The are old climbers, and there are bold climbers. But there aren't any old, bold climbers.

How long have you been climbing?
What gear were you using back then?

I started climbing 37 years ago.

When some young punk gives me any shit about my age, I just tell him:

"I've been getting laid longer than you've been alive."

I started climbing on yellow polyprolyene rope, but quickly moved up to Goldline. We used machine nuts with the threads filed away. Our rocks shoes were PAs. I had Galibier mountaineering boots. Our bamboo ice axes were 70cm long and I had to file teeth in my pick. We used 2-inch webbing to make a swami harness. Dachstein mitts.

And we wore knickers.

The year was 1973 B.G. (Before Gortex)

Summit, Glacier Peak, North Cascades, 1977

Since I climbed out of that damn playpen and headed for the mountains. Age: 1

First gear: Drilled out machine nuts and hand made Dural Chocks.

March of last year. I'm a n00b

Goldline? Is this the SuperTaco?

Climbing with a rope? Not long. Been getting out for as long as I can remeber, though.

Let's see, I'm 46 and started climbing at 13, so 33. Dang I feel old.

Sierra Ledge Rat wrote: …..
How long have you been climbing?
What gear were you using back then?
I started climbing 37 years ago.

I started climbing on yellow polyprolyene rope, but quickly moved up to Goldline. We used machine nuts with the threads filed away. Our rocks shoes were PAs. I had Galibier mountaineering boots. Our bamboo ice axes were 70cm long and I had to file teeth in my pick. We used 2-inch webbing to make a swami harness. Dachstein mitts.And we wore knickers.The year was 1973 B.G. (Before Gortex)……

My very first rockclimb was at the old Circle-B BoyScout ranch that used to be up by Kennedy Meadows in the South Sierra. We used goldline rope for some toproping and rappelling. Year ~1968-69…BITD

I started climbing with my buddies back ~1971-72 and we had RDs, PAs, swami belts, and perlon ropes. We started with pitons and quickly move to Al wedges and hex nuts. I don’t recall any goldline ropes being used in ~1973, except maybe the Sierra Club.

I still have a Chouinard-Frost laminate bamboo ice axe and North Wall hammer


I stopped climbing the early 1980s and luckily missed out on the spandex years Resumed rock climbing ~2006 and the ol’ bod doesn’t respond the way it use to; but it's still great to be moving over stone!

graham wrote: ...I stopped climbing the early 1980s and luckily missed out on the spandex years

Not me... I dug the spandex / lycra era. That was fun.

Games Without Frontiers

Photo by Marc Soltan. I bought those reds at the Danskin store in Hollywood.

Butterfly Crack

Photo by Guy Keesee. Custom lycra by Ken Gohegan.

I started in the Gunks in 1972. Kronhoffers, swami, Clog nuts, hammer to test fixed pitons, an Edelrid rope and a '66 beetle. If the beetles wasn't running Id spin up there on my bike.

ksolem wrote:... I dug the spandex / lycra era. That was fun….

Cool Spandex era photos. That era may have worked for some, but I recall hearing some horror stories about some awful “sausages” wandering about the crags back then.

Sometime last year, I saw a Japanese guy at Indian Cove in yellow spandex with red dots (I wish I had snapped a foto). I guess he hadn’t gotten the memo

graham wrote: ...That era may have worked for some, but I recall hearing some horror stories about some awful “sausages” wandering about the crags back then.

Yeah, I remember one time running into an old friend who is a genuine Yosemite icon at Hidden Valley. Somehow he had convinced the parents of a number of teenage girls from Palm Springs to entrust them to his care for a day of guided climbing. For the occasion he was wearing tight thin lycra with no underwear...

Wearing lycra, whether male or female, requires two things. Low body fat and the right underwear.

40 plus years. A long, wonderful time.

My first climb was at 8 years old, so 50 years. (jeez! that's scary!)

One year!

I've been scrambling for three years, but just a year ago I took it up to technical climbing. It was worth it.

-Mark

I'm 24. Been climbing in the gym since I was 11 or 12. Been climbing outside since I was 14 or 15. Been seriously into climbing since I was 18.

Been peakbagging for the last year or so

Five years. And I'm pretty sure last year was the best year of my life, climbing and otherwise, but especially climbing.

Started April 1974 (I'm 44 just turning 45 in March). Started with Goldline and webbing. As started before, machine nuts but moved up to SMC Camloks, and Forrest Titans (really hate those things). Late 1970's/early 80's was so happy when I got a pair of Asolo Canyon rock shoes, a standard rope (then known as a kernmantle style rope), and and Asolo Pro double leather boots for the mtns.

Every year since has only gotten better (except 1990-1991 when I was in PT for getting hit by a drunk driver on a run). I'll have to find one of my old pictures.