stillcrankin

I know it’s hard to believe but I don’t recognize you from that picture of you when you were 12 years old so you’re gonna have to tell me your name. You might even be in this hacky-sac circle next to the Tuolumne Meadows gas station. From right to left, Marko Milano, Eric Thixton (facing the other way), Rick LeDuc and three other Washingtonians.

Hahahaha! Fake news!!! Actually, not so fake, although mother and my home had nothing to do with this incident. I may have been heard to say, “I don’t know about you fuckers, but I’m going down”. Dave Anderson, Dave Davis, Don Brooks and I were attempting the Norwegian buttress in ‘74 or so. Donn Heller wasn’t along. I may have uttered that shocking statement after doing a horrendous half lead through an overhanging loose block section that no one else was willing to finish. So which one of those kids is a Tarver and which one is you? I met Annies brother John many moons ago. Here’s Anne in Tuolumne in 1980. The cowboys LOVED her....

You got that right tan-staff. This is what he looked like 44 years ago and he might be even more fit today. Mutant doesn’t even start to describe him. Driven beyond reason might be closer.

Are all of those kids Tarvers? OK, here’s another. Dave Anderson taking a swing at the 1st free ascent of Japanese Gardens in the mid 70’s. All we had were hexes for protection and neither of us was willing to commit. Probably would have been a grounder from way too far up...

Jason, there’s always more. I’m glad you like them... Not my picture but Anne Tarver’s dad, Frank, is on the left with Warren Harding and Harding’s Jag in the back. Frank Tarver was involved early on with the 1st ascent of The Nose.

Another wayback photo. I seem to have plenty... Anne Tarver at Peshastin Pinnacles on Washboard sometime in the mid to late ‘70’s.

I don’t ever remember climbing with Donn and Don. Had to think about it. Here’s Timson and I having a bro’ moment partway up Vanishing Point in The Trench in 1975

OK you old farts ? Time to throw down som more chit. first pic: Amphitheater Peak 1971? If you look closely, you can see Dave or Donn in the dihedral on the left side of the buttress. I had to scuttle back to camp for more hardware. We hadn’t really planned on climbing the whole thing that day so we hadn’t grabbed much gear. It actually only took a few hours to get to the top. second pic: Meat Grinder, Yosemite 1972 third pic: Steph Atwood on Breacfast of Champions 1976 fourth pic: Grand Wall December 1970 fifth pic: Town Crier UTW 1970 sixth pic: Green Drag-on 1972-73 maybe first ascent or first ascent attempt. I can’t remember which. seventh pic: remains of the original 2nd pitch of Town Crier after it peeled off eighth pic: Don Brooks Leaning Tower Yosemite 1973 ninth pic: Kit Lewis Midnight Rock mid 70’s last pic: Dawn Wall 1980

Older than you? Ouch!! Now that really hurts. At least we’re both still out there gettin’ it done. When young gym rats tease me for being a has-been, I always reply with, “I’d rather be a has-been than a never-was-and-never-will-be”. Haha ?.... When I rapped off of Madsen’s ledge that day, I moved the fixed line to the left so I could rap down Abraxis, Timson’s route that I took two 50 footers off of in 1970. Here’s a picture looking up the second pitch. If you look closely, you can see the crack is festooned with copperheads. Would’a traded my left nut for some of those back then. Also, here’s a picture of the single 1/4” belay bolt Pat used with a tied off knifeblade. Now there are four shiny 3/8” stainless bolts next to Pat’s original.

Mr Off_White Sir, Since I live just outside the park in the winter, I try (and I do mean try) to partake in the pain of the fixed lines at Arch Rock and the Cookie. This is different. The fixed lines in Yosemite are pretty stealthy. The ones on the upper wall are pretty in-your-face with a lot of baggage laying around. Seems kinda sloppy. Ok, ok.. Now I’m judging.

I was in Washington a month ago and managed to find my way out to Index and up the new yuppified trail to the upper wall. There were fixed lines crisscrossing the area above Madsen’s ledge as well as a fixed line directly up to the ledge. I went back to my car and grabbed my harness and jugs and proceeded to jumar up to the ledge. There was stuff spread all across the ledge. Seems a little excessive but who am I to judge.

Wow! I forgot about this thread... What a bunch of old fukkers! Hahaha. No, really, there are some really great pictures here. I can’t believe that I didn’t run into some of you in the prehistoric days in Washington.

