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John Allen

Vwills

3-Aug-2018
4:40:00 PM

Anyone have contact details? Or personal anecdotes of his and tobins visit in 1979. The visit never seemed to get as much attention historically as Barbers, but they did some pretty amazing routes.
Niall Grimes has a podcast with John Allen on the jamb crack series where they talk briefly about the OZ visit ( about an hour into the interview).

ithomas

4-Aug-2018
1:50:26 AM

Phil Cullen and I saw them climbing some overhung horror show high on the North Buttress at Borumba Rocks. We fell over laughing when we heard Tobin yell out those immortal words ‘finger locks or wooden box’! I think Tobin took a mighty fall but cannot pull out the full memory? Maybe he never? Maybe we were too busy laughing? Later on, at the communal fire place, both John and Tobin proved to be congenial and interesting people.

IdratherbeclimbingM9

4-Aug-2018
3:20:45 AM

Tjuringa (25) ***

Enough said!

PS; One (or more) of the Arapiles guidebooks has a great read about its first ascent, and iirc there is a Rock Magazine article on it too.

One Day Hero

4-Aug-2018
4:10:26 PM

On 4-Aug-2018 ithomas wrote:
>Phil Cullen and I saw them climbing some overhung horror show high on the
>North Buttress at Borumba Rocks. We fell over laughing when we heard Tobin
>yell out those immortal words ‘finger locks or wooden box’! I think Tobin
>took a mighty fall but cannot pull out the full memory? Maybe he never?

Devo into Scimitar? A variant through the Hermes roof followed by a thin crack pitch. Apparently Tobin took a big fall off the boulder problem finish on Scimitar and didn't complete it. The pitch was later freed by Crushed.

Vwills

4-Aug-2018
6:34:06 PM

Thanks. Apparently there's an interview with Tobin in thrutch from 79, but Dave's copies are all in Tassie.so I haven't seen it yet as housebound in Newcastle. There's an account by Dave Moss in Joe Friends book about nympho where he takes a bruising fall but gets straight back on.

I hadn't heard "finger locks or wooden box", I will have to remember that one :)

ima.seriousyoungliza

4-Aug-2018
7:53:58 PM

Tobin compares himself to KC and contrasts his visit with that of Henry Barber :
.'...certainly we are no better than Australia's best now...This is the difference between Henry's visit and ours : he had the pickings and stood far above the climbers of that time...'

http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.asp?Action=DisplayTopic&ForumID=2&MessageID=11090&Replies=429&PagePos=0&Sort=&MsgPagePos=-1#NewPost

>>>I hadn't heard "finger locks or wooden box", I will have to remember that one :)

...THE KC THREAD FOR YOUR RESEARCH DREDGE...

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ima.seriousyoungliza

4-Aug-2018
8:49:07 PM

.'...Oueensland

The chalk dust has fina!!y settled . after Tobin Sorenson's (U.S.A.) and John Allen's (U.K.) momentous visit. They raised grades in that State a couple of notches to bring them up to southern levels. Significantly Carrigan has already repeated all their hardest leads, confirming their difficulty with a dramatic series of plummets.

Allen and Sorenson's hardest route was Catcher in the Rye (27) on Frog Buttress which may be the most technical climbing in Australia but which required 'English tactics' to arrange the protection on both ascents to date. Sorenson took the lead from Allen to free a pair of aided climbs Barbwire Canoe (26) and Green Plastic Comb (26). These ascents have really impressed the locals. The former has scarcely no climbing below grade 22 in its 140ft. The latter is very strenuous and is protected by tiny wires. Sorenson took a series of dramatic, wire-snapping falls on both these demanding leads...'

