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Lazarus Climbers (Read 4725 times)

Will Hunt

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Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 10:51:21 am
You bring one deceased climber back to life. They're in their prime.
Who is it, where do you go, what do you do?

I know it's a very predictable choice, but I'm not sure I could pass up the chance to climb with an Arthur Dolphin with all his boldness and gymnastic ability, but also the modern equipment to back up his potential.

One day out together? I think Stanage - some bouldering and routes on a spring day.

mrjonathanr

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#1 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 10:57:06 am
Aleister Crowley seems a good candidate for coming back from the dead. Bold, too. Mummery would on the list too.

Wellsy

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#2 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 11:01:36 am
Menlove

What happened to him was awful and tragic. He had his life cut short too early and I think in the modern world he'd do amazing things on rock

Fiend

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#3 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 11:04:49 am
Ken. A day redpointing at Rhoscolyn.

Will Hunt

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#4 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 11:07:30 am
Ken. A day redpointing at Rhoscolyn.

Can you imagine the grief he'd get for whacking in kneebars everywhere? The sticky static charge generated by those fibre pile trousers would beat any modern pad.

Neil F

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#5 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 11:09:07 am

I know it's a very predictable choice, but I'm not sure I could pass up the chance to climb with an Arthur Dolphin with all his boldness and gymnastic ability, but also the modern equipment to back up his potential.


My parents (well, my Dad at least) remember going to Almscliff with the Uni club when they were at Leeds. Arthur was with them, and by far the most natural climber, my Dad recalls…

Will Hunt

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#6 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 11:11:34 am
Aleister Crowley seems a good candidate for coming back from the dead. Bold, too. Mummery would on the list too.

Please describe your day out (and the night in Fiend's favourite Gabbergore hellpit that follows) with Crowley in exhaustive detail.

Likewise Menlove. Good choice, but where you going, whatcha doing?

mrjonathanr

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#7 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 11:28:37 am
Since Etheldreda’s Pinnacle is no more we would go exploring  sea stacks in the north west of Scotland, before retiring to the Broadfield for an after party to celebrate our successful ascents. Iirc, Aleister probably wouldn’t be the maddest one in there.

Attention to detail would be the key to success, such as ensuring his revolver did not have live rounds in it.

Wellsy

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#8 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 11:33:23 am
Aleister Crowley seems a good candidate for coming back from the dead. Bold, too. Mummery would on the list too.

Please describe your day out (and the night in Fiend's favourite Gabbergore hellpit that follows) with Crowley in exhaustive detail.

Likewise Menlove. Good choice, but where you going, whatcha doing?

Menlove was said to move really well,  ahead of his time, on steep overhangs especially. I'd love to see him with modern shoes, pads etc doing the kind of futuristic boulder problems that are put up these days. Think that would be quite special

andy popp

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#9 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 11:45:39 am
Kirkus (what a surprise). A gentle Friday evening at Helsby before nipping over to Wales (I'm driving, but Colin can cycle if he wants) for a glorious long mid-summer Saturday on Cloggy.

Hoseyb

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#10 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 11:47:57 am
Too many climbers lives cut short, too easy to be romantic or maudlin. Avoiding that I'd say Joe Brown, day out in wadi rum or somewhere exploratory.

petejh

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#11 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 12:25:54 pm
Ueli Steck. Infinite Spur. He can break trail I'll follow and carry the bivi gear/food.

Duncan campbell

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#12 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 12:40:17 pm
Not a famous climber, but if I could bring one person back it would be a friend of mine who passed a few years ago in Scotland, Rachel Slater.

She was a super talented climber and really fun to hang out with. I often wonder what she would of climbed, etc had she still been alive.

Where would we go? Pembroke or euro bolt clipping I think

cheque

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#13 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 02:34:15 pm
Rice Kemper Evans. That bloke fascinates me and I think we have a lot in common- not great climbers compared to the people we associate with but basically kept around because we’re enthusiastic, good for morale and like to document things. Seems like he was a right laugh.

We’d go to High Neb and do some chimneys and stuff like Straight Crack, High Neb Buttress and Inaccessible Slab. Probably both get freaked out trying Kelly’s Overhang ‘til one of us did it then the other one would do it with the gear in place and declare it easy.  ;D

36chambers

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#14 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 02:45:20 pm
It would have to be Gullich and I'd take him around my usual DWR circuit to see whether he could keep up.