You seem to be confusing who the victim is here. So much of climbing is about trust and reliance. In almost every facet of all venues of climbing, you need to rely on something or someone other than yourself. most of this reliance is blind. You have to rely on the harness manufacturer that made your harness to have used quality materials and done a good, complete job. You have to rely on the rope manufacturer that made your rope. When you clip a bolt out in the middle of space, you take it for granted that the bolt manufacturer used the proper procedures making the metal for the bolt (there was a batch of bad bolts in the 70's that actually killed people). You trust the fact that the person installing the bolt did a good job and did't bottom the bolt out in the hole and over-drive it. The list goes on and on. Most of all, you have to trust and rely on your partner. Maybe you don't know the person well but you trust that they have enough experience to not screw things up. Your life depends on it. When you frantically yell at them to pull the haul line up and clip it in, you don't want them to ask why. You don't want them to ask for an explanation. Maybe your anchors are about to pull and you just need something solid to clip in to. You just need them to pull the f#kking rope up and clip it in. You need to know your partner is there for you. In this instance, the first person to get to the ledge screwed things up and this resulted in someone dying. I AM being cold (dude?). And no, I don't have to "go back and edit your post to show more compassion for the people who will have to live with this for many years to come". There's no way to candy coat this. I sincerely apologize for being so harsh but I feel strongly about this. I'm sure the surviving climbers feel badly but, damn (dude?), their momentary inattentiveness resulted in a terrible accident.

goatboy, Not sure if you're pointing that last post at me. I thought I offered, in a backhanded way, two viable and potentially life saving solutions for safe rappelling. One was the "autoblock" and the other was the folly of simul-rappelling. The "autoblock" is a very simple method of taking a 16" to 18" loop of 7mm perlon and put a prussic like knot below your rappelling device and clip the other end to a biner on one of your leg loops. While you rappel, you keep one hand on the prussic, releasing it as you rappel. If something goes wrong and you let go of the prussic, the rope will lock up. Here's a link to some pictures: https://www.thoughtco.com/tie-and-use-an-autoblock-knot-755673 The other suggestion for safe rappelling is to not simul rappel. This technique is fraught with danger and potential catastrophic problems as was witnessed here. I've had partners ask me to simul-rappel off things before and I politely declined. I can't even imagine what the family of the victim is going through right now. It's impossible to reconcile the unforeseen and untimely death of a young, vibrant person. My very best friend was killed when we were 16. His parents never recovered. He died because HE tied in to the rope incorrectly. The whole idea of checking and re-checking each other's knots and safety devices hadn't really caught on at that time. It was no one else's fault. No one dropped him. Knuckehead was not the first adjective that came to my mind when I wrote that post. I'm sure the person that dropped this guy feels terrible. He'll probably feel terrible for the rest of his long life. The other guy won't.

Having had a number of my own near fatal epics rappelling in almost 50 years of climbing, I now use an "autoblock" when rappelling. This wouldn't have saved this guy when his knucklehead friend rapped off the end of the rope, though. Simul rappelling just doesn't seem like a good idea. Maybe I'm too old to learn new tricks or maybe I'm old enough to recognize bad tricks when I see them.

I talked to Pat yesterday about this climb. He had big hexes and an old school #4 Friend. He said that somewhere near where the crack curves, there was a good nubbin inside the crack and he was able to get a nearly maxed out large hex and a maxed out #4 Friend. He ran it out from there to the top. You gotta remember that in those days, Pat was doing a lot of this kind of climbing in Yosemite. Lots of hands to big fists, and Pat has pretty big hands. It didn't hurt that he was STRONGER THAN S#IT! Pat said that someone had asked him about his ascent of Supercrack recently. Maybe it was one of you guys? Anyway, your ascent was PROUD. Great pictures. I always wondered what that crack was all about as I never went up there myself. SWEET!

Kim is a bad ass dude. He's a quiet, unassuming person and his list of accomplishments is long and wide. He always reminded me of a feral wolf with his long dark hair and arctic blue eyes that constantly scanned from side to side.

Who you callin' old, boy?? Get yerself a phone and it might work out. Brooks and Carlstad may be coming down around the same time…...

I was just gonna loan them to you, Ivan, and you could send 'em back when you're done. I made 'em for 1/4" holes and they work pretty well. I prolly won't need 'em this summer. You got plans for The Trench?

Ivan, I've got a couple at my other house. They were old Chouinard hooks from the early 70's that I ground specifically for holes. They're perfect. When and where do you need them? Don!

