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golsen
Apr 12, 2006, 3:43 PM
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There are so many idiotic posts in this thread I am not sure where to begin. Let me start here:
In reply to: To further elaborate on free soloing, I'll make an analogy... Imagine for a moment a game based on golf. You play according to the normal rules, but for every hole that you shoot a double bogey or worse, you have to play russian roulette with one extra bullet for each stroke past bogey. Penalty strokes count. Now, how relevant to real golf is this game? Do you think Arnold Palmer or Tiger Woods or anyone else who is actually interested in the game of golf would give a half a s---?
Fracture, your views are so narrow minded and you seem to take great pleasure in spouting them off, merely illustrating your ignorance of what climbing was and how it used to be. I cannot pretend to know everything about how climbing started, but I can tell you from my short 30 years of involvement in the sport that boldness was a big part of the sport in the 70's and 80's. And for some (like Michael Reardon) boldness is still a huge part of it. Russian Roulette? You moron. If you know you can really climb something, sans rope, is it russian roulette? One may argue that if you cant climb say 5.10 without a rope how can you call yourself a 5.10 climber? I am not saying that your little world of highly technical short climbs is wrong. What I am saying is that the sport of climbing evolved today to encompass many facets which includes your "safe" world of sport climbs and toproping.
The truly great accomplishments of climbing will almost certainly involve discussions of boldness, like climbing the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat. Climbs that involve more than all out difficulty because those climbs require the climber to reach deeper into themselves than simply all out difficulty. While I have nothing but respect for the Chris Sharma's and Fred Nicole's who pursue the utmost of difficulty, I have greater respect for someone like Steve House, whose climbs required him to have the utmost confidence in his abilities due to the cost of failure.
Climbing is many things to many different people. To say that sport climbers suck or trad climbers suck or boulderers suck simply shows a narrow minded viewpoint. It is the narrow minded climber who is missing out. And those who do not understand the history of the sport are perhaps missing out most of all.
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golsen
Apr 12, 2006, 3:52 PM
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One last thought. Most of us are just a bunch of wankers. If you can go solo what Reardon has and put him to shame, go for it.
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hasbeen
Apr 12, 2006, 4:04 PM
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I'm also interested in what anyone has personally seen Michael solo, especially unrehearsed. There are many many holes in his claims. Things that don't make sense, ect. I can go on and on about this but I'll leave it alone.
He's a good climber, compared to most people, no question. His claims, however, far outweigh anything that's been witnessed that I know of. I've seen him many times. I've only actually seen him climbing once. That day, he couldn't redpoint, in an entire day, a simple 3-bolt 12a. This was a couple of years ago and he could have been having a bad day, but I've not heard of one person who has witnessed him actually doing anything harder than V5. And I know a lot of people who have seen him climbing.
What I'm curious about is WHY he might even attempt to solo RM--not to mention that his only witness claims to be a professional photographer, went back with him to take staged photos where huge amounts of effort were required to pose on the route at various places. Yet this photog somehow didn't manage to even get a cell phone pic of the actually ascent, which he witnessed. Hmm, a bad business decision, at the very least. But, anyway, MR claims that he's training to solo the Rostrum. This route has been solo'd a ton and Peter Croft has solo'd it in both directions. This same guy, Croft, couldn't do Romantic Warrior. I don't mean solo, or redpoint, I mean finish the climb. He couldn't get up it. What would make Reardon believe he had the ability to free solo such a thing based on this? He would have to, on a daily basis, climb circles around guys like Croft. From what I've seen, this just isn't the case.
In SoCal, I've not heard from one single person who has witnessed anything of note. Mainly their reports of MR are a guy who hangs around at the crags talking all the time, occasionally soloing something quite easy. I've heard the--recently--he backed off a 5.10 at Josh. Again, this doesn't mean much, we all have bad days. But, still, I've heard many first hand reports of less-than-stellar climbing performance and none--zero--of anything noteworthy.
So, ya know, I'm just curious if anyone's actually seen anything that might lead you to believe he would onsight solo something that Peter Croft couldn't do with a rope.
For the record--since many of you seem to believe what R&I prints without question--he was not a producer on Cabin Fever (which R&I claimed is how he made his fortune and titled the article about him). Producers, according to Union rules, must be listed in the credits. Cabin Fever has six producers, none of them named Michael Reardon. He was, however, credited as an extra in the film. You might also, if you're curious about whether or not he might lie, check the state bar association and see if he is actually a lawyer. It's public record, and his name must be listed if he passed the bar.
