Carothers and Camping

Blues said:
Considering that a lot of the mountains out west start from a base already a mile or more above sea level, the actual vertical rise of some of the eastern mountains are not too shabby. The highest mountains in the east are here in NC, and their base is at a much lower altitude.

Still, the western mountains are magnificent, and the ones in AK are more magnificent still in their majesty. I remember the first time I saw Foraker and Denali breaking out of the cloud cover and was pretty much "holy..."

The Wind Rivers will always be my first love as that's where I learned to climb.
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Some amazing lakes up at the top of the Wind Rivers!!! 😎
 
Blues said:
NOLS Mountaineering 1974. (With Scott Fischer...as an assistant instructor. He was pushing 20. I was 21.) There were trout there then. We ate lots.

Here's Scott on Mt. Bonneville summit:

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And yours truly:

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Awesome - thanks for sharing those pics. There weren't too many people climbing in the Winds back then, so I figured there was a good chance it was a NOLS course. That's probably the youngest picture I've ever seen of Scott. I was a NOLS instructor for 14 years, mostly in AK, Mexico and Chile ('94 - '07).
 
Smithhammer said:
Awesome - thanks for sharing those pics. There weren't too many people climbing in the Winds back then, so I figured there was a good chance it was a NOLS course. That's probably the youngest picture I've ever seen of Scott. I was a NOLS instructor for 14 years, mostly in AK, Mexico and Chile ('94 - '07).
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His future wife Jeannie was also on the trip. That's where they met. Lemme see if I have an image I can post.

Edit: I thought I had one handy, but I don't. Another time.
 
Smithhammer said:
That must have been a wild time to be on a NOLS course. The early 70s were an infamous era at the school.
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Let's say it was interesting.

Lots of fun and a good deal of aggravation. I had it out with the trip leader, and spent some time rolling around with him in front of the rest of the group.

All in all, it was an important moment in my life.
 
Smithhammer said:
Wow - Jeannie looks like a kid in that pic! I guess she kinda still was at that point.

And dig that braided climbing rope! :oops:
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Yep, she was younger than I was, and I wasn't yet 22. I wouldn't be surprised if she was 19 or so.

Goldline. We got caught in a bad storm while climbing Temple Peak or East Temple Peak, I forget now, and lightning and rock fall were becoming a big issue,

We decided we couldn't summit so I rappelled down a pitch to find another belay point to continue down the mountain. Two of the three strands of the rope got cut by rockfall and thankfully I didn't take a quicker route down the mountain.

Spliced the rope and we all got down safely. While we were waiting to do the next rappel, one of the guys, whose dad owned Eureka! Tents before Johnson Industries took them over, nearly got hit by a small boulder coming down the mountain, I just happened to look up at the right time and was able to grab him and pull him to safety. His name was Tom De Martini as I recall. He was a really funny, gregarious guy from upstate NY.
 
Blues said:
Yep, she was younger than I was, and I wasn't yet 22. I wouldn't be surprised if she was 19 or so.

Goldline. We got caught in a bad storm while climbing Temple Peak or East Temple Peak, I forget now, and lightning and rock fall were becoming a big issue,

We decided we couldn't summit so I rappelled down a pitch to find another belay point to continue down the mountain. Two of the three strands of the rope got cut by the rockfall and thankfully I didn't take a quicker route down the mountain.

Spliced the rope and we all got down safely. While we were waiting to do the next rappel, one of the guys, whose dad owned Eureka! Tents before Johnson Industries took them over, nearly got hit by a small boulder coming down the mountain, I just happened to look up at the right time and was able to grab him and pull him to safety. His name was Tom De Martini as I recall. He was a really funny, gregarious guy from upstate NY.
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Wow. Yeah, different times, for sure, before there were books full of extensive "risk mgmt protocols" and the like, as outdoor education became more structured and formalized.

