Bill Slugg

I never met Henry but I sure heard his name a lot up at the Gunks. I watched John Stannard climb many times. Never met him though. I knew Warren Harding from a night of partying at Penn State when he gave us a lecture once. He was like me, about 5'6". He was a very quiet type. I did the quarry wall at Bellefonte probably about three times over the 4 years I lived at PSU. I could free climb some of the big crack but we used a lot of aid. My standard at that time was barely 5.9. (I led the crux on Half Mood Crack on Cannon in NH, that is about it.) Once, Tim Beaman and I bivouaced about 50 feet up in the Bellefonte quarry overnight. We never saw much else to do in there, there are just no handholds anywhere. It is sideways limestone! Duh! The big wall was so fun, that is all we wanted to do. We loved the finger wide crack near the right hand edge. It is about 20 feet from the right hand edge of the face and you can see around the corner a bit giving it a nice bit of exposure for an Eastern climb. I once found a frozen solid star nosed mole that had fallen off the top of this cliff and died from the fall. There are many fossils in the limestone. It is Ordovician, about 480 million years ago, mostly crinoids and worms. Bill Slugg Albany, GA

Recent news of a murder at this wall. http://www.people.com/article/pair-plotted-to-push-penn-state-professor-off-ledge-80-feet-to-death-say-police

Bill Slugg on the east wall at Bellefonte Quarry, ca 1974.

We did the line on the big wall at Belefonte quarry many times back in 1970-74. It was maybe 20 feet from the right hand edge, finger and fist width all the way up as I recall. Two of us bivouaced on it once. We also did a grand traverse the entire width of the wall once. Water was too cold for me, but the local high school kids were there often.

A great tale of Monte Carlo! I backpacked there on a Eurailpass in 1980, staying only for the day. I was too scruffy to be admitted to the casino. Food prices were astronomical. Adnan Khashoggi had his 365 foot yacht "Christina" moored ouside the breakwater. Some yachts had tiny cars on deck that could be lowered by davit to the dock.

Did the Jungfrau from the Jungfraujoch 46 years ago on a nice summer day. I do not remember seeing another group, we had the mountain to ourselves. It was no more than a walkup. We did the Monch and Finsteraarhorn and stayed at an empty Concordiahutte.

That would be Practice Climb on Practice face at Ralph Stover State Park, PA in Sept 1967.

I've been reading translations of the reports on him. They say that he split from the Chamonix Guides in 1966 after he rescued two Germans off of the Dru. It seems somebody made some money by reporting to Paris Match. I can't make sense out of it. Who pissed off whom? The Guides pulled me off of the Auguille du Midi in '70, is how come I'm interested.

CASCADE CLIMBER Checks pacific storm track, probes hallway for bridged crevasses, opens rest room door, activates MLU, punches holes in ceiling with ice axe for "better ventilation". Pisses.

GUNKS CLIMBER Refuses to leave tavern booth without belay, attemps to place stopper in waitress cleavage, pees in sink, returns to table insisting crux move done without aid.

Yes, I understand. Viridian design leverages cutting edge concepts to reduce wear and tear on the planet. Good stuff. As long as no one is proposing an end run around the second law, I am happy.

G-spotter You took me too seriously! Of course you are not going to fall over. You are going to compensate. If somebody straps a generator to your foot, or puts a rock in your pack, you have only two choices. You can up your energy output or you can fall over. The original poster was implying that he could get mechanical energy out of his walking uphill without having to exert more effort. I was showing where he was wrong. Second law of thermodynamics. Omnipresent, immutable, inviolable. I agree you can get storable energy from dissipated heat. See my first post.

