History of Arrow (5.8) in the Gunks

In another thread, Robert Hall posted some info about the history of the classic climb Arrow.

As for his Gunks recommendations, I would say specifically do Arrow (5.7 / 5.8) [remembering the FA went without the bolts, although the 5.8 top move was not done, Willie stepped left to the top. ]

I thought it was generally known that Arrow was cleaned and rap-bolted before it was led, so I asked Robert about where he learned of this, and he elaborated.

SethG, Re' Arrow:  I'd always been told (and I've climbed at the Gunks since 1966, with people who were active in the late 1950's and early 1960's) that Willie climbed the climb on the piton in the horizontal below the white face, and at the top stepped left to an easier (5.4??) finish ("avoiding" the hard, "reachy" move).  I was told he then decided most all climbers of the era would not be able to lead the climb that way and THEN cleaned and placed the bolts. (Remember, in the early 1960's if you could lead, even 'protectable' 5.7 you were probably in the top 5 to 10% of the climber's in the country.  For example, the 1964 Gran guidebook states "In 1956 this [Cakewalk, 5.7] was considered one of the hardest climbs in the area." )

That's what I had always been told...the few times I spoke with Willie I never actually brought up the subject; but given the "runout" FA's he did in NH (Sliding Board 5.7 in 1959 or '60, Wedge 5.7 in 1959 or '60, D'Arcy Crowther 5.7, in 1956 (although D'Arcy led most),  D'Arcy Crowther on Cannon 5.?? circa late 1950's; which went up in the area of a still-uncompleted Brad White 5.8 route) I see no reason why he would have felt the need to rap-bolt the route.  In fact, the CONCEPT of rap bolting didn't exist in the 1950-60's; so if he actually did it that way, I'm not sure what would have been the "bigger "contribution""...the route or the concept of rap bolting it before the ascent.

Far as I know, Willie is still alive....maybe we could ask.

And a bit more:

Back to more info on Arrow.  The Watermans relate that Willie "rehearsed...the splendid top move on Arrow...on top rope" (pg 180, Yankee Rock and Ice 1st ed.)  They would have undoubtedly interviewed Willie (this is the ONLY place I've ever heard the specifics of just the top move) and the comment appears in a discussion on ethical and stylistic standards at the Gunks.  I would think if the bolts had been placed before the climb was led this fact certainly would have been brought forth in the book.  

Perhaps adding to uncertainty is the Wikipedia entry for Willie where it states that he put the bolts in "while on rappel."  Note, however, no one seems to doubt this fact and the statement by itself does not address whether they were put in before or after the FA.    

I looked back at Dick Williams' guidebook and found this in his history section:

Another superb route was Arrow, by MIT undergraduate Willie Crowther, who wire-brushed the glistening white face clean of lichen and bolted it on rappel before leading it.

Yesterday I was in the Gunks and I climbed Arrow. I was curious about two things:

1. I was skeptical about the idea that you could traverse off to the left from Arrow and find a 5.4 way to the summit.

2. I wondered if there was anything about the bolts' placement that might give a clue as to whether they were placed on lead or on rappel.

I thought that maybe I might try to go up Quiver, which crosses Arrow and goes up the face to its left. But the face is so heavily covered in lichen it seemed very unappealing. (This has been true for a long time-- if you look at the photo of Jim McCarthy on Arrow in Dick's guidebook you see just about as much lichen as exists today.) One thing I did visually confirm is that the face there is unrelentingly steep and there does not appear to be any easy gully between Arrow and Limelight. The Quiver route through the lichen-- wherever it is-- goes at 5.9, and the rest of that face appears to be at least as hard. It might be possible to traverse to Limelight or even further left, if you do it before the face steepens.

As I climbed Arrow I thought about the placement of the bolts. I know these have been replaced a few times since 1960 but I believe they are in approximately the same locations as the originals. And my conclusion having climbed the route yesterday is that the bolts were probably placed after cleaning and rehearsal, because they are EXACTLY where you want them to be, at chest level for the two hardest moves. It would be difficult to pick these perfect spots for the bolts without prior knowledge of the moves.

Interestingly, however, I also concluded that these bolts could easily be placed on lead, since they are both at a convenient height for placement from stances. This of course does not resolve the question of whether they were placed on rappel.

I actually walked right by Dick Williams on the carriage road yesterday. He was in the middle of recounting some kind of story and I didn't think to approach him. But next time I see him I might ask him about Arrow and where he got his info about the rap-bolting. If anyone wants to contact Willie Crowther I'm sure it would be interesting to hear what he has to say!

PS I'm sure you're wondering: I went to the right at the top bolt. I went left for many years but now I think right is easier.

