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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Dec 22, 2014 - 11:35am PT
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Several great answers, but those of healeyje, apogee and rgold really struck home with me. I "like" climbing in the same sense that I "like" to breathe. I learned that with sufficient commitment, I can do much that I thought was impossible, but I also learned that "sufficient commitment" can produce terribly selfish behavior. Ultimately, though, I learned that I don't want to die climbing, so I repeat here the final portion of rgold's post:
With experience comes wisdom.
But only if you actually pay attention to experience.
Neither experience nor wisdom will be enough to keep you alive.
For that you also need luck.
I hope we all can experience that combination of wisdom and luck.
John
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this just in
climber
Justin Ross from North Fork
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Dec 22, 2014 - 11:45am PT
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To keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
To ride Westside till I die.
That out here in California we'll Bomb on you mother f*#kers.
Oh wait that was Tupac. Could be a good alternative thread.
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Dec 23, 2014 - 10:00am PT
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Talk is cheap.
F*#K YES TO THAT!
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Captain...or Skully
climber
in the oil patch...Fricken Bakken, that's where
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Dec 23, 2014 - 10:03am PT
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And OE CAN be good, sometimes.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Dec 23, 2014 - 10:06am PT
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Skully, yer statement belongs on "The New Religion vs Science Thread".
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Dec 23, 2014 - 10:08am PT
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to avoid traffic
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hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
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Dec 23, 2014 - 03:44pm PT
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that I scare pretty easy
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duke of puke
climber
boulder, co
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Dec 23, 2014 - 04:43pm PT
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That work SUCKS! Now puke!
Close. Instead how about..
That it's recovery between puking sessions.
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hossjulia
Trad climber
Carson City, NV
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Dec 23, 2014 - 05:01pm PT
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That I am miserable without it.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Dec 23, 2014 - 05:39pm PT
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Gravity is fair to all and favors few . . .
those it does favor must not fall
As it is not gravity's fault that you do not bounce at all!
and. . .
It takes all kinds. . .
there is more than one in every crowd. . .
a cure for what ailes me. . .
Metaphorically shadows life's elliptical path . . .
your gonna die . . .
Falling off is. . .easy . . . landing is hard and hurts
once you start. . .
stopping is hard
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Dec 23, 2014 - 07:37pm PT
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1) I'm not as tough as I thought...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
2) Remain calm, map out your moves between rest spots, make the moves, shake out, & repeat.
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snowhazed
Trad climber
Oaksterdam, CA
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Dec 23, 2014 - 07:44pm PT
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That anything is possible with enough time and dedication, even despite the false belief that I'm as good as I will ever be.
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Risk
Mountain climber
Olympia, WA
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Dec 23, 2014 - 09:44pm PT
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there's a very small difference between 100 feet and 2,000 feet when it comes to exposure; life is that way too
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throwpie
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Dec 23, 2014 - 10:08pm PT
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Pants first, THEN shoes.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Dec 23, 2014 - 10:09pm PT
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Here's something I learned from climbing, not in the general way suggested by the thread title on on a very specific situation on a very specific day.
Sometime in the mid-sixties my friends Peter Gardiner and Steve Derenzo and I spent a week doing climbs from Garnet Canyon. One day we hiked up to the Lower Saddle to do the complete Exum Ridge the next day.
That never happened. Late in the afternoon, a rescue party of GTNP personnel arrived at the Lower Saddle. There had been a bad accident at the Upper Saddle. A grapefruit-sized rock had fallen from the top of the standard rappel and hit someone at the base of the rappel. He had a depressed skull fracture and there was apparently a lot of blood lost. The victim was still alive, and needed to be carried from the Upper Saddle to the Lower Saddle where a helicopter could get him off the mountain.
The rescue party was short-handed and clearly already tired from pounding up to the Lower Saddle. We offered to help and the offer was accepted. The rescue took all night. If anyone knows the terrain between the Upper and Lower Saddles, you know it is a tough place to carry down a litter, especially in the dark. It's basically a boulder field broken by short cliff bands. We had six people carrying the stretcher plus an absolutely essential belayer. Going over the cliff bands, two or four of the carriers were just hanging onto the belayed litter. It was exhausting and scary work.
But now we get to the part about learning something. With a lot of people now strung out in the dark between the two saddles, it was inevitable that a certain amount of rock fall would happen. Every time the cry of rock was heard from above, the six carriers, reflexively (certainly no one discussed this) leaned over the litter and shielded the victim with their bodies. This was a very severely injured patient who probably was not going to survive, and the carriers were all healthy young people in the prime of life, but sensible or not, no one protected themselves, everyone protected the victim.
Fifty years have passed since that night on the mountain, and I still find myself thinking about it regularly. We see terrible things happening in the world. Our nation is increasing polarized. Disagreements without rancor seems like a quaint memory. It is easy to think human nature is, at heart, fundamentally and fatally flawed. But I spent a night long ago with healthy people trying to save a stranger who probably was not going to make it, people who reflexively put used their bodies to intercept further harm to the victim.
What I learned that night was that there are some very powerful human instincts that are fundamentally both good and heroic, and these instincts are alive in us, ready to be awakened when someone is truly in need. Honestly, the totality of other insights of 58 years of climbing pale before this one, which continues to suggest to me over the years that we have something to live up to, something to aspire to, and we don't have to look around for it; it is in ourselves if only we can find it.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Dec 23, 2014 - 10:50pm PT
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Thank you, Richie, for sharing that most inspiring post.
John
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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Dec 23, 2014 - 11:04pm PT
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thanks rgold.
if you were a preacher man, i'd attend your church...
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Dec 23, 2014 - 11:51pm PT
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rgold: that's one of the best posts I've read here...thanks
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Dec 24, 2014 - 12:50am PT
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Balancing,
balance too
How to breath,
And To Breath
How to make do
and make doodo,
and
make doodo into lemonade
[Click to View YouTube Video]. . . .
Who I am and who I want to be
and the opposition to success is often determined mentally and emotionally, as much as physically.
As physical as climbing is it is still all about the entire mix of mental, emotional and chemical!
Chemical?
That is actually still a level of Physical that helps to explain the spiritual and addictive experience that climbing holds close to it's core.
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Dec 24, 2014 - 01:43am PT
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Climbing - it's nice to have a hobby.
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