ציטוט:
נכתב במקור על ידי FireArrow:
אני מבקש רק כן או לא.בלי נימוקים ותוספות נוספות ומיותרות.
תודה.
אם אתה מבקש תשובה ישירה אז בסדר, למרות שזה לא כלכך פשוט:
Warren Harding, George Whitmore, and Wayne Merry are lashed to a hanging stance, 3000 feet up El Capitan. It's November. The days are cold and short, and afternoon shadows already streak up the wall beneath them. They gaze overhead, and despair: will they ever get off? Will it ever be over?
On this, their final push, the trio has been on the wall 11 days, twice as long as any American has ever spent on a rock climb. Below a pitched battle, every lead sieged. They've met obstacles no rock climber has ever seen, let alone mastered--wild pendulums, nailing expanding flakes, and the back-breaking task of hauling vast supplies up the cliff side. And now, only a 50-foot headwall bars them from the summit of the mightiest rock wall in the contiguous United States. But that headwall, that last 50 feet, is dead blank and overhanging. They'll have to retreat 350 feet to Camp 6 and a good ledge, and tackle the headwall in the morning.
There comes a point in every great climber's career when technique, or fitness, or even genius falls short, that moment when success depends on brute willpower. And just then, Warren Harding was marshaling his. Never mind the swollen hands, the mangled gear and frayed ropes; ignore the rats that gnawed through haul bags, the rain and sleet and chilling retreats or the running feud with rangers; and forget the private terrors and all the sleepless nights because finally, hanging in a web of tattered slings, Harding can nearly spit to the top. Light? He don't need no stinking light!
So Harding starts bolting. And in an epic no climber should ever forget, he hammers through the night, finally punches home the 28th and last bolt, and stumbles to the top just as dawn spills into the valley. The first ascent of The Nose, one of the greatest pure rock climbs in the world, is done. It is November 12, 1958.
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When I started climbing in 1969, El Capitan had a reputation so fantastic that if you ever met someone who had actually climbed it, you went up and touched his robes. It wasn't until the summer of 1970 that I made it to Yosemite.
To the teenager whose dreams are staked wholly in rock climbing, as mine were, that first trip to the base of El Capitan is a lasting event. You park on the loop road fringing a lush meadow. The tour bus chugs past and over the loudspeaker you hear, "And, at 3143 feet high, and over a mile and a half wide, El Capitan is the largest piece of exposed granite in the world." [This oft-repeated bit of information is actually false, as pointed out by Steve Roper in his wonderful book "Camp 4": the walls lining the Ruth Glacier and the Baltoro Glacier (the Trango Towers) are larger.] You stumble into the forest and wend through the pines that finally open up, and there--before you, above you, around you--a sea of granite soars straight off the talus, stunning for its colors and sheer bulk; and terrible for the emptiness that sets in your gut as your eyes pan up its titanic corners and towers.
Faint voices trickle down and you squint up, up, finally spotting two specks. And you shudder. So you do your little climb at the base, then hike down, stealing glances over your shoulder. Then you walk out into the meadow and just stare up at nature's magnum opus.
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If someone had told me, as I stood in the meadow after that first trip up to El Capitan, that I would some day climb it in one day, I would have laughed in his face. But that was before I had met Jim Bridwell, before I'd climbed The Nose with British ace Ron Fawcett, and before climbers considered themselves adventure athletes. (That mind-set entered in the early 1970s.)
And that was also before a certain article appeared in a climbing magazine, featuring Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler after their 10-hour blitz of the 4600-foot North Face of the Eiger. The shot showcased the duo in matching guides' sweaters and saber-creased knickers, the ice-plastered Eiger towering in the background. The article called theirs the greatest speed climbing achievement ever, never to be surpassed.
Sitting around in Yosemite's Mountain Room Bar, Jim Bridwell looked annoyed, his index finger drumming the photo. The he shoved the magazine aside. We would set the record straight, Bridwell promised. And on a class cliff, not some "heap." That business about "we" caught my attention. And so it happened that, over a couple of beers, the plan came together to try and climb The Nose in one day.
It broke down like this: I was the designated free climber and would lead the first leg to the top of Boot Flake, 17 pitches up--comparatively straightforward crack pitches we presumed would go quickly. Billy Westbay, a Colorado climber superb at both aid and free climbing, would lead the more intricate middle section from the Boot to Camp 5, the 25th pitch. Then Bridwell would take it on home with the last seven.
