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Wen
Trad climber
Bend, OR
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 16, 2017 - 05:06pm PT
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Some musings given recent events. I'm not sure where to put them, I guess this is as good a place as any.
The Collective Grief of Being a Climber
I was teary all day. Another one of those heart breaking days, a huge loss to the climbing community, and it feels so sad. I didn’t even know Hayden Kennedy, I met him once in the parking lot at the Squamish Chief as he and his dad were gearing up for some sort of impressive mission. It was right after his dad penned the letter to him in Alpinist, and I remember commenting to Michael that his piece really resonated with me; it’s possibly the most impactful piece of climbing literature I’ve ever read. I was giddy in the 2 minutes I talked with Michael and Hayden, and off they went to experience their shared climbing passion, leaving me dreaming of the day I could do the same with my kids.
I’ve often lived in fear of raising children who climb. What if they rap off the end of their rope? What if all the reminders in the world aren’t enough for them to wear their helmet and prevent that final mistake? What if they trend toward alpinism and seek the mountains that might take them away? Because it happens, over and over and over, and I’m not sure how I’d handle it if my love of the sport guided my child to that fatal moment. Michael was the first person I knew who talked about this, grieved openly about it, and yet made it through the other side of his thoughts, to the place that said climbing was worth the sadness it might engender.
These are the days that make me question even being a climber. What is it all for? How can it possibly be justified when people just keep dying? I don’t even know most of these famous people, Kyle, Micah, Jack, Dean, Steve, Jared, Alex, now Hayden, I could go on and on since there’s too many to name and I’ve never met most of them, and yet I feel like their deaths keep taking a chink out of my armor. Where does it all go? How do you do it Werner, and Jim, and Christian, and any of you? How do you maintain your optimism when you see your tribe leaving us?
We don’t talk much about it, but there is great sadness in identifying yourself as a climber. It means you submit yourself to a process of regular loss. These are people we may not know personally, and yet I feel like I know them through their writing and stories, their friends on Supertaco, and that makes me feel like they are in my heart. I’ve spent time thinking about them, integrating their views into my own, changing my perspective because of the perspective they’ve offered me. It’s not enough to say they are in my thoughts and prayers. It’s not just trite, it feels wrong, because they were there in some capacity already, even before they died.
So I’m sorry to Julie and Michael Kennedy, and to all the many friends and family of Hayden and Inge. And I’m also sorry to the thousands of climbers out there because we have yet another loss in our tribe. It makes no sense, and it makes me want to run away from our sport. How much loss can a heart take? How much loss can a community take? Because this one feels bigger somehow. Hayden had an intimate understanding of grief, and his response to it was that there is a breaking point.
Thank you Kennedy family for acknowledging Hayden’s death as a suicide. It must have been painful, and yet I feel it was so generous of you. Its helps me “get it.” I get it because Hayden’s grief makes sense in the face of so many losses. And for me, it’s why his action was so powerful. I have great respect for you and the final decision you made, and for your parents and the way they phrased their response in the media. Thank you Kennedy family for encouraging me to think differently.
If there’s a breaking point, why do we keep climbing? Why do we encourage our children to climb? Hayden recently wrote, “Climbing is either a beautiful gift, or a curse.” Can it really be both at the same time? Can these chinks in our armor build us to a better place, or do they take something away from us?
I guess I’ll go back to reading Supertaco, and climbing literature, and climbing magazines, and hope that these things are enough to heal my heart, which feels especially sad right now. Because what else can we do but share our sadness, explore these concepts, and grieve together? Our tribe is beautiful. Our tribe is powerful. But once again, our tribe is wounded.
