best of cc.com Pictures From the Wayback Machine

[wfinley]

That actually looks like a route at the North End of Cathedral Ledge, I can't remember the name, if it is the route that I am thinking it is?

No - it's at the New River. i never made it to NH to climb until just a few years ago.

[sobo]

Zig is further to climbers right - around the corner from Angel's Arete My first lead fall ever was on Zig; I popped right off while trying to jam pass the crux!

As was mine. Frank sandbagged me into leading Zig as my first lead ever, "confirming" the grade at 5.6 (like I could tell after climbing only five or six weeks). My last piece was a #3 Coonyard stopper at the bottom of the lie-back. I stopped about 15 feet further up to place another piece, and peeled off the LB and took a 30+ footer, with one hand hitting the ground. Frank looked at me, shook his head, and asked, "You gonna finish that?"

 

I got up, dusted off, realigned my karma, tried again, and fell again from the same spot. Two 30+ footers inside of five minutes on my first lead ever - yah, I gave up for the day. Two weeks later we returned, after I'd been practicing placing pro around campus and working out extra hard at the gym. Frank's philosophy was that you had to get your old monkeys off your back before you could add new ones, so up we trudged to the base of Zig one more time. I literally flew up it. Frank followed, and revealed the true grade as 5.9. I almost pushed him off the top of the route when he told me that.

 

After much working at it, I was able to extricate the stopper that held those falls. It's hung from the rear view mirror in every vehicle I have owned since that day, a constant reminder to me of how fragile this life, and the lives of others close to us, really is.

 

BTW - some guys freed that crack that cuts across the roof last year!

Yowzerz!!!1 Frank and I often contemplated when (and if) that roof would ever go free.

Wow, 20 years. I wish he could know that.

[sobo]

One last one of Frank.

I've been looking for this pic a while now, and finally found it this morning.

This pic was taken less than six months before Frank was murdered in his climbing store.

His son Kyle is about 5 or 6 months old here. Kyle will graduate high school next year, never really knowing his father.

[ivan]

christ! there's a downer to a fun upbeat-thread!

 

what were the details of the robbery? murderer ever get caught? he used a gun i assume?

[sobo]

Sorry for the buzzkill, ivan, but I've been experiencing a continued low pressure system lately. It looks like the barometric pressure is rising, tho...

Besides, what's a Wayback Thread without a mention of those fine people and good friends that have passed through our lives?

 

RE: your questions...

From what the papers, my folks, and Frank's wife Patti has told me, there were two perps. One was apparently the "lookout", the other was the trigger man. It was all recorded on the overhead video camera at the cashier counter, but the creeps were never (to my knowledge) apprehended for this crime. I hope they are on the bottom of a bayou somewhere as I write this, although Frank would probably not approve of me saying that. The guy had too much class.

 

Frank was the only store personnel (he managed the store) in the climbing/backpacking shop at the time of the shooting. Two African-American males entered the Fairfax store shortly after Frank opened it one Friday morning at the end of November, 1990. He helped the "shooter" try on several down coats. The other guy just sort of wandered the store, looking around and shit.

 

After spending some time in the store (close to 45 minutes or so, according to the video camera), Frank and the shooter approached the cash register to ring the two out. Upon the cash drawer opening, the shooter pulled out a .44 caliber handgun and demanded all the money in the register. Frank backed away from the shooter and cash register, leaving the drawer open, and gestured to him to take the money. The guy grabs about $200 in cash or so, and then puts two in Frank's chest from across the check-out counter.

 

The two run out of the store and jump into a beater 70s era piece of Detroit iron with Washington DC tags that was parked out front. A witness (or witnesses) outside the store noted the plate number; the vehicle turned out to be recently stolen. The authorities were alerted by the witness(es), and Frank was transported to a DC-area hospital, where he died more than three hours later on the OR table, never having regained consciousness.

 

The police never found the two that killed Frank. He was a muscle-bound freak with an incredible will to live and a love for life, which is why I believe it took so long for him to die that day. Frank left behind the woman that I had introduced him to that became his wife and the mother of his son, his 10-month-old boy named Kyle (pictured above, named after the time-traveling character in the first Terminator movie - our favorite flick at the time).

