Got pretty slacked looking at my one post about "death" so thought I try to move it on down.
I caught some free time when a job didn't gel and took a quick run through of Frenchman's Coulee [also known as Vantage]climbing area.
Lot's of basalt routes, ok, it's all basalt routes
Did a run up a chimney route called Seven Virgins and a Mule, 5.7 which brought back this quote –
"Anybody can put up a classic route, but it takes real talent to come up with a great route name." Charlie Fowler.
Since I'm not primarily a rock climber anything I ever named came out something like "Grunty Desperate Sweat Pocket of Death"
A few of us might remember Ray Jardine as the first person to climb 5.13a [The Phoenix, Yosemite]in 1977 and the part of the first team to free climb the West Face of El Cap in 1979 so somehow this is an appropriate thread, eh?
The worse mistake any climber can make is to name a route after their girl or boyfriend. It is an instant relationship ender. Of course every rock climber I ever met was either struggling to get a girlfriend or keep their girlfriend, I just have to assume it crosses the gender line the other way too as I'm somewhat lacking in funds for the surgery and hormone therapy required to test my hypothesis.
The actual aged icon Fred Beckey
lost his girlfriend eleven secoonds after naming a route for her, the Vasiliki Tower.
Vasiliki Tower on the left.
[Beckey invented the Puffing Effect to Pick Up Girls requiring all hardware, ropes, etc to on the pack's outside of whichever lackey was acting as the B-Sherpa attracting the maximum female attention and companionship.]
The only other route of Beckey's I can remember is Nixon's Nose up in the Enchantments.
I went through quite a stretch where I would crawl back to the pub bragging on some complete brain freeze of a climb I just finished being informed the Donini did it in the 70s [or Beckey in the 40s] wasting whatever glorious piece of imagination I had transfered to my masterpiece.
So on to the question – great route names – line'em up, guys and gals.
