Steve1215 wrote: Funny how this discussion got ... all twisted around backwards.
Welcome to the internet!
climbers of my generation I consider to be humble and modest about their high-risk achievements
Always risky to generalize about a 'generation'. I'm sure Colin Haley does not want to be lumped in with David Lama. Maybe they just acted 'modest' because they felt compelled to by society and their peers? You may just be dressing up societal conformity as personal virtue.
...whereas it seems to be the current gen that crows about their sport routes and bouldering and slack-lining on the Internet and on YouTube or whatever
Because they can. They have the means. Older generations did not. Do you think Bachar, Long etc would have kept totally quiet if they had blogs, YouTube etc? Some of them just boasted and sprayed in quiet, around the camp, after a few beers. The media situation was quite different - you are comparing two quite different environments and expecting the inhabitants to act the same.
Old school climbers saw no need to explain, nor to toot their horns endlessly.
Again, they didn't have the means to so so publicly, and to do so face-to-face was considered unseemly. And there were always exceptions, particularly in Europe. Many climbers like Messner, Bonington, Galen Rowell and others were criticised for publicizing their climbing, with smug little sniggers amongst their so-called peers, gossiping around campfires and basecamps, scared to step out of line, when much of that criticism was just narrow-minded jealousy and insecurity.
... not much need to talk about it.
Maybe there was, and they wanted to, but they just didn't. That way they wouldn't store it up for years and come out decades later with envy and regret disguised as nostalgia? There's a lot of unrequited desire for recognition and acknowledgment out there in the 'old school'.
Most of the famous old climbers I know are surprisingly supportive and admiring of the current crop of high-achieving youngsters. They see Alex Honnold free-solo Half Dome or Moonlight Buttress and just marvel at his skill and boldness. They know their generation would have done it if they could, but they didn't, so that's that. They are gobsmacked at Colin Haley's consistent success on hard mountains, and the skill with which writes about it. He has silenced a generation of 'hard men' constantly regaling us with the reasons they didn't get stuff done.
The fact that YouTube or blogs may also be used by climbers of lesser ability is irrelevant - just ignore them. Colin's comprehensive (blogged) coverage and measured comments on the Lama/Compressor situation - at which he was on site, unlike nearly everyone else making noise - shamed many older, 'experienced' climbers drooling anger into their keyboards, parroting the catchphrases and cant of others. They'd rather hear Largo bang on endlessly about the Stonemasters, or glorify Yabo or some other self-indulgent nostalgia to numb their bitterness.
So a climber is sponsored? So what? Before anyone points the finger of so-called 'ethics' at sponsored climbers they might want to examine a bit more deeply the ethics -
real world ethics - of whatever it is they do for a living. People in glass houses etc. Some think climbing should be immune, because it's different, special, unique ......and because they themselves never got sponsored.
The most accomplished of the old guys are genuinely satisfied with what they did, and what they got out of it, even if they never made a cent from it. It's the lower to middling guys with a distorted view of 'back in the day' that get all riled up about the terrible youth on the internets. The truly accomplished hard men now see young people doing things better and faster than they did it and just smile on in admiration. They don't read the websites of Seven Summiters, Highpointers or faux-dirtbag boulderers. Who would? When I talk with someone like John Evans, who made an early ascent of The Nose, the FA of the Hummingbird Ridge, the first ascent of the three highest mountains in Antarctica, the west face couloir of Huntington, 1970s climbs on Nanda Devi and Everest SW face, I'm in awe of what he did, but he's just full of praise for what
good young climbers are doing now - as are people like Chris Bonington, Barry Blanchard etc.
The title of the thread was obviously meant to ironic.
Of course it was ...