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skitch
Gym climber
Bend Or
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 23, 2016 - 10:38am PT
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I know that most of Supertopo users are has-beens or never-where's. So why did you stop climbing, and do you wish you would've stuck with it...or do your new hobbies keep you just as distracted as climbing kept you?
I had to take the summer off due to a jacked elbow, and now that I'm trying to get back into climbing I'm having a hell of a time, mostly due to a lack of fitness. I keep thinking that I should just find a new hobby to keep me distracted from life.
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Oct 23, 2016 - 11:00am PT
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I quit climbing to pick up surfing because the view is way better!
p.s I still climb just have to include BBQ hot dogs..
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Oct 23, 2016 - 11:02am PT
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Uh, most of my partners bought the farm.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 23, 2016 - 11:08am PT
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The sun went down..... Had to wait till the next day
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Oct 23, 2016 - 11:10am PT
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Up until 9/11, I was still climbing pretty consistently- was never truly exceptional at any discipline, but well-rounded in most all of them.
After a summer of dirtbagging, on 9/11 (literally) I moved back to my small, mountain town, started a business...and a couple of months later bought my first house. A major fixer-upper project. Ever since, my time and interests have been overwhelmed by running a business while simultaneously extensively remodelling and major building on my home. (And trying to have a marriage.)
Climbing has taken a backseat over that time, which was challenging for a while, since a large part of my identity was around being a climber. At this point, though, I feel much more well-rounded in life, and I'm happy to have climbing be something that I sometimes do, and not the central element in my identity.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Oct 23, 2016 - 11:12am PT
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I have an arthritic neck and a deformed acromiun. When I started doing a lot of swimming to build up the upperbody, that combination wrecked my shoulder and nerve. The tendon that runs under the acromium was seriously irritated. Now my arm goes numb in certain positions, like when belaying.
It sucks. Hopefully PT can help. I was never a great technical climber, but always enjoyed every bit of it.
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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Oct 23, 2016 - 11:20am PT
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jockey on a nag syndrome
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Oct 23, 2016 - 11:27am PT
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Osteo arthritus pinching nerves to arms causing major weakness. Can barely open beer bottles with twist tops.
Have gone climbing 2 times in the last year. :-(
I expect to find a miracle.
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Edge
Trad climber
Betwixt and Between Nederland & Boulder, CO
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Oct 23, 2016 - 11:50am PT
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I took the better part of a decade off to explore professional alcoholism, but decided climbing was safer.
Now six years removed from my last drink and 70 lbs less massive (all alcohol weight), some would say that I climb respectably for my age of 55, but I'm in Boulder now and so destined to suck by comparison to 6 and/or 80 year olds.
I still get out regularly for trad or sport, gym climb a little in the winter, and tagged a few peaks this year at 13 and 14k elevation. I have lost all interest in vertical ice.
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Oct 23, 2016 - 12:01pm PT
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I haven't totally quit climbing, but I have had to scale way back since 1994 because I keep dislocating both of my shoulders. Next month I am getting my 3rd shoulder operation.
My last big rock-climbing trip was to the Wadi Rum in 2012, so I'm not dead yet
1st dislocation and surgery was 1984 in the military - military accident.
2nd dislocation was in 1994 from a fall while skiing the U-notch on 3-pins
3rd dislocation was in 2000 kayaking the Bottom Moose River (class V) in the Adirondack Mountains
4th dislocation was this summer from full-contact heavy medieval fighting
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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Oct 23, 2016 - 12:20pm PT
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I quit climbing for awhile..then I finished my lunch and did a few more climbs in the afternoon..
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Oct 23, 2016 - 12:51pm PT
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Ha-rumph? It has necessarily been the constant on and off for me.
I was dipped in Chalk as a child, then chided, that I, the entirety of me, was cheating.
So small and lite,It was possible to throw me up to ledges. I fit into a back pack.
I only ever stopped clomping up rocks, when I broke my neck,
working a tote and carry - driving 'cross the Tri-state area, & back to the Cave job.
Three years ? Total at the advanced age of 45 I even returned to vertical water ice.
Then I stuck the landing so staying alive I was forced to quit Icey mixed up low altitude
Climbing, the wife took the tools & 'pons away and hid them under the bed.
