graniteclimber



Trad climber The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division

Nov 30, 2010 - 01:33am PT My favorite was how I described in the Big Wall Tech Manual about how to "X-em, Rock-em, Paste-em, and Sniff-em" when placing heads. The "Sniff-em" part was a joke --"if it stinks, get off it!"



Then the Mountaineers in Seattle completely plagiarized my work in the 5th Edition of Mountaineering, Freedom of the Hills. They took the "Sniff-em" part literally, and described in detail how a bad copperhead would emit some sort of special odor.



I wrote to the Mountaineers, one, to complain about the unacknowledged and blatant rip-off of my written work (about 20 pages of Freedom of the Hills was my work, paraphrased), and two, to point out to them their ridiculous error. I never heard back from them.



For years afterward, I heard climbers talking about the special odor of a bad copperhead! Even by some experienced wall climbers who had actually placed a head (not like the plagiarizers at the Mountaineers, who had obviously just rewritten my work without any real knowledge of aid climbing).

It's in the 6th Edition also:



"5. Sniff it. If the head emits a metallic odor, it is underdriven or overdriven; do not use it. The smell arises from the cutting or cracking of the head rather than its molding to the rock."