Musings

of a S. O. F.

Number 1

Talkin' the Time Line, Young'n!

Okay now: consider that Huntley Ingalls and Layton Kor climbed this monolith in 1961. I don't know about you, but I was one year old. Consider the thread of time that binds climbing together: Okay, let's say you were 38 back in 1961. Okay. Now, think of what was happening in mountaineering when you were one year old: Mallory and Irvine were lost on Everest, right? And say you were 23 years old in 1961: the North Face of the Eiger was climbed when you were one year old (and let us not forget that the year you were born in this case, Vorg and Rebitsch very nearly climbed the Eiger, the first rope to go so high and still return alive!), the first 8000 meter peak was climbed when you were twelve, and Goretex was available by the time you were 40! Let's see, by then you'd seen ice axes droop more, grow great big wicked teeth, and even sprout metal shafts. You'd seen boots evolve from hobnail leather to reindeer skin to plastic double. Crampons changed from their widely available ten-point design, to 45-degree angled front points, to horizontally-oriented front points, to todays horizontally-oriented-and-twisted-like-an-ice-axe front points (and nobody was clipping 'em on until about 1979, eh,lads? Except maybe Reinhold...). Hell, if you were born in 1937, you're pretty damn close to being able to climb anytime you want to!! So what's the thread here? The idea is that only 37 years after Kor and Ingalls first climbed Castleton Tower, an unknown summit by an unknown route, the mystique is still there for me, no matter how casual the contemporary climbing public may be about it. Those old guys are awesome, Sonny-Boy...