bradleym Posted November 15, 2008 Posted November 15, 2008 say what you will about the mounties as an organization, but their text book definitely deserves a tug - how many folks out there taught themselves to climb, largely on the strength of that opus magnus? x1 i couldn't do without it. Quote
pc313 Posted November 15, 2008 Posted November 15, 2008 Okay, ill let it out... My TRUE story goes more like this. One day I was jerking off in the living room while my parents where out for a walk. Somehow I jizzed out and it hit the roof and was just splattered there on the ceiling. I was like, 'oh shit' b/c I heard my parents walking up the street so I piled up 5 chairs and bouldered to the top to clean up my jiz. I've been hooked ever since. Damm lucky you didn't lose an eye! Quote
Skeezix Posted November 16, 2008 Author Posted November 16, 2008 MFOTH was most influential for me in my formative years (the 70's), but my first climbing reference was The Adventurer's Sourcebook. This publication was loosely modeled after Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog, and contained information about backpacking, canoeing, skiing, rockclimbing, mountaineering, etc. with depictions of essential gear and info on where to get it. From there, I ordered catalogs from REI and Eddie Bauer --probably the only copies they sent to Richmond, Virginia in 1973. And a key event was an episode of ABC's Wide World of Sports that reported on big wall climbers in Yosemite. Prior to escaping the East Coast, I also read Colin Fletcher's The Complete Walker, from which I acquired foundational backpacking knowledge. Then I masturbated while my parents were out for a walk and one thing led to another... Quote
mike1 Posted November 16, 2008 Posted November 16, 2008 Not quite so colorful but... I went BC skiing with a friend that volunteered on a rescue team back in '92. He ended up getting a call that night and I drove him to the mission. BC Skier was exhausted up on St. Helens and couldn't get down on her own. I ended up assisting on the mission and that got me hooked. I climbed Hood that winter with him for my first climb, joined the rescue team shortly thereafter and have been hooked ever since. Quote
kevbone Posted November 16, 2008 Posted November 16, 2008 It was 1996. Pink (someone on this board) and i were roommates for a while. He climbed all the time. He talked me into going climbing with him. I fell in love this the sport and the rest is history. Quote
hafilax Posted November 16, 2008 Posted November 16, 2008 My first time climbing was in Lake Louise in 1996. A couple of guys that I worked with kindly took a bunch of us top roping at the back of the lake. I thought it was kind of fun but didn't think much of it. Fast forward to 2000. Friends had a 2 for 1 for the intro course at Cliffhanger. I tagged along one day and bluffed my way through the belay test never having belayed before. I stuck with it. Led a couple of sport routes after reading one of Long's climbing books. Took a gear course and assembled a rack. I don't know if AT counts but I invested in the gear last year after snowboarding for the previous 16 (I skied for 12 years before that). I'm looking to do some mountaineering/ alpine climbing and would like to swing some ice tools at some point. Quote
Braydon Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 At age 14 in '78 I signed up for the Mountaineers Basic Climbing class. I finished that and started the Intermediate class. When I could finally drive I grew sick of climbing with old farts (at the time 40 was old ). I met high school friends into climbing, so I ditched the Mounties and went climbing... Yeah thats exactly what I did. The Mountaineers wouldn't let me take the Intermediate course though because you have to be 16 so I just started learning on my own reading books and stuff and having good partners to evaluate everything I was doing and making sure i was right. Marc is like the only other guy my age though that likes alpine climbing. No one is my school does. Quote
marc_leclerc Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 . Marc is like the only other guy my age though that likes alpine climbing. No one is my school does. soooo true man... so true Quote
ScottP Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 My dad used to take us camping on the N fork of the Kaweah river in Sequoia Natl Park. I fished a stretch above Lodgepole campground for years, scrambling and boulder hopping from pool to pool. As I got older I began scoping out the ridges above the river. One day I scrambled to the top and had a blast rambling along until I found a way to get back down. I took a rock climbing class at Bigfoot Mountaineering in Bakersfield right out of high school (1977) and I've never stopped. Quote
Bug Posted November 17, 2008 Posted November 17, 2008 1977 was a good year. I went to the Lowe Alpine school in Eldorado that summer. Quote
sobo Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 You're old... We fustigating curmudgeons prefer to refer to ourselves as "fermented"... Quote
Skeezix Posted November 18, 2008 Author Posted November 18, 2008 Plus, we survived a lot of years of climbing... and there's something to be said for that. Quote
sobo Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 Indeed! I should have been killed a half-dozen times over. At least! Quote
