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jopay
climber
so.il
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Jan 29, 2013 - 12:39pm PT
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Like Tarbuster I had an early interest in racing, in particular Grand Prix now called Formula 1, did a speech in high school circa 1963 on the subject and few had any idea what I was talking about. I read Road & Track cover to cover and my heroes were Jim Clark and Graham Hill, I loved road course racing and still do. Prior to that I was determined to be a bush pilot and go to Alaska, I lived a bicycle ride from our local airport and that's were you would find me bumming rides, usually with the same Cessna 170 owned by a local car dealer who loved to stall and "buzz" the field, a great pilot.I almost never considered team sports would have bored me silly. I was 36 when climbing found me or I found climbing but it fit like nothing else before had and has enriched my life in too many ways to describe and still does.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Jan 29, 2013 - 12:49pm PT
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There is no life without climbing!
Seriously, rewind to 1974. Before climbing there was only basketball and hiking. I was a damn good ballplayer, starter at a 3A school, but it wasn't gonna lead to the pros or anything, or even a college scholarship most likely.
I discovered climbing at the same moment I discovered that there was more than bball. I so loved the high and wild, and especially the individual freedom, compared to depending on coaches yelling at my ass to be successful.
Hard to imagine where I could've turned differently. I probably would have stayed and finished 20 in the military for one thing. But as it happened, I was already too schooled in EXTREME FREEDOM, to do that.
Probably still would've ended up being a dad. It's my greatest accomplishment in life.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Pebble Wrestling.... Badly lately.
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Jan 29, 2013 - 01:11pm PT
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As a kid I grew up trout fishing on rivers and creeks and then started water skiing and surfing at 13. Was a gymnast thru skool then like Roy I took up riding dirt bikes. I raced motocross for a while but everyone I rode with got broken and I could see the writing on the wall. At 23 I found climbing at Stoney Point and have been there ever since. I might still be surfing if I hadn't started climbing. I have been out on some huge days and dropping into big wavves was a one of a kind rush. I still love going around twisties in cars and love my WRX. Part of the fun of going climbing is the twisty roads to get into the mountains! So yeah, always an adrenalin junky and always aiming for the weekend in the wilds, even still.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Jan 29, 2013 - 01:16pm PT
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hey there say, tarbuster... very NICE to hear from you... neat post too...
will be back to read it... just now taking the ol' pupdog for her 'update it' rabies shot...
god bless to you and the family! :)
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crunch
Social climber
CO
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Jan 29, 2013 - 01:19pm PT
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Hi Roy,
yeah, I've owned a few motorcycles, but climbing came first. Started climbing when I went to college, age 19. Before that, I used to paint and draw, was really into art.
Climbing satisfied that same, creative urge, plus was way more exciting, and sociable, and fun. I did not quit painting, I just did not need it any more.
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chill
climber
between the flat part and the blue wobbly thing
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Jan 29, 2013 - 01:27pm PT
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Before I found climbing I watched TV and read books. I was a pale, pasty dork. In a book store I saw some pictures of Roger Briggs on "Death and Transfiguration". That changed my life. I'm still a dork, just a little less pasty.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Jan 29, 2013 - 01:49pm PT
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I was actually bred for risk taking with T-types in both paternal and maternal lines.
My father was a performing artist and my mom's father (as much of a father figure to me) was successful as a young diamond dealer because he hired a new fangled aeroplane (open cockpit) to shuttle him from Amsterdam to London a day ahead of the competition when the shipments came in from South Africa. He was also an inveterate gambler and philanderer.
Indeed, if it wasn't for the "caution genes" that I must have gotten from my grandmothers I likely would have been long dead.
But I grew up in the woods of New England loving nature so when I was exposed to climbing at 14 it was a natural progression.
For me a more intriguing question is what path I would have been on if I hadn't been labeled a criminal since my teenage years for smoking weed.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Jan 29, 2013 - 04:36pm PT
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Tough question to answer when you have spent 47 of nearly 70 years obsessed by climbing.
I was introduced to climbing by a couple of British SAS guys while on a training problem in North Carolina and never looked back.
Life is full of unforseen twists and turns that can change your trajectory for ever in a nano second. I wouldn't have joined the army if i had not been in a fatal car accident and if i hadn't joined the army.....well, you get the point.
I was a good middle distance runner in High School and College, perhaps i would have become a running nut. My fraternal twin brother Bill, who didn't have my ability, ran a 2:26 marathon when he was 41.
What you would have done is mere conjecture....what you did do is the body of your life's work.
edit: T Hocking, love your attitude. I'll be in Yosemite the entire month of May....come down and tie in.
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Nate D
climber
San Francisco
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Jan 29, 2013 - 05:39pm PT
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nice thread.
I never gravitated much towards team sports. I played them, and had a best friend who was really good at them all, so I paled in comparison.
