It says in the purple nears guidebook that this had fixed gear and was a project in progress in 2007. Any word on if the fixed gear is still there and if it's been freed?

Fixed gear was still in place in late spring.

It's been there a while (at least half a year). If it's in your way, clean it and leave it at the base. It's commedable to have a project of that magnitude, but to have it tied up for that long, interfering with other peoples enjoyment of the route is a little obtrusive if you ask me. This isn't Rifle, or the Red. It's the Gunks. Either send it, or get off it.

RR

yea spinal traction gets a lot of traffic, rob...

Hey I usually solo it once a year. If that shit is in my way........

Just kidding. In all likelihood I would use the fixed gear to make my aiding go faster. First time I soloed it my time was an abyssmal 4 hours. I have since shaved it down to about 2:15. God that sucks...the Huber Brothers can climb the Nose just as fast as I can aid and clean Spinal Traction. I'm a lame ass!

Yeah Rob, but you are our lame ass, and we think you are pretty cool.

As far as I'm concerned it ought to be cleaned every day regardless of traffic. Why would anyone intentionally leave what they consider their belongings on property that isn't theirs?

Took me about 3 hours to lead when I did it, things can get quite acrobatic under that huge roof.

"As far as I'm concerned it ought to be cleaned every day regardless of traffic. Why would anyone intentionally leave what they consider their belongings on property that isn't theirs?"

1. Would this include all fixed anchors in the Gunks? If that's the case maybe we should just pull all of the junk out of the cliff including rappel anchors. Try walking down the back of the Trapps after every 5.6 that you barely scrape your way up moron.

2. Find another route to aid climb. How about Erect Direction or some other "mega classic" that you probably can't free climb anyway. Spinal Traction was pretty darn close to getting freed by Brian Kim and Vadim Vinokur last year. If you break off the key flake aid climbing on it, it definitely won't go--ever. Just because you won't ever even dream of climbing that hard, doesn't mean you have to ruin it for others.

3. Leave the gear alone. It can't possibly be in your way-- remember your aid climbing! That means hanging on the gear in ladders last time I checked. There is virtually no difference between clipping fixed gear with your ladders and putting in A1-A2 placements. It's all kid stuff at that level anyway. At least with the existing gear in place you won't have to worry about destroying the route (ie breaking off key flakes) with your obviously lousy aid climbing abilities.

4. LEAVE BRIAN'S GEAR ALONE-- If you are so concerned about it, you could always ask him to remove it. He's a very laid back guy and surely would take it out if you asked him nicely. He's projecting a couple of other very difficult routes in the Gunks and would surely appreciate it if his gear was not stolen. If you feel you have to take it down yourself, please return it to him. Don't just leave it at the base of the route or someone else will feel obligated to take it. If the gear goes missing.... remember there are plenty of people who know who you are and where you live, including myself.

One more thing. For all those people who will think that this is just more arrogance coming from "hot-shot" climbers, let me remind you that The Gunks was once a world class climbing area. I mean world class in the sense that world class climbers were actually climbing there on a regular basis and putting up what were considered world class routes at that time. "Hot-shot" climbers like Lynn Hill, Hugh Herr, Russ Raffa, Jeff Greunberg, Jack Meleski and Kevin Bein used to project routes on a regular basis. Sure everyone knows that Lynn Hill and others put up a few world class routes essentially onsite solo because they wanted to do them in good style and more than likely to one-up the other guys. Also there was the occasional accidental X point- such as "Death's Head Mask" and "Yellow Crack Direct". However, everyone always forgets that these legends also projected the crap out of many other difficult climbs, bolting, nailing pitons, hanging fixed gear and slings all over these routes for many months even years at a time before they finally went free. They used yo-yo tactics, TR hangdogging, pinkpointing, hanging in slings- you name it.

Route examples include "Iron Curtain", "Diplomatic Strain","Talus Food" "Tweazle Roof" , "Twilight Zone" , "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" "Vandals", "French Connection" (they even chipped this one-- yuck!) even "Bone Hard" which isn't that hard anyway. If you do the math, the majority of the hardest climbs in the Gunks were projected extensively before they were ever freed.

My point is: nowadays, there are hardly any world-class climbers visiting or climbing in the Gunks. Possibly, they figure there aren't any hard lines left to pick out. Or more than likely, there is no longer a conducive atmosphere for elite climbers in the Gunks. Weekenders and gumbies crowding the crag, rangers who carry handguns and write tickets like YNP tools, fixed gear and projecting frowned upon by locals with mediocre climbing abilities. (Except of course all those moderate routes that they can actually climb that are loaded up with fixed pins and even god-forbid bolts. ) So why not let the relatively few dinosaurs of difficult trad-climbing continue to push the limits of hard climbing in the Gunks in the best style that they can muster ( a few removable fixed pieces of gear hanging here and there). In the end nobody gets hurt and their style is no worse than the legendary Gunks heroes that have been indemnified as godlike figures.

No doubt why Sharma sent V15 and visits several times a year, or why the Gunks produced Obie, Vadim and Ivan, or why Carrigan, Edlinger, Gullich, Moffat and Sheppard made annual trips.