ScottP Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 You're old... We fustigating curmudgeons prefer to refer to ourselves as "fermented"... I considered myself more pickled than fermented... Indeed! I should have been killed a half-dozen times over. At least! Word. Quote
pope Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 Happened quickly, during high school. My geometry teacher was such a cool cat...guess he had a HUGE influence on me. I was getting into photography at age 16, so I joined the high school hiking club, which happened to be advised by my geometry teacher. Following his lead, I developed three of my great passions: mountaineering, mathematics, and teaching (probably in that order). I was so inspired by the idea of climbing Mt. Rainier...used to run 8 miles each day, finishing with a hill which when crested delivered a view of Rainier acorss the Sumner valley. I remember mail ordering Dachstein mits and the cheapest ice axe available (from REI) and a negative 15 bag from Slumberjack that Roskelly had supposedly tested on the Big E. I promptly had my Dad drop off me and two friends for a winter attempt on Gove Peak in MRNP, when it was 15 degrees F in Puyallup one winter. Joel still has discoloration on the back of his hands. My neighbor, Joel, was also in the high school hiking club. We later completed the Tacoma Mountaineer's Basic Course...they didn't seem to appreciate our youth and enthusiasm. Joel's family went on a road trip to Yosemite in 1983. He returned insisting that we should go wire-brush this big glacially deposited boulder up in Edgewood, above Sumner. We got some Converse basketball shoes, made some dust bags and swiped chalk sticks from a black board at the high school. The property owner was sympathetic until a friend drilled a top-rope bolt.....then we were ran out of there, denied some of the best bouldering available in the State. That episode helped to form some of my ideals about clean climbing. Joel and I met Chirp through the Mounties. We learned more about rock climbing after one weekend in Leavenworth with Chirp than in all of the Mounties field trips put together. Both Joel and Chirp remain great friends to this day. The only time I've ever been in the back of a police car was with Chirp and Joel, for climbing ice too close to I-90. No ticket was issued. Quote
Wolfgang Braun Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 I was in sixth grade. My friend found this book at local library about Rock climbing, and thought that it looked interesting. He brought it to school and showed me. I thought that it looked very cool and immediately asked my parents if they had known anything about it. They told me that they had climbed for a few years until when I was born. The next day they brought out all of their old climbing gear. I found it amazing. I first climbed by doing about a fifteen foot Top rope on our fireplace wall. (It's Rock and about fifteen feet high). I wanted to go to a climbing gym very badly, so my dad took me to one we found in the back of a climbing magazine listed as the best gym in Oregon. (Clubsport). We went there and I could top rope 5.8s my first day. I was hooked. I wanted to go climbing like every day. Since then I have been climbing for about 3 years, and love every moment of it. I do not planning on stopping climbing anytime in the future. Quote
Stefan Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 Became increasing more and more frustated with the lack of sex. So, I needed an outlet, and climbing hit me in the face like "There's Something about Mary". Quote
akhalteke Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 I have hike since i was about 5-6 years old and I eventually started I guess free soloing some easy rock routes around Granite Falls area because I didnt know that it wasn't safe to climb up the rocks with out a rope until I got yelled at by some homos (probably on this board now) that I was "being reckless" climbing up there by myself without protection. Thanks to those homos on Mt. Pilchuck, I am now a climber; ropes and all. Quote
minx Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 Became increasing more and more frustated with the lack of sex. So, I needed an outlet, and climbing hit me in the face like "There's Something about Mary". that is both epic candor and fine example of the say "birds of feather..." Quote
akhalteke Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 oh and BTW thanks for pissing down the North Face of Pilchuck assholes; really love climbing up broken glass and dehydrated mounty piss. Quote
minx Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 geez scotty...ease up on the bitterness. you're way too young to be that bitter. Quote
kevbone Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 geez scotty...ease up on the bitterness. you're way too young to be that bitter. Is there an age limit to bitterness? Quote
minx Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 no, it can start young but it should take years to build up to the level scotty is displaying. Quote
Bug Posted November 18, 2008 Posted November 18, 2008 You obviously were not the youngest of many in your family. Quote
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