I always had a love for the mountains and being outside. Scouting mostly exposed me to that - camping, hiking, fishing. During my teen years, my Dad (a very goal oriented professor), older brother and I started peak bagging along the Wasatch Front every weekend in the summers. We occasionally got in over our heads without proper technical skills.
When I was first exposed to climbing thru a very outdoorsy fraternity, it seemed like one of the most intimate experiences I could have with nature, as kooky as that sounds. I excelled at art from a young age, and climbing was such a creative process and challenge on a micro and macro scale. I got hooked pretty quick. Mt. biking was a big attraction as well for awhile.
I must say I was also initially attracted to climbing because it seemed exclusive. (Ha! not so now with the advent of gyms!) I liked to do things most had not, and not in order to beat my chest or whatever, but because I liked pioneering for some reason - making my own way I suppose. The same thing still attracts me to exploration in art and design - trying things that might actually be unique. The common innate desire for many of us to break new ground could be a whole 'nother meaty thread, I suppose.
EDIT: Don't think I directly answered any of the questions in the OP, but I must say that risk never seemed to cross my mind as an attraction to rock climbing. I don't think I viewed it as that risky. Scrambling up steep stuff in the mountains, which I'd done before enough to get spooked, was risky stuff, but geez, climbing used ropes and gizmos to save you from stupid mistakes.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 29, 2013 - 06:47pm PT
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I might be spending too much time around Tom Frost but I think CLIMBING FINDS YOU, if you are fortunate and prepared to receive the unique learning and personal growth opportunity it presents. You define climbing and then it defines you...
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Jan 29, 2013 - 07:47pm PT
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Tar: A great introspective question.
A life without climbing?
Strangely, although I was very outdoor oriented in my youth, I was not into “risky-schist” before climbing. The fact that I was a 3rd rate athlete may have had something to do with that.
So-------I was doing fly-fishing, hiking, skiing and drugs by the time I took up roped climbing at age 19, but what would have replaced the adrenaline rush I do so enjoy from scaring myself climbing?
Kayaking? Due to climbing contacts I became a river guide, but never was much at kayaking.
Sky-diving? I had friends I met through climbing that were sky-divers. Heidi was a sky-diver and had no climbing background when I met her. I think I would have been bored spit-less by all the standing around, and the party-life would have been the death of me.
Hang-gliding???? I’d be dead or a vegetable.
Let’s be honest here, I’m among friends-----right?
Half the enjoyment of climbing was: for the first time in my life----I was something besides a nerd!
Women ---or at least some of the more interesting women around me, thought climbers were cool!
Woohoo! I had a social life and the adrenaline rush both!
I guess the only alternative career path would have been to become a piano-player in a whorehouse.
Sigh.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Jan 29, 2013 - 08:12pm PT
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T Hocking! Re. your comment: Damn Fritz, at first glace I thought it was Buddy Holly!
I am always bothered looking at those old photos of Buddy Holly. At least he could sing his way to overcoming his nerdish looks.
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mhay
climber
Reno, NV
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Jan 29, 2013 - 08:18pm PT
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I couldn't really pull climbing out of my past and remove it by itself. I grew up backpacking, moved into more demanding travel routes through the mountains and desert as I became a teenager. By the time I was 20 I wanted to get even better at 3rd classing stuff, even though I didn't know at the time that that is what it is called, so I learned how to rock climb. I figured it would be good practice for mountaineering, but quickly figured out how much fun it was in it's own right. It was not introduced to me, I searched it out. For me, it's just another way to travel in and experience wilderness areas. There's also walking, skiing, boating, and running. Risk is not the top of the list for why I take part in activities that others may consider risky. Some people may observe an activity that they view as risky, and their focus is the riskiness. However, there are other reasons for engaging in those activities; natural beauty of the area, self-reliance, connecting with partners, the ability to ignore the rest of the world for a little while and focus on simple and immediate problems.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Jan 29, 2013 - 08:25pm PT
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Don't undersell yoursef Fritz....Heidi told me that when you're in the shower there emanates from therein the dulcet tones of a Nightingale.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 29, 2013 - 10:17pm PT
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Thanks for humoring me everyone!
So much good stuff in here and a somewhat busy homework assignment to boot up for. Ha ha.
Why didn't I just say: "dude, what's your back story?". It's the antecedents to climbing that I was looking for and that are coming out so well here.
Donini is correct: what you didn't do is pure conjecture. Using the phrase life without climbing was used more as a hook than anything, but it serves to get the juices of reflection going because it's a subtractive tactic, to see what's underneath.
After carefully reading these, the first nugget I'm gleaning here is that nobody sits down with a beer in high school and thinks to themselves: man I really need to get me some risk and adrenaline happenin' for my bad self ... Where should I turn? We are simply drawn to activities.