Wendy Laakmann
October 10th 2017
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Oct 16, 2017 - 05:15pm PT
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We climb or climbed because it pulls us. There is no grief, just a sense of loss. People die. That's the way it is. At least climbers know they have lived.
edit 10/21: I hope these words are not too harsh. Lost my mom to cancer when I was 26. Old enough to understand she was better off than the hell she had been living through. I was not sad and did not grieve. Maybe it is just my make up; I never expected to live past 25, to me every day since is a blessing no matter how crappy. Now I'm 59 (the age my mom was when she passed) and see life as a continuum. Some times it can be overwhelming. Life provides us with an amazing ability to adapt.
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Loco de Pedra
Mountain climber
Around the World
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Oct 16, 2017 - 05:26pm PT
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We are all walking towards the same end goal, which is the coffin. How we do it is what counts the most.
"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold." - H. Keller
Best wishes and love for those who are left behind.
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jeff constine
Trad climber
Ao Namao
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Oct 16, 2017 - 06:05pm PT
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can't have any fun if death is on the back of your mind worrying about it while doing anything in life. Cherish the good times keep the memory of the fallen alive. No Grief needed at all.
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mikegrai
climber
ON
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Oct 16, 2017 - 06:13pm PT
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I think of climbing as a form of addiction. There are benign aspects to this addiction - self-discovery, personal development, excitement, fitness, camaraderie, but if I am honest I have to admit to the dark side of the climbing addiction/obsession as well. In some ways it is an intensely selfish act, where we pretend that the risks we take will affect only ourselves, and close our eyes to the impact our accidental death would have on those closest to us.
I have come to the conclusion that climbing appeals to a deeply imbedded streak of egocentric narcisssim that exists in my character. There are worse personality traits, and worse ways to spend your time, but I think we sometimes are naively uncritical of the climbing enterprise.
Rationalizing and denial are powerful coping mechanisms - I expect they will be greatly in evidence in many of the responses to this thread.
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Oct 16, 2017 - 06:22pm PT
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Inge Perkins died in an avalanche; Hayden Kennedy took his own life, so climbing per se played no part in the death of either of them.
Personal safety is largely illusory; one minute you appear to be safe; the next moment you are in danger. Homicide takes about 13,000 lives per year in the U.S. Car accidents, gun accidents, opioid overdoses, heart disease and cancer claim huge numbers. Climbing fatalities are still quite rare, especially considering the larger number of climbers. If you keep a gun in your home and are careless about how it is handled, you put your kids at a greater risk than if they climb.
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ruppell
climber
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Oct 16, 2017 - 06:27pm PT
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Oct 16, 2017 - 06:59pm PT
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Wendy
I don't know if this will help you sort out your feelings, but for whatever it is worth, here are some thoughts from a climber who was a son of parents who would have been devastated to lose him, and also a father of a son who has grown into a man who also climbs.
Should I have launched into whitewater as a teenager, and then begun climbing when I moved to where there were rocks and mountains? Or was that a burden I should never have placed on my parents? Should my wife and I have continued climbing when our children were born? Should we have introduced our boys to the outdoors? To climbing? Should I now fear that any phone call might be the one that informs me of my son's death?
Like most of the long-time climbers here on ST, I have had more friends than I want to think about go into the mountains and not come home. Should they not have gone to the mountains?
Finding the answer to all these questions requires me to ask another: What is the alternative?
For me, and for many climbers I know, climbing was far more a way to survive than a way to die. If I hadn't gone paddling, and then climbing, I'd have been dead or in jail long ago. And I can't begin to count the number of friends who have said the same thing.
Some of us simply didn't fit in to the space we were allotted in the Betty Crocker world we were born into. Those of us who found a home in the climbing community were the lucky ones. Yes, some of us died in avalanches, rockfalls, rappelling accidents, whatever... But most of us survived, and when we look at our brothers and sisters who didn't find what we did, the ones who turned to alcohol, drugs, and crime... Well, the answer seems clear to me.
The best way I can sum it all up is to think back to when my children were very young, and remember that yes, when I went climbing for a day, a week, or a month I took the chance that I would not come home, and they would grow up without a father...
