How strange it sometimes seems to measure success in terms of 10 to 20 foot sections of rock. Start on the ground and get to the top, using the hardest section of rock you can find or manage.. Stepping back and imagining this sport from a non-participants perspective is always good for a chuckle and maybe a healthy dose of perspective. But no matter how hard it is to explain and how tired I get of explaining why climbing without ropes is not the suicidal pursuit non-climbers perceive it as I am currently of the conclusion that this sport is truly the greatest sport.
2007 was quite a year for my personal climbing development. I’m not the strongest guy around but fortunately success is a personally defined attribute in climbing and by my reckoning – this was easily my most successful year yet.
I’ve been climbing for 6 years now — starting in late 2001 hanging from top ropes at VE. Before the start of 2007, I had never climbed anything harder than V5 and my interest in the sport was actually at an all time low — By late 2006 I had hardly climbed in 6 months. But then two things happened. First, on Thanksgiving Day 2006 Eric Johnson found the single most amazing boulder I’ve seen anywhere practically in his cabin’s backyard and second, my first trip to Bishop (and first climbing trip anywhere for more than 2 or 3 days) in January 2007.
The boulder discovery was important to me as it injected a new interest in Minnesota bouldering in me. At that time I was bored with Taylors and frustrated at Sawmill (since then my attitude has shifted significantly on both these places) so the possibility of new lines on amazing rock was a huge shot in the arm and motivating to get stronger and contribute to its development.
The trip to Bishop opened my eyes to how beautiful and fulfilling spending time among rocks can be. On that trip I think I completed only a single boulder problem but I was in school the entire week and learned an immense amount about how to move on rock and what my body was capable of pulling on. I came back very psyched to get stronger and ready to plan the next trip somewhere.
Well, to make a long story short, I did go on more trips and I have gotten a lot stronger. Joe’s Valley in Utah twice — once in April with a group of friends and back again in May alone (I did meet up with friends I’d met on the road). A quick trip to Colorado where I got completely shut down but still had fun. A week in Horsepens 40 in Alabama in the fall on the crazy sandstone. And back to Bishop for a second time to close out the year where I climbed everything I had left undone a year ago. Not to mention dozens of local trips to Taylors, Sawmill and the development of the Cabin/Big Swirly Boulder up north which has exceeded all of our expectations. Favorite problems of the year include Scary Monsters V6 in Joe’s, High Plains Drifter V7 and Saigon V6 in Bishop, The Sycamore V2/3 at the Cabin Boulder but I can think of dozens more that were a blast.
While I do think it is important not to place too much emphasis on grades, they are the most obvious way of measuring progress. So as long as you’re not skipping over amazing problems just because of their low grade or searching out only the soft problems to inflate your tick list I think it is important to be trying to increase what grades you are capable of climbing over time. For me personally I was able to go from having never climbed a V6 to climbing 15 problems V6 and above including 7 V7’s in the past year. To me that is solid progress and I’m quite proud of this. I hope to continue to get stronger and hopefully break into some V8’s and hopefully beyond soon. Who knows — maybe in Hueco in 2 weeks I can get started.
Another aspect of climbing that has become quite clear to me is how wonderfully social the sport is. I’ve made some great friends in the past year and developed older friendships further as a direct result of climbing. There are of course some loud exceptions, but it seems the vast majority of people you run into at climbing destinations are some of the coolest and friendliest people around. The more you travel the more you begin to run into the same people randomly at different places around the country and pick up where you left off with people. How crazy is that? Not too many activities allow that. It’s also funny how diverse the people are that get drawn together. 16 year old kids stand next to 40 year olds and everyone in between equally enthused and cheering each other on as equals to succeed. There are of course dramatic exceptions and occasional back-biting but that seems to be the exception.
Well, I’ve written this mainly for myself but perhaps some of you out there that read this found something of interest in here. Thank you to the friends I’ve been able to share this year with and here’s to a great 2008…
. I’m falling currently going for the 2nd pinch on the arete.
