Climbers are notoriously whiny people. We whine about the weather, about the conditions, about our diets, our fitness, our skills, our lack of strength and about last night鈥檚 sleep.聽
We cry about the vehicles we drive, the approaches to the crags, the garbage at the boulders, people on our routes, our gear, our shoes and the shoddy, slipping sheathes encircling our ropes. We balk at the quality of our belayer鈥檚 catch, weather forecasts, the state of the anchors on our line and the misinformation in the guides, the disintegrating nature of our trails and their grinding gradients.聽
We grumble about seepages on our routes, our jobs and careers, about our benefit packages not including enough coverage for massages and how there are never any cute guys or women around when we are heroically at our best out on the sharp end.聽
We just can鈥檛 catch a break, so we whine like it鈥檚 a balm to relieve the inflammation of our egos while we stumble and lurch through the slow process of understanding our ridiculous expectations and insecurities so that we can come to find, once again, that ever-present joy that climbing always brings but we forgot. Until now, that is.聽
鈥淐ircling the drain鈥� has been the expression local climbers have used this month to describe our bleak, warm and wet weather 鈥� and it鈥檚 a term I may have created. We鈥檝e been incredibly spoiled the past five and more years with cold northern outflows, mild and dry Januaries and early springs. We鈥檝e all forgotten that this is a more normal winter and that this grumbling is us reluctantly refocusing our frame of reference. What鈥檚 more, we鈥檝e all become soft by spending time at the new Ground Up Climbing Centre with its soft mood lighting, sweeping walls and the unending flow of Americano coffees.
Last week I hiked the Stawamus Chief for the first time in months. It was hard going; it felt like I was swallowing an iron bar at times and there was that metallic taste in my mouth, like blood. By the top, my legs were numb, pale rubber but I could feel my drive return, a drive that had slowly vanished over the past months.聽
I regained a sense of purpose and energy and understood why I was spending all those hours in the gym and on the fingerboard. As my hands grazed the wet, frigid steel ladders below the south summit, I remembered all that real rock out there that needed climbing.聽
I鈥檓 sorry to admit to all you skiers, but at that moment, spring officially began. I was sore the next day, but it was a good soreness that pointed the way to a balance between the physical and mental.聽 With this as catalyst, the next day in the Grand Wall Bouldering Co-op, inspired training flowed forth with a long-unseen pal, the climbing washed over by energetic chatter about new lines, possible projects and dream routes.
Interestingly, the things in life that really throw us off, that really shake us to the core and challenge us to understand ourselves better, to adapt, change or wither don鈥檛 seem to make it onto the Whine List.聽
In those times when legitimate and often devastating concerns arise, we actually seek out climbing, we throw ourselves into climbing and oddly perform with more focus and more care than usual. Is climbing moving meditation or merely exercise? Can climbing embody art, craft, sport, activity and community?
Spend some time connecting with your people and your places as this week winds down, because spring is surely around the corner.聽
This column is dedicated to my father, Andrew Blumel, out there exploring Greater Ranges. May you rest peacefully.