In my own mind the plan quickly took on fantastic importance, the kind only a 19-year old could attach to it; and so began a long winter of running stairs, trying to climb 50 pitches in one day at Joshua Tree, backing off (but not foregoing) all vice, and paying slim attention to studies. When Jim, Billy, and I stalked toward the base of El Capitan on Memorial Day, 1975, I felt like I was going to hoist the flag over Iwo Jima.
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We started at 5 a.m, in the dark. The first four mixed pitches went under headlamps, and smoothly. That put us onto Sickle Ledge and The Nose proper, where the southeast and the southwest faces converge to form the great sweeping prow the route is named after. Beyond a fourth-class bit off Sickle Ledge, I started fumbling with some dicey stemming. I had no pro, my headlamp was flickering on and off, and dawn light was slow in coming. I finally pawed up to a bolt and yelled down that I was going to wait a few moments before trying the pendulum, so I could see what the hell I was doing. But Jim would hear none of that, so I blindly swung right and somehow found the 5.8 hand crack. In a minute I hung in slings as Jim and Billy raced up behind--Jim jumaring the lead rope, Billy on the trail rope, both funky nine-millimeter lines. (One of the ropes, a tired old yellow one, had several holes in the sheath and a long oil stain on one end; but there was no use asking about it now.) The man jumaring the free rope would wind-sprint up to the leader with a third rope, and start belaying him before the man cleaning the previous pitch had arrived. That was the concept, anyway, and was meant to save time. But since I hadn't gotten any protection in they both arrived simultaneously, and very quickly.
And off I went. A strenuous 5.9 flare led to a long bolt ladder and the first of the spectacular pendulums--a wild running swing right to the Stoveleg Crack (so named because on the first ascent, Harding nailed it using four crude pitons forged from the legs of an old gas stove scavenged from the Berkeley city dump).
You lower down about 60 feet, then start swinging back and forth. now at speed, you go for it, feet kicking hard, digging right, hurdle a corner, you feel the momentum ebbing, so you dive, yes, dive! If you've chanced it right, you plop a hand into a perfect jam just as your legs start to swing back. You kip your torso, kick a boot in and you're on line. The laser-cut fracture shoots up the prow for 350 feet of primarily perfect hand-jamming, each pitch ending in stark hanging belays.
I had hoped for a number of fixed pitons, but found few. We'd only brought a couple of big nuts, none of which I took on the first 5.10 pitch, thinking the fixed pins I saw above were good, soon to discover that the eyes had been blasted off by greedy hammers. (This was long before Friends, remember.) I didn't get a single nut in that pitch.
I kept climbing recklessly fast and Jim and Billy kept gassing up the lines so quickly that they gained the belays sucking wind. Then one would hand me the rack and Bridwell would ask what I was waiting for.
I took our few big chocks on the next lead, but only got one in. Two hundred feet higher, I chugged up an oily off-size slot and manteled onto Dolt Tower--and was face to face with two young Seattle climbers just slithering from their bags. It was 7 a.m. and the two begged to know what we were up to. When Billy arrived he lied that we'd forgotten the haul bag and had to make time or suffer a bivouac without gear or vitals.
Dolt Tower (named after Bill "Dolt" Feuerer, one of Harding's partners during initial efforts on the route) is flat and spacious, and is the first place to kick back and take stock of things. Perhaps 20 percent of all parties bail straight off from here because, while the cliff below plunges straight to the deck, the summit still seems miles away. If you ever get there, don't be fooled by the illusion. If you've gotten this far, only your mind can defeat you. And to be sure, climbing El Capitan is more an odyssey through your own mind than any physical task.
I tensioned right, into a steep laybacking corner, and ran two pitches together. Aside from the pendulum points and the bolt ladder above Dolt Hole, I'd managed only a couple of nuts in the last eight pitches--a really sketchy performance that would almost get me. But not just yet.
An easy bend and we were on El Cap Towers, a perfectly flat granite patio. Now, above the comparatively low-angle Stovelegs, the upper wall rifles up into razor-cut dihedrals. Out right looms the fearsome sweep of the southeast face, which during dawn light draws fabulous hues into its keeping. There lie the world's most notorious nail-ups. Since Royal Robbins, Check Pratt, Yvon Chouinard, and Tom Frost first scaled it in 1963, with the North America Wall, what human wonders this great sprawl of granite must have seen! All the tense leaders, their terrors and doubts and battered hands, hooking and bashing their way up its overhanging immensity. And all the moon-eyes glaring at belay bolts hanging half out of its gritty diorite bands, where a dropped peg strikes nothing but the ground, many feet out from the wall. A precious few specialists thrive on this kind of work, but I've never been one of them.