Then threw me out when she woke to my trying to sneak out.
I wrote it all out in a druken haze,
The Knight of rat, Tami, said Oy'vey'! So at least she read it.
But then by misstep tapping it was deleted.
with my luck it was also read by our heros on this site?
Dininosaurs's silence speaks volumes. .. .
I do care, although not a holder of a Docterate
My life experience has seen me through some shjt, nothing to compare
To say
That OMG, true be adventurer and bullish on here the one and only
Sierra Ledge Rat!
Wadi Rhumba! Wadi Rum....
Locker ? I'm not sure you have one yet but Get A chest Harness learn to tie in high
( like above your head ) so the knot doesn't clock you in the mouth.
Edit: for some, I tone down the play; If I want the likes of locker to understand what I have to say.
Laugh out loud,
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Oct 23, 2016 - 12:53pm PT
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Deal? Deal!
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Oct 23, 2016 - 01:15pm PT
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I'll be 80 in a couple of months. From ages 60 to 70 all my climbing was modest soloing and very light bouldering (no jumping off). A very enjoyable period. At 70 severe shoulder arthritis (thanks, still rings in the 1950s) began having an effect, as well as declining innate sense of balance, so I quit (It was easy) but kept up body weight exercises. Then a severe spinal attack last October kept me from doing anything except short walks for six months. In May I began trying pull-ups (couldn't do any, could barely hang) and now I'm almost back to my condition before last October. So, if any of you youngsters get way out of shape as you age, it IS possible to regain a lot of strength pretty far into old age! Don't give up hope!
May the force be with you.
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Escopeta
Trad climber
Idaho
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Oct 23, 2016 - 02:18pm PT
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Gunkie
Trad climber
Valles Marineris
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Oct 23, 2016 - 03:30pm PT
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jogill +1000
I've never fully stopped. But coaching little league baseball, travel softball, soccer (had to Google soccer defenses and plays and drills) and basketball for 13 years not counting work and biz travel slowed me down quite a bit.
I'm not completely out of shaped and surfed that west coast swell last weekend in San Diego and surfed yesterday in NJ and still run three 5ks per week and do two days of body weight exercises (e.g. 200 pushups/100 pullups < 25 minutes).
I'm hoping to get back to the Gunks regularly this coming spring. Even thinking about punching up Prodigal Sun solo maybe next fall to get my wall chops back. I'll be in Denver on biz travel tomorrow until Friday and plan on getting to that rock gym off Arapahoe one or two nights (Mon/Thu) to boulder when the Cubs are not playing. If I get really lucky, I'll head over to Eldorado Canyon and get to boulder in the daylight hours.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Oct 23, 2016 - 04:19pm PT
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Quit drinking. (32 years and counting)
Quit smoking (for the better part of a decade)
Quit drugs (pretty much other than when arthritic pain neccessitates)
Quit climbing. (never, but the layoff between climbs has sometimes counted in years).
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Oct 23, 2016 - 04:28pm PT
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I was camped at the Needles on an epic road trip on that fateful September morning. I was 32 years old and had spent the last 15 years climbing, skiing and having fun. We were four on the trip and we stayed another day or two but didn't climb again. Then we drove home. We stopped in Tuolumne and marveled at the plane-less skies.
Within a few months I was committed to socially conscious construction, I mostly stopped flying and basically tried to grow up and get right with the world. Within a couple of years there was a dog and a fiancée. So I never stopped but it feels like just sightseeing now.
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F10
Trad climber
Bishop
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Oct 23, 2016 - 04:45pm PT
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I took a couple of months off when I broke my back from a climbing accident but other then that it's kinda like eating. It's just something you do !!
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Oct 23, 2016 - 06:19pm PT
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Gill's gonna be 80 soon folks! There's a milestone worthy of celebration.
If I make it to next July, I'll have been climbing for 60 years. At the moment, I'm recovering from relatively minor surgery that may keep me out of action for a month, but I don't think of that as quitting, just a little time-out...
Both frequency and level of performance have declined (still talking about climbing all you of the dirty minds)---I ain't no Donini. But I haven't quit and don't see anything on the horizon that will make me quit, although as Gill has emphasized you never know what is around the next bend in life, and once you get old enough every pullup could be your last.
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