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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

 Page 1 of 2. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 23
Author
Returning to climbing after 29 YEARS!

deep Van Winkle
21-Dec-2014
12:09:08 AM
Guess who? Rip Van Winkle only fell asleep in the woods for 20 years but like a comet orbiting in the depths of space an enigma/legend/nobody returns.


As a bumblie on my first big trip I found myself sitting in the Natimuk pub at the next table over from the one with visiting 'Hot' Henry Barber and the cream of hard Victorian rock climbing in Easter 1975. I continued to climb till about 1985 before leaving the scene. As the years passed I thought I was cured but it must have been a particularly virulent strain of climbing bug that I caught way back then for it to be able to lie dormant for so long.

Xmas 1975: Mt Buffalo, memories of half the Oz scene packed into a few Lake Catani sites and in the Day Hut there, the likes of Mike Law, Chris Peisker et al swinging arm-locked from rafter to rafter right over the heads of climbers cooking brekky on fuel stoves.

1978: On an attempt to free a multi-pitch route at Moonarie with a young Louise Shepherd, by the time I got to the top of the final pitch the stars were out on a moonless night. While following through the huge summit roof with jumar ascenders she got completely stuck in a gear snarl in the pitch black star shadows and shouted up that it was too dangerous to continue. I tied her off and promised to return with more gear. After making my way down to our packs near the base of the cliff, I raced back up with a spare rope and head-torch. About half an hour had elapsed during which Louise had been hanging in blackness. I recollected how some less experienced climbers that I had offered this type of adventure excitement opportunity to on previous occasions had not always gotten into the spirit of things and had finished up in various states of incoherent blathering/whimpering. Abseiling down and over the lip of the roof a couple of hundred feet above the ground I was relieved to hear a cheerful "You took your time". Yup, she definitely had 'The Right Stuff'. With some light available it was fairly straightforward untangling the gear and then topping out.

1978: The full-time climbers' campsite in the Pines at Araps was settling into it's 5th billy of tea very late one morning when a rustic Kingswood or similar very slowly meandered up and parked just outside the Pines. A middle aged country gentleman got out and wandered over he said because we looked like climbers and sincerely asked if we would mind taking his son climbing and teaching him the ropes. A teenage lad was visible sitting awkwardly in the back seat. We explained that there were lots of beginner type groups camping but none were visible to fob the job off onto as they were all climbing. It was with a certain embarrassment that we explained the situation that we ourselves had a lot more tea drinking to do but to keep an eye out for groups wearing helmets and carrying #11 hexes. The lad was Malcolm (HB) Matheson.

1979: Missed seeing Southern Californian 'Stonemaster' Tobin Sorenson do the 1st onsight solo of Kachoong 21 at Araps the previous day but he had convinced his travelling partner English Peaks District gritstone wiz John Allen to do likewise the following day which he did with a line of encouraging banter from Tobin leaving me somewhat slack-jawed. I was honoured when Tobin and John then turned to me and inquired whether I might like to join the party. Briefly thought about Australian climbing honour but must have started turning a shade of green because Tobin unasked soon uncoiled a rope.

1980: Watched in awe as Mike Graham led 'Ride Like The Wind' 25 at Araps with its 20m ground fall potential. You could have heard a pin drop as the small crowd in the gallery didn't take another breath for about 15 minutes as Mike ran it out.

1981: Doing the rope swing set up high on the back of ? Dunes Buttress and utilising about 4 ropes. About a 100m of arc swing way up high. Was even done at night once.

I had better stop, this is getting way too long.

Big G
21-Dec-2014
8:12:01 AM
Welcome back!