Across the valley looms the great tinctured bulk of Middle Cathedral, a monster without the meance; and to the left still, piebald coulds boiling over Half Dome's cleft North Face, veiled in ancient shade.
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We took a short break. We were about halfway up the wall and it wasn't much after 7 a.m. We slacked off a bit, knowing we had only to keep going to make the top by early afternoon. Had we known some years later people would keep track of how many hours a one-day ascent took, we might have pressed on at the same rabid pace. But I doubt it. Just then, simply climbing El Cap in one day was the concern.
We peeled off our sweaters, cinched them into a knot, and pitched them off. This left us in pretty absurd garb--circus-colored bellbottoms and psychedelic shirts and vests--an intentional mockery of the conservative threads Habeler and Messner wore in that photo. Down below, the meadow started to fill with our friends, with an occasional car horn encouraging us to even greater speed. We'd made no secret about our plan, and over the previous few days dozens of climbers approached us to wish us luck. Did we need any gear? Did we need a ride to the base? Did we want someone to meet us on top? Mike White, a Valley regular, summed it up when he told me to "do us proud." We had all of Camp 4 to account to if we failed.
Just above El Cap Towers an unprotected chimney gained the top of Texas Flake, a thick exfoliating block the shape of which suggest the Lone Star state. Just off it, a 50-foot holt ladder finds Boot Flake--detached and resounding to the thump--previously an exciting exercise in "expando" nailing, but recently free climbed at stiff 5.10. I clipped up the bolts, reached the crack on the right side of the Boot and immediately cranked into a layback, anxious to power it off and be done with leading. Foolishly, I chose to run out the entire Boot.
Suddenly, when I was way the hell out there, a cramp paralyzed my right forearm. My fingers curled into a fist and I felt as if I had an anvil in my pants, pulling me off. The fall looked to be a large and painful one, directly onto about where Amarillo would be on Texas Flake. I dangled off an ever-creeping left jam and desperately tried to shake out. No good. Panting, I jerkily downclimbed a few moves, slotted in a borderline nut and hung on it long enough to jiggle the cramp out. Partially recovered, I frigged up to the top of the Boot, clipped off the cabled five-bolt anchor, and kissed the rock. My part was done. It wasn't quite 8 a.m.
Jim had the lead switch all worked out. I clipped the rack onto the haul line and slid it down to Billy, then put him on belay--on the haul line. He drew a deep breath and shot off across the King Swing, an enormous pendulum left. He latched the first fixed pin, lowered, then swung left again and fired up into a steep groove.
The course now passes through a 300-foot gray diorite band involving the only nebulous climbing on the route. In a magnificent bit of anything goes, Billy would yank up on a bashie, crank off bleak laybacking, edge up onto a fixed pin, go unprotected over loose face climbing, pendulum this way and tension that way. In an hour and a half we were on Camp 4, several small shelves below the Great Roof. Billy dashed on, clipping up a string of antique ring angles.
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Billy had worked the winter on the Wyoming and Montana oil rigs. January days had been 20 below, when a 12-pound pick-axe ricochets off the frozen earth. The rig's bore-shaft continuously puked "gumbo"--driller's mud--which lambasted him and instantly froze on his clothes like quick-set cement. The pay wasn't so good. Thoughts of blitzing The Nose had seen Billy through many 14-hour shifts.
When Frost, Pratt, Robbins, and Fitschen made the first continuous ascent of The Nose in 1960, they all agreed the Great Roof was "easily the most spectacular pitch in Yosemite." Not for challenge, but for the splendor of the colossal arc of creamy granite, which ends at an edge-of-the-world sling belay. Billy got us there before noon.
A pitch up the Pancake Flake, thin as a flapjack in spots, a decent jamming pitch, and we were on Camp 5--another terrace in the sky. It was barely past noon, and we knew we only had to keep plugging away at an easy pace. Or Jim did, since he now had the lead. And Jim needed a breather. While Billy and I had spent the previous months doing long routes and honing up, Jim hadn't done any climbing at all. Nothing! At that time, 16 years ago, there probably wasn't another climber alive who could have gotten away with this.
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Jim Bridwell... Like Billy and me, he came from nowhere in particular. Just under six feet, weighed 170, maybe less. Had been a top high jumper and hurdler in high school. Got a track scholarship to San Jose State. He'd passed the tough military exams to become a fighter pilot, but declined in the face of the Vietnam debacle. From that moment on his only ambition was to become the best climber he could. he'd revolutionized the sport. Yet he was entirely modest. Yosemite was proud of Bridwell.
