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theooze
Mar 26, 2003, 5:35 PM
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Registered: Feb 18, 2003
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While talking with an acquaintance recently, I said something to the effect that I doubted I would ever achieve my major goals as a climber. He knows nothing about climbing, but at least he was showing a little interest, unlike most civilians I know. I may have had a touch of the winter doldrums; I'm usually a bit more hopeful about my climbing prospects.
Anyway, his reaction took me by surprise. What he said was, “Sounds like maybe it's a mental thing". I thought that was a little harsh, but I got the point. It was a nice way of saying that I had no one to blame but myself. That if it’s what I wanted, I’d better get off my lazy butt and do something about it.
It's become almost an article of faith in our society: If you want it bad enough, you can do just about anything. Every day we see the stories, in the sports or entertainment pages, of people who overcome hurdles (personal tragedy, lack of natural ability, etc., etc.) to achieve astounding successes. When the going gets tough, the stories seem to say, you just need to get a little more obsessed.
My acquaintance probably didn't mean anything by his comment, but I felt a little sting. After all these years, was I coming up short on motivation? Was I getting lazy? It got me to thinking. "Why do people climb?" is the classic riddle with no answer, right up there with the chicken and egg . The desire to climb is an elusive and mysterious thing. Where does it come from? Where does it go?
Let me clarify something up front: my actual climbing abilities are pretty limited, as many people will attest. I can't honestly say that I know how it feels to succeed or fail on a really hard, impressive route. I've climbed a bunch of easy routes, and failed on some that would have been sort of impressive had I succeeded. That's about it. That's my perspective.
I've mostly been interested in what's known as "big wall" climbing, in a broad sense: long, technical routes involving many pitches and which only pretty strong teams can do in a day. This can include the classic Yosemite aid wall which requires multiple days for the average party, or the use of siege tactics to free climb a long aid line. It might be a steep alpine face or a long day on desert sandstone. It generally involves hauling supplies and gear, as opposed to climbing with a large pack.
I'll let the boulderers, sport climbers and hard trad daredevils explain their own motivations. I admire what they do, yet sometimes I feel as clueless about hard free climbing as my suburban neighbors are about the climbing I do. That usually happens after I struggle and flail on some mellow moderate line.
To the general public, summiting the biggest mountains under fierce conditions has always been the best-understood and most respected form of climbing achievement. Today, ambitious climbers with the bucks often go in for the high altitude stuff, shooting for Denali, Acongagua or Everest. I haven't done any of that, but it's easy to imagine the huge challenges faced by climbers on those types of expeditions. For most people, a successful high-altitude climb would rightly be the experience of a lifetime.
With so many people (and so much money ) pouring onto the flanks of legendary big peaks, you might expect that hard alpine climbing in the great ranges, cutting-edge Himalayan and Alaskan mountaineering, that sort of thing, would be the glamour specialty in climbing. People still do it; if you read the fine print in the climbing mags, you'll see the brief listings giving the climbers' names, where they climbed and how they fared. Check out the proposed grades of their routes. These are the real badasses, no doubt about it. A decade ago or more, I used to read the accounts and picture myself on epic adventures like those... that was my big personal fantasy for awhile.
Still, alpinism isn't really a growth area in climbing. For one thing, it's just too risky. The great mountain ranges are really dangerous places to hang out. A lot of wild stuff has been tried, people have died, breathtaking successes have been achieved. It's great armchair reading material, but the fact is that few people are willing to roll the dice against those kinds of odds.
A small number of relatively safe routes are groomed every year, allowing the privileged few to bag coveted peaks. A handful of small, competent teams take advantage of this, but for the most part, these routes are created for wealthy adventure tourists and the people who make money servicing them. For the average climber, it's pretty tough to manage the logistics, not to mention the necessary commitment of weeks or months away from jobs and family, to climb at high altitude. Add to that the often miserable conditions, grueling physical challenges, and atrocious objective hazards faced by alpinists operating away from the trade routes and famous summits, and it's understandable why new climbers by the thousands aren't marching off into the big mountains.