...but to me, that seemed a far, far better outcome for them than to watch their father drink himself to death.
David Harris
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Oct 16, 2017 - 07:42pm PT
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David- Well written.
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jstan
climber
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Oct 16, 2017 - 08:22pm PT
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Because what else can we do but share our sadness, explore these concepts, and grieve together? Our tribe is beautiful. Our tribe is powerful.
The tribe can't bring you back to life or make you walk again. Don't fool yourself with such thinking.
Your well written post clearly says you question whether the benefits you receive from climbing justify the risk.
Now you have to act.
You can find climbing personalities all over the place. Out of the blue yesterday a trash picking friend said to me
"After you are dead I want your truck."
Just what I would expect of a climber.
Have to put that in my will.
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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Oct 16, 2017 - 08:38pm PT
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With all due respect Wen . . . To be human is to suffer, we have been doing it for millennia. Don't worry yourself with fears of mortality and loss . . . Things you should not be sorry for, by the way, as they are inevitable.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 16, 2017 - 08:48pm PT
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I don't have anything to add, after a life of climbing I always thought that my imagined climbing autobiography would be a take off of Galen's title: "High and Mild."
But we all travel to those places and undertake the risks, choose to undertake the risks with full knowledge that we might not come back. And after climbing for more than 40 years, I can count the times for which I came close to not returning, even with wife and child and responsibilities. More, I know there were many times uncounted. After I had been climbing for a few years I asked my Mother if she wasn't worried, "no, I trust you," was her answer. She died young, but her confidence in my judgement certainly helped me achieve much more than what I have done in climbing.
Her death, quite unexpected, also underscored that thing we all know, that life is uncertain, we cannot foresee when ours might end, or of anyone elses.
We should grieve, it is a part of a great human cultural practice of celebrating the end of a loved one's life, even the abstraction of love we hold for each other, our climbing family. And while those places we go and risk so much seem impersonal, I for one prefer it that way.
A well known physicist said:
“If there is no point in the universe that we discover by the methods of science, there is a point that we can give the universe by the way we live, by loving each other, by discovering things about nature, by creating works of art. And that—in a way, although we are not the stars in a cosmic drama, if the only drama we're starring in is one that we are making up as we go along, it is not entirely ignoble that faced with this unloving, impersonal universe we make a little island of warmth and love and science and art for ourselves. That's not an entirely despicable role for us to play.”
― Steven Weinberg
If that art is the one we perform when moving in those high places far from our normal life, we make that art for ourselves, and for our friends, and family and we always intend to return to that little island and share our experience.
That is not an entirely despicable role for us to play.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 16, 2017 - 08:55pm PT
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A very touching commentary, Wendy.
(and thank you for telling us who you are - there are many on this forum who hide behind avatars)
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SalNichols
Big Wall climber
Richmond, CA
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Oct 16, 2017 - 08:57pm PT
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Everyone dies. We might not like the timing, but NO ONE gets out of this upright. I've lost friends climbing. I've lost friends to accidents, and I've lost friends in combat; and I lost 5 friends in one afternoon racing sailboats. I'm not even sure how to feel anymore. People just die, and I miss them...and nothing at all changes.
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cat t.
climber
california
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Oct 16, 2017 - 08:58pm PT
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It's easy to point to the risks of climbing, skiing, driving--but I'm left with the feeling that the biggest risk of all is loving other people, given the inevitability of loss. That, at least, is a risk that seems worth taking over and over, even in the face of tragedy. Maybe these losses hit sooner or more expectedly for climbers, but everyone has to face it eventually.
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10b4me
Mountain climber
Retired
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Oct 16, 2017 - 09:07pm PT
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I don't know if you meant to do it, but it seems that you are putting climbers on a pedestal. I climbed for over thirty five years, but have also been involved in the skiing, and mountain biking communities. Trust me when I say that when one of those tribe members passes on the sense of sadness is just as real.
