Dont Skate Mate

by Dave Diegelman

Title

Dont Skate Mate

Artist

Dave Diegelman

Medium

Photograph - Archival Photographs

Description

Don’t Skate Mate started out as a relatively benign pitch. There was even a few decent placements off of the belay and that was a rarity on the Sea. In this image you can even see a friend placement to concur. Friends were on loan from the inventor, Ray Jardine, and proved to be a foray into the future that we were given a glimpse of. My shoes were Pevitta Muir Trails pilfered from my brother, a size too small and held together with shallow screws due to the delaminating soles. Robbins wall boots were the shoes of choice for big walls back then but they were no longer produced and way out of my dirtbag budget. My boots sucked for free climbing and for aid as they didn’t allow for much purchase against the rock. Hard aid climbing actually uses quite a bit of free-climbing technique as one’s feet in stirrups often use natural holds for stability, especially when doing long reaches sideways, so I wasn’t stoked about my selection in shoes but the price was right.

Our rack consisted of the state-of-the-art gear back then; all manor of pitons, hexes and stoppers, copperheads and alumi-heads, three types of commercially available hooks (Chouinard, Leeper pointed and Leeper flat) and 10 homemade hooks from old army ring-angle pitons to accommodate the various depths needed for placements ranging from 1” to 4” in from the edge of any protruding bulges. The ring angles had no stabilization and rotated easily plus their tips were rounded and had very little bite on the securing edge. All-in-all it was a total crapshoot when heading out on each pitch on a new route because you never really knew what lay ahead which is what a bolt kit was for just incase there wasn’t anything else that would work.

As the pitch progressed there came a point where I reached a blank space on a shallow arête but it looked like there might be the possibility of a blind hook move out to my left around the bulge. I read the rock by braille but nothing was feeling useful. I was on a pretty bad copperhead placement and eager to get on to something more substantial so I decided to top-step in my aiders and lean out to explore more possibilities. Then, I found it; a decent edge that seemed like it work well for a hook. I set the hook and lowered myself down my aiders to where I could bounce test it without being above my crappy copperhead placement so that if things went sideways, I wouldn’t put any more strain on it as would be the case from testing from too high on my aiders. It held, phew! I carefully came up my aiders to discover that it was a severely slopping ledge and the hook already had skate marks nearing the edge. Yikes! I pondered drilling a rivet placement but didn’t want to spend that much time on this timebomb so I fished around for another hook placement but as I searched, again the only hope was a top-step to reach what looked feasible. Again I found myself finding a blind edge but this time I didn’t want to bounce test it heavily since it was not feeling too secure so I lowered myself and very gingerly tested just my bodyweight and called it good. Upon visual connection, it was worse than the last one and now I really felt like my ass was on the line since there wasn’t anything that would hold a fall immediately below me. To add insult to injury, I had also just violated the cardinal rule of hard aid climbing, “Thow shall not proceed without a serious bounce test” or in Biblical terms, “test all things and hold fast to what is good.” (1 Thes. 5:21).

(story continued at: http://tinyurl.com/5n6e49pj)

If you're interested in acquiring a mural-sized wall covering of this piece, feel free to inquire via email. It's a part of my Limited Edition series, with only 100 prints available. Please note that the price increases as it sells. Just like all my editions, you can obtain certificates of authenticity by providing proof of purchase and your mailing address. Please send the necessary information to ddiegelman@gmail.com.

Photo & Text All Rights Reserved © Dave Diegelman

Curious about living in Southern Utah?... Here’s what’s AVAILABLE NOW: tinyurl.com/yw26y77p

Uploaded

January 29th, 2024

Colors

Embed

Share

Tags