 

I still get all choked up every time I think about him, see that movie, or hear anything from the (now defunct) band Big Country, which was our favorite road trip music (Where the Rose is Sown and Just a Shadow were our favorite road tunes, especially the lengthy head-banging guitar and E-bow solos at the end of those songs).

 

I will never forget my first climbing partner and my best friend, Frank Seth Gibson.

OK, so I'm done for right now. Someone else can post something and hopefully brighten up this thread.

[ivan]

fawking sux - far from an ideal world we're living in...why the fuck would you shoot somebody who's giving you no problem?

[pope]

Damn it. Where's the justice in this world? I hope your friend is in a better place.

[ZimZam]

Through your posts in this thread, you've paid your friend a beautiful tribute.

[AlpineK]

It sounds like he was a great guy

[sobo]

He was an awesomely great guy, Kurt. The very best.

People like him don't deserve to die like that.

And certainly not while leaving a wonderful woman and a new kid behind.

He's dead and there's two loozerz walking free.

That just ain't fair, and it just ain't right.

[chirp]

In closing for the moment, may I present Devils Tower 1987.

 

 

[ivan]

this means something!

[sk]

He was an awesomely great guy, Kurt. The very best.

People like him don't deserve to die like that.

And certainly not while leaving a wonderful woman and a new kid behind.

He's dead and there's two loozerz walking free.

That just ain't fair, and it just ain't right.

 

okay well that whole story made me cry and all i have to offer is a hug.

 

you are a lucky man to have had so good a friend.

[Toast]

These are great!

[pope]

Didn't some French climbers take a crap down El Matador when you working there? I seem to remember they were making a statement about the lack of bolts.

[catbirdseat]

[chirp]

Didn't some French climbers take a crap down El Matador when you working there? I seem to remember they were making a statement about the lack of bolts.

This happened after I left I believe. Also, the Tower had a bit of a bolt "wars" after a certain local climber bolted a bunch of aretes and shallow corners, leaving ropes in place for days much to the angst of the management. I think they drafted a new bolting policy soon thereafter.

[chirp]

OK, three more from me...the last on I will edit in.

 

Early in 1985, I had just discovered Index and we set about to do the most audacious thing we could find that we could do...the Narrow Arrow Standard. I it was scary and new and was our big obsession.

 

 

Pope posing in the baking heat at the base of Rixons pinnacle in 1988. We had just driven from Tacoma that night on the way to my job in Zion and made a stop over in the Valley.

 

In 1986, the big goal was Dr Leakey, I was pretty stoked when I was able to do the upper moves for the first time, I even ripped my polypro taking falls! wOOT!

 

 

[sobo]

chirp-

 

I like the T-shirt, particularly...

 

Have you had your Powdermilk biscuits today?

[EWolfe]

Not mine, but cool nonetheless:

 

 

 

[TREETOAD]

Those are cool pictures. Any idea who those guys are?

[mccallboater]

Earlier on someone mentioned Mike Adams, aka "Griz Adams" from his kick-boxing days. Anyone know where he is? He taught me how to climb in the summer of 1984 when we were both broke and living in the Methow valley. Mike was the only guy I ever knew with Popeye forearms: bigger than his upper arms, which wearn't small. The drill was; out the door at 6am after working the night office shift at a Winthop hotel, pick up Mike and motor up to some Sawtooth trailhead, run up something until we got to a summit, glissade and run back to the car, then catch my day job that started at 1pm. Repeat.

 

I got in good shape that year. The weekends we spent at Omak, up at Washington Pass, and other local attractions. The highlight of that summer was a free ascent of Steins Piller in Oregon, a pretty stiff 5.10 for a first year climber in not so sticky shoes. Mike was a great teacher and friend. I'll dig though thte old photo albums to find some pictures.

[MisterMo]

John Salathe on the left, I think.

[mtn_mouse]

Salathe and Ax Nelson

[goatboy]

Hey MattP,

 

Where the heck is Pancake Pinnacle???

 

Good to meet you at the picnic last week, btw....