THE DAVE PHILLIPS INTERVIEW
| Some bandana wearing cowboy shows up and was trying some alternate route to thumbdance, and I started talking to him, and a friendship was born out of the fact that he was leading climbs and I had a car. Rick pointed this out with glee as if he was shedding 400 pounds of excess weight. I gave David a ride home and penned his name in the back cover of my Texas Limestone book, and he has been a great climbing partner ever since. |
Sunday October 7, 1997 about 5:15 pm
| TR: this is paul interviewing Dave phillips, um, when was the first time you ever went rock climbing, who were you with, and what was your experience like. DP: Let's see, the first time I went rock climbing Iwas probably with my twin brother at robber's cave in wilberton Oklahoma. It was fun, it was more like a scramble though, like a V0 bouldering problem, it was a blast, at that time in my life I did not have a clue about technical shit like ropes, harnesses, it was tennis shoes and balls. TR: Who taught you to rock climb as you know it today, as far as gearing up and the lingo etc.? DP: I started out with my older brother Joey, we really didn't get taught by anybody, we got that "freedom of the hills" mountaineering book and we taught ourselves. We did a lot of eavesdropping on "Mountain Madness" out here at enchnated rock, we mooched climbs from them when they would set top ropes. TR: How long ago was that? DP: Oh, four years. Back in '92 TR: That's five years DP: Well it was the winter of '92 when we started. We came here every weekend for six months straight, until the money ran out. At this time Joey was married and I did not have any kids, I was separated from my wife, I was a psycho then. I did not have any problem with these runouts. TR: What climbs did you start out on cracks, faces? DP: Cracks, we started on motorboat rock, and we graduated pretty quick to the backside. We were leading 5.9 slabs within six months of starting, as soon as we found out about lead climbing, I led TJ Swan within three months of starting out. TR: What about Don, when did he get into it, just recently? DP: Yeah, just recently, about a year, he does OK. |