinton's daughters wrote a wikipedia article, "Robert K. Brinton," in which they supply the following FA dates in 1936: Fingertip Traverse Aug 19, Piton Pooper (with aid) Aug 20, The Trough Aug 22. So it sounds like Wilts just assumed that since The Trough is now known to be the easiest route, it must have been the first.

Does anyone know where to find early historical sources on this kind of thing? I would guess there would be some really cool stuff in old issues of the Sierra Club Rock Climbing Section's newsletter, but I don't know if those have been systematically preserved or digitized.

There are a couple of factoids that I've heard but that may or may not be true. Does anyone have any reliable info on these?

(1) That people used to use The Trough as a class 4 downclimb route off of Tahquitz. (Why? Didn't they know about the other descent routes that we use today?)

(2) That The Trough is now harder than it originally was, because some rock broke off. (When? Where on the route?)

I used to downclimb the trough often after climbing some other route. The friction descent is hot in the summer and had a way of stealing motivation to climb another route, downclimbing the trough keeps you in the shade. 

Google search "Mugelnoos"

http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12197865400/Sierra-Club-Angeles-Chapter-Rock-Climbing-Section-RCS

http://skimountaineerssectionlachaptersc.org/text/pastnoosissues.htm

I would also love to know more. It seems like we're sort of running out of time – sources may disappear irretrievably in the next decade or so.

Always been fascinated with Tahquitz since I got my Royal Robbins Rockcraft book waaaaaaay back in the day. When you see the historical photos of people climbing it in hiking boots and with hemp ropes, it feels you with respect and awe.

I started with a hemp rope. But you can reserve your respect and awe for the greats and place me in with the "broke, clueless youth with aspirations of greatness" group.

I remember the not so early (1970s) years at Tahquitz, mostly with the RCS. The Trough by then was slowly fading as a descent from the rock. But some of the old timers still down climbed it as it was much faster to get down from the early routes at and around the Finger Tip, Traiter Horn and Mechanics Route area. Most of the early routes were climbed on the SW side of the rock and the easiest way down was not over the summit but down the Trough. That would be my take on why most of the early descents went that way.

I'm not aware of any holds braking on the Through....but who really knows? The early Tahquitz climbers were pretty technical bunch and descending Trough without rope was not a big deal. 

Ben, I did some digging today and I believe that the 19 Aug date is a typo. I found some excerpts from a 1939 Sierra Club Bulletin that reads "Of the six face - routes completed at present , “ Fingertip Traverse " has become best known , due principally to the unusual nature of the pitch after which the climb is named . The first ascent was made September 19 , 1936 , by Jim Smith , Bob ..."

I can't see the whole text but the excerpt is pulled from a scan off Google Books ( google.com/books/edition/Si…) 

It looks like the Sierra Club only has bulletin scans freely available online up to 1924. Hopefully this helps. 

Hi Andrew - Thanks, that's interesting.

The Wikipedia article Robert K. Brinton says:

After the “discovery” of Tahquitz Rock in the San Jacinto Mountains as a prime area for southern California mountain climbing by James Smith and a scouting committee of the Rock Climbing Section of the Sierra Club Los Angeles chapter,[10] Brinton pioneered and named a number of the classic climbing routes. The first route was the “Fingertip Traverse” (class 5.4), established by Brinton, Jim Smith, and Art Johnson on August 19, 1936, named for an unusual traverse.[11] It was followed shortly thereafter by “Piton Pooper” (class 5.7+), climbed by Brinton, Art Johnson, Bill Rice, and Jim Smith on August 20, 1936.[12] "The Trough" (class 5.4) was first ascended by Brinton, Jim Smith, and Zene Jasaitis two days later on August 22, 1936.[13] In September 1939, Brinton also made the first ascent of “From Bad Traverse” (class 4) with Homer Fuller.[14] The name for this route is an “unspeakable pun by Bob Brinton”.[15] Indeed, all of these routes were named by Brinton, known for his sense of humor; “Angel’s Fright” (class 5.6), while not a first ascent by Brinton, was a punning reference to Angels Flight, a funicular railway in downtown Los Angeles.[16]

This was apparently written by Brinton's daughter Donna. The reference 11 is this:

Smith, James N. (1938). “Tahquitz Rock”, Sierra Club Bulletin 23. Wilts, Chuck (1979). Tahquitz and Suicide Rocks. 6th edn. New York: American Alpine Club, pp. 86–87. Vogel, Randy (1985). Rock Climbs of Tahquitz and Suicide Rocks. Denver, CO: Chockstone Press, p. 92.

