a climbing friend told me that those little scabs that form on your hands after a few days of climbing on rough rock -- such as the rock at joshua tree -- are called gobis (sp??). where does this term come from?

-- tom jessor (jessort@gao.gov), November 14, 2001

Answers

Those little dried up rough scabs on your hands are just like that of the harsh gobi desert my man.

BTW that is just a guess

-- WarChild (Warchild@notgivingmyemailaddress.com), December 08, 2001.

You're going to have to delve deep into history to find the answer to that one. On my first visit to Yosemite in 1975, the term gobi was already used widely. Even at that time, it was only speculation that the name had something to do with a route on Sentinel called the Gobi Wall.

-- Larry Scritchfield (lscritch@yahoo.com), December 17, 2001.

Actually you may be surprised but the actual origin of the word is from the Persian/Urdu/Hindi word 'Gobi' which literally means Cauliflower. The scabs resemble cauliflowers and even today any manual work that causes scabs is referred to as growing 'gobis' by the natives.

-- Rana (ranadayal@yahoo.com), January 24, 2002.