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Wen
Trad climber
Bend, OR
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 16, 2017 - 09:33pm PT
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So many thoughts running through my head, I so appreciate the myriad perspectives. I'll just say thanks to all so far for helping me think through things.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Oct 16, 2017 - 09:49pm PT
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hey there, say, wendy... thank you for sharing your heart...
we all, at times, share what hurts...
share what we wonder about...
and share, for to learn, as well-- more about ourself, or others...
sharing also unburdens your heart, so you are not so weighted-down,
that you can't get through your sorrow, sadness or grieve...
happy to meet you, here...
welcome...
may you be strong, for all your trails, ahead...
and for all that you meet and enjoy-- time is short,
as to our 'mortal' lives... thus:
let's enjoy the treasure of each other, while we all can...
:)
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Oct 16, 2017 - 09:55pm PT
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hey there say, as to that quote, that locker shared...
as to that risk-- thus the treasure, again, from daring to, are so much worth it...
i know TWO folks in my inner-circle, that passed-on, and it was
a very very hard thing for them, to risk 'loving' ...
yes, it can hurt--and--they were dear-folks, but, i am sure now,
that they just couldn't bear to hurt... if they got 'too deep'
:(
things hurt, either in the emotional realm, or the physical realm...
yet, to grow, enjoy life, and learn, and love:
we 'risk' ...
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nah000
climber
now/here
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Oct 16, 2017 - 10:16pm PT
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thanks Wen for putting words to some of the things i've been feeling...
this very recent and publicly played out accident has been unspeakably brutal and was heartbreakingly exemplary of something that i have found to be intrinsic in being a part of the mountain climbing/skiing community [and i don't experience it to the same depth with any of other endeavours/groups i'm involved in]: the semi-regular loss of some of the most elite, as well as an in general semi-regular loss of a few of those in their prime.
and i think your title quite succinctly captures the emotional reality that the above physical reality manifests.
and so while i'd never thought about it this way before... i do think you have touched on a truth that i had never put words to/seen words put to: there is a collective grief to being a climber.
while it's also true that there is a "collective grief to being human", it seems to me that the heat in the frying pan that is mountain climbing/skiing is turned up just a little hotter than is in general the case... [at least at "this" point/place in history/space]
i also want to thank Ghost for his response.
he said everything i might have hoped to say about my own relationship with these endeavours... but much more succinctly and eloquently.
peace all.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Oct 20, 2017 - 08:53pm PT
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mikegrai said:
I think we sometimes are naively uncritical of the climbing enterprise.
Rationalizing and denial are powerful coping mechanisms - I expect they will be greatly in evidence in many of the responses to this thread.
^Certainly some truth in this. However, what I think is important, is that each individual try not to kid themselves, and decide what risk level they are comfortable with, and balance that with whatever individual responsibility is felt toward others, such as family and loved ones.
Alpinism, for example (and Hayden Kennedy gave voice to this), big mountains, skiing wild snow, especially in the Intermountain region, are seriously more risky pursuits than pure rockclimbing, especially when that rockclimbing is performed artfully, and within one's personal envelope of competence.
I've done a lot more of the latter in that list, and so have most of my close friends. Yes, in an actuarial sense, this is still certainly more risky than staying on the ground, but, that said, most of my friends haven't and aren't dying while rockclimbing. (I'm at that age where the leaves start falling from the tree more rapidly. I've got one in hospice right now. Just found out tonight).
And after you make that internal choice, all that's left to do is live as fully as you can with what time you have, and in doing so, you have an external choice to grapple with, as stated below, by Cat:
cat t. said:
but I'm left with the feeling that the biggest risk of all is loving other people, given the inevitability of loss. That, at least, is a risk that seems worth taking over and over, even in the face of tragedy."...