By Camp 6, the last big ledge two pitches higher, I regretted not having worn a harness as my swami belt--two wraps of two-inch webbing--felt to chafe right down to my spleen. We'd all worn our free-climbing boots which were too damn tight. The water ran out. Jim smacked his thumb with the hammer. When the trail line snagged a pitch higher, instead of rappeling down to free it, I simply yanked as hard as I could, eventually pulling off a granite torpedo the size of a small boy. "You idiot!" Jim yelled. We carried on. ...
We were over 2500 feet up the wall now, into the really prime stuff. Here the exposure is so enormous, and your perspective so distorted, that the horizontal world becomes incomprehensible. You're a granite astronaut, dangling in a kind of space/time warp. And if there is any place where you will understand why men and women climb mountains, it is here in these breezy dihedrals, high in the sky.
Pitch after pitch fell beneath us, and by the time we gained the final bolt ladder, we just wanted off. Other routes are steeper, more exposed than The Nose. But no route has a more dramatic climax. The headwall is short--50 feet--and after that, everything ends abruptly after a few friction steps. But since Harding's day, some madman has re-engineered the last belay so that it hangs at the very brink of the headwall, a mind-boggling nest where all 34 pitches spill down beneath your boots. It's a master stroke, that hanging belay, for it gives climbers a moment of pause at one of the most spectacular spots in all of American climbing. Cars creep along the loop road three-quarters of a mile below, broad forests appear as brushed green carpets and, for one immortal moment, you feel a giant in a world of ants. Then suddenly, it's over.
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On the summit, there was no celebration, no elation at all. Topping out on El Capitan after the first one-day ascent should have been one of those few momentous occasions in our lives. But, typically, we were caught in the transitional spin and none of it registered.
During those first few instants on top, curious reactions are the rule. Whether you've taken one day or one week, you are a different person than the one who started some 3000 feet below. I've heard of climbers hugging boulders, punching partners, and weeping openly--some from relief, some sad that it's over. I have seen other climbers babbling incoherently and I once saw a middle-aged Swiss team simply shake hands, abandon their gear and stroll off for the Falls trail, their climbing careers at once made and finished right there. For us, I only remember coiling ropes and booking for the East Ledges descent route, everyone cussing at having not brought a pair of tennis shoes. We got down to the loop road just as darkness fell.
As we stumbled around a bend, El Capitan burst into view, shimmering under a full moon. If you want to know something of the world's age, look at El Capitan in the moonlight. My feet suddenly felt fine and for a long beat, we three just stood fast and gaped up at it; and the majesty of the cliff, and what it meant to us to have climbed it in one day, finally struck home.
ולמרה שמעניין אותך הוספתי גם מאמר על קומפקט דיסקים, אני חושב שאם תקרא תקבל את התשובה שלך
When CD's first hit the market around 1982, there was talk of the crystal clear sound that was as close to having the original master recording right in your own listening room. Unfortunately, that is not the case when it comes to some CD's released of older recordings. Most studios are all digital now, so this is how it USED to work.
A group would go in the studio with their producer and record their songs. In order to make sure they could control the volume of each individual instrument and voice, they would use tape machines that have 16, 24 or more tracks. After the songs are recorded, they are copied from the multi-track tape down to the two track stereo format we have in our homes. This is the first generation mix-down tape. That tape is the actual true original master recording of the songs on the album.
Next, since LP's and 45's don't have quite the dynamic range as the original master tape (as much space between the quietest and loudest parts of the songs) a compressor or fancy automatic level control is used so things don't get quite as loud or soft as they did originally. In addition, corrections were made with a device called an equalizer. This device can very accurately increase or decrease the highs and lows much more selectively than the standard Bass and Treble on your home stereo. After this "tweaking" is finished, that copy is called the official "studio production master" which is what will be copied onto LPs and 45s, etc. If this special mastering wasn't done, the needle would fly off of the record as soon as it got to a part to loud and the noise would be such on the soft parts that you couldn't hear the music.
Remember we are using all standard analog tapes and machines with noise reduction like Dolby®, DBX®, etc. to keep things quiet. So no matter how good our equipment is, we are now using a copy of the original "Studio Master" (sometimes called Lacquer Master for cutting lacquers used in vinyl production) or second generation master. Most studios have more than one pressing plant where they made the LP's and 45's. So, 2 or 3 copies of the second generation "studio master" are made and sent to the pressing plants. And of course each record bought in the store is then yet another copy. So, now our LP is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of the original multi-track recording of the band. I don't care how good your analog equipment is, something gets lost in all of those copies.
