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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 18, 2016 - 08:04pm PT
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He hasn't left us... Still kickin' ... last I checked.
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AKDOG
Mountain climber
Anchorage, AK
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Apr 18, 2016 - 08:12pm PT
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Not a Sheep Buggerer, but I am sure his ancestors herded plenty of sheep. Dave Evans' dog Washoe was the bomb, One of the best dogs ever! Washoe saved our grow operation in San Diego when some assclowns tried to rip us off, his barking chased them off.
When Craig told the Fish, Yosemite the place to be, We packed into the Driver's van and headed to Tuolumne.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 18, 2016 - 09:29pm PT
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Mr. Evans,
Ditto on Dan Ahlborn.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 18, 2016 - 09:52pm PT
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The big thing which drove these various factions right up against the heels of the Stonemasters,
Was ... As everyone knows,
DIET!
But even more than diet,
At the top of the list was and will always be:
ATTITUDE!
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Apr 19, 2016 - 12:37am PT
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I suppose at some point the whole Scumbag saga/facade/brotherhood/insurgency could benefit from, at the very least, some type of documentation, or at least a plausible explanation. Our tiny band was very much apart from various LA crews. We'd roll in, knock out the hards in short order, consume vast -- as in standard setting quantities -- amounts of chemical enhancement products, then tick early repeats of some more latest hards in respectable times, then it was back to the MDA beer whisky pallet fires and so on. Our little group just sort of commingled with whoever was around and up for some drinking drugging and climbing. It is only in very recent years that I became aware of all the sets and subsets and sub-sub-sets of different posses with identities and nicknames and such. From '73 to '87, my busiest years there, my recollection is that groups of folks would just rally in the morning, somewhat randomly, and get out there hittin' the rocks.
We can take credit for giving Yabo his first dose on MDMA (he loved it, we wound up doing it every day for a week), and showing up Thanksgiving '83 with a 10 gallon trash bag full of shrooms that we gave entirely anyway, free by the handfull, keeping everyone in HVCG tripping for a week or more. But in the big picture, we flew under the radar. We were about big parties and big fun, and we really, really liked camping in the monument, so we were pretty much oblivious to the whole scene that revolved around Todd's house during those years. I needed a B-loop campground and a monster pallet fire and some all-night power drugs to make my stay complete!
The "who's who" lists were pretty much secondary to my relationship with the Jtree scene in the 70's and 80's. It was just super f*#king fun.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 19, 2016 - 07:44am PT
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Most of these cadres and their names were short-lived. Two or three years, and usually marking the coming of age of the players. And though they often comprised a group of 4 to 6 individuals, the names were usually meant as a joke. Robs Muir even says that about the Stonemaster marker.
One of the reasons the Stonemaster concept survived is because they (Long, Harrison, Accomazzo, Graham, Sorenson, Muir) were the first of our generation to step through the door and because that term became emblematic of a way of approaching climbing, a kind of what to do and how to go about doing it. The Stonemaster Zeitgeist persisted as the one way for about 15 years.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 19, 2016 - 10:56am PT
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An Accidental History: Masters of Joshua Tree
 Text accompanies Dean Fidelman's article including his photographs, from Climbing Magazine 2004 photo annual
Not so long ago, Joshua Tree National Park was an obscure national monument with nothing of the mystic aura that now lures climbers from around the world. It was an isolated outpost of pitifully small rocks where a few hard-bitten crag rats converged to wile away the winter months until the next season of "real" climbing in Yosemite. In the early 1970s, a tight group of climbers began haunting the area, defining the J-Tree scene of the day: fierce free routes, highball boulder problems, outrageous free solo ascents, and large-scale consumption of mind-altering substances.
John long formed the nucleus of the crew, and his discerning eye for local talent soon expanded the membership. John Bachar caught his attention after casually on-sighting Long' s cruxy Bearded Cabbage ( 5.10c) and was initiated into the circle. Soon, SoCal climbers John "Yabo" Yablonski, Mike Lechlinski, Mari Gingery, and Lynn Hill were roped in.
Bouldering was a favorite activity then, as it is today. "Long would tell us stories about this guy in Colorado named Gill," says Bachar, "about how dynamic climbing was the future. He also made up stories about this solitary boulderer named Oliver Moon. He'd point out some undone, near-improbable problem and say,' That's a Moon problem.' " The farce went so far that an early J-Tree guidebook featured an interview with a caped, shades-sporting Moon.