Micronut nailed that one:
but its what's around the next bend in life that fascinates me most.
We are all highly curious cats, drawn to places in life that for reasons perhaps not yet so well understood, compell us outward, beyond where we stand.
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wstmrnclmr
Trad climber
Bolinas, CA
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Jan 29, 2013 - 11:06pm PT
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Wow Tar, What a great thought provoking thread. And on topic! Parallel lives.......We were so lucky when younger. We actually had a motorcycle shop in middle school! Rode cycles around the school field instead of baseball. Probably the first and last of it's type. And the first ever GP motocross race was held in Marin at China Camp.
That's me lower left holding the helmet about '70 or 71' and that's Dick "Bugsy" Mann who just won the AMA championship. He came out and flat tracked the ball field for us.
Your line about motocross being dangerous and getting in the way of climbing so true although they both are very individualistic sports. But interesting how many here share cycling in our pasts.
I started climbing later (31) and found climbing to be the only thing that could make me focus so intensely and take me as close to meditation as I'll ever come. And that reason still keeps going now. But you are right in that perspectives change due to physical and life changes. The favorite book you read in your youth maybe a completely different read later in life. But that focus is what keeps me climbing. It used to be about goals and numbers but now it's about the experience. And none of us has more or less fun or adventure then anyone else. It really has become relative. So that singular reason for climbing is still much the same as when I started.
Surfing was and still is the parallel to climbing and is also an individual pursuit. I think most who come to climbing are very unique characters for the most part but still, somehow find their people.
Someone on another thread said that the generation before mine thought of athletic pursuit as having a short shelf life and thought that in the case of climbing, you were done by the time you were thirty and you moved on to more serious life pursuits. That perception seems to have changed dramatically and many of us feel that we can climb, at whatever level until old age. Maybe we look at what climbing, as a pursuit means to us differently? But certainly age brings us pause to look back with perspective as you have done Tar. Thanks for a great thread. It's why I come back.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 29, 2013 - 11:27pm PT
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wstrmrnclmr: I was just reading about Dick Mann the other day. He and some of those other 60s & 70s guys still ride and race from what I've understood.
Sports car racing guys: I'd like to know what years you were involved. Again I was just a spectating kid, my old man was a turn worker. I got to see the 1971 'n 1972 Can Am Series: Dennis Hulme in the McLaren, Jackie Stewart in the Lola T260. Followed by the Penske/Donohue Porsche 917 10K 30 dominance which essentially ended it. The Shadows were cool, but didn't get it sorted out in time. Big bore racing like that hasn't been seen since, except perhaps Group B rallying in the mid-80s? Other names of less heralded but keen campaigners come to mind, Milt Mintner, Lothar Motschenbacher, Scooter Patrick, Dennis Hobbs & many more. My father liked to call the guys who could really get it on Doers.
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weezy
climber
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Jan 29, 2013 - 11:30pm PT
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october 1990: got chucked out of the back of a pickup truck that was trying to evade a police car. dislocated pelvis, shattered wrist, yada yada. had a month in traction to re-consider the kind of people i was hanging out with. had a dream about snowboarding in powder so i got a board and clipped tickets at mt. baldy (mt. san antonio). quit hanging out with shitbags and thugs. snowboarder friend was a climber and i prayed he would never asked me to go because i though that sh#t was bananas. he asked anyway and i had to go because i didn't want to look like a punk. climbed some chossy 5.7 underneath the bridge in victorville. saw a picture of the southwest face of el cap and was hooked. climbed a bunch over the next ten years, never sent anything harder than 11+ but whatever. utility player mostly. then i moved to moab and got a mountain bike. solo rides with the pooch started to appeal to me more than digging for partners to go flounder up the sandstone. legs got strong, arms got weak. then i had an accident last september that took me out of the game for a while. tendons, nerves and my ulnar artery. the hard sends are behind me. i'll probably never climb 5.12 but i have my eye on some chossy easy towers and domes with a summit brewski clanking around in my pack. i do want to send standing rock so i'm going to have to get it together at some point. but i'm definitely riding my dirtbike out there for that. and that's where we're at, a climbing career thusfar bookended by serious injury to my left wrist. tommy caldwell is trying to send the hardest route ever with half an index finger so i guess i have no excuse.
see you at the crags.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Jan 29, 2013 - 11:36pm PT
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Good reads up in here!
Thanks for starting a proper thread tarbuster!
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
honeoye falls,ny.greeneck alleghenys
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Jan 29, 2013 - 11:47pm PT
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utility player mostly if that does not sum up just about everything in my life so far ,i dont know what would.sorry for my mediocrity,hockey,surfing,bouldering ,lifelong cyclist,bc skiing,kayaking and climbing and mountianeering.
i just hope it does not stop
however you arrive,lets hope it was a hell of a ride,great thread,some real inspiring reads.cheers wilbeer
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