RIP Todd Skinner

[TrogdortheBurninator]

Just saw an uncofirmed thread on st.com that Todd Skinner is reported dead on leaning tower. Hopefully the report is not true, but condolences to his family and friends if it is.

 

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=270833&f=0&b=0

[Mos_Chillin]

Man, if that is true, that really sucks.

I hung out with him at Hueco a fair bit in the 90's and he is/was a great guy.

 

 

RIP

[billcoe]

Man, if that is true, that really sucks.

I hung out with him at Hueco a fair bit in the 90's and he is/was a great guy.

 

RIP

 

Ditto: bumped into him as far back as the 70's and was always a real decent fella. I know that some of the Index locals had issues with style, and I'm having a hard time believing the story due to the fact that his style tended to be "safer" and less "balls to the walls" than many climbers believed one should be. i.e., dropping in form the top to leave caches and set up the free Ascent of Salethe Wall, adding bolts and pins to old aid lines so he could increase the safety and free the routes - often on rap, endless toproping and rehearsals of various pitchs and etc etc.

 

Good dude though, hope it's not true and it's just another internet rumor.

 

In the 2 seconds it took to double check Supertopo it has been confirmed 2 times over there as true and not a hoax.

 

Fuck

Edited October 24, 2006 by billcoe

[Off_White]

Oh, that sucks. Over the years I've run into Todd all over the place, and his boundless enthusiasm was always a kick in the pants. I remember years ago in the Gunks (my one day ever in the Gunks) we were laughing and joking about running into each other out there and this older fellow came walking down the trail. When Todd stopped to ask the guy how it went, he broke into a huge smile and described how psyched was to have led his first 5.6. Todd's pleasure at the man's success and stoke were so obvious, waving his hands in the air and talking about other moderates to put on the tick list. Far from being a standoffish "magazine climber," he really empathized with the feelings climbing brings and understood that pushing your own personal limits was the same thing no matter what grade you were climbing.

 

Say what you want about his style or undeniable bent towards shameless self promotion, he was a good person and it makes me very sad that I'll never see his goofy grin again.

[G-spotter]

"Live your life like a thrown knife" - Todd in a video.

[Weekend_Climberz]

Wow! Though I have never met Todd, some of the things I know that he's done and some of the musings I've read that he has written has alway inspired me. Though it's a tragic loss to the climbing world, his life is something that should be celebrated and remembered for the live's he's touched.

[goatboy]

My buddy was climbing Leaning Tower the day Skinner died.

 

He says they were on an old aid route called Jesus Built my Hotrod. They were trying to free climb the route. No details on the accident yet.

 

Sad news....I can only imagine that he went out the way he would have wanted to -- doing what he loves.

Edited October 25, 2006 by goatboy

[mountainmatt]

That really, really sucks! Todd was one of my heros when I started climbing. His positive influence on the sport will be sorely missed. Condolences to family and friends.

[JosephH]

Yep, very sad news; but one note from the SuperTopo thread - according to Steve Bechtel who is helping with Todd's affairs he was climbing with Jim Hewitt at the time, rather than Jimmy Chin ...

[RuMR]

man, this blows...i remember seeing that climbing article on the salathe and being so stoked as a kid...totally sucks..

[Jim]

This is sad indeed. I saw Todd give a talk at the old VW on Elliot shortly after it opened. He came in earlier in the day and was just wired - Hey, what's happening" he said wide-eyed.

 

He gave a great talk and remembered conversations he had around the campfire in Wyoming with elk hunting clients. Many of them were business men -types and after a wiskey or two would say they wished they spend more time of their lives outside. Todd said he began to think - well, there's plenty of time so why not climb now and work later; and if everything worked out it would be climb now and climb later!!

 

What I liked about him best was that he was encouraging, no matter what level you climbed. He just wanted folks to get out there and have an adventure. He had quite a few of his own.

[Figger_Eight]

Yeah...totally sad. He, too, was one of my heroes. His Trango Tower ascent was very inspiring to me in my early days.

[David Trippett]

When I was planning my trip to Viet Nam I emailed Todd to get some beta on the climbing in Ha-Long bay....I expected to get back a brief e-mail about the quality of the routes and perhaps a bit on logistics...what I got back was several hand drawn topo's with a map of the entire bay that cross-referenced all the climbing. In addition Todd gave me tons of beta on logistics, boat rental etc...

He was a controversial character and always seemed to be in the center of something...I think that's what I liked about him best. He wasn't afraid to stir up the shit....that whole City Park saga is a climbing story classic!

 

Cheers to a life well led Todd!

[mountainmatt]

More info from Rock and Ice:

http://www.rockandice.com/pages.php?action=shownewsdetail&newsId=101&pno=0

[NYC007]

wow, sad news. He was a nice dude. My best to his family

[billcoe]

2 notes; my first post should have read the early 80's, not the 70's.