Best to you, Wendy,
Roy
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Oct 21, 2017 - 01:22am PT
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Wendy wrote:
I guess I’ll go back to reading Supertaco, and climbing literature, and climbing magazines, and hope that these things are enough to heal my heart, which feels especially sad right now. Because what else can we do but share our sadness, explore these concepts, and grieve together? Our tribe is beautiful. Our tribe is powerful. But once again, our tribe is wounded.
It is similar to what we humans all do following tragic death, no matter the tribe.
Grieving is not meant to continue past a certain point or it becomes pointless and showy and absurd.
I give you the supreme example, to my mind: Queen Victoria I and her attachment to Prince Albert.
Thank you for sharing and your honesty with us and yourself, Wendy.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Oct 21, 2017 - 05:33am PT
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Dalva
A novel by Jim Harrison
Page 51
A passage from a letter written to Dalva by her uncle, regarding long walks, solo, in potentially dangerous territory:
I began walking at your age just because the natural world seemed to absorb the poison in me. I'd say the acceptable level of risk entertained by each of us is clearly a highly personal matter, and all depends on the level of poison in need of extraction.
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DanaB
climber
CT
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Oct 21, 2017 - 07:09am PT
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Written in a previous post, my paraphrasing:
//Climbing is definitely worth the risk.
What is not worth the risk is dying from a stupid climbing accident.//
Consider that.
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Stewart Johnson
Mountain climber
lake forest
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Oct 21, 2017 - 07:16am PT
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Live for the moment.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Oct 21, 2017 - 08:11am PT
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@Tami:
I liked what you said, and it's interesting that worked to keep the mountain sports out of your kids' lives. But this statement made me jump:
One of my deepest wishes is to outlive them.
Yeesh! Meditate a little on what that could possibly mean. The Kennedys outlived their son, yes?
So glad you're around to chime in here. We've all had those close calls. Check your knots, folks, and talk to your belayers!
BAd
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Oct 21, 2017 - 09:43am PT
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Ho man,
He's not the only one with reading comprehension!
I just figured, that Tami, she's got some salt!
 BTW, Tams, just sent an e-mail to your telus addy, gotta have me some of them books from your secret stash.
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Oct 21, 2017 - 10:33am PT
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Tami I saw it too but figured you'd straighten it out once someone pointed it out...
Funny, not funny, simultaneously...
Regarding the thread, on the grief of losing our friends/loved ones to climbing; it never completely goes away, but wanes as the years go by. Not the bottle or the flame will long dampen it. Best to climb back on the horse for as long as you have passion to ride.
In the interim, go biking or hiking.
-Tim
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kaholatingtong
Trad climber
The real McCoy from the inside of my van.
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Oct 21, 2017 - 10:51am PT
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I like that quote, Starbuster. ( another typo, but I liked this one so I am just gonna leave it)
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Oct 21, 2017 - 11:00am PT
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Starbuster!
Might I borrow that? Right up there with Le Tarbusier.
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kaholatingtong
Trad climber
The real McCoy from the inside of my van.
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Oct 21, 2017 - 03:06pm PT
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But, ofcourse!
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 22, 2017 - 04:54am PT
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"Life IS suffering." the Buddha ( which one?)
We're in it. Find something that makes it count, for you. For many of us, climbing is one of those things.
