How to Climb
John Long: The Real Deal
The tao of Paul gleason, Stonemaster Emeritus
An aerial photo of Upland, California, from 40 years ago shows a gigantic orange grove, like a borderless green quilt, spreading gently off the San Antonio Mountains into the Pomona Valley flatlands, 40 miles east of LA. Dennis the Menace might have grown up here; General George S. Patton, Mark McGwire and Tom Waits actually did. So did Richard Harrison, Ricky Accomazzo and I. Back in 1970, we were 16, and most local rock climbing—which wasn’t much—flowed through the Sierra Club and several Boy Scout Explorer troops. The Riverside Search and Rescue Team, allied with the Sheriff’s Department, formed a menacing third party. In that bygone age of leisure suits, Charles Manson and Watergate, if you didn’t hitch on with one of the official outfits, you were nothing.
The groups were insular, and disapproved of outsiders winging it in their sport; you either played by their rules or slipped someone $20 to school you on the side. I paid the $20 to Jack Schnurr, a SAR member who taught me basic rockcraft in one afternoon, and another $20 to Bob Dominic, a former Eagle Scout who guided me for a day at Tahquitz. Since it took ages to raise 40 bucks (fencing rum nicked from a neighbor’s cabana bar), I declared myself fully “taught” after these two sessions. I passed on my training to Ricky and Richard, and we collectively bought a rope and a skeleton rack.
Dominic had first told me about Mount Roubidoux, a popular bouldering area near Riverside. In mid-summer, Roubidoux is a parched and smoggy wasteland choked with tumbleweeds. But in early winter, clover and wildflowers shroud the mountainside, and the air is cool and clear. Motoring up the single-lane road en route to the 100-foot summit crucifix, you pass hundreds of boulders, from 10 to 50 feet high, rearing off the angled terrain. A Monument for Peace sits near the apex, with a rock-and-mortar bridge and minaret bearing a fading brass plaque of 100 nations, erected 80 years ago by a forgotten local dreamer. Something hangs in the atmosphere—a vague but pacific feeling. From the crown of the minaret, when the Santa Ana winds blow, you can see for 100 miles.
From the first afternoon at Roubidoux, we were snubbed by anyone with a rope because we clearly were neither Boy Scouts (the cigarettes betrayed us) nor from the Sierra Club. With little gear and less experience, we needed help. But whenever a group of “proper” climbers visited Roubidoux, they’d strip our topropes and elbow us into the weeds. In the daffy dynamics of official 1970s climbing, such handling was actually an initiation ceremony, and junior group members instructed us to seize the opportunity, suck up to the leaders and plead to join. But we no more belonged in one of those groups than Tikis belong on Mars. So we stumbled down our own path. Group elders, annoyed that we’d passed on their “offer” for membership, kept horning us off popular toprope venues and boxing our car in with their Jeeps and vans.