Back in the Day (Final Set of Scanned Slides)

[F4?]

Well the magic phrase used to be "Sport Climber"...

[squiddo]

Well the magic phrase used to be "Sport Climber"...

Things change E

[F4?]

what's the old saying bears never change, they just hibernate??

[waldo]

Brad, I especially like the Becky Route on Lone Pine. I spent a night above it long ago and strolled over to peek down.  Scared me spitless.  Thanks for sharing all these!

[oldtopangalizard]

Great stories and better photos. Brad, I like that you still climb with your first partners, but more importantly that the human element is number one.
My first roped climb was at Tahquitz in 1976. A friend of a good friend was telling me that if I like peakbagging so much in the High Sierra, I should try a rope. A bunch of us 17-19 year olds were driving to the Eastside and third and fourth classing the big peaks on the weekends. So I go to Tahquitz, 20 pound Lowa's on my feet, follow him on Angels Fright in a snowstorm in October. Wow, I'm hooked. Next weekend Swiss Arete on Sill with him and my high school buddy. The following week I buy some RR's, and so it began.
I still climb with both those guys. My friend from high school and I climb together a few times a year. He can still climb hard, I can hardly climb. But through it all, when I am asked about favorite climbs, trips or whatever, I always tell my inquisitor it's about the camaraderie first. First the laughs, incredibly heavy meals carried way too far up the trail, and pretty much all the bullshit chatter. Second, the beauty of where any climb or hike might be. Here in CA, you're always in heaven when rockclimbing, even if it's Stoney Point. And last but not least is the summit or the climb itself, nice little icing on the cake.
A newer bonus in the great circle of life is my son leading me up climbs I probably would not get in front of anymore. I have learned to accept the role of belayer without any problems, something I wasn't too good at many years ago.
BTW, reading your posts left me with a question for you. Where in the states have you not climbed?

[clink]

it's about the camaraderie first

And so it is.

[F4?]

Beer?

[Brad Young]

Topangalizard (who might or might not be old),

Thanks for the comments and for your own stories.

Do we know your son? Does he post here? Where do you and he get together to climb? Is a trip report from you in order?

My older daughter Katie isn't leading me up stuff, but she's told/asked me to help her do some serious work on placing gear and making anchors this summer. I'm looking forward to that.

As for climbing outside California, I've never thought of myself as one who's done much outside our state. A couple week-long trips to New York, and a few to Washington, together with some time in Colorado and a little in Arizona, and that's it. Well, aside from Red Rocks that is.

I agree that the camaraderie becomes more and more important as time goes on, although F4 has a point in that an occassional beer is nice too 

[Brad Young]

Although they are not scanned slides, I downloaded to Flickr some of my very first digital climbing shots. They're from 2006; not exactly "back in the day," but getting there. And these shots include my friend and long-time climbing partner Hope Wolf.

Hope and I linked up in October, 2006 to do a route on Middle Cathedral Rock called The Flakes. This is an old route, and an old-school route. The climber must have excellent route-finding skills to get up this (really, really good skills). And excellent gear placing skills to do it safely. And the 5.8 rating? Amusing at best. Sections of solid 5.9 on more than one pitch. But hey, 5.8, 5.9, who cares. Hope and I had a great Autumn day on this one.

Getting going from the Valley floor:




Very tricky pro among lots of thin flakes:







Hope's a YMS guide and she's super solid. The route needed great care in setting anchors. It also gets way off the Valley floor:




It goes up and then generally left, and then right, eventually exiting into the gunsight. One rightward traverse in particular was steep and very improbable (and a long pitch when it was done):




In fact, most of the pitches were long:







Anyway, another great day; camaraderie, good rock, fine, fine California weather, and an adventure.

[mynameismud]

Message-Id: <339DB954.52BFA1D7@acuson.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 13:30:12 -0700
Organization: ACUSON
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; U; SunOS 4.1.4 sun4c)
Subject: trip report
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit


For some reason it seems whenever I plan a trip work gets busy.
Last Friday was no exception and at 5.03 I find myself driving down
Middlefield road at approximately 60 miles per hour trying to get to
the computer store before they close at 5:00.  I'm not quite done at
work but I'm beginning to finish up all last hour details so I can
begin the migration.  6:45 I am on the road I leave a few loose ends
behind but oh well what to do last night I got about 4 hours and I
want to get some sleep.  The plan is to meet Brad of Sonora at the
pull out for Sentinel at 6:00 am, then do the Flying Buttress and drive
back home so I can hang out Sunday.  The only bad thing about doing the
Friday migration is not being able to use the carpool lane.
  It seems every trip has something different about it, the views, the
people, the route themselves, the descents, this time I think it was
vegetation or possibly loose blocks in wide cracks.
  Brad and I hooked up at about 6:15 left about 7:15 and arrived back
at the rigs at 9:15 fairly good time.  The route starts out with a
difficult 5.10 crack that is a bit flared and a bit mungy and I think
it sets the tone for the rest of the climb.  The book says 12 pitches
we did it in 11.  I think it would go in 10, and the last pitch is a
hike. The most appropriate way to rate this climb would be a1 b2. The
rating isn’t as in bouldering but as in bush.  All the aid pitches that
I did could probably be freed by a good climber or aided easily by us
mortals if it wasn’t for the incredibly stubborn bushes, and half the
pitches had something wide on them nothing super hard but inevitably
the would be a chock stone from the size of a bowling ball to the size
of a kitchen stove that was sitting in it with a contact spot on each
side about the size of a Powerbar.  I think a person could really have
a good time trundling.
  It was a fairly quick day and the sunset on the way down was great.
The thing I didn't really enjoy on the trip back was it seemed everybody
was driving with their high beams on.  Whether they were behind or in
front most everybody had their high beams on until they were 50 yards
away it didn’t matter if the road had curves or if it was straight and
in the middle of the flat lands.  Oh well it was worth it and it was
great to be in the valley again after over six months.  I haven’t climbed
in a lot of places but for me, there is definitely something awesome
about it.  After Brad led the second pitch to just below the cleaver,
a long difficult OW, I just had to let out a whoop.
DES

[Brad Young]

Wow, there's a blast from the past, where'd that come from?

That was an excellent day; Flying Buttress Direct on Sentinel Rock, a Grade V in a day.

My overriding memory of that one is leading the "5.7" wide crack sections (which you describe in your trip report). At least Layton Kor called them 5.7. I about busted a gut on those. The new Yosemite Big Walls guidebook calls that section 5.9+, which is about right.

[mynameismud]

was going through some old files in my mostly unused UNIX account.  Those old emails are so nice since they are text files.  will dig through when I have some time and post up a few more.

Those are definitely 5.7.  "All of those Big Wall Guys" are soft when it come to free climbing.  Especially climbing absolutely anything wide.

 

[mungeclimber]

Nice!

"Brad of Sonora"

[mynameismud]

Here’s one from a Rostrum Trip with Clint.  No Ethics, A Tale of the Unworthy ( me not Clint ).

Well after tweaking a couple of tendons and taking about a month off
I figured it was time to get off the couch and do some climbing.  I
called Clint and he was up.  The original plan was to go up both
days but work decided I should go for only a day.  We were originally
going to leave early Saturday but since I was playing around
with bikes up around Marin we ended up leaving around 10:30 PM. 
Sunday morning seemed to come all too early.  7:30 AM found us heading
down to the base.  The lower pitches went well.  The seep on the
first pitch was minor.  Clint dispatched this quickly and even
managed to hang on when he had a bit of a slip.  I ran the
2nd and 3rd and managed to get the pass on a some Brits hauling
a pack.  On one hard section I yarded on a piece just to save
time.  The hand crack on the 3rd pitch is just stellar and I
managed to climb this with one piece.  Of the lower pitches the
4th is my favorite.  Ya lie back around a roof the go up a
hand crack to a steep corner then pull up onto the midway ledge.
Not real hard just lots o fun.  Off the ledge is the 11c
finger crack.  I almost pulled it without a taint.  But in
the crux there is a pin where there would be and actually is
a good smear.  The pin makes it a bit better.  Clint followed
clean.  Then lead the next pitch to below the 10d layback.
The 10d layback has always been the mental crux for me and I
was stoked to pull through this without to many problems.  There
was plenty of shaking and wobbling but that went on during the
whole climb so I will not really get into that part of it.
Next was the 10c face to the 10a OW.  This pitch is just hard
I solved the 10c travers with a pendo and then dispatched the
10a OW by yarding on a cam.  If you do this climb bring a
4.5 Camelot.  All we brought was a 5 and it was too big in
many places.  I almost went for a 20ft wipper when it popped
while I was yarding on it.  After stabilizing I still could
not figure out what kept me on or should I say in the crack.
The next pitch is the 11b hand crack.  I had a taint at the
bottom because I just did not see the hold then pumped out the
the very end and yarded the last 5 feet into the cave.
Clint pulled this pitch off without too much of a problem but
I think he was fairly pumped since it took him a minute or
two to clip into the anchors.  The final pitch went without
much problem.  It is not that hard.  We were both glad to
get on top and make the quick hike over to the packs so
to get some water.  My strategy was not to take any water
and just two food bars to save weight and to motivate for
speed.  We had planned on doing Waverly Wafer after but the
lack of sleep and water, mainly sleep help us to decide to
just head for home.

[mungeclimber]

Any day topping the Rostrum is a good day.

[mynameismud]

the good, the bad

5 June 04
My best day of bouldering at Castle.  Possibly ever.  On the
Maggo boulders I got The Magoo Face, The 2 5.11 traverses,
and the arete.  On the beak I got beak from sit, beak from
traverse, and the traverse, PL I got tree twice and traverse.
Plus some warm ups.
-----------------------------------
8 June 04
  Mtb ride on long ridge.  I was sucking and riding in the back
as everyone was passing me.

[Aaron McDonald]

The Flakes is now on my list!