Will Hunt

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#15 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 05:01:53 pm
Nobody tempted to an honest day's chipping with Livesy?

andy popp

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#16 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 05:36:38 pm
Nobody tempted to an honest day's chipping with Livesy?

Livesey once bought me a pint on his birthday (Pete says hi).

webbo

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#17 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 07:22:00 pm
It would have to be Gullich and I'd take him around my usual DWR circuit to see whether he could keep up.
You’d be disappointed as he poo, poo bouldering.

Yossarian

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#18 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 08:16:02 pm
I would like to recreate Sideways by taking Warren Harding on a Verdon - Buoux - Cëuse road trip in a Saab convertible. Climb in the mornings, vineyard tours in the afternoons.

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#19 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 08:40:12 pm
Peter Harding. Meet at Stanage and nip up Goliath's Groove, bike home on traffic free roads via Cratcliffe, a picnic and Suicide Wall. Call by home for tea and cake, late afternoon run across Promontory Traverse and then finish with Demon Rib as the sun sets.

shark

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#20 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 27, 2021, 11:43:35 pm
Paul Williams. Don’t care where

Bradders

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#21 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 28, 2021, 08:46:30 am
It would have to be Gullich and I'd take him around my usual DWR circuit to see whether he could keep up.
You’d be disappointed as he poo, poo bouldering.

I can only imagine that would play right into 36C's hands

Will Hunt

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#22 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 28, 2021, 09:41:40 am
I'd love a day out with Tony Barley. Probably at Yeadon.

jwi

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#23 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 28, 2021, 10:43:24 am
A day of fingertip-pullups on a board followed by some uphill running with Hermann Buhl, surely.


Neil F

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#24 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 28, 2021, 10:53:15 am
I know this isn’t really in the historic spirit of this thread, though Duncan’s earlier post was on similar lines.  And I have another reason for thinking about this now…

I would give anything to bring John Allen back.  Having the chance to climb with him would be priceless, but it wouldn’t really matter where, as it was John’s company that was so special.  I’d even go for a day in the grotty limestone quarries where John spent so much of his later years’ climbing time, because however crap the rock was, the laughter still rang out.  That said, the chance to share a rope on Old Friends would be pretty special.

And the reason I was thinking about this?  I’m about 2 years into a project to cull large numbers of unwanted digital photos which are clogging up my hard drive.  By 2 years, I mean I’ve got as far as Summer 19, working backwards. The photos are all in folders named with date taken, just as I downloaded them from my camera, and the last few days has been an interesting walk down memory lane from the last couple of years – from the Shelterstone to Horseshoe Quarry (with rather more of the latter than the former, I’m embarrassed to say).

If I’m to stand any chance of ever completing this epic, I have to be ruthless and I have to be quick. So having completed the cull of one folder, I move to the next date in the sequence and open the first picture, never knowing what is going to appear…

And so it was, only yesterday, that I opened the first picture in a new folder and there was John, belaying, next to his brother Rob, leaning on that rope under the main buttress at Stoney West. And it took me right back to that fateful evening, remembering how delighted I was when we arrived at the crag to find John and Rob and Nick, because I hadn’t seen John for ages, what with Covid and everything.

And he looked in great shape. He’d lost weight and was obviously delighted to be allowed to go out climbing again, just like we all were.  And we talked about his business, and he was really optimistic about that too, as things began to open up. But that serious stuff aside, we had about 20 minutes just shooting the shit, joking, laughing, it was vintage John – glass half full and then some.

Sometimes life is very, very cruel…

SamT

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#25 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 28, 2021, 04:37:55 pm
 :'(

Oldmanmatt

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#26 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 28, 2021, 05:29:26 pm
Yeah, if I could, it wouldn’t be anyone famous.

I’d just be 12 again and having epics trying to lead some classic S/VS at Bosigran on a sunny day, with Ron Hart and my Dad taking the piss out of me from the stance. Pausing now and again to “Think Pink” or watch the Basking Sharks slink through the water below.
I don’t know if Ron is still alive or not, but he was well past retirement when I last saw him in the late ‘90s and my Dad is still here, but, well, you know, he won’t be climbing anything anymore.

Edit:
Come to think of it, it’s fucking criminal how I’ve let people that meant so much to me, kinda slip away, until I felt too awkward to look them up after so long.

mrjonathanr

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#27 Re: Lazarus Climbers
November 28, 2021, 05:59:25 pm
You’re not alone in that.

 

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