"Little Bobby Onsight"

[Colin]

Posted by Dru:

"ive never met anyone who actually met "little bobby onsight" and i was wondering if he comes across as weird in person as in his writing?** like in the article he wrote for High magazine about an early ascent of Sea of Vapors and calling it WI6+ M6+ (it was M5 WI 5 at the time and he seconded all the hard pitches)"

He called NY Gully on Snoqualmie Mountain 5.8, AI4, A2. After climbing it last winter, my partner and I thought it closer to 5.8, AI3 (although we, or atleast I, still pulled gear). Despite this difference, it was still a well-spyed route, and I'd reccomend it.

[Cpt.Caveman]

Its a rating. Speculative

[Dru]

The naming came about in this way. In the early 90's he climbed some solo route on north face of Edith Cavell and named it "Tomoesque". He wrote a horribly, amusingly bad article for CAJ in which sample phrases were "Glistening and flashing, my serrated black blades attacked and wounded the moaning virgin ice." etc. Then he wrote an article for AAJ about how he soloed Borgeau Right-Hand and so on and noted "Barry Blanchard and other climbers had soloed these before but with previous route knowledge. These were the first on-sight solos". Well after that, about 5 routes got put up by Twight, JoJo, Bubba, Backes etc with names like "Bob-esque" (a 15m WI3), "Little Bobby OnSight" (the FA description notes that the route was 'on sight simul soloed'), "Bob-sized", etc. Hee Hee. Then there was the farce of him climbing Sea Of Vapors with Tuan as a WI5 and spraying about how he conquered a WI7 except he thought it was really only a 6+. Also he wrote an 8 page trip report about it in the ACC Clubhouse Logbook "My Rambo stuck. My other Rambo stuck." that inspired a flood of amusing parodies "My Stubai stuck. My other Stubai stuck."

Never met the dude (Talkin' shit anyways) but I wonder if he comes across as such a puffed up spraymaster in person as in his writing? Also to get peaceful fun loving guys like Bubba and JoJo riled up you have to be kind of a dick I think...

[ 02-13-2002: Message edited by: Dru ]

[DCramer]

I use to know him when he lived in Seattle. Never spent much time with him as we have very different interests in climbing. He always seemed ok in person maybe a bit over the top with enthusiasm and self-promotion but I wouldn’t hesitate in going out for a beer with him. I went climbing with his wife once and she seemed like a great person so he can’t be all goofy.