Any published Gunks guidebooks before the 1964 Art Gran hard back, red book? Hell, in the Gran book Rusty Trifle was 5.2, Three Pines was 5.1, Commando Rave was 5.8, Pink Laurel was 5.7, Tough Shift was 5.9 and men were men. But High Ex was 5.7 and Simple Suff was still an aid climb.

Someone posted somewhere several months ago (how's that for helpful?) that there were a couple previous mini-guides before Gran's book.

There were informal notes around, and Dave Ingalls self-published something - I saw a copy once - but Todd Swain or Rich G. would probably know more. There was also a list (started and kept by whom I do not know) of the "first all nut ascent" of 'Gunks routes. All nut as in artificial chockstones, not a team of MJ, RS, BR, RR, et al.

Thanks for the information. I suppose my interest has been piqued based on climb details mentioned in the Gran book. Specifically on some of the hard free climbs that had been done that were one aid routes. Retribution, Nosedive, and other climbs were free by 1964. And there was obviously a push to free the other aid lines that still existed. So I was thinking that more light could be shed from earlier notes, preferably published information.

Thanks again!

There was also a list (started and kept by whom I do not know) of the "first all nut ascent" of 'Gunks routes.

That was our very own Jstan.

I remember this list. It was in a ledger type book that was at Rock and Snow.
Me and my climbing buddies at the time were able to claim several first all nut ascents of Gunks classics. I have wondered what happened to it. It would be a great time capsule to see again. Is it around?

After a 7 year hiatus from the forum, Roy Kligfield came up with the answer to his own question regarding early guidebooks.

http://gunks.com/ubbthreads7/ubbthreads.php/topics/50820/3

If I remember correctly, I recall back in the mid 70's, JStan proposed an idea for a very minimal guide with wide angle photos of just the beginning of the route showing only the first few feet of a route's line. This left all the route finding to the climber(s). Bold idea. RC

To summarize.

In 1964, when I started climbing in the Gunks, there was a mimeographed sheet (before xerox technology) of Shawangunk climbs--as reported in the posting above. I mistakenly attributed this to Dave Ingalls as author. However, it appears that it belonged to and was compiled by the IOCA, which at the time was the Intercollegiate Outing Club Association (I think that is the correct words)--perhaps authored by Willie Crowther? In any case, this series of pages had a few hundred Shawangunk climbs with multiple rating systems. See my reference in the above posting to this for those interested. It would be interesting to know who the primary authors on this "guide" were!

Rickster, the more I learn about Stannard the more I impressed.

Roy it would be pretty wild to actually get hands on a set of these old mimeographs. Anyone out there have them? Perhaps you can make more mimeographs of them.

RR

Interesting...
At the bottom it says


So you're saying Dave Ingalls took the IOCA list and created his own list? So somewhere out there is the IOCA list that predates this one? Or that the list I have was created by someone else and mistakenly attributed to DBI?

Those notes were the first guidebook I saw. (Actually I think they were ditto sheets not mimeographs, if anyone here knows the difference). They had an AMC grade, which was a roman numeral roughly equivalent to European alpine grades and probably tracing back to Kraus and Wiessner, a decimal grade, and an IOCA grade, which was a letter from a (easiest) to, I think, g (hardest). They had line drawings of the cliffs. Anyone who has had trouble with the modern cliff photos can imagine the difficulty of finding routes based on line drawings. As someone not at all familiar with the cliffs at the time, I found them close to useless.

Cool, I always thought the ditto was a mimeograph, and everyone in school used to refer to it as a mimeo. I can still smell the chemicals...

Why not look it up on Wikipedia?

I did, which is how I found out we'd been calling it the wrong thing all these years.

Dittos and mimeos are still so close enough to each other as to be confused even by the third grade teacher caught sniffing them in the copy room. Dittos used a machine with a rotating drum, a stencil master and dyes, the type had a blue to purple tinge to it . Mimeographs used a machine with a drum, a stencil master and ink. I'm not to excited to say, I've had the chance to use Ditto Machines for classroom work into the 80's. Regarding the origins of this route list, would David B. Ingalls have been a member or maybe an alum of IOCA in '62? RC

I have a copy (or rather a scanned image) of the DBI '62 list that doesn't the line drawings RG saw, so there's at least the one other list. I suppose there could have been many more as anyone with access to a ditto could have made their own.

Would be cool to see the originals though. IIRC you can't make a ditto from a ditto, you need the master.

I think the dittos I saw came from IOCA, but I'm not sure how I got them and have no idea where they might be now.

It is true that you need the master, plus a ditto machine, to make copies of dittos (unless of course you just scan the sucker). Even if it was available, deterioration of the ink impressions make it unlikely that usable copies could still be generated from the master.

On closer reading of the PDF that Roy posted, actually my first full reading, there is notation #5 on the last page of the "D.B.I." document that explains the included IOCA rating system. I can't imagine the IOCA system was used anywhere else but in the NE during the 60's. But then, I was only eight years old when this document was written, so what the hell did I know. RC

Regarding the pre-1964 guidebooks and the mimeographed list that I recently wrote of and provided to some of you:

(1) I am pretty sure that Dave Ingalls was not the ORIGINAL SOURCE for this list. Even though his initials D.B.I. are on the list, I believe this is only a compilation by him of the existing list.

(2) Dick Williams wrote me recently that he recalled this list as originating with the IOCA, which was the college outing club active at the time that both the AMC and Vulgarians were also active.

Stannard's guide was going to show more than just the first few feet of each climb. His actual motivation was that the Williams guide book photos were taken from above--via aircraft, so the roofs and overhangs were not very apparent. Stannard's solution was to climb up trees every few feet along the cliffs (in the winter) and then shoot more or less directly across at each route. Although his guide book never came to be, Stannard still has all of the original pictures he took for the project.

Curt