I really wonder why people do this climbing thing

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pud

climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
Feb 6, 2013 - 09:00am PT
Don't let fear guide your path, it makes for a dim light.
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Feb 6, 2013 - 09:10am PT
My motive was simply to keep pace with my friend Jeff, the Rev. And then I found there were relatively few limitations and practitioners. I was markedly different in that when I was up there and they were down here, I felt somehow superior.

Simple. It's good to feel superior to someone, even though you'll never be the king.

That was in the beginning.

As for today, the next few weeks, if I get to visit/climb with Dwain in Vegas, I'll worry about motive then. Just getting together with CC will be engaging and any climbing we do will be gravy.
rectorsquid

climber
Lake Tahoe
Feb 6, 2013 - 11:50am PT
To prevent a preventable death is to stifle creativity. No one basks in the glory of safety and boredom.

So what if someone dies climbing a mountain. It is no more or less noble than being killed in a car crash or being killed by a staph infection at a hospital where you volunteer to help burned kids.

It's just death. It happens and it sucks for those that don't want to see you go. Then they get over it and they die.

In fact, everyone who was alive 120 years ago is dead. Everyone. The entire world of people are gone.

People climb for the same reason others watch TV. It's something to do.

Dave
10b4me

Boulder climber
Somewhere on 395
Feb 6, 2013 - 11:53am PT

I do this sh#t TO live

I don't have a death wish, I have a life wish
-Dan Osman
survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
Feb 6, 2013 - 12:06pm PT
There are many ways to die and climbing doesn't look like the worst way to go compared to these. Having said so, I personally believe that climbers with significant others should not take unnecessary risks.


Great post Jan.

I do have children and a beautiful wife. My climbing took on a significantly more conservative approach after about 1990. I still love it and have a blast. Some people have a harder time turning away from the truly risky???
WBraun

climber
Feb 6, 2013 - 12:08pm PT
There is only one word required to answer the question.

Desire ......
Snowmassguy

Trad climber
Calirado
Feb 6, 2013 - 12:11pm PT
Personally I have gone through stages of my life where I was much more risk tolerant and also much more risk adverse. When young, I was most definitely filled with bravado that steered me to more dangerous alpine adventures. I almost/ should have died when I had very young children at home. I suddenly became more risk adverse and decided it was time to dial it down a bit. As I grow older and have seen friends die of cancer and from other unfair causes, my tolerance for risk is increasing. Risk seems to be a highly personal topic.
briham89

Big Wall climber
san jose, ca
Feb 6, 2013 - 12:12pm PT
10b4me that gave me chills.

Alright I quit!!! I'm gunna take up bowling.

































Knott! :)
mhay

climber
Reno, NV
Feb 6, 2013 - 12:18pm PT
I am a very risk averse climber. I am not bold. I do not like bold. It does not impress me. Not as it applies to putting your butt on the line anyway.

What impresses me is skill and control and decisions to BOLDLY back off, slow down when there is reasonable doubt and the myriad types of pressures to keep going or hurry.

I like systems and backups. I like identifying every point of deadly failure and putting in place simple practices, skills and awareness that negate their ability to bite you.

These are my favorite challenges in climbing. How do I get up what I want in the way I want, have fun and absolutely not die.

I had this approach from day one.

Yet I still can think of a few cases where I am alive due to too much luck. Where I screwed up and it did not bite me in the ass.

It's one hell of an unforgiving place to f*#k up.

But I still climb. Because cumulatively it's by far the most valuable, rewarding joyful and beutiful set of experiences in my life. I could throw away lots of things out of my life.. but the climbing would be one of the very last I'd choose.


Exactly, except I, for one, am impressed with bold. Badasses like Steve House, Johnny Copp and Micah Dash know that what they're doing is the real deal, and that is part of the draw for them. But climbing does not have to be about managing huge risks. It can be done in a fairly quotidian way and still be a meaningful activity. One should not assume that everyone who climbs does it for the adrenaline.

weezy

climber
Feb 6, 2013 - 12:28pm PT
my worst injuries have occurred while:

 polishing a wine glass (four tendons, nerve, artery)

 riding in a car (dislocated pelvis, shattered wrist)

 making bagel dough (comminuted fracture to finger)

 opening the front door (deep laceration, nerve damage)

for the record, i was sober during every accident. (although recent studies have shown that i may, in fact, be a moron). rockclimbing for 18 years, including a bunch of ropeless shenanigans and never had a bad injury. worst injuries are from bouldering, oddly enough. tennis elbow from crimping too much and back problems from jumping off highballs.

oh and i suffered irreversible damage to my ego for a case of snail-eye that i came down with yesterday. the shame will haunt me to my dying day.

i guess my point is that anything can kill you and carelessness is the culprit.
survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
Feb 6, 2013 - 12:31pm PT
Wait a minute DMT...Table tennis?