There will always be a certain number of climbers who are drawn by the aura of expedition, and their attention has increasingly been turning to big walls. These are routes that demand logistical planning and execution, bold resolve, and unrelieved effort for more than just a few hours at a time. Even though the climbs may be less than monumental by Himalayan standards, they have the panache of scaling some of the biggest vertical faces (or most-vertical big faces) on the planet. Wall climbing isn't outrageously expensive, and a nice route or two can be squeezed into a week of vacation.
As I stood there with my acquaintance, feeling sheepish about my lack of gung-ho drive, it occurred to me that perhaps he didn't realize the kind of work it takes to be a responsible partner on a wall climb. I tried to explain it like this:
Imagine that you are a small time building contractor, or carpenter. You've been hired to build a small building on some remote site hundreds, or thousands, of miles away from home. You arrange for transportation in advance, do all your travel research etc. You study the plans for the building. You decide what tools and materials you will need; you pull them out and make sure they are ready and well-maintained. You shop for anything that's missing, including materials and supplies that you won't be able to buy when you get there. Money is tight, and your loved ones are, at best, dubious of your plans.
If you don't understand yet how to build a foundation or hang drywall, you've got to learn before you leave.
At the appointed time, you and one or two partners have to get yourselves and your heavy, bulky gear to the building site, mostly on your backs. You get everything organized and set up a camp. Then you have to build the building, clean up, and be back home with all of your tools by next Sunday night. If you don't get it done or screw it up, you won't get paid and you'll be faced with all kinds of hassles.
There are other aspects which I didn't get into. For example, there's that feeling when you're finally standing in a valley, worn out from travel. You pick out your route with binoculars, on a cliff that dwarfs the world's skyscrapers. Seeing that the route looks impossible, but jumping on it anyway, knowing that you've prepared yourself as best you can, but also knowing that things will never go as planned; the curveballs will be flying. Maybe you'll get scared, maybe you won't, but you'll definitely be in a high state of survival-mode awareness, from the time you cast off until you and your partners are safe back at the car. That might be a very long day, it might be five days or more; adrenaline will be pulsing through your veins the entire time, with a little more pumped in every time a carabiner shifts under your weight. You will finish dirty, exhausted and in pain.
None of which explained why anyone would want to do this in the first place; it came out sounding like a list of reasons to stay home and watch tv. My point, though, was that to grasp the rewards of this type of climbing, you need to understand what a mental and physical undertaking it can be.
But wait - wasn't I just making excuses? Trying to make the case that there was more to my lapse of faith in myself than a simple lack of "mental toughness", "sheer determination", and self-discipline? After all, I'm 44 years old, and dreams of big-wall glory have been a big reason why I've transformed my life so drastically over the years since I was a young man. If I fall short now due to something as ignominious as simple laziness, what will that say about my life?
Back when I first started climbing, I knew right away that it was something I’d been searching for. I also had a demanding career, young children, and all of the complex web of ongoing obligations that we create for ourselves. I did the best I could, but I was never able to get out climbing as much as I wanted, or felt I needed, in order to become "serious". Money for equipment and travel was limited, and climbing trips meant leaving my wife and kids at home, which was difficult.
I must have gotten pretty motivated, because I spent the entire decade of the nineties literally tearing apart my life and constructing a new one in which I could concentrate on climbing. I brought my family with me, and they have forgiven me for that (repeatedly), but the costs have been real. Life has dealt us some blows, and I guess the jury is still out on whether I'm the kind of person who can bend without breaking.
I've been pretty successful, though, in jockeying things around so that I’m around climbing and climbers much of the time. I get to climb more than most people, I guess, and I reached a point two or three years ago when I felt confident and ready to do a wall. I tried and failed twice, but not in ways which were overly discouraging. I began to feel as if, with an experienced partner, I could definitely get up a few walls.
More recently, another big piece fell into place. I've met a handful of legitimate veteran wall climbers, some of the best in the business. I've gotten in with them well enough so that, if I were to show up at Yosemite at the right time, we could probably motor up a wall. But I'm not feeling nearly as strong as I did a couple of years ago. I need to get out climbing more, but too many days I just can't find the energy. I'm not getting any younger, and all the years of booze and cigarettes, and general abuse of my health are starting to catch up with me - I'm not proud of the fact, but it's just the way it is.