Bachar, hot on the heels of the Moon myth, produced a slew of real-life highball problems that included White Rastafarian, So High, and Planet X, which still intimidate (and bout) many would-be suitors. Treating the area's relatively short routes as extended highballs, he also initiated a tradition of solo ascents alarmingly near the area's free-climbing standard. Yablonski joined Bachar in the tradition, matching him ball for ball in boldness but falling far short in technical proficiency, producing some of the sketchiest solos ever in the sport's history, including a notorious knee-knocking lap on the 5.12 Leave It to Beaver. By the early 1980s the crew had largely dispersed, but the legacy lives on.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Apr 19, 2016 - 11:13am PT
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Never any mention of Gordo or this guy,
Alan Bartlett , I've not found any other pics but this ,
I have a shot of him, on Silent Scream , This is It and It took all this Time .
Here is Katy and the climbSILENT SCREAM
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 19, 2016 - 11:32am PT
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Buff Alpine Club:
Jack Roberts, Dave Black, Mike Graber, Al Bartlett
Not sure of their inception date. Jack may have started climbing before Largo. I will be talking to Al shortly.
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rmuir
Social climber
From the Time Before the Rocks Cooled.
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Apr 19, 2016 - 02:45pm PT
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…the names were usually meant as a joke. Robs Muir even says that about the Stonemaster marker.
Pretty sure that only group that was serious about their moniker was the damned Sheep Buggerers. ;-)
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 19, 2016 - 04:22pm PT
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hahahaha
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 19, 2016 - 07:41pm PT
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That was probably the article by Alan Nelson a.k.a. The Spaced Ranger.
It's here on supertopo somewhere.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Shetville , North of Los Angeles
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Apr 19, 2016 - 08:25pm PT
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Tarbuster...Up the arricept dosage..rj
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 19, 2016 - 08:41pm PT
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Exactly.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 19, 2016 - 08:47pm PT
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So, in which bucket do we fit Alan Nelson?
Probably too young to be a Poway Mountain Boy; but all of the Scumbags knew him.
*San Diego boys represent!
.......................................................................
The real trick was NOT to have a regular climbing partner and to climb with as many people, groups of people, and on as many types of rock as possible.
Exposure is a good thing. Did all the jazz greats blow with just one or two of the other fellows, or one ensemble? No way.
Walter Rosenthal and the Drywall Dogs
It's been awhile, I'm guessing circa 1976, back in a Kelty shop in Glendale CA, Vern Clevenger gave a slideshow on Mescalito and my teenage climbing pal, Douglas Munoz and I attended it like it was Christmas morning. At the time Vern was one of our heroes, given his defining legacy as a prime activist in Tuolumne Meadows.
To a certain degree, Vern used Walter’s good-natured presence on the climb as a comic foil for the story; partly due to Walter’s overall relaxed, good nature, (he said that Walter had a good book to read, just in case they decided to kick back for a day) and specifically because Walter chose to climb in Lowa Triplex, which was the standard high-altitude mountaineering boot at the time. Vern said Walter’s explanation was quite simple:” I'm going to be standing in slings, so what does it matter?” Vern had plans to try to free climb as much of the climb as he could, I don't think Walter cared so much about it and given the report of their ascent that proved to be a more applicable perspective. Vern had maybe one free climbing picture which Walter took of him laybacking an expando flake.
In spring of 1980 I moved to Mammoth Lakes, so I could pick up some mountain travel skills and be closer to Yosemite. I didn't know any climbers up there. I was buying a block of chalk in the pharmacy and Hugh Burton's wife, Kathy Dermitzakis, pegged me as a climber and introduced me to the boys: Marco Milano, Bob Finn, Chuck Cochran, Vern and Margaret Clevenger, Kevin Leary, and Walter Rosenthal.
At the time, Kevin and Walter were sharing a tiny Airstream trailer in the trailer park, out where the golf course now sits. Also there were Marco and Bob sharing a trailer, a nice guy named Jim, who in later years I got to work with at Tamarack Lodge and then Vern & Margaret together in a trailer, where I rented the second bedroom.
They all took me under their wing, which included employment on Bob Stephan’s hard-working drywall stocking crew. At the time Walter was primarily a skier, the rest of them shared enthusiasm equally split between skiing and climbing, but my time with those boys and my defining memories of Walter in particular, are all about the days of the “Drywall Dogs”.