Interesting, thanks for bringing this up. I always love reading some gunks history.

Interesting discussion. I climbed with Willie in the late 60's and I'm sure that he could of placed the bolts on lead, just as he did on Sliding Board. He certainly was good enough, and a very fine technical climber. I remember watching him cruise Nose Dive, in 1966.

From the "mouth" (keyboard) of the horse (Will):

Eric

1st time up, went around the hard move to the left
To see if it was even possible, went back and did it on top rope.  It went, but was covered with lichen - a real mess
then cleaned it,  bolted it, and led it.

In those days, I wanted any route I put in to be reasonably safe for my friends to lead, and this was a nice route. So yes, bolt it.
Today, most people go somewhat right of the route I found - mine was a pure mantle.  The  slightly  easier route to the right was buried in lichen.
Gardner Perry was first to spot the line.  He tried to lead it, then came back and got me to lead it for him.

My shoulder is fine - I don’t climb outdoors any more - too many senior moments

Thanks for that, Eric!

Since he says he "cleaned it, bolted it, and led it," he is implying that he wasn't on lead when he bolted it, which seems to confirm the rap-bolting. Though I guess there is arguably still some ambiguity.

And please thank him for Arrow! It is one of the great routes in the Gunks. 

I want to use this thread to give even more of a shout out to Willie, who was one of the best climbers in the Northeast during the late '50s-early '60s as well as a great guy. During this period he was one of the leading figures in the MIT Outing Club climbing group as well as the MITOC-dominated Inter-collegiate Outing Club Association (IOCA). The latter, first organized by Gardner Perry III, one of Willie's mentors, was basically an amalgamation of the of the various college climbing clubs of the Northeast in an attempt to create a common leadership pool to offset the cyclical loss of experienced leaders of such organizations. Instead of just focusing on his own climbing, Willie was an enthusiastic participant with these groups, sharing his skills through teaching newcomers and patiently leading the often quite large IOCA groups up Gunks classics. It is rumored that on at least one occasion Willie led such a large team up the 3 pitches of High E., that after bringing up his second, he descended back to the foot of the cliff, returned to the base of the climb where some of the members of the party were still on the ground, tied back in, and followed his own lead!!!

In addition to Arrow he did a number of other significant new routes in the Gunks including Sente, The Spring (aid on the second pitch, but the 5.9 first pitch free), Three Vultures, and the not hard, but bold Moonlight amongst others. Several of these routes show his proclivity for slab and under vertical thin face climbing, as does his series of first ascents on Whitehorse mentioned on top of this thread. His slab skills were honed through regular visits to the Boston local crag of Quincy Quarries, where he put in a series of routes that were pretty much at the limit of the inadequate footwear of the period--some of them being climbed in sneakers. He wrote the first guidebook to the Quarries in 1964.

Climbing wasn't his only recreation. He was an expert practitioner of both GO and chess. During my first (carless) seasons in the Boston area, I would occasionally catch a lift to the Gunks in the MIT van and watch (well, listen actually) as Willie and others played long-running 'mental' chess games to pass the time during the drive.

As his email to Eric indicates, he is still climbing in the gym and continuing to be an inspiration to many.

Don't forget the Internet...

"He was an expert practitioner of both GO and chess."

Great thread.   Al, what is GO?

Russ, GO is a deceptively simple strategy game utilizing white and black pieces on a special 'board'. It originated  and is (or at least was) very popular in Asia.  I haven't played in decades (and was never any good--understatement!!!), but my memory is that you capture the opponents pieces by surrounding them with yours. It is more 'free form' and with more pieces than games such as checkers and chess, so is inherently more 'complex' than either.

While I don't know much about Willie's professional life (I didn't 'speak the language' so tuned out during the technical conversations), I'm interpreting Eric's post above to suggest that he played a significant role in the development on the internet. I've asked Eric to fill in some more details.

I thought I read that Crowther created one of the first text-based computer adventure games. I'm sure I never played the game he created but if it is true that he was a pioneer in this area then he is responsible for how I spent a lot of my wasted free time when I was in high school in the eighties. 

Now that I see his picture, I remember him from the AMC climbing program!  He would show up and help.   Cool dude (in the nerdy way).  He's like the grandfather you wish was yours, haha.

Alan Rubin wrote: Russ, GO is a deceptively simple strategy game utilizing white and black pieces on a special 'board'. It originated  and is (or at least was) very popular in Asia.  I haven't played in decades (and was never any good--understatement!!!), but my memory is that you capture the opponents pieces by surrounding them with yours. It is more 'free form' and with more pieces than games such as checkers and chess, so is inherently more 'complex' than either.

