Who are your FA heroes and why?
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Most of us have our favorite fist ascensionists. Some admire them due to historical significance, boldness, style or ethics of ascent, or simply having a knack for finding and climbing the coolest lines around. Layton Kor was one of those guys. Unfortunately Ive only done a handful of his routes. Who are some of your FA heroes and why? |
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Adam Paashaus wrote:. If you love pulling horizontals on gear in the southeast I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Thanks Tom!I second that! |
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Me. |
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Learning to climb in the South East, Rob Robinson and his crew are the clear answer. Rob established most of the climbing at the T-Wall and Sunset park with Forrest Gardner and Marvin Webb over a couple decades. The late 90's and early 2000's saw a renaissance of new routing at T-Wall under the vision of Gus like David Draper, Kirk Brode and Tyler Stracker. The latter three I had the honor of considering friends and mentors during my formative seasons on the rock. |
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zoso wrote:Me. Cause I never thought I'd have the balls to drill on lead. Scariest 5.4 EVAR!!!Spray Dab. mountainproject.com/v/hi-im… |
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Pretty creepy you found that. |
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Roger Briggs. |
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Doug reed and porter jarrard! Put up millions of routes, climb way harder than me, legends |
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In NC,, Rotert and Shannon for sure.. in my home grounds Tom Callaghan #1 partner for many f/a's fearless and dedicated. |
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Great topic. We have many of those heroes here in the Springs, some more known than others. |
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For QUALITY sport routes local to NE, the Smith brothers, Mark Sprague, and all of "Team Tough" for that matter. For The Gunks, the Vulgarians and others whose names escape me for the moment. Further South, Doug Reed and Porter Jarrad, no doubt, for their vision and making so many of us enjoy NRG and RRG time and again. |
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Fritz Wiessner - |
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Todd Skinner, Tommy Caldwell, Didier Berthod, Fred Rouhling, Montana man Pat Kingsbury for keeping it real in the wide and anyone else willing to go find something new, clean it and put the effort in to make it climbable for the next party to send. |
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Chuck Wilts and Royal Robbins. They put up some of my favorite routes in idyllwild. |
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Eddie Begoon & Mike Artz |
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I have no heros, but am proud to experience what these regular guys doing irregular things have done. |
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There are so many people who induced "stoke" into me I can't name just one. |
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Fritz! |
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For me, Bernd Arnold who started by climbing all of the hardest routes in Elbsandstein (which happens to be the first area to develop routes in the 5.10 range) and then continued pushing the scale up to 5.13, and climbing most of those routes barefoot! Additionally, I'm sure we're all aware of how the routes are protected there... |
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Mr Clean wrote:Fritz Wiessner - the first clean ascent of Devils Tower via a 5.7 OW route (now called simply the 'Wiessner Route') whilst placing only one piton with a hemp rope bowlined around his waist. Also, according to a recent article in Rock & Ice's Ascent mag he was busting out 11s when 7s were the state of the art. I've never climbed in the Gunks, so I'd be interested in what folks from that part of world think of his FAs there (in light of the equipment he had at his disposal).Yeah Fritz for sure. His route Minne-belle (sp?) at Skytop was one of the first recognized at the 5.8 grade - of course the time of the first ascent predated the YDS. Wide cracks were especially his forte - his Tower route - local stuff in the northeast, CT and NH comes to mind. In response to Soon's post about the Vulgarians - just post that era at the time I first started to frequent the Gunks, the scene was domininatyed by the "wrecking crew" - Stannard, Barber, Wunch and Bragg. Lots of FFA's. Henry clearly climbed with the purest of traditional styles and was at least tangentially influenced by Fritz. Bragg did some fantastic alpine climbing - again in a very pure style, Wunch has had great success beyond climbing, and Stannard's contributions to clean climbing and environmental issues in general are on par with anyones. |
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Alan Watts - I wouldn't be the climber that I am had I not cut my teeth on his (and others' of course, but he led the charge) routes at Smith. |