skywalker
climber
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Jan 28, 2013 - 10:29pm PT
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Leading up to my start of climbing I tried every sport out there. I wrestled, started offense/defense in football, karate, you name it. I told my parents I wanted a motorcycle at age 12 they said you have to buy it yourself. At age 13.5 I had enough to buy one.
Then the climbing part hit around 14, I quit all "mainstream" sports. We started by using cotton clothes line. Nearly died a few times but as a group saved enough money to buy some real stuff.
Do I need to do it? Yes and No. I still love motorcycles, and I picked up whitewater kayaking about 20 years ago, and I of course still climb.
To be honest, I'm not as psyched on the later 2 at the moment and want to pick up on paragliding. Never done it but looks cool as sh#t! I don't want to be 3 dimentional I want to be 10 dimentional. I climb and have religeously for 25 years but I'm NOT a climber! Or so I tell myself.
However the theme in my life has been one of "alternative" recreation, so I think I'd be O.K. without climbing but will always be a weirdo.
S...
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The Larry
climber
Moab, UT
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Jan 28, 2013 - 10:33pm PT
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Art collector, professor, assassin, and bowler.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 28, 2013 - 10:37pm PT
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All on the same business card Larry?
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locker
Social climber
state of Kumbaya...
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Jan 28, 2013 - 10:38pm PT
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"Art collector, professor, assassin, and bowler."...
I think he forgot one...
PIMP...
EDITED:
"Sending"...
LOL!!!...
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The Larry
climber
Moab, UT
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Jan 28, 2013 - 10:43pm PT
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For realz though. I would probably die without the big stone.
Edit: ...and my babes.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Jan 28, 2013 - 10:45pm PT
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I climb and have religeously for 25 years but I'm NOT a climber! Or so I tell myself.
There are probably a few others here like that! I stayed away from kayaking - I just knew I did not want to drown. But I have done a little scuba and windsurfing and I sail. Then there are the motorcycles now.....the damn motorcycles - the simplest riding is seductive but I get on a bicycle enough to stay strong - I love riding. There's something about water for sure . I always wanted to surf-fish. I still have the gear from when I was 15 or so - practiced casting with the baitcasting type rig and everything. Climbing robbed me of my surf-fishing life! How many here hung out at Malibu Pier fishing for Bonita?! Those were the days. Now I worry about Fukushima radiation in the water. Life is complicated - at least making room for some fun is.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 28, 2013 - 10:46pm PT
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You are "all over" that bad boy Larry!
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locker
Social climber
state of Kumbaya...
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Jan 28, 2013 - 10:47pm PT
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"Sending"...
I fuking LOVE that shot man!!!...
Classic!!!...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 28, 2013 - 10:57pm PT
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Once I started climbing, I shunned almost all speed sports for fear of getting hurt and messing with my climbing. I know. What a pussy.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Jan 28, 2013 - 11:01pm PT
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"sending"
Every time that shot pops up on a thread it gives me a laugh. Especially the tiny pink chalk bag!
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10b4me
Boulder climber
Somewhere on 395
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Jan 28, 2013 - 11:04pm PT
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Once I started climbing, I shunned almost all speed sports for fear of getting hurt and messing with my climbing. I know. What a pussy.
Roy, I think mountain biking has a higher risk factor than climbing does
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 28, 2013 - 11:09pm PT
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Cripes what doesn't?
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Jan 28, 2013 - 11:17pm PT
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Hard to imagine my life without rock climbing, so...never mind...
I was into downhill ski racing, river running, motorcycles/dirt-bikes, flying, Formula 1/CART/SCCA/FormulaContinental, SCUBA, skydiving,fencing, etc...
All just sideline entertainment relative to my passion for rock climbing.
Edit:
Don't get me started talking about racing; moto-cross at Little Rock (Mohave),SCCA driver(D and E classes), F1 mechanic (Lotus - Jimmy Clark and Graham Hill), FC mechanic (Ron Pelman), CART AI suspension setup system using Symbolics computers (Bobby Rahal)
There was a girl in my high school in Boise who encountered me years later and told me she was always convinced I had a death wish. Then years later she realized that if I had even the tiniest bit of a death wish, I would never have survived from one year to the next.