I don't know whether this 1938 reference is the same as your 1939 reference.

I was thinking of just calling up Donna Brinton and seeing if she's willing to talk history on the phone. It seems like the really old newsletters are in a box at UC Berkeley but have never been digitized or put online. Might be a fun project to visit the library and see if they'd let them be examined or digitized. (I'm an alum.)

Ben Crowellwrote:

 It seems like the really old newsletters are in a box at UC Berkeley but have never been digitized or put online. Might be a fun project to visit the library and see if they'd let them be examined or digitized. (I'm an alum.)

I imagine you could easily find a research librarian at UCB willing to take on the task. It's much more interesting than a lot of stuff they get asked to do. If there's a financial cost to get it digitized I'll chip in with you, Ben. 

Thanks, Senor Arroz! I imagine that I would just have to get permission to paw through the box of papers and take photos with a cell phone, but I would hope it wouldn't cost anything.

If I call Donna Brinton, I guess I should do homework and prepare questions to ask her if she has time to talk. Does anyone have anything they've always wondered about that isn't covered in places like the historical parts of the guidebooks? She isn't a climber AFAIK, so she might not know about specific routes and technique, but she might know about stuff like the social history, or whether people had experience with technical climbing in Europe that they brought back.

Interviewing some of the early first ascentists would be so cool. Lot of untold stories out there. I've heard tell of a project like this for jtree.

Just thumbing around some info. on the route pages on MP, I'm curious to know more about Pat Callis, Charlie Raymond, Larry Reynolds, etc. Looks like they put up some of the most popular slab routes on Suicide. What was the O.G. rationale for the ground up ethic? The adventure of it ?? We are steeped in it here in SoCal! Onsight ride or die!

Here's some info about some of the notable early climbers from southern California:

https://angeles.sierraclub.org/blog/2011/05/angeles_chapter_rock_climbing_section_gone_not_forgotten

And I found this entertaining:

https://youtu.be/z6eCrciPuw8

jt newgardwrote:

 What was the O.G. rationale for the ground up ethic? The adventure of it ?? We are steeped in it here in SoCal! Onsight ride or die!

That was the prevailing ethic pretty much everywhere since the inception of the sport.  Installing a route from the top down really only began in the early to mid 80s or so in place like France and the Frankenjura.  Some others might have a more specific time frame on this.   

I see I see ...... so it was universally held that way for many years in many locales.

I guess I'm curious about the motivations of the slab masters in particular, that look at a face without holds, and say ... yeah let's just f*ckin go up there and see what happens. 

Suicide was not originally seen as being of much interest for climbing, because it was too steep, the rock wasn't very tall, and there was no pro. Flipping through the guidebook, it looks like 1966 was when Callis really started doing FA's there, i.e., it basically went neglected for the first 30 years that climbers were in the area. The only earlier free climbs I can find there are Paisano Jam Crack (1955) and possibly Munge Dihedral. I suspect that people practiced their slab climbing on toprope at Stoney Point (which was developed in the 30's, in parallel with Tahquitz), learned by trial and error what was possible with the boots they were wearing, and decided correctly that it wasn't possible to climb most of the steep slab at Suicide.

A lot of the pioneers of the 30's were really ski mountaineers and people who climbed mainly in the Sierra. I don't think the notion of installing bolts on some little slabby dome like Suicide would have even been a concept, even if done from the ground up. They did put up some aid routes such as Limp Dick (1959).

Does anyone know when the first bolts were placed at Tahquitz, e.g., the one at the top of Fingertip Traverse et al.? The 1974 edition of Wilts describes finishing these climbs in the trough to the right (what Vogel-Gaines calls a 5.1 variation), rather than using the slab with the bolt on the left.