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1628602&tn=100

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ima.seriousyoungliza

4-Aug-2018
8:54:22 PM

On 4-Aug-2018 Vwills wrote:
>>>79,

...WEIRD TIMES...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6YMAvfwTFo

ima.seriousyoungliza

4-Aug-2018
9:42:13 PM

..

vwills

4-Aug-2018
9:59:15 PM

Thanks, I had caught up with a lot of that, and the supertopo thread(s). But had overlooked the uk interview with KC. Have the stone masters book at home. The green arch is definitely classic climbing writing.

ima.seriousyoungliza

4-Aug-2018
11:10:53 PM

....JOHN ALLEN.....Jerry Moffat.....and Ron Fawcett......haven a chat on the couch @ 2014...

http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2014/01/ron_fawcett_jerry_moffatt_john_allen_and_pete_whittaker-68642

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GoUp!

5-Aug-2018
10:29:18 PM

Another of the old masters whose name one sometimes comes across in the guides!
Intrigued, I went to The Crag to see if I could filter the Aussie routes to see what he did...but failed to work out how to do it. Does anyone know how to do a filter of first ascentionist?

Vwills

6-Aug-2018
1:36:04 AM

Go to index, select Australia, go to grade search. You can apply filters there including first ascent names. There's a few other Allen's including Bryden, Ross and Karen, whereas Sorenson is obviously less common a climbing FA name

GoUp!

6-Aug-2018
3:41:24 AM

Thanks for that...all sorted now. He and Tobin did some great FA's!

hero

6-Aug-2018
4:46:38 PM

While their ascents at Frog and Arapiles were impressive, I think the stuff they did at the at the time relatively obscure Kaputar are outstanding. Aslan remains one of the great routes in Australia and Allen's ascent of the mosaic wall in their ascent of The Great Barrier Roof totally audacious.

ima.seriousyoungliza

7-Aug-2018
2:35:26 AM

On 5-Aug-2018 GoUp! wrote:
>>>Does anyone know how to do a filter of first ascentionist?

On 6-Aug-2018 Vwills wrote:
>>>Go to index, select Australia, go to grade search. You can apply filters
>there including first ascent names. There's a few other Allen's

On 6-Aug-2018 hero wrote:
>>> Aslan remains one of the great routes in Australia and Allen's ascent of the mosaic wall in their ascent of The Great Barrier Roof totally audacious.
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23 ★★★ The Great Barrier Roof
A sustained penetration of huge overhangs.
30m (23) crux) Up shattered wall to orange offwidth, traverse directly right on lip of overhang to arete, up arete to horizontal undercling, traverse left and up crack splitting top overhangs.
........................................................................................................................................

http://www.thecrag.com/climbing/australia/routes/by/sorenson/?sortby=at,desc

http://www.thecrag.com/climbing/australia/routes/by/allen/?sortby=at,desc

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Thx ppl ...ima learnt some new knowledge and ' puter skills !!!

.: D

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ima.seriousyoungliza

7-Aug-2018
4:23:57 AM

On 4-Aug-2018 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:
>Tjuringa (25) ***
>
>Enough said!

...had to search with a different spelling to pick up Tjuringa......sorensEn

http://www.thecrag.com/climbing/australia/routes/by/sorensen/between/+/?sortby=at,desc

http://www.thecrag.com/climbing/australia/arapiles/kitten-wall-area/route/12944077

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From Alpinist 17:

"In 1979 two other famous foreigners, SoCal Stonemaster Tobin Sorenson and UK gritstone climber John Allen, arrived. Like Barber before them, they opened a visionary route many local climbers had considered unattainable: the smooth Tjuringa Wall (25). A Tjuringa is a sacred Aboriginal stone, and the roof on the second pitch might indeed seem to require some form of supernatural power. Child recalls that the born-again Sorenson told Aussie climbers that God would protect him if he fell. A year later Sorenson died in the Canadian Rockies, soloing the North Face of Mt. Alberta. He left behind a legacy of intense boldness and vitality; partner John Long described him, in Tales from the Steep, as "alive in a way the rest of us were not." It's easy to imagine Sorenson still a part of the vivid Arapiles landscape."

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=116772&msg=418867#msg418867
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Mark Moorhead havinacrack at the second ascent of Tjuringa..

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=436658&msg=443437#msg443437
............................................................................................

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...' bless you HB ...
.: )

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