Most of my climbing partners, as well as colleagues in other activities, get quite frustrated with my obsession for safety. A lot of my work at NASA involves imagining and proposing handling for everything that can go wrong with a launch vehicle and spacecraft; including ISS, Constellation, RpK, and SpaceX. And that's why I was tasked as lead systems engineer to write the risk management plan for FAA for the next generation air traffic system, NextGen.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 28, 2013 - 11:20pm PT
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Tom: spectating or driving?
You still get out to the track?
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 28, 2013 - 11:22pm PT
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It seems clear quite a few of us, most of us aren't buying this life without climbing gag. Good to see. And a bit predictable.
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Dingus Milktoast
Gym climber
And every fool knows, a dog needs a home, and...
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Jan 29, 2013 - 04:51am PT
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I'd probably be more successful in business. I'd certainly have more money. Lacking the Grand Charade, how would I boost my ego? Kinky sex and high end vacations of course!
But then again, maybe I'll just do it all. You don't mind do you?
DMT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jan 29, 2013 - 05:06am PT
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DMT
You coulda been a effin' offender, too, instead of such a sweetheart...
As I read thru these posts earlier--all very serious and intense, as they should be, right Larry?--I was wondering when Tom C. would be posting. So many ways to kill oneself, eh?
And, "Where's Throwpie?"--Katie
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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Jan 29, 2013 - 05:52am PT
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early dirt bike enthusiast here, but modeled myself after the trials and enduro influences which were cross country rather than speed driven. thank goodness nor-cal wasn't proximate to desert racing or more throttle might have been a factor. as it was, steep-rough-muddy sufficed.
practice on tight technical sections, with an emphasis on continuity of motion, and acceptance of adverse conditions transferred to my approach to climbing but above all admiration for the line.
can't discount the effect of general vagaboondury as a theme, but i think it all comes back to laying eyes on the landscape, onsight reading skills and adaptive response in the face of impedimentia driven by desire to measure up to what impresses. epic avoidance being its own reward
edit: avoid epic or epic avoid ... perhaps a little slip there?
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Captain...or Skully
climber
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Jan 29, 2013 - 06:02am PT
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I had a couple dirt bikes. Climbing is quieter. I like that.
I can't imagine my Life without climbing in it.
Your query is a Brain bender, Tarbuster. Whoa.
I reckon I'd still be at Sea.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Jan 29, 2013 - 06:09am PT
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Jeez louise!
Do you think it was inevitable you'd find something else sort of risky to sharpen your teeth on?
Were you already doing some parallel physical activity, perhaps similar in terms of passion and risk prior to becoming a climber and would you still be doing it instead?
What would that alternate activity to climbing be in your case?
Has that pursuit evolved to your dis-taste, or diverged from the values which climbing has inculcated within you since you left your earlier path?
Is it likely whatever your path, that it would be essentially an individualistic one such as climbing?
Characterize your transition from your prior passion to climbing.
------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm trying to put all of these questions into a blender and turn out a smoothie, but it's challenging! Inculcated- good word!
I think everything I'd done prior to that first true rock climb led up to that first true rock climb.
From rambling around the Southwest with my parents as a child, familiarizing myself with rock and juniper and sun and snakes, to eschewing soccer for an individual sport like tennis, then something more risky and alternative like skateboarding.
The framework for fringe oriented, risky pursuits was materializing.
Then the first high and the return to the outdoors. Tripping out on lichen and faces in the rock. I wanted to be closer to the rock.
But then came rock and roll, and Deadicated I was. But that got old, parking lots in urban areas.
That's when I moved somewhere that had lots of rock and I dedicated myself solely to climbing.
My upbringing, my mental wiring, and my surroundings dictated thaiit I be a climber.
Later in life I had to see what "life without climbing" was about and I left my rack behind and moved to the beach for the sole intent to follow the childhood dream of surfing.
All that framework sh!t from before- outdoors, mental wiring, passion, solo "sport" was there too and I was good at it.
"Life without climbing" was good! For twelve years it was good...great in fact.
But the call of the desert, my hometown, family, and....climbing, was strong enough to leave my surfing life behind.
And let me tell you,
The return from "A life Without Climbing" was better than the original life of climbing.
Here's the cliff notes: I was always going to be a climber.
Sorry for the babble, Tarbuster, and I'm not sure I even tagged the bases you listed but it was a good morning exercise for me. Hope my smoothie doesn't taste like sh!t.
Edit
From the Granite Mountain guidebook, one of my favorite quotes from Lovejoy
"This book is dedicated to the rock. If it weren't for the rock, we'd all be surfers"
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