Haha??? No haha! Yes, I'm serious. It's not like I drag this thing around and use it on every boulder problem. I've only used it a couple times on a few select ankle/back breakers. This thing was in my garage gathering dust and all but forgotten. I was playing around on a high-ball problem with a bad landing wondering how I could pull it off without killing myself when the light went off in my head. That doesn't happen very often any more so I take notice when it does. I dug it out of my garage and took it the next time I went there. I was able to set up an anchor to the top and make it work. Good thing, too. I came off a few times before I got the problem….. The ASAP device sounds intriguing but I'm not sure what the advantage would be of that over the Trax devices. Less stress? I've never felt like falling with the Mini Trax stressed the rope or anchors excessively and I've tested it many, many times.

I use one of these for bouldering where I don't want to hit the ground. Actually, I don't EVER want to hit the ground but when I REALLY don't want to hit the ground because of something nasty, I use this. It's heavy, expensive and must be set up properly. You've gotta have anchors at the top or figure something out. There's no give like the gym auto-belayers. When you fall, it locks. You better be able to make it to the top or down climb slowly or you'll be there for a while. It doesn't work for overhanging problems as you'll be left hanging in space. This is left over from my ski lift maintenance days of doing line work on tower tops. They're expensive, about $600 I think. There's a one-shot stitching release, similar to a screamer, at the hook end to let you know it's been over-stressed. I guess I've never over-stressed mine.

Wow! There’s a lot of VERY good information here. Everyone here has something useful to offer. I work about 10 minutes from a great climbing area and go Mini Tracking 3 or 4 days a week after work. Pretty much everything Hummerchine says is WORD. Never trust one device. I rappel with a Petzl Stop, etc. My setup looks pretty much like Wallstein’s except I use a small cord through a couple over-the-shoulder slings attached to the biner hole in the upper Trax to keep the upper Traxion as high as possible. I really like Wallstein’s idea of drilling a hole and using an elastic strap to keep the Traxion high and am going to make that happen ASAP. I now use a micro trax and one mini trax since I bent one of my mini trax doing a 2 to 1 haul (with a Pro Trax) on the Large Stone last year. I use a static rope. This way, if you barely get through a hard section and fall, you don’t have to keep doing the hard part over and over again due to rope stretch. No, I’m not as young as I used to be, thank you very much. Also, I carry a few cams in case I can’t make it up something and need to descend. Hopefully you have the right size you can slam in a crack and get your rappel set up then remove the cams. If you’re hanging on a rope with the Traxion devices, it’s very difficult to get undone to go down. A cam or two make it way easier. I’ve found this especially prevalent in Yosemite where Ron Kauk has fixed ropes on many climbs at the Cookie and Arch Rock during the week. He doesn’t hang ropes on pedestrian climbs so descending is always a consideration. He has a 600’ static rope that he once hung from the top of the Bachar-Yerian to the ground and did laps on it. I think he said it took him 1 hour and 45 minutes for a lap. I have a small Fish Beef Bag made out of haul-bag material about the size of a chalk bag that I put a rock in and hang it on the bottom of the rope to weight it. The cell phone is not a bad idea. I had one with me the time I cratered while descending a gulley to get to the base after tossing my rope and totally tweaked my back. I was too embarrassed to call anyone and made it back to my car on my own. Took a lot of shit for that. Mr Off White, did someone finally take the tire out of your cage??

What Blake said. When Dave Anderson and I first climbed BOC, we had to rap down and dislodge a bunch of loose rocks and flakes that were sticking out of the crack. Fortunately, like most days, there wasn't a soul around so we didn't have to worry about rockfall.

Yah, sorry about the thread drift. My bad. Oh yes, I'll be there. Was just at the base of El Cap last week. Floor temps were 14 at night. Pretty chilly during the day. Lemmeno when you're gonna be down again. BTW mister Olyclimber- I know what it's like to be hospitalized with tubes in every orifice and some in places where no orifice existed before they made one to ram things in to. No fun. I remember thinking that this must be what dying in a hospital is like. I treasure the things people sent me during that time including a quilt where all the 35 people that work for me made a beautiful square and then sewed it together. Made me cry when I got it. Still does when I look at it. Live life as though someone left the gate open. Life’s journey is not to arrive safely at the grave in a well preserved body but rather to skid in sideways totally worn out, shouting “Holy Shit....What a ride!