From: rgo@druhi.att.com (Ron Olsen)
Newsgroups: rec.climbing
Subject: Re: climb sport lingo
Date: 23 Jul 92 21:39:00 GMT
Reply-To: r.g.olsen@att.com
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Denver CO

|> Yea, there should be a glossary posted to this group on a regular basis.

Here, for your reading enjoyment, is an article I posted
several months ago...

----------------------------------------------------------------
There has been some talk lately on the net about the meaning
of various terms, such as "red point", "pink point", etc.

To put this matter to rest, I turn to the definitions
by John Long and Russ Walling
in John's excellent book "Face Climbing",
which I highly recommend to all aspiring hard-persons:


Onsight Free Solo

	Angus MacGillicuddy has never been to Mt. Hogwash.
	Walking along the base, Angus spots a line of bolts
	up an overhanging schist intrusion.  He fancies the
	look of the route, laces up his boots, blows his nose,
	chalks up and gapes at several girls from the Swedish
	Sport Climbing Team, who are limbering up and changing
	into bright-colored tights.  Psyched, Angus winks, spits
	into his palms, then solos up the schist intrusion.

Free Solo

	Angus has been to Mt. Roughage several times.
	On two occasions, he's climbed The Watercloset,
	a difficult route that follows a basalt intrusion
	via  chancy dynamics.  Angus has it in mind to solo
	The Watercloset.  Now at the base, he laces up, touches
	his toes, exhales hard, then solos the route.

Worked Solo

	Angus has been coming to Mt. Peatmoss for 11 years.
	He's lead Compost 50 times, toproped it 70 times,
	and, also on a toprope, has worked the crux bit over
	and over till he knows it better than the hair on his palms.
	Now he plans to `solo' Compost, an intricate razor job
	up a monzonite intrusion.  At the base, he flexes his guns,
	flexes his back, flexes his loins, jumps onto Compost and solos it
	in six minutes.

Onsight Flash or A Vue

	Angus has never been to Mt. Basura.  One route, The Offal,
	takes a loose line up a steep albeit trashy intrusion.
	Angus racks up and leads The Offal straight off,
	placing all the gear.  He takes no falls, nor a single
	rest on the line.

Beta Flash

	This is Angus' first trip to Mt. Gismo.  At the local pub,
	Angus runs into Jack Nastyface, the local hardman.  Since
	Angus is buying, Jack describes down to the last pinky lock
	the sequence for climbing The Honest Indonesian, an improbable
	Mt. Gismo test piece following a sketchy dun intrusion.
	With the sequence memorized, Angus flashes the route
	the next afternoon.

Deja Vu

	It's been some years since Angus was last at Mt. Tallywhacker.
	He remembers trying the Chamfered Luby -- and failing miserably.
	The successive lunges along the scarlet intrusion notwithstanding,
	he remembers little about the route.  But Angus is a better climber
	than he was 7 years ago, and the next morning, he manhandles
	the Chamfered Luby on his `first' try.

Red Point

	Angus has tried to climb The Widget on Mt. Sputnik for five
	years now.  He's aided it, toproped it, studied it from a helicopter,
	on jumars, with opera glasses.  Finally, he leads it, no falls,
	placing the gear as he goes.

Pink Point

	Angus has been trying to climb The Bullwhip on Mt. Maplethorp
	for 10 years.  He's gotten close, and after hosing the Windgate
	intrusion with Gumout, squeegeeing it clean, then buffing
	each hold with 600-grit sand paper, he wants to try the lead once
	again.  But first, he raps down the route, places all the gear,
	then flashes the lead.

Brown Point

	Angus has never tried Intelligent Gas From Uranus on Mt. Bachar.
	He starts up the blank face between the two brown intrusions full
	of intentions to make a flash ascent.  Things go bad in a hurry,
	and Angus soon is hanging from the cord.  He's quickly on a toprope,
	pulling through the first two grim bits.  Later, stumped at the crux,
	he incorporates a side rope, one etrier and a `come along' belay.
	This makes Angus feel like he's got the strength of 10 men
	as he works out the crux.  Within hours, he stands on the summit,
	ready to rap down and place the gear for a `pink point'
	ascent the next day.

Other Techniques

	There are other procedures that Angus sometimes employs in
	his quest for the summit that are worth mentioning.  For instance,
	he's been known to `hangdog.'  That is, after he falls off
	his lead attempt, he won't hesitate to hang on the rope,
	rest, then carry on fully refreshed.

	When Angus first went to Mt. Pipedream, he didn't have time for
	too many shenanigans, but he did want to bag The Tiajuana Virgin,
	a nearly non-existent line of pockets along an ivory intrusion.
	To save time, he rapped down to the crux, worked it out on a toprope,
	then rapped to the deck and `red pointed' the route.
	Thus, Angus had `speed dogged' the route (also known as `greyhounding').

	At Mt. Cameltoe, Angus desperately wanted to scale The Man in the Boat,
	but first wanted the beta.  He sent his hapless buddy --
	Shawn O'Sean -- up to work out the moves, while he watched smugly
	from below.  Shawn was `seeing-eye dogging' for Angus, who was
	then set to try his Beta Flash.

	Also at Mt. Cameltoe, Angus took a liking to The Pipefitter.
	He did not, however, like the looks of the first bolt,
	which was 30 feet off the talus.  Angus needed a `coon dog'
	to go up and fetch him that first clip.  Shawn had already
	mounted The Pipefitter 69 times before, and gladly
	`coon dogged' for Angus.  He clipped the first bolt, lowered,
	then handed off the blunted sharp end for Rover to take over --
	in relative safety.

	Angus encountered a similar situation at Mt. Hamstring.
	The Rocky Mountain Oyster followed an overhanging intrusion,
	and the first bolt, way the hell up there, already had a quickdraw
	on it.  Nobody's fool, Angus took a long bight of rope, twirled it
	over his head like a lariat and hurled it at the in situ quickdraw.
	The bight of rope hit the dogleg carabiner at the gate and with a
	click!, Angus was clipped in!  He named this method the `rodeo clip.'

	Angus certainly is not one, but he's known a few `dog's asses.'
	These are craven swine who cannot accept defeat and alter
	an existing route to make it easier for them to scale,
	placing additional bolts, chiseling holds, etc.
	Starvation, thirst and financial ruin to them all.

----------

	Ron Olsen
	Boulder, Colorado
	r.g.olsen@att.com