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nuts_r_us
Apr 12, 2006, 4:12 PM
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I am so glad this has turned into a Reardon-bashing thread like the others. I was thinking it would be a pretty boring thread otherwise.
R&I and Climbing both suck. I don't care what this guy does or does not do. If he lies about it or if he doesn't, it doesn't affect me at all. I think he is foolish for the risks he takes, but that's his choice, and as long as access is not threatened by his actions, that's his choice.
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hasbeen
Apr 12, 2006, 4:25 PM
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For the record, I don't think you can call my post Reardon bashing. I'm asking a perfectly legitimate question. I'm just curious. As a climbing history buff, what people do is important to me. Therefore, when people are lying about major accomplishments, it's important. I don't care at all about people lying about stuff down at the bar. That can be very amusing, in fact. But when someone starts winning awards for things that, at best, leave a lot of questions unanswered, I can't help but be curious.
Also, on Bachar's statements making this true, well, what has Bachar witnessed? All I've seen, other than him saying MR out solo'd him one day on easy stuff was that he "almost did a V8 in a day." I almost do V8's in a day all the time. Sometiimes I've even done V8s in a day. I've also solo'd a hundred really easy pitches in a day. But I wouldn't attempt to solo RM for all the whiskey in Ireland.
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hasbeen
Apr 12, 2006, 4:39 PM
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Um, I've seen that movie and, I believe, done all the routes that he solos. There is no move in that vid harder than V3 or 4. In fact, I put up the hardest route he solo'd and they up-rated it for the vid. It's probably 12a and about 30' tall. The "12a" he solos is, like, 11b and a jug haul. EBGB's is scary, sure, but it's 5.10. And, like someone else pointed out, the last move of EBGBs is no fall with or without a rope.
To make my question more clear, have you seen him solo something that you think Peter Croft might think twice about?
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sidepull
Apr 12, 2006, 4:42 PM
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In reply to: To further elaborate on free soloing, I'll make an analogy... Imagine for a moment a game based on golf. You play according to the normal rules, but for every hole that you shoot a double bogey or worse, you have to play russian roulette with one extra bullet for each stroke past bogey. Penalty strokes count. Now, how relevant to real golf is this game? Do you think Arnold Palmer or Tiger Woods or anyone else who is actually interested in the game of golf would give a half a s---?
In reply to: The truly great accomplishments of climbing will almost certainly involve discussions of boldness, like climbing the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat. Climbs that involve more than all out difficulty because those climbs require the climber to reach deeper into themselves than simply all out difficulty. While I have nothing but respect for the Chris Sharma's and Fred Nicole's who pursue the utmost of difficulty, I have greater respect for someone like Steve House, whose climbs required him to have the utmost confidence in his abilities due to the cost of failure.
Although these two disagree - I think these are both well thought out and interesting arguments.
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fracture
Apr 12, 2006, 5:06 PM
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In reply to: Climbing is many things to many different people. To say that sport climbers suck or trad climbers suck or boulderers suck simply shows a narrow minded viewpoint. It is the narrow minded climber who is missing out.
I didn't say anything of the sort. What I said is that free soloing has absolutely nothing to do with the sport I am interested in (whatever you want to call it). The sport I am interested in is about difficult climbing movement, it is not about walking up mountains, risking death or injury, or zealously promulgating various neo-religious systems of so-called "ethics".
In reply to: And those who do not understand the history of the sport are perhaps missing out most of all.
Actually, I have done quite a bit of reading on the history of the sport---it is excellent comedy.
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murf
Apr 12, 2006, 5:15 PM
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In reply to: Downclimbing would count as part of the 150, but would slow you down to where you'd be doing, at most, 3 or 4 pitches an hour, not 7. I don't need to know somebody to know what is and isn't possible.
Lets say you just want to have a rad total pitch count... You just go up and down The Trough... Off the top of my head, I'd say the Trough is 4 pitches, but lets make it 5 'cause I can't do complex math.
You could probably get up it in less than 10 mins and down in less than say, 15 mins? Lets just make the round trip 30 mins. In an hour ( 2 round trips ), you could tick 20 pitches... So just doing Trough runs at this rate you need 7.5 hours to get 150 pitches.
I see where you're coming from Joe, but I think you could through together some pitch counts and Trough downclimbs to get to 150 pitches in a day. Even if the Trough is 4 pitches ( can't remember ), you could still conceive of pitches/pitch times that would work out.
There are many reasonable questions to ask about MR's press, I think this one is probably not one to worry about too much.
As for all the publicity, someone should be selling "Be Like Mike" shirts.
