List of Spokane Questions for Dane Burns

[Marty]

Dane here's a bunch of questions I have about routes in Spokane.

 

1. According to Bob Loomis whom I've spoke to personally about this, he claims that Kim Momb bouldered what we now call Smokey on Fire, way back when. I belive that he may have if he started 2/3 the way down(V6), but if you start all the way at the bottom, just left of Alfred Hitchcock Presents it is about V8 and would have been grades harder than anything that Bob has in his guide at the time. Its loads harder than Hair of the Dog(12c/d), Synchronicity(12d)or To have And Two Holds V7(Stone crusade by John Sherman puts 2 have and 2 holds at V8 but thats B.s.). That means of course this was the most difficult piece of rock climbed around here at the time but it was either done after Bob put his guide out or not at all. Do you know about this route?

 

2. Hair of the Dog. Why did the bolts get chopped?

 

3. Synchronicity. A hold has now since broke of the right side at the beginning but I've done it on TR. The reason that I have never led it successfully is that the only place to get some pro in, your hand is in there. Did anyone actually get a redpoint style ascent on this route?

 

4. The thin crack 10ft left of Greystoke on Chimney. Someone said you guys may have done it in the past. If so what the name grade and how many more routes are there than are on Randalls topo in his book?

 

5. Are you living around Spokane now cause if so you could just draw in all the routes on chimney that aren't in Randalls topo.

 

6. Did Loomis list all of the hardest routes in his guide or are there some that didn't get mentioned like Smokey on fire?

Edited May 10, 2004 by Marty

[Dane]

Post deleted by Dane

[MCash]

Dane, did you see this since it was modified?

[Peter_Puget]

Dane here's a bunch of questions I have about routes in Spokane.

 

1. According to Bob Loomis whom I've spoke to personally about this, he claims that Kim Momb bouldered what we now call Smokey on Fire, way back when. I belive that he may have if he started 2/3 the way down(V6), but if you start all the way at the bottom, just left of Alfred Hitchcock Presents it is about V8 and would have been grades harder than anything that Bob has in his guide at the time. Its loads harder than Hair of the Dog(12c/d), Synchronicity(12d)or To have And Two Holds V7(Stone crusade by John Sherman puts 2 have and 2 holds at V8 but thats B.s.). That means of course this was the most difficult piece of rock climbed around here at the time but it was either done after Bob put his guide out or not at all. Do you know about this route?

 

2. Hair of the Dog. Why did the bolts get chopped?

 

3. Synchronicity. A hold has now since broke of the right side at the beginning but I've done it on TR. The reason that I have never led it successfully is that the only place to get some pro in, your hand is in there. Did anyone actually get a redpoint style ascent on this route?

 

4. The thin crack 10ft left of Greystoke on Chimney. Someone said you guys may have done it in the past. If so what the name grade and how many more routes are there than are on Randalls topo in his book?

 

5. Are you living around Spokane now cause if so you could just draw in all the routes on chimney that aren't in Randalls topo.

 

6. Did Loomis list all of the hardest routes in his guide or are there some that didn't get mentioned like Smokey on fire?

 

Is Smokey on Fire a roof crack at Minni? If so, I heard the same thing about KM.

[Dane]

Quick opinions and them some comments below.

 

1.Kim Momb bouldered what we now call Smokey on Fire, way back when. I belive that he may have if he started 2/3 the way down(V6)

 

That would be my opinion also...if it were done at all before '85 when Kim died. The up side is if Bob showed you exactly what Kim did and he saw it himself, you can write it in stone. Phone conversations and email are really difficult to get exact info IMO. We were all proud of what we were doing at the time and an extremely difficult boulder problem would have been common knowledge in our small circle. Tom Krummes, Glenn Cambron or Pat Mahoney might have done it from the higher point and first showed me the boulder. That was a step up from what Kim was doing before his death and 4 or 5 years later.

 

2. Hair of the Dog. Why did the bolts get chopped?

 

see below

 

3. Synchronicity. Did anyone actually get a redpoint style ascent on this route?

 

I don't believe so. Pat and Larry would know for sure. I know they argued about it some

 

4. The thin crack 10ft left of Greystoke on Chimney.

 

see below

 

5. Could you draw in all the routes on chimney that aren't in Randalls topo.

 

Yes, the ones that I know of (there are others) but you also need a new topo if you are going to do a new guide book. Randy's topo could be better and more detailed.

 

6. Did Loomis list all of the hardest routes in his guide

 

I think Bob listed what he/we would have considered worth showing in a guide. Bob was also a gifted climber and didn't alway print everything he knew about was my take on it for no other reason than to leave a little adventure out there. There were boulders that were not included.

 

Kim was a very strong on the boulders. While I bouldered some I wasn't really interested in them enought to keep track of how hard they were but I did keep a running knowledge of what was being done and by whom. Kim and John Roskelley, Fulton, and others had a friendly running competition at Minne. Kim and John did a trip to Yosemite and climbed with IIRC Werner Braun, Ron Kalk for sure and several of the other locals. I remember Kim telling me about the boulders of camp 4 and bringing back the first Fire's to Spokane. So Kim certainly has exposure to some very difficult boulders there.

 

The most difficult thing I personally whitnessed Kim doing (and we climbed a good deal of rock together) was bouldering the bottom of Smokey's thin hand crack from the very back, starting off the block. Common boulder for him to do out to the 1st lip. He would also 3rd class the upper roof.

 

I remember some bouldering on the face to the right of Smokey but I don't think it was ever actually done before '88 or later.

 

Bob did an excellent job putting the guides together but it is easy to get things a bit mixed up when writing it all down and a lot of it from 3rd party sources.

 

"Hair of the Dog"? Again you are stretching my memory, but if I chopped them and I "think" I did, it was because Kurt hadn't lead it, placed the gear with a bosch (a first in Spokane) and the anchors were only half way up the rock. That was '88 by Bob's book (I seem to remember it being earlier) and my message was suppose to be "send the route" not stop half way up. I was never bashful about my opinion. A few of us half heartily tr'ed the entire line and thought if you could actually climb hard enough to do the bottom you should go to the top. Pretty weak effort IMO (bouldering that was never lead) compared to the days of effort Pat and especially Larry did at Dishman to add so many quality routes at a high standard for the day. Lot of stuff happening in the late '80s in rock climbing. Not all of it good. This climb is a classic example from both sides of the debate.

 

Kurt is active on a couple of boards maybe we ought to ask him his thoughts?

 

Marty sez:

"Dane knows more than I do about this but the hardest route at Chimney that I have been on was to the right of Greystoke. I was on a toprope but there's a thin crack/flake to the right that looks like it is fragile for the 1st 10ft (say you fell on your cam and it broke the flake/crak) but is actually a very good pitch."

 

I posted a picture of the fragile crack right of Greystoke in the "hardest" thread. Are you now asking about one left of Greystoke? There are a number of routes on Chimney not in Randy's book. Could you please answer my query on the other thread?

 

 

[NYC007]

the topo in the summit reg on chimney has all the routes.

[pindude]

the topo in the summit reg on chimney has all the routes.

 

The topos in the Chimney Register are merely copies from Randy's original 87 guide. New lines/routes are not shown unless climbers have drawn them in since the register was placed on the summit last summer.

 

Great questions/answers. More history and shiz clarified right here on cc.com.