Can you prove that more people have died playing ping pong than climbing?

Not calling you a l___r, just really curious that it's even possible....
survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
Feb 6, 2013 - 12:43pm PT
I don't believe it. The table shows 7 deaths for table tennis between 97 and 06, yet offers zero for rock climbing in the same period, which we know is utter BS.

It also says ZERO about these alleged table tennis deaths. Sorry, but I call bullshit to ping pong being more dangerous than climbing.....
SCseagoat

Trad climber
Santa Cruz
Feb 6, 2013 - 12:50pm PT

Three weeks after chemo, bald. Couldn't wait to get back on the rock. There are worse ways to die than climbing.


Susan
gonzo chemist

climber
Fort Collins, CO
Feb 6, 2013 - 12:53pm PT
Mr. Hansen (and others who would pose this query),

with all due respect, do you ask the very same question of people who pursue a sedentary lifestyle? Or more to the point, do you question people who gorge themselves on cholesterol-containing animal-based food products?

Heart disease is the #1 killer in the USA (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm);.


I suppose it IS a fair question to ask why we would choose to engage in 'risky' climbing behaviors. However I'd wager that for MOST people climbing has brought them innumerable friends, an appreciation for the outdoors, a sense of community, an active lifestyle, a sense of accomplishment, and a litany of character-building experiences.

In the end, we're all just passing time until our biological matter can return from whence it came.
We all pass that time according to our own internal compass.

Nosce te ipsum.
Crodog

Social climber
Feb 6, 2013 - 01:51pm PT
I didn't get the title right away...
survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
Feb 6, 2013 - 02:10pm PT
This is why....







Also this....



Reeotch

Trad climber
4 Corners Area
Feb 6, 2013 - 03:38pm PT
John Hansen,

You use to climb, but you were never a climber.

You don't seem to understand that climbing is only as dangerous as you make it. I would hope that those who climb while being ignorant of the risks they are taking are in the minority. Not all climbing is equally risky. You must have climbed enough to realize this.
Real climbers choose the amount of risk they take, and choose it willingly. Is this not one of the ultimate expressions of freedom?
But freedom comes with responsibility. You had better know what you are doing. Ignorance and hubris equal death, but neither is a requirement for pursuing climbing.
You can't just paint us all with the same brush like that. Very shallow.
BTW, I've been climbing for 32 years and I have no desire to quit now.
FRUMY

Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
Feb 6, 2013 - 04:00pm PT
H_ll I don't know why I climb.
After more the thirty years, my hands don't work worth a da_n, the rest of my body is only in a little less pain.
But I wake up each day & think about the Mountains, or bouldering & off I go knowing that the next day my hands will barely open, I will have to put them in hot water just to hold a cup of coffee.
I won't get a good night sleep cause my right shoulder will send shape pains through my whole body if I roll over on it & I will.

If I don't go I get irritable. A few years ago I stopped climbing because my hands were in bad shape & I could do my job or climb. The job had to go. Sold the business.

I no longer care about the ratings -- I just climb.
Reeotch

Trad climber
4 Corners Area
Feb 6, 2013 - 04:04pm PT
Yeah FRUMMY!

At this point climbing will do more to keep arthritis at bay, than to make it worse. Keep moving, that's the secret.
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
Feb 6, 2013 - 04:42pm PT
I climb because it makes people think I'm a badass risk-taker when in reality it's not that dangerous.

I like that explanation, Dave!

In John Hansen's defense, though, I've often wondered how we justify climbing in the face of deadly accidents, too. A little over a week ago, sending condolences about another climbing death got me to thinking about it. If no one died climbing, and no one was at risk of serious injury, would the sport be the same?

This got me to wondering whether I found, in some way, the possibility of tragedy to be an essential part of my personal climbing game. If so, how can I justify the existence of a mere game that requires the death of even one of its participants?

Ultimately, it comes down, to me, to relative probabilities. I think, at my age, I'm more likely to die of a heart attack on a climb than a fall on one. If anything, my climbing provides an incentive to maintain overall fitness, which enhances the likelihood of living a healthy life longer. I know of no other activity that motivates me like that, so the marginal risk of injury in doing another climb is, for me, less than the marginal risk of poor health in quitting climbing.

I think Jan's post was excellent on a number of points, but I'd like to focus on the effect of others on personal risk management. When I got married, 30 years ago, I stopped free soloing technical routes. Even though I always felt safe, I didn't feel it was fair to my wife to continue to take that particular risk. While my daughters were financially dependent on my earnings -- and my presence -- I did lots of things more carefully than I would if I were unattached. I think that's merely a manifestation of love. Of course, I also taught them how to climb, which shows the side of the risk calculation on which I conclude.

John
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