Make no mistake about it: even though Marco was our foreman, Walter was our spiritual leader and Chuck was his lieutenant. These appointments were entirely impromptu of course, more a generation of character than anything else. On a tidy notepad in his pocket, Walter always had the immaculate count as to where the numerous sheets of drywall were to be stacked and he anticipated logistics. Walter was the science officer, (incessantly reading Scientific American), while Chuck, when not giving me sh#t for being young and bow legged, told uproarious stories in his signature drawl and sought to uplift team morale.
Every morning, we’d go to Schatzees Bakery, where Walt, smartly dressed in a dark blue short waisted jacket, wool pants, and stiff leather mountain boots, would see to it that we all had plenty of coffee, and he was the last person to suggest, “perhaps we need a few plugs for the road?”, a “plug” being a buttermilk doughnut, by weight and density, the highest caloric value doughnut a person could buy: essentially a gold brick of dough, butter and sugar.
That infectious laugh! One of the bigger jobs we worked on was Aspen Creek: this gargantuan palace, in its construction phase like the vacuous bowels of a medieval castle, with endless passageways, multiple enclosures and great lofts, was peopled with tough carpenters ambling proudly about with their nail bags dangling like six shooters. He and Chuck would get us to race down the long hallways, up the stairs in teams of two, gripping double bundles of 12’ 5/8" drywall sheets. This became entertainment: and Walt's resulting laugh was more like a hearty exhortation, a sarcastic gulping, it sounded like he was drinking in life with large throatfulls. We worked very hard and owing to the dynamic, cheerfully so.
When a friend of mine, a climbing partner, Jerome Carlian died that summer, Walt, not much of a drinker, bought two Coors talls and sat me down on lunch break to be sure I was okay and talked with me about it, looking after my sense of the whole thing and checked to be sure I didn't feel any guilt, a feeling which he said can be quite normal when one suffers the death of a friend.
About midsummer, Tom Carter and Allan Bard joined our team and the resultant dynamic expanded hilariously! Carter was always humming reggae tunes, while Cochran would cut him up about it and Bardini was just looking for a way out to get back to the guiding, which at the time was being done for John Fisher at the Palisades school. Also joining us was a very large black man named Marcus, who I later beat out in an eating contest, including ribs, corn, potatoes and pie. Little 135 pound Bob Finn could also out-work Marcus in terms of sheer load carrying capacity, which was really something to watch. Marcus knew we were just a bunch of crazy white boys.
In the fall, we all showed up for work one morning on a crystal-clear, beautiful day. Our collective tone was ambivalent; work energy low, appetite for the Sierra light and raging aspen's very high. Walt & Chuck held a pow-wow, then Walt quietly went over to confer with Bob Stephans. He came back and declared the successful outcome of a congenial mutiny! “We’re taking the day off boys; and we are first going to the Bishop Golf Course driving range (Chuck's bid), then we'll have a nice day hiking up Paiute Pass".
Since spring, we’d all been working so hard together and it was largely Walt’s sense of timing and care for the morale of his team that sparked a wonderful day of hooky together. We were all pretty stimulated by the end of the day, having swallowed two well spaced doses of psychedelic mushrooms … and we barreled down the trail from Paiute Pass en masse, running headlong through the aspens in a tunnel of brilliant red leaves.
Via Con Dios Walter,
Roy
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Shetville , North of Los Angeles
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Apr 19, 2016 - 09:03pm PT
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Good memoryTarbuster ..cancel the arricept...Was the nice guy " Jim" from Tamarack , Jim Catlin by any chance..? I remember meeting Leary on a new home construction project...We got to talking about ski racing and hit it off big time turning into training nazi's and driving to tahoe in our tired old jalopies...I remember that tiny flash-gordon style trailer that he and Walter lived in and remember seeing Walter for the first time walking down Old Mammoth Road with his sh#t-eatin grin...younger innocent times...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 19, 2016 - 09:11pm PT
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By every chance, John.
His wife's name was Ruth, right?
Really good people.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Shetville , North of Los Angeles
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Apr 19, 2016 - 09:18pm PT
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Exactly..!
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Gary
Social climber
Where in the hell is Major Kong?
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Apr 20, 2016 - 07:10am PT
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Tarbuster, you're on a real roll.
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