Bridwell's Last Interview

[olyclimber]

 

[Phil K]

"Avalanche!"

[Rad]

6 hours ago, Phil K said:

"Avalanche!"

Yep. That's my favorite moment.

[billcoe]

Shit, great short film. The sad part to me is remembering that dude as young and strong. Didn't seem that long back but at least it partly explains why people I use to climb with are dying of old age and such. 

[stillcrankin]

Wow! Hadn’t seen this before.
 

Bridwell was bad-ass and a really good guy. He was a lover not a fighter. I never saw him get mad at anyone.
 

We were talking one time oh so very long ago in Camp 4, while a bunch of young climbers were spewing and spraying about all the stuff they had done that day and what they were going to do the next day when Jim leaned over to me and said, “You know, it doesn’t matter how hard or how much you climb in this life, what matters, when you cross over to the other side, is how you treated people along the way.” I’ve never forgotten that. 

The world doesn’t seem the same without Jim in it. 
 

[num1mc]

On 1/5/2022 at 8:04 AM, stillcrankin said:

Wow! Hadn’t seen this before.
 

Bridwell was bad-ass and a really good guy. He was a lover not a fighter. I never saw him get mad at anyone.

 

Just don't stop his kid from busting beer bottles

 

Quote

Phoenix comp thing might have been the Wills Young incident.  Allegedly, Bridwells son Layton (pre teen maybe then?) is throwing rocks at tents or some shit in the campground. Wills tells him to knock that shit off.  Son goes and tells Bridwell, who is probably already drunk, that some mean man said something to him.  Bridwell finds Wills and I'm pretty sure he clubs him in the mouth with a beer bottle, sucker style.  Lot's of dental work later for Wills.  Just another example of Bridwell being a drunk asshole without limits.  And it only got worse later on in his life until he became intolerable except by the boot licking few.  By the way, Wills is like 5'5" and 130#.  The mighty Bird needed a bottle for that?  Fuck him.  Probably still signing stuff in the afterlife. /rant

From WideFetish ButtHurtSuperTopo forum discussing Silvia Vidal and other cool stuff

Edited January 7, 2022 by num1mc

[stillcrankin]

If it’s true, that’s just sad. 
 

I heard that Jim had changed after he moved away from Tahoe. Although I saw him at some climber reunions and other functions over the years, we pretty much lost contact till I called him a week or so before he died. I heard from others that he’d pretty much gone to the dark side, embracing far right conspiracy theories (contrails, etc) and a bunch of other idiotic s#it. His wife Peggy was a real piece of work and Layton, his son, I never really knew him except when he was pretty young. 
 

When we talked shortly before he died, he sounded like the old Jim, humble and thoughtful. That’s how I want to remember him. 

[num1mc]

Too bad he was totally inept at computers and the internet, he would have fit in well with the haters at WF

[stillcrankin]

True dat about being totally inept at computers and the internet. He wasn’t unlike a lot of people his age and generation. 
 

Not sure what WF is. 
 

num1mc, you sound like you might have a little hatin’ going on…..

[num1mc]

WF is WideFetish. Where FatRad, Phish, LEB and anyone else who was banned from ST for being an outspoken, gun toting right winger, hater or just kind of a jerk went to. 
 

Kind of like ascensionist and the dregs of CC BITD. 

[stillcrankin]

Ahhhh yes. WideFetish. Thanks for the clarification. I remember that FatRad and LEB were two particularly odious POS’s on the Supertaco. I can only remember once that I got involved in a political thread on The Taco when I laid into FatRad for being such a despicable sh#tbag. I had to respond. Oh, those were the days. 

[num1mc]

You could join

[stillcrankin]

“FAT TARD IS A DOUCHIE FUCKING POSER THAT HASN’T DONE SHIT”

🤣 OMG! That’s priceless! That pretty much describes FatRad to a t.

I’m still LMAO 😂…

[num1mc]

That is probably the most erudite thread on WF in quite a while. 
 

 

[Rad]

CHEAT CODE: ALL CAPS MAKES YOU LOOK SMARTERER!