Now with that in mind, here comes the Compact Disc. Regardless of the subjective views of the ambiance, etc. the CD is touted as having no noise and super dynamic range so it can reproduce all of the loudest and softest moments just like the original multi-track tape so no compressor is needed. In addition, all of the highs and lows will come through just like the original tape so no equalization is needed. The main culprit was time. The CD players hit the market in the early 80s and there was a demand for the discs to play. So, the record companies called their studios who pulled what was labeled the "Master Tape" of several of their best artist's albums and put them out on CD. Unfortunately, what they got was the LP master. So now we have a Compact Disc version of an album that sounds about like the actual vinyl LP except for the clicks and pops. Granted, this was far superior to what we had for the most part, so the crowds cheered. It wasn't until years later, however, (and at a premium price I might add) that CD's began to sound like they should. Sure, many groups started recording in all digital studios so all of the studio copies, etc. were exactly like the true master tape, but the engineers were still used to the old way, and those early CD's didn't sound that great. In addition, since a lot of people listen to jam boxes or inexpensive stereo systems, the CD's sounded so much better than LP's or Cassettes that nobody seemed to notice.
Now, however, this is being corrected. Many of the record companies have gone back to the actual original stereo mix-down tapes or even the actual multi-track recordings and are starting over and reissuing titles. These new CD's of old albums sound superb like I believe CD's should have sounded like to begin with. So, how do you know which copies of which songs sound the best? That's where the fun is. Until recently, there have been no markings to tell what tapes were used for making a CD unless it is a special edition. Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs® has for years been putting out their Original Master Recordings® line of records, cassettes and CD's until they went bankrupt in November of 1999. In addition, some other companies like SONY®, MCA®, Rhino®, Capital® and DCC® have been issuing special edition CD's, but you have to be careful. So far, only DCC Compact Classics certifies that if they can't get the original first generation tapes, then they won't issue the CD. The rest just make some claim of "digital remastering" or mention the original tapes, but they aren't too specific about exactly which tapes they used.
Since my first player in December of 1984, I have amassed several hundred CD's--especially oldies. During my quest to get certain favorite songs, I ended up having some duplicates across the different discs (like 4 copies of "Radar Love" by Golden Earring). My first copy came on a collection of rock and roll classics from MCA. It has the most noise. I also have copies on Rhino and Time-Life collection CD’s. They sound a little better, but that is probably due to the person remastering the tape using an equalizer or an APHEX® Aural Exciter which can make the tape sound clearer. The best sounding copy is from a series called "REELING IN THE YEARS" and later called "ROCK OF THE 70s". This 5 volume set was mastered by Steve Hoffman from the first generation two track mixdown tape, which we learned earlier in this article is the best place to get a song for CD. Steve used to work for MCA and before leaving for DCC Compact Classics, he remastered some super discs.
I would also like to mention that ALL CD’s are DIGITAL because the process of transferring songs to CD is called DIGITAL MASTERING whether its live, analog tape or a scratchy 45. In other words, having a label on a CD that says DIGITALLY MASTERED is like you saying you’re a human being...so. It has nothing to do with the quality as some companies like K-TEL and their DIGITAL MASTER label implies. It is in the remastering of the audio that goes on the CD that is the key. Also watch out for K-TEL, DOMINION and some other labels that like to round up what’s left of the original group that recorded a song from the 60s or 70s and have them re-record their hit songs. Most of them are labeled something like: "New Stereo Recordings by one or more of the original members of the group", but some of them have no such labeling. I’ve yet to hear one of those that sound anything close to the original hit song that your buying the CD for. I don’t understand why they even go to the trouble to re-do the songs anyway except to deceive the public. I'll admit the version of "The Twist" and some others are actually re-recorded versions, rather than the original, but it's not the same thing as those companies I mentioned are doing.
Finally, some master tapes may have been lost over the years or don’t sound too good. Below are several links to companies that have helped over the years. Sonic Solutions has some computer software called NO NOISE ® that can filter out unwanted tape noise or even clicks and pops from records if that’s the only way to get a song for a CD. Another company doing that was the Waring FDS system which also used computers to filter out noise. Also used along with equalizers and other enhancers is a device called the Aural Exciter® that I mentioned earlier that has been used over the years to make songs sound better. One of the major complaints over these systems is that if noise was part of the original master tape due to how long ago the recordings were made-- filtering it out is tampering with what was there. This has been compared to taking a famous painting and not only restoring it to look as it actually did...but trying to "improve" it for today's listeners who are used to the perfect quiet of digital recording.
אני חושב שקיבלת את התשובה שלך
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[הודעה זו נערכה על ידי FrogOfWar בתאריך 17-10-2002]
[הודעה זו נערכה על ידי FrogOfWar בתאריך 17-10-2002]
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