Murf
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grayhghost
Apr 12, 2006, 5:38 PM
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Fracture Wrote:
In reply to: And those who do not understand the history of the sport are perhaps missing out most of all.
http://igoresha.virtualave.net/Art/monkey_in_tree.png
I believe there was climbing long before there were ropes, so please, review your history and do some barefoot-naked-free-soloing.
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caughtinside
Apr 12, 2006, 5:44 PM
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Congratulations to MR on winning a prestigious fake award from a barely relevant publication which made it up to add an extra issue of recycled content.
Dude, nice going on your 2005 Golden Piton! Yeah!
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reg
Apr 12, 2006, 5:58 PM
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i wish people - zines, vids, whatever - would stop glamorizing free soloing. that will only influence young minds to try it - leading to more deaths. not good. climbing - in my opinion - is about the knowledge and use of protection to gain the summits. anyone can can climb - where designed for that - being around to talk about the adventure the next day is where it's at. free soloing is a selfish endeavor.
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reno
Apr 12, 2006, 6:15 PM
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In reply to: My favorite is the claim of 150 pitches at Tahquitz in a day. Those are trad pitches, so we're talking in the neighboorhood of 15,000-18,000 feet of climbing and descending in a long day, which I assume involved no night climbing. 30,000+ feet of altitude change in, say, 15 hours. The hiking equivalent of that would be doing the Mountaineers Route round trip from Whitney Portal twice, then back to the summit of Whitney, in a day. How stupid would you have to be to believe that....
Not. Even. Close.
Going from, say, 4000 feet MSL to 6000 feet MSL is a 2000 foot altitude change. Doing that 9 times is NOT the same as going from sea level to the top of Denali.
Altitude changes are not cummulative in the physiological sense. That is, 2000 feet twice does not equal 4000 feet once.
At least not according to the body's response.
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thatnameisalreadychosen
Apr 12, 2006, 6:20 PM
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Congrats Mike!
Watching you climb is an inspiration - havent seen you at malibu in a while!
Keep it up, but make sure youll be around to join us in these crazy threads!
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wilcox510
Apr 12, 2006, 7:24 PM
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Michael is obviously an amazing climber, and I have no reason to doubt any of his claims, so congrats on the award. but, as others have said, I have a hard timing giving much respect to someone who litters the backcountry with underwear, Vagisil, little toy figurines, or whatever other crap he has left in places. and if someone has to leave that kind of crap in the mountains to prove that they were there, I think they were there for the wrong reasons.
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coldclimb
Apr 12, 2006, 7:36 PM
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In reply to: Michael is obviously an amazing climber, and I have no reason to doubt any of his claims, so congrats on the award. but, as others have said, I have a hard timing giving much respect to someone who litters the backcountry with underwear, Vagisil, little toy figurines, or whatever other crap he has left in places. and if someone has to leave that kind of crap in the mountains to prove that they were there, I think they were there for the wrong reasons.
Well he just can't get it right, can he? Obviously he needs to prove he's been there because if he doesn't, then he never was, and all his claims are false and he's an idiot poser. But if he DOES prove he did it, he's doing it for the wrong reasons.
*sigh* People suck.
Keep climbing Mike, and stay off the deck long enough for me to meet you someday, eh? ;)
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tim
Apr 12, 2006, 7:53 PM
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In reply to: free soloing is a selfish endeavor.
So is climbing. Think for yourself and make your own decisions, based on the amount of risk you are comfortable with, given the potential consequences.
The media should do more to glamorize free soloing -- maybe it will help restore some selective pressure to the species.
I share some of Joe Hedge's reservations regarding the more outlandish claims, but his numbers assume, say, continuous 100' pitches with descents. It's entirely possible that Michael counted pitches downclimbed, short pitches, etc. as when he recorded his soloing binge in Josh.
Greg Epperson led 40 pitches for his 40th birthday in Josh, and he finished up shortly after noon. I was there for that feat. I wasn't around to see Mike on one of his marathon days, so I can't vouch, but it's not outside the realm of possibility if you dispel some of the assumptions Joe made. If you accept the assumptions (100' pitches, no downclimbed pitches count, daylight only) then of course it is absurd to believe the claim.
Thanks for injecting some reality back into this, although I still think John Bachar is harder to fool than most. Of course, maybe he's in on the joke. Either way, people are (once again) talking about Mike, which almost certainly delights him. This probably is not what the detractors wanted.
There will always be doubt in my mind about radical feats I was not personally present to witness. I would hope the same applies to others. Nonetheless, if Bachar is going to vouch for something like Mike onsight free soloing RW, there's at least some measure of support for believing it.
Until Mike repeats it while I'm around, I can never be 100% sure that he did what he said, but in my mind the odds are in favor of him doing it, even if only to leave his mark.