COVFEFE HAS SPOKEN

[num1mc]

11 hours ago, stillcrankin said:

True dat about being totally inept at computers and the internet. He wasn’t unlike a lot of people his age and generation. 
 

Not sure what WF is. 
 

num1mc, you sound like you might have a little hatin’ going on…..

You’re quite good at this social media stuff

 

 I’m on WF, but I would like to think that I’m just a jerk 

 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by num1mc

[stillcrankin]

58 minutes ago, num1mc said:

You’re quite good at this social media stuff

 

 I’m on WF, but I would like to think that I’m just a jerk 

 

 

 

Just another day at my ‘puter…

BTW-I saw your post before you edited it 😂!

Edited January 8, 2022 by stillcrankin

[num1mc]

I’m a jerk, but you’re still old as dirt. 
 

I hear you’re so old you call Donini “Sonny boy”. 

Edited January 8, 2022 by num1mc

[num1mc]

A WideFetish fun factoid. 
 

Reilly is the only member to get banned there. 
 

And LEB has reduced the Yogi of the parking lot to some ranting old fool. 

[stillcrankin]

Old as dirt? Maybe so, but at least I’m still out there trying. How about you?
 

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by stillcrankin

[num1mc]

No, bad knees and hips and ill health in loved ones have kind of got me. 
 

Be careful or this will turn into a cuddler fest. 
 

FAT TARD IS STILL A DOUCHIE MF’ER

[stillcrankin]

Nobody gets out unscathed. 
 

 

[glassgowkiss]

On 1/5/2022 at 8:04 AM, stillcrankin said:

 

Bridwell was bad-ass and a really good guy. He was a lover not a fighter. I never saw him get mad at anyone.
 

 

Absolutely disagree. Good guy? He openly expressed white supremacy views in his later life. Would that make him a "good guy"? 

I have met him several times in the 90's- both climbing and at the OR trade shows. Not the friendliest of encounters. Ask Allan Kearny about his encounter with Bridwell in Patagonia. 

[stillcrankin]

I totally respect that opinion. Like I said, I hadn’t been around Jim on a day to day basis in a long time, probably 35 years. 
 

People change. I’d heard that Jim was pretty whacked out but I hadn’t heard about the white supremacy leanings. That’s effed up. 
Jim endured (enjoyed) a lifetime of drugs, alcohol and other abuses. He loved LSD and other psychedelics and was known to dabble in heroin. Cocaine was a staple for him for years as I witnessed firsthand. These kinds of chemicals on a regular basis can change a person. I’m just really saddened that he ended up the way he did. 
 

You can only hope that you age gracefully and with dignity. Some do. Some don’t. I’ve been known to tell aging hard core climbers and athletes that complain about the things they can’t do anymore to embrace the change, to embrace the things they can still do. They’ll be very unhappy if they dwell on the things they can’t do anymore. If you survive all the stupid stuff you did when you were young you’ll eventually get there.
 

I got back into big wall climbing about 10 years ago after a 30 year wall climbing hiatus. It’s been quite an eye opener. When I flopped onto a ledge three pitches up on the first wall my friend and I did after we got back into it, I thought I was going to have a stroke. We took 3 days to do a wall that I’d done in a day in the 70’s. Things got better. The next wall we did (that I’d done in 1973) didn’t hurt nearly as much. They kept getting easier. I learned to slow down and live in the moment. All the new aid do-dads certainly helped. 
 

Anyway, Bridwell lived a long and colorful life and I wish him well wherever he is now. 
 

BTW-if we ever meet, please don’t give me a Glasgow kiss. 
 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by stillcrankin

[JasonG]

47 minutes ago, stillcrankin said:

You can only hope that you age gracefully and with dignity. Some do. Some don’t. I’ve been known to tell aging hard core climbers and athletes that complain about the things they can’t do anymore to embrace the change, to embrace the things they can still do. They’ll be very unhappy if they dwell on the things they can’t do anymore.

Sage advice, only truer by the year.