I'm with Weinberg! Thanks Ed
Star buster, a recent shot of Roy at the crags
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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Oct 22, 2017 - 10:40am PT
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Wendy,
My name is Pam Roberts....I'm Jack Roberts' widow. I ruminate on this topic all the time. A few mentioned that "there is no grief." Believe me, there is a TON of grief!!! But I have learned that grief is complicated, and not 100% negative. I have learned more through grief than at any other time in my life. I feel more appreciative of life. I feel love more deeply, and see beauty in nearly everything. I miss Jack more than I believed would have been possible...an interesting lesson in and of itself. So much loss, and yet....I still climb. Not like I did before...in part, because at 57, there are other things I also enjoy doing that aren't quite so hard on my body. But that being said, I'm trying to plan a climbing trip to Mexico in January. So very many of my best memories are tied up in climbing (no pun intended!). In the end, I would say that climbing has enriched my life like no other activity, despite the loss. But it's complicated. I wish I had an answer. I dreamt about him the other night. He arrived, and told me he missed me terribly, and was very sorry. While he was holding me, he also said he had to leave again....he would be gone for 4 months to go off and try to do a new route on Changabang. I saw another one of his best friends in the background, who is also dead. Is there climbing perhaps in the afterlife, if there even is one? Maybe I'll dream about him again in February, and know that he kept his word to come back in 4 months! In the meantime, it's a beautiful fall day, and it's time for a bike ride, and then happy hour with a friend. She no longer climbs, after a climbing accident in which she broke 23 bones, but lived. It's good to be alive, that much I know, and it is good to have loved deeply, and been loved deeply as well. "Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing." Did't Helen Keller say that? best, Pam
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Oct 22, 2017 - 02:37pm PT
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This is a valuable thread. Pam's remarks are so personal, but deeply meaningful. Thankyou.
For me, the collective grief of being a climber is only a part of the collective grief of being human. Climbers are a fairly close and friendly bunch, we tend to care for our tribe (as we call it.) When one of us dies or is killed we grieve the loss of someone special. We don't see very many climbers dying due to evil deeds.
So a is climber killed, and the grieving comes naturally. But for me anyway, it is a clean pain. Intense of course, but not mired by an act of evil. It's not the same as grieving the loss of a loved one by an act of violence, where grief and hate for the perpetrator can co-mingle into an awful state of mind. Not many have the strength to forgive, a way out of that.
Sometimes I just sit and grieve for the state of humanity. I lose touch with all that’s good, and get overwhelmed by the scope of the evil which we are capable of. Then something touches me and I remember that there’s a lot of good out there. And beauty. As often as not these messages come from the climbing community. Really, we’re a pretty lucky bunch.
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Wen
Trad climber
Bend, OR
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 22, 2017 - 03:17pm PT
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Oh Pam, Jack's loss was another one that hit me deep in the heart. Again I didn't know him, but his loss was so palpable for me at the time, and anytime I see your name pop up I read what you have to say. Thank you for continuing to stick around so I can learn from you.
I think the theme that's rising for me in all this is that I feel for the people left behind. I'm sad for them, and I fear being one of them, and yet reading your words (and those of so many others who have joined this and other conversations) somehow makes me feel better. I can't imagine the sadness, and yet I can. I'm scared of it, and yet I'm not.
I realized yesterday that I will never give up climbing. My son was grinning ear to ear as he got a climb in the gym that he worked hard for, and it just hit me that I'll always climb, taking the risk of being sad in the future for the concrete enjoyment of happiness and love in the present. There's no point in living in fear, I agree with those who have said that.
Climbers are such a unique tribe, I do feel this sport is different from the others I enjoy. I can honestly say I've never met a climber that didn't make me think.
Thanks again all.
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okay, whatever
climber
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Oct 22, 2017 - 04:01pm PT
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Pam,
I remember Jack, who I was acquainted with via Ray and Paula, and their house at 9th and Cascade. It was back in the mid 1980's (I THINK that's when R & P bought that house... I should remember, since I was part of the moving-in crew), but also definitely for a brief time in 2003-2006. when I lived in Boulder again. Jack always seemed to be on a mission. He reminded me of Mugs Stump, though they had completely different personalities, as I remember them. Anyway, I do understand your loss, and best to you....
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Oct 22, 2017 - 05:14pm PT
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One of the things I like about you Pam is a particular brightness within you that comes through. And I'm not talking only about the fantastic light in your eyes!
...............................................