Miguel75
21-Dec-2014
10:53:24 AM
Those are some very cool recollections, thanks for sharing them and welcome back.
kieranl
21-Dec-2014
2:18:55 PM
Eddie Ozols?

deep Van Winkle
22-Dec-2014
1:01:21 AM
Well done Kieran! Did it occur to you straight away or did you mull over it? I' ve been lurking here for a few weeks reading massive amounts of posts. As you can imagine there's quite a lot of catching up to do.
I was at St Peter's Indoor Gym when I saw your post. It was my first time climbing in 3 weeks since mildly injuring four A2 pulley ligaments. I had started to think that age might somehow conferred special resistance to finger injury, obviously not. Trying to not tempt fate I stopped at grade 18 today, not that I'm able to go that much above that currently. It's been fun going up a grade every time I go to the gym but obviously that can't continue for much longer.
What was the impetus for returning to climbing some of you may be wondering? I started shortly after attending the last day of the Australian Climbing Festival at Katoomba but that in itself wouldn't have
been sufficient. I had attended one of the Escalades at Mt Victoria about 10 yrs ago.
I've lived in the inner South-west Sydney of Earlwood for about 6 yrs and there's a tiny, blink and you'll miss it outcrop on the Wolli Ck bushland close by. Occasionally I've seen climbers and exchanged pleasantries, however in autumn this year the my family minus encountered a small party climbing there and befriended Jules Truong who had climbed for several years in her late teens and early twenties and is now making a comeback after about 10 years. We had her around for dinner, did a bit of bushwalking in the Blue Mtns but as an old fox I had an endless number of ways of wriggling out of attempts to get me climbing. Jules put me onto the Oz Climbing meet held in Oct which my wife Barb and I attended catching up with Louise Shepherd, seeing the bouldering finals and the great 'Is climbing sexy?' debate. At the end we introduced ourselves to Cedar Wright, Simon Mentz and joined a little while later by Simon Carter. Instead of giving us the bum's rush once our lack of celebrity status could be ascertained we finished up talking animatedly for about 15 minutes. The Festival was like plugging into 40,000 volts and brought back to me so many of the reasons I'd originally been drawn to it. Oh and I've recently purchased each of the Simon's finest guidebook offerings (Araps & Blue Mtns).
Jules Truong incidentally is a Chockstone member (usually posts in the Find Climbers section) and is a climber with a demon drive.
The family is planning a road to Adelaide just after Xmas via Buffalo, Melbs and Araps. I'm currently resuscitating my old rack and augmenting it with some shiny new things.



Online
kieranl
22-Dec-2014
9:26:25 AM
On 22/12/2014 deep Van Winkle wrote:
>Well done Kieran! Did it occur to you straight away or did you mull over
>it?
It was Moonarie with Lou in 78 that made me think that you were probably from SA at the time. In that case the candidate pool wasn't very deep and I couldn't recall you about after the year that Russell Chudleigh had his terrible accident.
Welcome back.
mikllaw
22-Dec-2014
12:13:51 PM
Hey Eddie, I live just around the corner and am constrained by bub to short local trips. Come along!
prb
22-Dec-2014
1:00:32 PM
ummm, thinking about your SA peers from the mid/late '70s, there are not too many around who I know or would recognize. Mark Barnett is seen most weekends at Morialta climbing with his son. Tony Barker and Mike Broadbent were at Moonarie at Easter (climbing pretty well) but Tony is more often seen on a bicycle these days. Greg Moore appears occasionally at ccsa meetings and reputedly touches rock from time to time. George Adams is more focused on building 100km walking trails!
Jayford4321
22-Dec-2014
1:03:55 PM
On 21/12/2014 deep Van Winkle wrote:
>Guess who? Rip Van Winkle only fell asleep in the woods for 20 years but
>like a comet orbiting in the depths of space an enigma/legend/nobody returns.
>
Shit mate. It soundz like ya even older than M9, BA an KUU combined, with the only person older being kieranl.
Are ya gonna run classes in retro waist belays for the gym bunnies of today, so they can get out of trouble when it arises?

Besides that, I luv ya style an welcome back.

Hangin out on chocky? That is more for bleating than climbing but if ya been lurking as ya say, then ya hav worked that out already.

kuu
22-Dec-2014
3:51:40 PM
Careful where you tread gnaguts.

M9 and BA may not appreciate being lumped in with a fossil like me.

They might call you names, or worse!

