Favorite Ruckman-"isms?"

[mountainsense]

Alright, Everyone! We all know that the Ruckmans' Wasatch guide ranks as one of the best ever written... What's your favorite phrase or description from this classic tome? Post up--if it's a good one, we may just have to print it on our next NST shirt!!! Cheers, S

[bheller]

you're brilliant...this will be fun

[boissal]

The Ruckmans got nothing.
How about "the granite, like the best of women, can only take the occasional pounding".
Pre-dates them by quite a few years and already advocates clean climbing. Now that's worthy of ending up on a rag.

[mountainsense]

That's a good one. But I dare you to dig deep and find that uniquely Bret and Stuart saying that brings a smile--or a smirk--to your ugly mug each time you open the good book to that page. The AF guide is also fair game. S

[boissal]

[zacrobinson]

[Tea]

"Indeed improbable"

[bheller]

Brief, but good grief! Almost 3 Stars...

What a route! The fact that it all links together is remarkable. Healthy runouts.

A syndicate of shuffling moves that extract a high price if not properly executed. (great alliteration)

Although this climb has cool moves, the unclimbed blank section has forced a disappointingly short route... (hehehe)

[grk10vq]

XTENSION 5.13a **The exquisite exodus extruding from X. An exotic extravaganza. FA: Boone Speed.

JACK THE RIPPER 5.12aR ** Desperately thin and murder to protect. FA: Drew Bedford.

LETS PRETEND 5.12b Bouldery. Pretending that holds really do exist is more than helpful. FA: Bill Boyle and Boone Speed.

RUBBLE WITHOUT A CAUSE 5.5 Hand jams, cobwebs, and a wide section. FA: Unknown.

CELESTIAL ASCENSION 5.7 * Fun route, bad name. FA: Brian Smoot, 1982

[Shaft]

[rob duncan]

This is a sequential series of character-building finger locks and pinches out the 10-foot roof crack.
Finger locks or wooden box!

[db]

Not an "ism", but I always loved that the Rucks gave Meat Puppet 12b without ever having been up the damn thing. What's the expiration on that creative license?

[bheller]

Well DB,

You know my suggestion on that amazing route, what is yours?

One time a met a kid at the base of the Green A- didn't recognize him, but got the feeling he had been around for a while. We got to talking about Meat Puppets, both said we had climbed it, and I asked him what he thought of the grade- I told him what I though it should be rated, and he laughed at me and in a sort of condescending way said "Whatever dude, the guide books got it at 12b, and there is no way I could ever climb as hard as you think it is" I never saw that kid again, and to this day have no idea who it could have been, but its funny to learn the behind the scenes stories of how grades get attributed to routes and held firmly!

[db]

There have been days when it felt 12b, and days when it felt all of 12d. Since the flake at the end is now gone, I'm going to say 12c, and I doubt I would get any arguments. Andrew Burr, take note.

[bheller]

Interesting... just for the record... another well known lcc crusader told my candidly he feels it is 13a... But thats impossible, because nothing can really be harder than 12d in LCC.