G-spotter Can you explain where I have gone wrong? Walking is basically a controlled fall. You fall forward, put your foot out, lift yourself up. Repeat with the other foot. "The process of walking involves moving the center of gravity up and down..." here

When you take a step, your body falls forward, your center of gravity drops down, you put a foot out in front, touch the ground, and exert a force over a given amount of time as you move your center of gravity back up. If you exert less force, or divert some of the force to a generator, then your body's center of gravity will not return, and you will eventually end up on the ground. On level ground or uphill travel there is no unused energy to be leveraged. (Other than waste heat). When you are going downhill, there is ample opportunity to generate electricity. You could put a generator in each shoe. You could mount a generator in a pogo stick device. The ideal device would clip to your shoe when going downhill, serve as a generator/descendeur, and while you slept it would clip to your tent and generate electricity from the wind.

ambys I suspect you think that we can get something for nothing here. This is not the case. When you kick in that bicycle powered generator, it slows the bike way down. It is a real drag. any device, whether in the boot, the backpack or the walking stick will cause you to exert a force over a distance. This is known as work. No matter how you get the electricity mechanically, you are going to have to increase the amount of work you do. One way around this is to harness your waste heat. You can use the Seebeck effect. You would place the hot side of a power module against your skin, and expose the cold side to the outside air. A power module (G1-1.4-219.1.14) from Tellurex sells for about $45 and can deliver 5.7 watts with a 180 degree F delta across it. If you had one side against your skin and one side at zero degrees F, you might get half of this or about 2.8 watts. You will need an aluminum or copper heat sink against your skin, maybe the size of your back, and a corresponding sink in the outside air, maybe a 10 inch by 10 inch by 2 inch set of aluminum fins.

I did Pinnacle in the early 70's. It was over Thanksgiving. As best I can remember we were alone on the mountain. It wasn't real cold but was total whiteout when we got to the alpine meadow. We thought we could just keep going up to hit the auto road. It was very disorienting. We stumbled around for a long time till we got to the top.

Buck Harper claimed that the hand cranked telephone in his general store was the last one in the US. I never used it but I saw people make calls.

Yes, Buck harper, I remember him! Last time I was there was 1974. There was a rickety old swaying bridge across the creek.

Speaking of puffs of smoke at Seneca Rocks. We had some guys in the Penn State Outing Club were up on West Face of the North Peak in 1968 or 69 when they started seeing puffs of smoke around them and hearing gunshots. Seems the locals were having a bit of fun. I stood on the Genderme many times. Always thought it was going to keel over at any minute.

From my journal at Rosenlaui School in Meiringen, CH July 1,1970: "Today we proceeded to Grimselpass for more snow techniques. The area we were in seemed to be a practice area for the Swiss Army. We saw many puffs of black smoke and we saw where the rock and snow was blackened. Swiss jets flew in formation and singly through the valley and were so low that we were looking down on them. One flew right over us so low that the pilot waved to us and rolled over." I now know they were the F-5A with attachment points for various unguided missiles, Sidewinders, extra fuel but had no gun and no fire control radar.

My experience in the Hornli Hutte dates from 36 years ago. The hut was extremely crowded. Each bunk is the width of the hut. 30 people lie on their side in the spoon position. Every 20 minutes, the person at the end will turn over and a wave will propagate to the other end. Every time you wake up, you check your watch. When your time arrives, you get up and go.

I beleive that the amount you should pay be related to the risk you assume.Walking down the side walk is considered low risk, so we might bill the taxpayers for such a rescue. Attempting Mt. hood in midwinter, with a big storm forecast, sans down jackets, bags and stoves might be considered high risk. In that case the estate might be billed the full amount. In my case, I led a group up a big one and through my stupidity caused an accident. We each payed $600 in 1970 dollars for the cost of the rescue. I remember being stuck up there, knowing we were liable, thinking, just rescue me, I don't care what the cost is.

virendra7 I'm trying to get a handle on this Jewish hatred thing. Christians and Muslims hate the Jews because the Jews were compliscit in the cruscifiction. But wasn't it actually the Romans who did the deed? How come Christians/Muslims don't hate the Romans? And to stir the pot a bit further. How come advances in cooking technology, such as sufficient heat, don't allow Jews/Muslims to change their position on pork?

I read here that: "Ed Viesturs has climbed 13 of the 14 highest peaks without supplemental oxygen." CNN May '04. At that time he was in Nepal for a second try at Everest and a try at the only one of the 14 he had not done, Annapurna.

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