Make up your own mind, I'm not going to tell you what to think or how to climb. If you think you're up to the task, go ahead and solo. If you crater, I guess that means you guessed wrong. It's your life.
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macherry
Apr 12, 2006, 7:57 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: Michael is obviously an amazing climber, and I have no reason to doubt any of his claims, so congrats on the award. but, as others have said, I have a hard timing giving much respect to someone who litters the backcountry with underwear, Vagisil, little toy figurines, or whatever other crap he has left in places. and if someone has to leave that kind of crap in the mountains to prove that they were there, I think they were there for the wrong reasons. Well he just can't get it right, can he? Obviously he needs to prove he's been there because if he doesn't, then he never was, and all his claims are false and he's an idiot poser. But if he DOES prove he did it, he's doing it for the wrong reasons. *sigh* People suck. Keep climbing Mike, and stay off the deck long enough for me to meet you someday, eh? ;)
i have no problem accepting what michael does, but i do have problems with him littering climbs with panties and other assorted items. Why the need to leave all that junk. If he's happy with what he does, then there's no need to disprove the naysayers
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wilcox510
Apr 12, 2006, 7:58 PM
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coldclimb - I think you missed something in my point, I said I believe his claims, i have no reason to believe he is lying or making stuff up. Obviously other people doubt, him, but I dont, nor do I really care whether he did those things or not. But I do care that he's littering in the backcountry, even if its in an area that i've never been to and may never see. I think its kinda sad and juvenile that someone needs to litter in order to prove they've done something they claimed to have done. and again, if you're free soloing routes for yourself, why do you need to litter to prove it to others?
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fracture
Apr 12, 2006, 11:24 PM
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In reply to: Fracture Wrote: In reply to: And those who do not understand the history of the sport are perhaps missing out most of all.
No, I did not write that. Please watch your attributions.
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kalcario
Apr 13, 2006, 1:46 AM
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In reply to: You don't know much about soloing. I am a climber of limited talent, and I have soloed 33 pitches at Tahquitz in 4 hours. I have also soloed the Regular route on Fairview (9 pithes) in 55 minutes. So your time estimate of 3 or 4 pitches an hour is way off. I also know Mike and believe that if I can solo 33 pitches in 4 hours he can and did solo 150 pitches in 15 hours. At the rate I was doing my routes I would have done 120 pitches in 16 hours.
My estimate was for 7 pitches an hour, and it was based on watching Croft and Schultz going balls-out fast on the Nose. If you had watched those guys you would have a hard time believing that anyone could climb faster than that. But you'd have to climb twice as fast as those guys, for 3-4 times as long, to do 150 pitches of climbing AND descending in 15 hours.
Back in the day Bachar could do Fairview in 45 minutes car-to-car. If he kept up that pace he'd get to 15000 up and 15000 down in 11 hours. Sounds good on paper...but do you think anybody could do Fairview Dome 15 times in one day? Because that's what 150 pitches at Tahquitz in a day is.
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curt
Apr 13, 2006, 2:32 AM
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Well, John Bachar posts at RC.com now--and he has most likely noticed this thread. He is in an excellent position to offer some meaningful content here. Hopefully, he'll eventually offer his opinions.
Curt
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petsfed
Apr 13, 2006, 2:38 AM
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In reply to: I am infinitely more interested in who wins the GOTY 2006 award than who gets the "golden piton" for (rehearsed) free solos, hangdogging on cams (aka "trad climbing"), doing the first ethics-free ascent of old aid routes, or whatever other categories they can make up to give out those awards for.
Why? So you can have somebody else tell you what a good (or bad) game is? I mean really, no matter what, you're paying for somebody else to tell you what your opinion is, so you didn't have to go and buy something to find out you were wrong. We can't always go to the internet for info, and I certainly don't mind buying Climbing, or Rock and Ice, or even Alpinist (which is just a refinement of the others), if only for something to read on rest days.
Even their reviews are pretty crappy, but who wants to read Better Homes & Gardens on day 12 of their Indian Creek trip? We are, unfortunately, a captive audience. And so long as Urban Climber pumps out articles I REALLY don't care about, I'm stuck with Climbing and R&I, because I can't afford (and don't care for) the fancy words of Alpinist.
All that said, good for Mike. Even if he's faking, he's doing a good enough job to get noticed, and that's saying something.
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hasbeen
Apr 13, 2006, 3:18 PM
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So I'll take the lack of any response to my posts that none of the people here who so dogmaticallly support MR have never actually seen him do anything close to what he claims.
This is true, no?
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