From my personal Facebook® page my rock climbing mentor (pictured above by Bob Kamps -another legendary rock climber- in 1967 when i was, uh…hmmm 5) Pat Ament who wrote the other day on my page:
“There was a time when the equipment started to take over. I loved climbs, such as with Bob Kamps, or Higgins, when all we had were Kronhoeffers, a rope tied with a single loop around our waist, no belay devices, a few carabiners and pitons, a few runners…. The climb depended so much on us rather than on our ability to engineer a way upward. Now we see porta ledges and… is there a piece of equipment that doesn’t exist? It’s a little like “sport” hunting, where they use heat seeking devices to find deer in dark, thick forest, and scopes on high powered rifles. But don’t call it “sport.” Maybe try to slap a deer on the butt. That would be sport, or wrestle a mountain lion to the ground. That would be sport, and you would lose. To shoot something is not much. El Capitan now has established bolt rappel routes everywhere. If things aren’t going well, just head on down. Where is that old sense of going up and beyond those “points of no return?” I’ll shut up. I get to ranting and moaning before I’ve really woken up in the morning… But it’s fun to see all that gear… which seems to represent the 70s and 80s…?
to which student ilg had to reply:
gotta tell you, my Most Precious Mentor of the Vertical World, Pat Ament…this pic and the words which symbiotically sprout from within it,”Climbers disdain me, take cheap shots at me, but not as cheap as mine at them,” has become so ingrained within my spiritual cells all these decades…thank you. as the founder of a highly ridiculed Path of Wholistic Fitness® (yes, even you made fun of my training approaches back in the early 80’s), ilg knows how fast people disdained me and my practice of multi-physiologic/psychologic fitness…yet now? ilg has outlived and continues to beat kids 30 years younger with ease across the human capacity spectrum…my cheap shot at all my naysayers? is, Follow Me Now…if you can! ilg owes much of my Chi Strength and Suppleness to Thou…thank you…keep crankin’ ever Higher!
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