Besides, regardless of who you are, climbing just has to be postponed sometimes. Nobody but me is ever going to get excited about my progress as a climber. Like everyone else, I've got to succeed in more than just climbing, if I want to pay my bills and not be deserted by my family and friends. And then there are days like this: The sun is shining, and as a climber, I should be doing what I'd planned - going up on the rocks, placing some bolts for a belay anchor, retrieving the gear I left there a few weeks back. Get a little exercise, a little experience, have something worthwhile to say to my climbing buds next time I see them. But it's cold, and it's such a hassle to do all that solo. My gear room desperately needs to be cleaned out and organized. I 've got this rambling essay to write. Better to wait for warmer weather to go climbing.
If my will to climb dissolves, it’s going to leave one more big hole in my swiss cheese life. This year should tell whether I'll ever get up some walls, or if I need to adjust my climbing goals downward. I guess we'll just see how much I really want it.
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mozea
Mar 26, 2003, 7:20 PM
Post #2 of 9
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Registered: Jun 5, 2002
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did anyone read that novel in its entirety? sorry, ooze...but that's a screen-full plus some... :shock:
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wigglestick
Mar 26, 2003, 7:24 PM
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Registered: Jul 27, 2001
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I read the entire thing. Although, my mind is still trying to formulate something resembling an articulate response.
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bentsid
Mar 26, 2003, 7:54 PM
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Registered: Jan 11, 2003
Posts: 82
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I don't think you should compare your WILL to climb with attaining your goals. Why put an ultimatum on your goals? Sure, you COULD ditch everything else in your life and spend all your resources (materially, physically, emotionally) on going for that prized line. But will that make you ENJOY climbing more? That's the whole point, isn't it?
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alpinerockfiend
Mar 26, 2003, 8:01 PM
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Registered: Feb 3, 2003
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In reply to: I don't think you should compare your WILL to climb with attaining your goals. Why put an ultimatum on your goals?... But will that make you ENJOY climbing more? That's the whole point, isn't it?
There are countless things that I enjoy about climbing, and many different ways that I have fun with it. Watching my goals steadily progress in commitment, difficulty, length, "extremety", etc... is surely one of the most fun things about the sport for me.
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mwbtle
Mar 26, 2003, 8:08 PM
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Registered: Nov 22, 2002
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I read the whole thing. And I just have to say, wow.
Good luck figuring stuff out, Stu. I hope you find the time and energy to do what you dream of...so few people get that.
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crackaddict
Mar 26, 2003, 8:10 PM
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Registered: Jun 24, 2000
Posts: 1279
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I read it and can understand it.
7 months ago I would have not.
Thats because I have made some changes in my lifestyle that have changed my climbing.
7 months ago I got married, became and instant father of 2 boys, bought my first house and got responsible for the first time in my life. Now my wife is 5 months preagnant and we are expecting a bunch of new wonderful responsibilities.
Before all that I used to not own a house, just a truck. I used to climb 3 times a week weather by myself or with a partner. I was finally climbing 11's and did my first 12 trad lead.
Now I am lucky to have climbed 5 times in the last 6 months. I have put on a couple extra lbs, but still have dreams and goals of climbing big walls.
So I can understand how changes in life can effect climbing. It's all a matter of priorities. Now mine are with my family. I still have the passion but, just had to set it aside to take care of some things in my life.
Sometimes we can never be who we were, but we can become what we want. Don't ever look back at what you are missing, always look forward at what you are gaining.
I will probably not be able to climb like I used to. I accept that. But I have found new ways to take care of my climbing passion. I have built a wall in my garage to train at home. That way I can be close to home and spend time with my family while I train. It's not quite the same but I am still able to keep myself in tune and not let myself drift away.
You just have to adapt and comprimise with your situations.
Especially with partners!
Don't give up on your dreams.
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atg200
Mar 26, 2003, 8:17 PM
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Registered: Jul 27, 2001
Posts: 4317
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Great post Stu - one of the best on the site since the Dreaming of Denali post you made awhile back. Drop me a line if you want to hit Zion sometime.
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jt512
Mar 26, 2003, 9:07 PM
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Registered: Apr 12, 2001
Posts: 21904
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Wow! That's one of the best pieces I've ever read about climbing. One of the mags (Climbing?) has a feature in the back of every issue called something like "Perspectives." You should send them your piece.
-Jay
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