Funnily enough, I only worked one course in the Winds, and that was late in my career. I was a pretty avid rock climber before I took a NOLS course, and when I'd saved up enough money to take a course, I decided I wanted it to be in something totally different that I knew nothing about. I also didn't have enough money for some of the more expensive courses, so I did a 3-week kayaking course in Mexico, and as a 23 year old, it changed my life. Next thing I knew, I was working at the MX branch doing whatever needed doing, and then a year later I got financial aid to do their 'Sea Kayak Instructor's Course" which was 5 weeks in British Columbia. They were desperate for padding instructors at the time, and so I was sucked into that program with full time work, year-round. Eventually, I started leading sailing expeditions as well, and then supervised programs in AK, Yukon and Patagonia, among other things.

Learned a lot during those years and met my Better Half. I'm glad I did it, and I'm glad I'm not doing it anymore. 😉
 
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This is also posted in the "SDFK is glorious" thread.

I went camping with my wife this weekend to get away from the city hustle and bustle, along with the acvompanying noise. It was an unplanned last minute trip, which made options for camping spots limited.

I took my Signature SDFK (SSDFK) along for the ride and decided to use it for whatever tasks popped up along the way.

We knew the area we decided on going would have plenty of dry wood from dead-fall and loose limbs. Enter the SSDFK.

In the photo below you can see a 12 to 15 foot branch from a dead tree. It was approximately 6 and 1/2 inches in diameter. I purposely made processing the wood as hard on the knife as possible. I wanted to test the legendary toughness of CPK'S delta 3V for myself.

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First, I chopped through the fork in the branch using the SSDFK in a three finger grip. Woodchips flew like confetti at a New Year's party. No problem. The limb was separated with ease.

Next, I began to baton the knife through logs I sawed off using a silky. I deliberately split directly through the hard heartwood and even a couple knots.

You can see that the knife blade was deeply embedded in one of the logs in the picture below.
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I hammered the spine of the knife savagely, as hard as I could, to get it to split the log. Then when the SSDFK was so deep in the wood that I couldn't hit the spine any longer, I pummeled the exposed front portion of the blade, showing no mercy or concern for the tip. As I smashed the hard log, chosen as my mallet, into the knife over and over again, I thought I saw the edge of the spine begin to glint and roll slightly. This didn't change the force I used, but my confidence wavered ever so slightly.

At one point the knife was wedged so tightly and deeply I couldn't baton it further into the log. So I raised the knife with the log attached, high up and brought it smashing down into the pavement as hard as I could. The flat bottom of the wood hit the pavement so hard that the concussive soundwave generated sent my dogs running like they'd been stung by a hornet. I kept swinging it down over and over until finally the wood flew apart, split in half.

The next log was worse and I ended up in a similar position. After a few strikes using the knife as a lever to bring the stubborn lumber thundering down on the concrete, the knife began to shift. Soon it was parallel to the log, so I started to pry back and forth with the blade.

I stuck my thickly glove fingers in the widening split on the same side as the blade's spine and I pried the knife hard, like a crowbar. At one point, I even wedged the side of my boot sole in the crack and pulled on the knife with both hands. Eventually, the wood ripped apart, but there were a few times the lateral force being exerted on the blade made me a little nervous. I had to remind myself that the CPK rough use warranty had me covered.

This process was repeated for some time and once all the wood was processed, it was time to inspect the damage.

There was just one problem. There was no damage. Absolutely none.

Where I thought I saw glinting on the spine's edge, it must have been wood particulates or dirt because it was in the exact same condition as when I unsheathed the knife. The tip of the blade was unscathed, despite being repeatedly battered with a large hard log. The story was the same for the edge of the blade. Not a knick, roll, or chip to be seen. No glinting, no detectable flat spots. Nothing.

The blade wasn't shaving hair anymore, but it was still sharp enough to easily make perfect feather-sticks. After a quick wash, thinly slicing some venison summer sausage for a snack was no challenge either. The edge had zero snags and performed exactly as you'd expect if it had never seen prior use.

All I could think, with a smirk and a small hint of chagrin for doubting my CPK, was, "Damn, I love this knife! This is going to be a good campout." And it most definitely was.
 
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