Fritz and Hans, the Vulgarians, Stannard, Bragg, Wunsch and Barber were pussies.

Hugh Herr, especially. What a girly-man.

And Franklin, he was a 5' 4" race-walker for Christ's sake. Couldn't solo Survival without being baked.

Yeah, the place sucks. A backwater. Don't waste your time.

Why we've all taken up bowling, Lebowski.

Xpoint? WTF is an Xpoint?

Absolutely, Brian and Vadim are cool peeps. You however, sound like their belay bitch and need to shut your mouth. Actually you had a great idea with removing all the bolts and fixed gear. I think you'd be too lazy to walk off anyway, and would probably get lost if you tried. Also, if you think aiding on totally fixed gear and aiding on your own gear is the same thing, well then you probably don't know much about climbing anyway.

No one is going up to Spinal Traction and ripping Brians gear off you turd. It's a freaking chat forum. We all talk big and do nothing, just like you. Come down off your high horrse and join us for a beer.

I like how you say if the key flake breaks off no one will free it..EVER! Just like El Cap could never be freed. Small brains have no vision. They are lemmings who believe precisely what they are told.

Cheers Dude, and welcome to the sewer!!

Yo Dude. If you took all the fixed anchors away we wouldn't be able to enjoy the walk in the beautiful forest by ourselves. Keep that thought to yourself, please.

I love the accidental X point bit. "Oops, sorry, didn't mean to send it."

Imagine if Russ and Jordan took Lebowski's Spinal Traction attitude on Twilight Zone. "Now, please, stop aiding this route as you've done for thirty years so we elite can deign to free it."

What Lebowski neglected to mention in his studied tutorial is that the offending tactics began on Vandals - hence the name. That hay-seed Gruenberg could have been so cutting-edge bolting and dogging his death-routes years before Vandals. What was he thinking?

And the shocking thing, the really shameful thing is that punters like Gruenberg, and those Aussie hooligans Shepherd and Weigand, had the audacity to tie-in with...wait for it...those wretched weekenders and gumbies, sharing a rope, plying us with beers and bones at Slime, carrying on about impact and legacies, about this specious movement called leave no trace. Thank God gurus like Griffith arrived to spirit young Gunkies away, to lead them to the promised lands of Rifle and Smith.

Perhaps the mighty Lebowski would care to dust off a few of these X-rated mothballs awaiting second ascents, and flash them, just to remind us gumbies about the math.

i thought supercrack was first dogged up.

Seiged, but Wunsch was fastidious about never hanging on the gear and pulling the rope after each try.

are you sure about pulling the rope. Need someone to confirm. I know Romano was in the area when it went free.

also dude you talk about legands in projecting. You left out Romano he doesn't project he sends and if he needed to, Rich would rip off your arms while you belay him and use your arms as pro for the onsight.

... and if he needed to, Rich would rip off your arms while you belay him and use your arms as pro for the onsight. [/quote]

While yelling "ACTION!!!!" First time I heard him do that it scared the crap out of me on an adjacent climb.

Well, there's the vernacular legend and Bein's account, any number of written sources (Dick has always been exacting about details, especially for such a watershed route), and Steve himself.

I agree with the dude, and i'm a gumby weekender. The threads on this forum where people bitch about fixed/project gear on routes they'd never touch are embarrassing. Fixed gear and tat is all over the cliff.

THEDUDE, whoever that might be, said:


If the flake is so fragile that it will break off like that, maybe it should be pulled and tossed just like that block on Enduroman, eh?

fixed gear = spurt climbing. if you're going to claim it's a trad climb sak it up and place the gear on lead

That absolutist view kinda "invalidates" a metric crapload of ostensibly trad FFA's, including bucketloads of Gunks 10's and 11's. 9's and 8's too.

Tastycakes, just because you have never climbed Spinal Traction doesn't mean no one ever climbs it. There are 3 popular aid routes in the Gunks. Routes that a LOT of people have started their aid careers on. Twilight Zone, Kansas City are two of them. Can you guess which one is the third, and harder of the three? By the way Dude (AKA Belay Bitch) it goes at C2, not A2.

Yeah it's way cool that Brian is trying to send it clean. No one is denying that. Gheez, I even cut him slack about the fixed gear because....well because NO ONE has ever done it clean before. But his belay bitch spewing about hardman ethics, please...give me a break already. That was done for no other reason than to try to elevate himself above the rest.

Let Brian work it, but don't assume it's an obscure route that never gets done. And don't assume that someone is going to go steal his shit just because they say so on some online chat forum. People are way more badass here than in real life, myself included.

RR

Brian cleaned his gear last season.

Carry on ranting...

Nothing like pointless ranting. That's what we do here isn't it?

Then help remove it!

For the record: I self-belayed the FA of this some winter around 78. That was before cams. I remember a couple of hook moves to get up to the roof, then a series of mostly opposed wires out to the lip. I was pretty stressed out by the time I got to the lip, and I ended up placing one pin in the horizontal just above the lip (just happened to have some pins and a hammer--what a coincidence). The rock was a bit rotten I think, and I couldn't get a good nut. So, it wasn't quite a clean ascent.

Ivan

Nice job, Ivan. Always wondered about the FA.