UKC

Tita Piaz articles

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 profitofdoom 22 Oct 2021
In reply to Deuce4:

It would be great if you could say what the links are that you are posting, and why you are posting them. Thanks very much 

Post edited at 22:44
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 Ian Parsons 23 Oct 2021
In reply to Deuce4:

Hi John

Thanks for posting these up; a fascinating glimpse of an early and clearly significant Dolomite pioneer of whose life - for my part, at least - while certainly aware, I knew very little detail.

 Mick Ward 23 Oct 2021
In reply to profitofdoom:

Well I think the author, a well-known and utterly credible climber, is simply letting us know about some fascinating research he's done about 'one who went before', as it were. And what a one!

I remember reading Doug Scott's Big Wall Climbing in the early 1970s and being amazed at a whole bunch of characters who went on big, hard walls mostly in Italy and Austria in the first decades of the twentieth century with rubbish gear and slim to no chances of getting rescued. Many of their routes are ones you'd have to take seriously today, almost a century later, even with route descriptions, fixed gear, modern equipment, decent weather forecasts, mobile phones, good rescue facilities, etc, etc. These guys had next to nothing! It's unbelievably humbling.

Mick

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 profitofdoom 23 Oct 2021
In reply to Mick Ward:

Thanks, Mick!

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 alexm198 23 Oct 2021
In reply to Deuce4:

Wonderful. Thank you for sharing these. I was actually thinking to myself the other day that it is surprising that there is so little English language information about Piaz, so I look forward to reading! 

 Lankyman 23 Oct 2021
In reply to Deuce4:

He had a dog called 'Satan' who carried his ropes to the foot of the crag. The man had style!

Post edited at 16:15
 TobyA 23 Oct 2021
In reply to Mick Ward:

> Well I think the author, a well-known and utterly credible climber, is simply letting us know about some fascinating research he's done about 'one who went before', as it were.

This is true if you click on the links and see John Middendorf's name (and probably if you are old enough to remember when John was still regularly in the magazines and so on!), but from "Deuce4" with no information on their UKC profile, I don't know if that's Mr Middendorf himself, or just a fan. I suspect very few people here would know. There have been lots of newly registered and basically anonymous accounts popping up recently, often posting one or two climbing related messages before lapsing into covid-denialism, which you suspects was always their intention. If Deuce4 is John Middendorf, he could just pop that in his profile and it would be great to have someone with that lifetime of big wall experience contributing to UKC. But Deuce4 could just be another sock puppet who will soon start telling up to take weird veterinary drugs while not wearing masks! 

And yes, I see the irony of someone called "profitofdoom" with a blank profile, questioning other equally anonymous posters, but Mr P O Doom has been a contributing member of UKC for a I think ages, and I don't think has tried to persuade us to take cow de-wormer to cure us from Covid. Yet.

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 Rob Parsons 23 Oct 2021
In reply to TobyA:

Um - rather than navel gaze, why not just read the effing articles! They're interesting.

(And yes it is John Middendorf. So everybody can stop worrying now.)

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 Rob Parsons 23 Oct 2021
In reply to Mick Ward:

> I remember reading Doug Scott's Big Wall Climbing in the early 1970s and being amazed at a whole bunch of characters who went on big, hard walls mostly in Italy and Austria in the first decades of the twentieth century with rubbish gear and slim to no chances of getting rescued. Many of their routes are ones you'd have to take seriously today, almost a century later, even with route descriptions, fixed gear, modern equipment, decent weather forecasts, mobile phones, good rescue facilities, etc, etc. These guys had next to nothing! It's unbelievably humbling.

Doug Scott's book is great - I remember reading it a long time ago and having exactly the same reaction. Another name that jumps out from it is Paul Preuss.

On Piaz: I might be misremembering things, but I have a recollection that he was mentioned on this site donkey's years ago, and that Mick Ryan (who used to be associated with this site) claimed some direct family connection to him. I could be wrong.

Post edited at 17:30
 profitofdoom 23 Oct 2021
In reply to TobyA:

> And yes, I see the irony of someone called "profitofdoom" with a blank profile, questioning other equally anonymous posters, but Mr P O Doom has been a contributing member of UKC for a I think ages, and I don't think has tried to persuade us to take cow de-wormer to cure us from Covid. Yet.

I see your point! My name may look a bit funny, but I'm named after the Curbar climb Profit of Doom (E4 6b) (which I haven't done). I am a super-keen lifelong climber and walker and I've been on UKC for 8 years. I wouldn't dream of posting Covid-19 rubbish, I'm double vaccinated and am very glad for the vaccines and for the NHS

OP Deuce4 24 Oct 2021

Wow!  thanks to all for comments!

Writing is definitely a labor or love, you never know if people end up reading any of your work. Very encouraging to see these responses from UK climbing! (I just did an interview with Paul Pritchard on his new book, and I think he said it will appear on this site).

Sorry not to explain further--I am taking a short break from writing as I am teaching high school full-time this term, so just quickly posted the links.  In a nutshell:

I am re-delving into the history of tools created for climbing--the premise being an innovation of tools generally precedes jumps in climbing standards.  I originally wrote this article for Ascent Journal, 1999 with Steve Roper and Al Steck as my editors--back then all research was done in dusty libraries and language dictionaries.  Now there is lots of source info out there (and also many internet 'myths'), so it is great to be able to really delve into the primary journals to uncover new historical tidbits relating to the state-of-the-art gear of each era (my engineering degree also helps to read "between the lines" in many cases).

I have not ever seen anything in depth on Tita Piaz in English, even though there are many books on him in German, Swiss, Italian, and French, so I really delved into more on his history in this series (at least one more part coming on Piaz's early "big wall" climbs).  He really seems to me the epitome "proto-climber", more so than the other heroes more widely known from the early 1900's.

Cheers from Tasmania,   John Middendorf

Other bits and bobs from this series (links at http://bigwallgear.com, please sign up!)

  1. In the Beginning: Subtle Means and Engines
  2. Pre-1492 climbing tools
  3. The Modern Era of Mountaineering (1786)
  4. American Trail Builders, 1800's
  5. The rise of iron for ascent
  6. Rope Technology in the 19th century
  7. Mizzi Langer -- first advertised rock climbing pitons (Mauerhaken)
  8. Climbing Pitons Early Evolution--part 1a
  9. Climbing Pitons Early Evolution--part 1b
  10. Climbing Pitons Early Evolution--part 1c
  11. Climbing Pitons Early Evolution--part 1d
  12. Climbing Pitons Early Evolution-part 1e
  13. Tita Piaz-Alpinisto Acrobatico (Piaz PartA)
  14. Campanile Basso di Brenta
  15. Tita Piaz-Speed Climber and Rope Acrobat (Piaz PartB)
  16. Tita Piaz-Guide and Rigging Expert (Piaz PartC)
  17. Tools and Climbing Styles
Post edited at 01:52

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