Sente, the name of one of Crowthers' slab masterpiece routes, is a concept from go. Basically, the idea is that certain moves in the game of go force the opponent to make a response. So if you can play a sequence of moves that each forces your opponent to make a response, you maintain the ability to play anywhere on the board with your next move, while your opponent has to follow you around. The ability to make a move wherever you want instead of responding to your opponent's move is "sente", whereas if you're in a situation where you have to respond to your opponent's move, it's called "gote".

let's be honest, the names Arrow and Quiver are mildly offensive around here.

Just stumbled onto this thread….I‘m not sure where SethG might have gotten the idea that I was talking about more than just avoiding the top hard move with a 5.4 off to the left, but it seems from Willie’s response to Eric that ”1st time up, I [Willie] went around the hard move to the left” …” then cleaned…and bolted it” totally confirms the info I had that on the FA Willie went up left of the hard top move, then bolted at least that top move AFTER the FA of the “ white slab” portion of the climb.

It seems consistent with Willie’s description that “ …I wanted any route I put in to be reasonably safe for my friends to lead, …so, Yes bolt it” that he put the lower bolt in at the same time as the upper bolt.  

Thus, the FA was done on only the pin in the horizontal below the start of the white face, but with the exit moves done to the left ( a diversion I admit to have taken myself on occasion), then the bolts placed later.

Whether placed on rappelling or on a subsequent lead is immaterial to the point I was making : that by even today’s standards the ascent of that white face on just the low horizontal piton was a magnificent FA lead, and even more so by the standards of the day! 

Before the Internet, there was the Arpanet, and before the Arpanet, there was a cluster of machines, called IMPs, for Internetworking Message Processors. The idea was, it was hard to get all the different mainframe computers to communicate with one another. So there would be another machine, the IMP, which IBM would figure out an interface to, and Sperry Rand would figure out an interface to, and so on. The IMPs were designed with software that would allow them to talk to each other: 

IBM 360 /\ IMP < - - - > IMP /\ Univac

And so a grid could be created with IMPs talking to each other in the center and all of the disparate mainframes on the periphery, each connected to its IMP. 

The DoD Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) contracted with a Cambridge, Mass., company, Bolt, Beranek, & Newman (BBN, still around but now owned by Raytheon) for the IMPs. Both Bolt and Beranek were MIT professors (Newman joined a bit later) and the first offices were on the MIT campus. As could be expected, MIT grad students contributed to this early work, include a young computer scientist named Willie Crowther. I’m pretty sure the first photo at olografix.org/gubi/estate/l… includes him. 

I once tried to write an article on why so many rock climbers are scientists and engineers. Being a Gunks climber, I had in mind Wiessner (chemist); Shockley, Lester Germer, John Reppy, and John Stannard (physicists); John Gill and Rich Goldstone (mathematicians), and so on, but also that Frost and Jardine were both aerospace engineers. Crowther wasn’t the only computer scientist, but probably the most famous point of intersection with climbing. 

I had trouble contacting him at first, because Google kept coming back with references to a Willie Crowther who invented the first adventure game (aptly named "Adventure"). When I finally got ahold of the Internet/rock climbing Willie Crowther, I asked him about that. “Oh, that was me too.”  

 

Steven Cherry wrote:

Before the Internet, there was the Arpanet, and before the Arpanet, there was a cluster of machines, called IMPs, for Internetworking Message Processors. The idea was, it was hard to get all the different mainframe computers to communicate with one another. So there would be another machine, the IMP, which IBM would figure out an interface to, and Sperry Rand would figure out an interface to, and so on. The IMPs were designed with software that would allow them to talk to each other: 

IBM 360 /\ IMP < - - - > IMP /\ Univac

And so a grid could be created with IMPs talking to each other in the center and all of the disparate mainframes on the periphery, each connected to its IMP. 

The DoD Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) contracted with a Cambridge, Mass., company, Bolt, Beranek, & Newman (BBN, still around but now owned by Raytheon) for the IMPs. Both Bolt and Beranek were MIT professors (Newman joined a bit later) and the first offices were on the MIT campus. As could be expected, MIT grad students contributed to this early work, include a young computer scientist named Willie Crowther. I’m pretty sure the first photo at olografix.org/gubi/estate/l… includes him. 

I once tried to write an article on why so many rock climbers are scientists and engineers. Being a Gunks climber, I had in mind Wiessner (chemist); Shockley, Lester Germer, John Reppy, and John Stannard (physicists); John Gill and Rich Goldstone (mathematicians), and so on, but also that Frost and Jardine were both aerospace engineers. Crowther wasn’t the only computer scientist, but probably the most famous point of intersection with climbing. 

