Recently I was listening to a podcast in which a seminal climbing mentor and inspiration was interviewed. I’ve seen this climber, a transplanted Nanaimo local, speak many times, read all his published work, watched videos of him climbing and even climbed with him once many years ago.
The climber being interviewed in the podcast – Enormocast Episode 81 – was Peter Croft, a man who took Canadian climbing to new heights with his fluid style, humble demeanour and mind-blowing solos without a rope. Now in his mid-50s, he still climbs with as much enthusiasm and motivation as he did when he was a young hooligan just starting out.
When asked if he still took climbing as seriously now as he did when he was younger, Croft replied: “I take climbing really seriously, but I don’t take myself seriously.” This deceptively simple comment carried with it a kernel of truth that gets at the core of enjoying any endeavour in a meaningful way, despite aging, injuries, accidents and failures.
The first part, taking climbing seriously, is simple. The more you climb, the more you think about your next route, how you’re going to think next time on lead, what challenges you think you can take on, the moves and how they feel while you’re lying in bed unable to sleep because you’re thinking about moves, wondering if there might be a hidden piece of gear to turn your shaking legs into sturdy oaks. Climbing gets under your skin, as you think about strategies, techniques, training, digging deeper, trying harder, being calmer, being better. This is the serious fun of climbing.
The second part, not taking ourselves too seriously, is where we can be lead astray, not because we are egomaniacs, but because we are human beings in need of acceptance. Ego creeps in and suddenly all our thinking, planning, training, experimenting and dreaming has a judgment attached to it. Will I be famous, will I be the first, will people be impressed, will I surpass my friends, will I gain recognition? Enter social media and you have a powerful force to tell people in casual, flippant, after-the-fact kind of ways just how important, amazing and unmatchable your actions are. With enough people doing this, you have a community ceaselessly and silently competing for who is doing their activities with the most passion.
For example, I recently went to climb a route established by a friend a few years ago. I decided I wanted to climb it without top-roping it first to add kudos to my accomplishment and to add challenge. The route has risks near the bottom that could result in broken bones but hey, this route looked straightforward and was of a manageable difficulty, theoretically. Never mind the fact that I’d been doing a completely different style of climbing over the past year and hadn’t climbed something this committing in ages.
In her wisdom, my partner asked that I not climb it without pre-inspection because if I had a broken leg, it was going to really dampen her summer climbing season parade and make looking after our perpetually moving daughter difficult. I relented and headed out to climb the route in a style that made sense to me. Long story short, I top-roped it, figured out the gear off the ground and noticed it was in hollow fractured rock. Would the gear hold? Who knew? I left the rope clipped through the first two pieces, top-roped past them and then lead to the top – a successful ascent and no broken bones.
Upon lowering to the moss, I felt dirty, a cheater who faked his way to the top of a tiny rock wall drowning in the rainforest. Then I listened to that podcast with Croft, and his wisdom hit home. This really didn’t matter. The route was still fantastic; my buddy and I had guffawed all day as we climbed a beautiful natural crack line climbable without bolts.
We need to take the climbing seriously but say no to the voices hurling imaginary judgements and pronouncements our way. Ultimately, those judgements are self-imposed, so focus on the enjoyment, not the chatter online or the bluster in your head.
