Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Edwin Drummond
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 19, 2010 - 12:26pm PT
|
CLIMB and PUNISHMENT
(An Open Telegram to Alex Honnold)
Dear Alex,
Stop! Stop right now! While there’s still a chance you might live to tell how you nearly fell for it… 3000 feet more or less down the Nose route of El Capitan, bouncing and screaming for five seconds until you explode, hitting the earth at over a hundred miles an hour, beheaded at the feet of the waiting paparazzi, ghosts of the glossies. Silenced for ever.
Please stop; the bubble is trembling, stretched beyond belief, the gods are murmuring… They never repeat themselves. Let your baby panic attack on the Thank God ledge traverse on the North West Face of Half Dome, become your definitive saving grace. It was there the great white question arose from the depths as you began to fall apart, asking yourself what on earth you were doing up there, un-roped. Though not quite alone –audiences everywhere have heard the invisible camera man murmur that you can come back – the great, Tolstoyan questions begin slashing at the edge of your mind. And that, my friend, the love rush of reality into your heart (What am I doing? Where am I going?) as you stare down the infinite space beneath your feet, may well be Their first and last and one and only way of warning you that the time to turn back to search for your father on Earth has arrived.
I’ve seen the movie of your free solo ascent of that razored face, twice; heard it praised and appraised as ‘mental mastery’ – not assisted suicide, but the cutting edge of contemporary rock climbing. And I’ve been stunned by the guffaws of the audiences, especially when you start (at last!) to feel our old friend Fear, whom you’d be-foed before in a saddening attempt at wondering how climbers can become calmer, cooler, more requisitely abstract in staring down the stone, and sometimes stoned, face of Death. Let me call it.
‘Hubris:’ the country of no old men, whose thirsting warriors, dying to live, look down on those Lilliputian innocents at their feet looking up from the meadow, wondering; the long-lost native American family, resting and playing by the wandering river.
It’s clear that the contemporary climbing cult(ure?) is out for blood. Pushed to the wall a free, un-roped solo climb of El Capitan would provide them with a feast of fear, a pornographic center-fold of your inevitable fall, followed in faithful-tasteless detail as you take flight to meet your Un-maker. A cannibalistic cornucopia sufficiently sick to sate the violence consumer (for 2 or 3 hours). Don’t do it. Let El Capitan be…Not your billboard, big screen, pedestal or headstone, let El Cap remain the rising curtain on a young, long, astonishing life, your own blank page, new leaf, your empty canvas, snowfall-fresh, unsigned in blood; the clean slate where you make your mark alongside those most memorable predecessors, the ones who took the long way down: The Honorable Order of the Deck Chairs, residents of the many-seasoned meadow.
You don’t have to cross the line. You have nothing to prove. We love you. The magic happens down here too. Keep your feet on the ground Alex, think about the children following in your footsteps…
And She will find you.
Ed. Drummond.
|
|
Studly
Trad climber
WA
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 12:30pm PT
|
That was uncalled for.
|
|
JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 12:37pm PT
|
Welcome, welcome, Edwin. Just as others are agonizing over ST trends, you show up with this gem.
Thank you.
John
|
|
nature
climber
Tucson, AZ
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 12:50pm PT
|
apparently knott.
is he? and if so then why would he attempt it? seems like suicide to me.
|
|
survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 12:50pm PT
|
Well thought out and beautifully written.
I too have wondered to myself about the Half Dome gig.
And now the Nose?
Who wants it more? Alex himself,...or the ones that want Alex to want it?
How many times has he done it on a rope?
I know how solid I have been at times on certain pitches, and then gone back only to bungle a key sequence.....
Paul Preuss, Bachar and others might recommend against it, if only we could ask them.
You're well aware of the risk too Port, get up there. Why would it be uncalled for? Because he might read it and reconsider? What's your stake in it?
Edit: Not uncalled for at all. One of the most thought provoking posts here in a long time.
|
|
nature
climber
Tucson, AZ
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 12:58pm PT
|
eKat... yup... I know who he is and I don't think this is uncalled for in the slightest.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 01:00pm PT
|
Expressing one's honest opinion is uncalled for?
Maybe in N Korea.
|
|
nature
climber
Tucson, AZ
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 01:01pm PT
|
apparently some live in Korea or China around here....
|
|
survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 01:12pm PT
|
I think we all understand the mindset just fine Hank.
For you to think you understand it and we don't makes it seem like you think you're in a special class.
It's all good and Earth shattering if he makes it.
Just another tradgedy if he doesn't.
Why didn't Lynn solo it?
Croft?
Bachar?
You?
|
|
Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 01:14pm PT
|
if alex can believe, then he must.
stripping himself of that opportunity will only land him mediocre and dreamless.
a sincere sentiment, ed. though it is warranted only within your heart.
|
|
nature
climber
Tucson, AZ
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 01:15pm PT
|
looks like Port retracted his "uncalled for" post.
....
and SuperTopo is a place where expression of the joy or pain in ones heart resides...
|
|
Port
Trad climber
San Diego
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 01:16pm PT
|
Yeah. Kind of a gut reaction.
|
|
Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Redlands
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 01:17pm PT
|
My gut reply: Mind your own f*#king business.
Edit: Refering to the OP, not Port.
|
|
nature
climber
Tucson, AZ
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 01:17pm PT
|
yeah, understood. And I didn't point that out to be lame. You just left a few comments in regards to yours sitting there out of context.
I too ponder the intent and if it was called for.
I agree with survivals edit
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 01:21pm PT
|
There is a point when achievment would seem to reach the level of absurdity...
But then I'm old, incapable and jealous.
|
|
ylevchenko
Trad climber
Bensalem, PA
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 01:22pm PT
|
"Crime and Punishment" was written by Dostoyevskiy, not Tolstoy.
|
|
caughtinside
Social climber
Davis, CA
|
|
|
Mar 19, 2010 - 01:24pm PT
|
Yes, let's tell people how they should climb.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!