;-)

ChuckNorris
22-Dec-2014
7:21:24 PM
AAAhhhh eddy

Now for a recollection you won't remember. It would have been 86 give or take a year in the gums and you turned up with Chris Shepherd and *maybe* Lincoln.

You both sat down at our campfire in the arvo, i was by myself and we started the usual climbing banter "what you been up to...blah...blah...". Over the course of the conversation Chris got increasingly opinionated on various issues culminating with him demanding to know what my name was. I replied "Stuart, what's yours?". Chris replied with a surly "Chris". Now to the point...what I remember of you Eddy is that you took me aside the next day and told me that Chris was pissed off/annoyed at me because I didn't know who he was.

It sticks in my mind as I found it pretty funny because I did actually know who he was but at the time thought it presumptuous of me to assume without an introduction.

ChuckNorris
22-Dec-2014
7:30:49 PM
On 22/12/2014 prb wrote:
>ummm, thinking about your SA peers from the mid/late '70s, there are not
>too many around who I know or would recognize.

There is one still around adelaide that nobody would recognise.
dave1962
22-Dec-2014
7:38:20 PM
On 22/12/2014 prb wrote:
>ummm, thinking about your SA peers from the mid/late '70s, there are not
>too many around who I know or would recognize. Mark Barnett is seen most
>weekends at Morialta climbing with his son. Tony Barker and Mike Broadbent
>were at Moonarie at Easter (climbing pretty well) but Tony is more often
>seen on a bicycle these days. Greg Moore appears occasionally at ccsa meetings
>and reputedly touches rock from time to time. George Adams is more focused
>on building 100km walking trails!
john marshall is still climbing a bit also, he should be a bit more regular now his PHD is finished, I can put you in touch with him, he lives in the hills

ChuckNorris
22-Dec-2014
7:40:53 PM
are you dangerous dave?
dave1962
22-Dec-2014
7:46:48 PM
no, not dangerous dave, been climbing with john since about 2000 at moonarie , Arapiles and local Adelaide crags

ChuckNorris
22-Dec-2014
7:57:45 PM
So you know (of) DD? I don't know him other than he was climbing with John when I first started hitting the crags. Wore a funny hat and smoked a Sherlock holmes pipe and always ended up in epic situations on seemingly straightforward climbs.
dave1962
22-Dec-2014
8:16:37 PM
On 22/12/2014 Stugang wrote:
>So you know (of) DD? I don't know him other than he was climbing with John
>when I first started hitting the crags. Wore a funny hat and smoked a Sherlock
>holmes pipe and always ended up in epic situations on seemingly straightforward
>climbs.
oddly enough I haven't heard john talk about him, and he has recounted many tales from his climbing life, maybe he has selectively wiped him from his memory, I only started climbing in 1996, some 10 plus years from your beginnings if you are who I think, (first ascent of mondo bondage ? )

ChuckNorris
22-Dec-2014
10:02:07 PM
Mondo bondage!!! Yes I may be responsible for that. Sorry.

To make up for it check out this awesome clip that will have gnaguts calling his old mate Wayne king.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KTiaVT_BViY
dave1962
22-Dec-2014
10:40:39 PM
pretty out there clip ! reminds me of my halcyon days playing at the austral, I only mentioned mondo bondage as I thought it was your first route there, you have done some awesome lines, endless pitch, Durban poison etc , watched steve pollard on womb waltz while I was on goblin, very impressive ! ps re your morialta thread, if you need a static for a tope rope and pete'e offer doesn't work out PM me and you are welcome to borrow some gear. cheers Dave

deep Van Winkle
23-Dec-2014
2:47:21 PM
Hi Kevin, I don't know if we ever shared a campfire but to get a better handle on you I pulled out my prized Ewbank 1967 'Rock Climbs in the Blue Mountains' guide, flipped it open and almost straight away came across
Hocus Pocus grade 8 The first ascent of the (Mt Piddington) cliff. A very fine climb indeed. K. Westren, Miss (how quaint) M. Hallston (1964).

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There are 23 messages in this topic.

 

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