Ben Crowellwrote:

Thanks, Senor Arroz! I imagine that I would just have to get permission to paw through the box of papers and take photos with a cell phone, but I would hope it wouldn't cost anything.

If I call Donna Brinton, I guess I should do homework and prepare questions to ask her if she has time to talk. Does anyone have anything they've always wondered about that isn't covered in places like the historical parts of the guidebooks? She isn't a climber AFAIK, so she might not know about specific routes and technique, but she might know about stuff like the social history, or whether people had experience with technical climbing in Europe that they brought back.

I meant I bet you could skip pawing through the boxes and have someone digitize it all for you/us. But there's a certain charm in DIY, too. Looking forward to whatever you learn. 

Fat Dadwrote:

That was the prevailing ethic pretty much everywhere since the inception of the sport.  Installing a route from the top down really only began in the early to mid 80s or so in place like France and the Frankenjura.  Some others might have a more specific time frame on this.   

The euros started all that weak stuff. When it was first tried in CA - fistfights broke out. Tight friendships were broken. The euros were so stunned after JB left them all “Chasin the Train” they resorted to “cheating” and invented “sport climbing” and “hanging” and “the red point”.... 

Ben Crowellwrote:

Suicide was not originally seen as being of much interest for climbing, because it was too steep, the rock wasn't very tall, and there was no pro. Flipping through the guidebook, it looks like 1966 was when Callis really started doing FA's there, i.e., it basically went neglected for the first 30 years that climbers were in the area. The only earlier free climbs I can find there are Paisano Jam Crack (1955) and possibly Munge Dihedral. I suspect that people practiced their slab climbing on toprope at Stoney Point (which was developed in the 30's, in parallel with Tahquitz), learned by trial and error what was possible with the boots they were wearing, and decided correctly that it wasn't possible to climb most of the steep slab at Suicide.

A lot of the pioneers of the 30's were really ski mountaineers and people who climbed mainly in the Sierra. I don't think the notion of installing bolts on some little slabby dome like Suicide would have even been a concept, even if done from the ground up. They did put up some aid routes such as Limp Dick (1959).

Does anyone know when the first bolts were placed at Tahquitz, e.g., the one at the top of Fingertip Traverse et al.? The 1974 edition of Wilts describes finishing these climbs in the trough to the right (what Vogel-Gaines calls a 5.1 variation), rather than using the slab with the bolt on the left.

Suicide was saved for “StoneMasters” enjoyment- lol

Valley regulars of the 50’s hiked over and climbed Pisano Pinnacle via the big crack, downed the wine and the jug got dropped— you can still see old green glass down at the bottom of the crack. They came back with the report that it was “void of cracks and possible routes”. During the 60’s this was a common complaint all over California. Some climbers did start climbing up blank faces with hand drills at the ready. Bob Kamps and Mark Powell put up Chingadera in 67.  Climbing like this, blank face climbing, was perfected in TM and Suicide. The “Weeping Wall” climbs like “Surprise”, “Revaluations” and “Serpentine” were first climbed in the 60’s. 

Valhalla was the crown jewel of this type of climbing, Wilts’s clams that 5.11 was impossible for humans ... this was the red cape that people from my generation charged with abandon.

First bolt at Tahuqitz? I don’t know. I always figured it was the bolt on the Mechanics Route. But after interviewing Glen Dawson for the SP documentary he was adamant that they did not place any bolts. (That giant bolt is now gone)
So I don’t have a clue. Maybe Randy Vogel knows.

Who placed the first bolt would be great info!

Guy Keeseewrote:

But after interviewing Glen Dawson for the SP documentary he was adamant that they did not place any bolts. (That giant bolt is now gone)

It would be totally cool to see an interview with Glen Dawson. What a badass. Is the documentary something that can be streamed or watched online anywhere?

That bolt on Mechanics was added much later, sometimes in the late 60s or very early 70s. It was chopped by some upset RCS people in about 1973, rightfully so.

Ben, when you talk about the bolt on Fingertip, which bolt are you talking about?  OK I just re-read your note, the bolt on the slab at the end of the upper Fingertip was added much later, it was not part of the original Fingertip Traverse at all.