 

2nd) In case anyone didn't read the entire ST thread: the great Peter Haan may have done one of the very best posts I've read on this kind of sadness. It's so special I wanted to put it here too.

_______________________________________________________

It says (I added the word our in parenththese at the end) verbatum:

 

" I have to say it is rare that climbing takes one of its own. And when it does for a moment we feel more alone and weaker than ever. There is true horror in this too and we briefly fear for each other, those of us who are left, as though we might if we were all kept in a stock pen by a mythic monster that randomly devours one of us daily.

 

There is nothing elegant in this for those of us who survive. In a climber’s death is also contained our own possible death, sometime later, when? What we do have remaining is Todd’s legacy, his family, his friends, his detractors, the rock he touched all over the world. All that which we had a week ago, you know, when he was still at it. He has given us this and he becomes truly one of(our)heros."

_________________________________________________________

 

Between John Bachar/Anastasia/Steve K's recent car wreck issue in my mind, along with amazing greats Dwight Bishop, Dereck Hershey and Dan Osmon all dramatically checking out so much younger than me: that Peter Haan post pretty much summed it up as artistically as you could hope for: - for me.

 

The difference in the 3 greats I just mentioned is that they all bit it big going sooooo large. Todd worked and lived at a high level, but he worked and lived at that level in a big safety zone. Dwight had soloed the N face of the Eiger, and then bit it free- soloing an enchainment of the Tetons - the 2nd time, Dereck Hershey was free-soloing Sentinal-in a rainstorm I believe, and you all know Danno's story.

 

Those dudes were not Todd and vise versa. He'd caught crap for putting in bolts in the ffa of Wet Denin Daydream on the Tower, which I think the rest of that story is that he strained so hard that he broke his back (? - bad memory? ), wonder if he pulled a loose block on this one or what the exact story is.

[goatboy]

Sounds like initial reports are that he detached from his rap line, leaving his rappel device and locking biner still clipped to the rope... not sure if his belay loop somehow broke, or what....

[JosephH]

goatboy - where is that from?

[Mr_Phil]

Did you try clicking on the link above, Joe?

 

Free-climbing pioneer Todd Skinner was killed yesterday, October 23, while descending fixed ropes on the Leaning Tower in Yosemite. Details of the accident are incomplete, but it appears that he and his partner Jim Hewitt were working on a free route on the 1,200-foot monolith. Information on the accident will follow as we receive it, but Skinner and his partner, Jim Hewitt, were rappelling the route Jesus Built My Hot Rod, and were several hundred feet above the base when the accident occurred. Apparently, Skinner went first, and suddenly fell; his rappel device and locking carabiner remained on the rope.

[plexus]

First off it's very sad news about Todd. I think one way or another, from personal contact to the myriad of media out there with him or that he wrote to just being inspirational by his ascents, Todd is a legend in climbing.

 

The timing is odd in that I just read an article on Mick Fairchild in this weekend's Rocky Mountain News. Fairchild has been an installation at Eldorado here for 30 years free soloing. I couldn't help but think of Hersey and how the odds will sometimes catch up with.

 

The clock is ticking on all of us. What have you done today?

[JosephH]

Mr. Phil - thanks, missed that last phrase in the reading...

[pope]

Can't say I was always impressed by the style of ascents, but without question he had incredible ability and drive. The many people I've met who had personal encounters with him echo the thought that Todd was especially amiable. In 1985 (or '86), my friend Joel and I rode a bus out to Index and camped for a week. We spent a couple of nights on top of a huge boulder below the LTW and were there to witness Todd's efforts on City Park. We were amazed that anybody could find anything to cling to on that line, but we were equally impressed that such a capable and celebrated climber would take the time to make small talk with us. It seemed to us that climbing attracted a large number of egotistical and insecure characters. Todd provided an example of compassion and humility that we should all strive to emulate.

[powderhound]

His family and friends will be in my thoughts a prayers. I remember the other week when I was at Devils Tower and looking through the FA history I saw that he put up a 11a, and a 12a trad route in the same day. That blew me away.

 

Cheers to Todd

[bwrts]

"Live your life like a thrown knife" - Todd in a video.

"you do not need the fingers, when you have the panage(sp?)." Masters of Stone 1, wild Iris or was it Painted Spider at Hueco Tanks...damn I need to go watch the old flicks again...there the best anyways.

[Lithophiliac]

This is a truely sad event. I too saw Todd at the old vertical club and his FFA of the Salathe and accompanying Climbing magazine article still provides me inspiration. I still have the article and will probably read it tonight, have a beer and a bit of a cry. RIP Todd, you will be missed.