I had trouble contacting him at first, because Google kept coming back with references to a Willie Crowther who invented the first adventure game (aptly named "Adventure"). When I finally got ahold of the Internet/rock climbing Willie Crowther, I asked him about that. “Oh, that was me too.”  

 

Until at least the mid-60s, the majority of climbers ( at least in the east and Midwest) were scientists. My first 2 years at UWMadison during that period I was one of only 2 non-scientists in the climbing group ( roughly 30 people).

In your list you missed at least one Nobel Prize winner---physicist Henry Kendall from MIT. He didn't do any FAs in the Gunks, but did make such climbs as the winter FA of the Standard Route on Cathedral Ledge and went on to make the first U S ascent of the Walker Spur in Chamonix.

While not a US climber, UK climber Mike Kosterlitz also won a Nobel--though years later. Amongst many other climbers, he did the North Face of the Cima Grande with CT climber Sam Streibert---so there is a New England connection!!!

Many other noted scientists and mathematicians in the climbing community---still today. It is an interesting subject, but I think the basic attraction was the mix of physical activity and complex problem solving, often under stress, which was the reason so many with that background have been attracted to our activity.

Re’ Lester Germer - my understanding is that the only reason why he did not share a Nobel prize with Davidson ( for the Davidson-Germer experiment which proved the dual wave-particle theory of the electron) was that he was an undergraduate ( working under Davidson) at the time, and since the prize money ( under the terms of Nobel’s will)  is awarded to enable the person to do further independent research, AND the “ criteria” in science to do independent research  (certainly at the time) was a pHD the prize ( and it’s money) was not also awarded to Lester.

Lester Germer was the nicest climber I have ever climbed with. 

Also, that the prize ( and money) is specifically for further research also precludes the prize from being awarded posthumously. This prevented the woman ( I forget her name) who actually did the X-Ray diffraction work on DNA for Watson-and-Crick from sharing the prize with them. 

Thanks for that information Bob. I always had wondered why he didn't share in the Prize. He was definitely a true character. The Waterman's write a lot about him in Yankee Rock and Ice. It is clear that they thought highly of him. I definitely remember him as a 'fixture' at the Gunks---always smiling, always friendly. 

Robert Hall wrote:

Re’ Lester Germer - my understanding is that the only reason why he did not share a Nobel prize with Davidson ( for the Davidson-Germer experiment which proved the dual wave-particle theory of the electron) was that he was an undergraduate ( working under Davidson) at the time, and since the prize money ( under the terms of Nobel’s will)  is awarded to enable the person to do further independent research, AND the “ criteria” in science to do independent research  (certainly at the time) was a pHD the prize ( and it’s money) was not also awarded to Lester.

Lester Germer was the nicest climber I have ever climbed with. 

Also, that the prize ( and money) is specifically for further research also precludes the prize from being awarded posthumously. This prevented the woman ( I forget her name) who actually did the X-Ray diffraction work on DNA for Watson-and-Crick from sharing the prize with them. 

As an aside, I think at least one of Watson and Crick (perhaps both ?) were not PhDs at the time.

Correct. Even though Crick was much older than Watson he did not receive his PhD until 1954. In fact, it looks like the DNA was his PhD thesis. Both WWII and switching fields from Physics delayed his PhD and the work he did during WWII was probably equivalent, if not more, than what was considered PhD level work at the time. 

Robert Hall wrote:

Just stumbled onto this thread….I‘m not sure where SethG might have gotten the idea that I was talking about more than just avoiding the top hard move with a 5.4 off to the left, but it seems from Willie’s response to Eric that ”1st time up, I [Willie] went around the hard move to the left” …” then cleaned…and bolted it” totally confirms the info I had that on the FA Willie went up left of the hard top move, then bolted at least that top move AFTER the FA of the “ white slab” portion of the climb.

It seems consistent with Willie’s description that “ …I wanted any route I put in to be reasonably safe for my friends to lead, …so, Yes bolt it” that he put the lower bolt in at the same time as the upper bolt.  

Thus, the FA was done on only the pin in the horizontal below the start of the white face, but with the exit moves done to the left ( a diversion I admit to have taken myself on occasion), then the bolts placed later.

Whether placed on rappelling or on a subsequent lead is immaterial to the point I was making : that by even today’s standards the ascent of that white face on just the low horizontal piton was a magnificent FA lead, and even more so by the standards of the day! 

For what it’s worth I don’t think I misunderstood Robert. If you move left to avoid the bolted crux, there is more than one move to get to the top. And I couldn’t find any easy way through there, certainly nothing 5.4.