“I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.” – Jack Kerouac, On The Road
I’m sitting in the car staring out at the rain velvety drumming off the windows and the roof. I can’t take much more of this.
This has been the collective sentiment of Squamish’s climbing community this winter.
Yes, I’m taking huge licence in speaking for an entire recreational user group, a whole subculture maybe, but I feel I’m hitting a mark with this comment.
Months of snowfall beyond all record. Hundreds of centimetres of snowpack accumulation throughout the backcountry.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of millimetres, of rainfall throughout the Sea to Sky Corridor.
For those of us working regular jobs, consistent hours, mornings and evenings filled with obligations such as family, errands, chores, house stuff and the like, getting outside quickly to take advantage of a fast-drying weather window is nay but impossible.
Next to impossible? I’ve touched stone twice this whole season and while Ground Up provides a great training space full to use and, though it’s full of motivated people, the plastic isn’t a long-term draw for me but a means to a stony end.
Consuming my mind each and every day, more and more with each passing hour is the thought, the solace, that in one week I will be able to run for the hills and escape.
In climbing, the road trip has always held sway as not only the arena for testing your climbing mettle but also a place or space to unplug, detach, unwind, push away from the hectic bustle of everyday life and savour each moment on your own terms.
It’s time unclouded by thoughts of the taxes you should be doing, the reno you still need appliances for, the endless careful scheduling of time to eke out your exercise time or training time or relaxation time, the thoughts of dinner menus and shopping and a new twist on dinner to make creating it even vaguely appealing.
I know I know, it sounds like I’m describing a holiday, right? Yes and no.
A holiday is characteristically a time of doing slothfully nothing, being a slovenly beast barely staying to normal hygiene as you mummify on some beach while applying oil to your outside and liquid escape to your insides.
A climbing trip, a climbing roadtrip, is a time of hard work, of pain and fear and exhaustion.
It’s a time of simple foods cooked outdoors on dirty dishes, stale bagels with salami and cheese filled with sand, warm water tasting of plastic and burning lips while they crush salty fried corn chips and hot cheap canned salsa, while waiting for the fire blackened tortillas holding the same thing they’ve always held; beans and rice, cheap American cheese and buffalo chipotle hot sauce.
The climbing may be bouldering on the granite of the Buttermilks outside Bishop, Calif. or jamming the perfect splitters of Indian Creek outside Moab, Utah. Whatever the climbing and wherever it’s happening, chapped, wind-burned eyes, lips and cheeks, mangled dry cracked hands and tender sore feet, tired shoulders and stiff mornings are the norm.
Holding an unclean steaming mug of coffee to warm numb hands just awake, sauntering through a campground chatting with bleary-eyed strangers, you can’t wait to climb, climb more or spend a rest day surfing the guidebook for more climbs undone, find a local pool with a hot tub and then hit the grocery store for another cooler fill up and to top up the water containers.
Sounds like torture, doesn’t it?
Seriously, from the times of Jack Kerouac to Edward Abbey, the roadtrip through the American desert has been more about the journey than the Walmarts, fast food joints and dollar stores lining the vast multi-laned highways.
It was about finding quiet unexplored spaces unlike your home to reflect and put effort into searching how to improve yourself, how to make yourself happier. It was and is an internal journey while travelling through a familiar yet foreign land. The people you meet all share the goal so likeminded souls are always easy to find.
The climbing is just one tribe’s tool for poking around at ourselves to see if we can improve, to see if we can become happier. Happy travels Squamish, if it’s spring somewhere on our continent find your way there and get your boots on.
I’m headed for the deserts of central Utah if you need me.
