RRC Archives

Guys, he is dangerous. Josh soloed route 48 and down climbed it-only thing he walked away with was a gash on his leg.

It's not blacklisting and we shouldn't have to teach him basic manners and courtesy-we're not his parents.

Oh yeah, we saw Josh at Muir Valley (he introduced himself as Humfry) and he asked us if he could bolt some routes. We said "No", but he took our gear and proceeded to bolt a route anyway. We tried to teach him the proper technique, but he would not listen. Then he stole our shit and started bolting routes all over the place. We never found out where and he is still at it....

I pity the fool who climbs these routes because all of the placements are bad and several of the anchors fell out.

Seriously though, this reminds me of a recent article in Climbing magazine (Issue #242) called "Fear and Loathing in the Alaska Range". I think it is the same guy!

About a month ago we met Josh through Andrew. Josh went with us to Phantasia. Reachhigh lead Creature Feature and some people toproped it. Then Josh got on it.
You know how you do the overhang by moving to the jugs on the face, sort of to the right and either left heel hook or campus a few moves until your feet can get on the face? Well Josh moves left where there really aren't any holds to speak of. He kind of mantled/rolled his whole body over the lip of the overhang,one of his(somebody's) shoes fell off and did these core body slither moves to get back on route. It was the most incredible moves and control I have seen in my short climbing career. Everyone there was fairly amazed: comments like"dude, you made that climb alot harder but it was really cool."etc. If you know Andrew from Memphis who I think spent the summer at Miguel's he seems to know the guy and might have more insight .
i heard the same story about riding the mountain bike from Bloomington etc.
He seemed like a fairly humble softspoken fellow and fairly intelligent.
I am sorry to hear about his unskillful behavior because he has some really innate natural climbing ability and seemed like a decent person.
Hey, wutyugonnado?

J-Rock wrote: Seriously though, this reminds me of a recent article in Climbing magazine (Issue #242) called "Fear and Loathing in the Alaska Range". I think it is the same guy!

J-rock! I read that article and thought the same thing when I started reading this thread.
When I lived on the road back in the 70's( Oh God here come one of those "back in the day" stories) I would meet a whole array of humanoids, many with undiagnosed psychotic issues that would play out in all kinds of interesting and often dangerous ways.
The boy is not onedimensional but he could use a good talking to. 8)

J-Rock, are you serious about josh taking your gear and bolting up dangerous routes? If you let him take your stuff then that is on you not him. BTW what prvented you from stopping him! Thats just crazy...on your part. I can't imagine (since you know he took it) that you guys just stood around and let him walk off with your bolting gear, OR that you knew he was in the valley and didn't go stop him. I am sure Rick could have done something to prevent this guys further destruction (since it is Rick's land). My guess is that you are bigger, older and wiser than Josh - he can't be so tricky as to be bolting with your gear and you not be able to stop him. I just can't see that the scenario you present can actually happen. I'm going to say bogus.

hmm well please let us knowthe whereaboyts of the bolted routes so no ones jumps on them and serisouly gets injured. I am assuming that info wasn't a fib.

Christian wrote:He kind of mantled/rolled his whole body over the lip of the overhang,one of his(somebody's) shoes fell off and did these core body slither moves to get back on route.

It was the first time I saw somebody climb a face like chimney. I was getting really worried about him getting tangled in the rope.

As Meadows said, I had quite the experience with him. Later in the day, I politely declined to give him another belay or use my rope to lead. I told him I thought he would end up getting hurt. He asked why I had to be that way and didn't speak to me the rest of the day.

I think Ultra wins the Dumbass Award.