Though a little severe, I think Hemingway was speaking to climbers and others of a similar ilk when he said:
The only value we have as human beings is the risks we're willing to take. (From a film called Papa: Hemingway in Cuba, he was IIRC, speaking about risks undertaken during his support of arms to Cubans (or maybe, more benignly, about journalist Denne Bart Petitclerc's trepidation when piloting Hemingway's boat). From which of his writings does this quote come? Anyone?)
................................................
Too funny, J Breaux!
I get such a kick out of that picture of the guy with the hat, shades, and water pistol, I'm going to have to rethink my alignment to mikegrai's personal assessment from the first page:
I have come to the conclusion that climbing appeals to a deeply imbedded streak of egocentric narcisssim that exists in my character.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Oct 22, 2017 - 05:44pm PT
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I find great joy, not sadness, in my identity as a climber. I have lost many friends and acquaintances in my 50 years years of alpine climbing and I have mourned their losses. I was close to Hayden, Michael and Jule. Hayden’s tragic death has hit me particularly hard....there is real sadness for me there but there is still joy in being a climber.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 23, 2017 - 03:39am PT
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Climbing is one of the more uplifting parts of my life. I’ve been losing people for the past sixty years, some by total nonsense. The people that go via climbing at least tend to be embracing and affirming life.
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Oct 23, 2017 - 06:24am PT
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When risk taking becomes a profession, people die.
Hemingway wasn't exactly a wise man. Good author but not a leader
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Oct 23, 2017 - 06:46am PT
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Pam, thanks for sharing your thoughts. We need more wisdom and insight like yours.
BAd
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 23, 2017 - 06:46am PT
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The people that go via climbing at least tend to be embracing and affirming life.
This is such horseshit and a total insult towards all of the humanity .......
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Nuglet
Trad climber
Orange Murica!
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Oct 23, 2017 - 07:15am PT
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the question in my mind is:
why isn't the collective of climbers enough to help an individual deal with grief?
Hayden, by any objective criteria, 'lived the life'. sponsorships, born into climbing in Carbondale, well above average climber, thousands of powder days, alpine expeditions...
yet, all these experiences with all these people, and he didn't have anyone to call in his grief?
conversely, a young male black in Chicago is highly likely to lose loved ones or their own lives on a regular basis. Yet, these impoverished, violent communities don't have above average rates of suicide.
sounds like trouble in paradise
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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Oct 23, 2017 - 10:09am PT
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Just checked in on this thread...
Pam, what a beautiful post. You always have such heartfelt and authentic things to say.
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Quasimodo
Trad climber
CA
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Oct 23, 2017 - 11:54am PT
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The recent tragedy in Montana has weighed heavily on me. I have followed Michael Kennedy's career since the late 70s and Haden Kennedy's in the last five years.
I started climbing in 1977. When my son was 3 years old in 1998 I took him on his first climbing trip to Pine Mountain near our home. I cherish the photos of my son in size 3 La Sportiva slippers and a chalk bag that looked so big on him he could bivy in it. I continued to take my son on trips to Joshua Tree, Red Rocks, Tuolumne, and many places along the East Side of the Sierra and in So Cal. I embraced his love of baseball, music and other pursuits but by the age of 21 he has developed into a solid motivated rock climber that can run circles around me. I jokingly told my son he never had chance, "I brainwashed you from the time you were three to love the great outdoors through rock climbing, skiing and backpacking."
I find great joy in being a climber. As I age, I love the movement of climbing more than when I was a young lad. My best climbing memories has been swapping leads with my son who is also my personal rope gun. However, every time I read or hear about an accident that causes serious injuries or death I wonder if my encouragement and mentoring was a wise choice. Any serious injury or death resulting from this voluntary pursuit seems foolhardy. I accept my own risk but have serious concerns about the unnecessary risks my son will be exposed to if he pursues a climbing life. Driving a car, bicycling, and being a pedestrian (about half of all annual 1.3 million worldwide traffic deaths are people not in cars) is statistically more dangerous than rock climbing, especially in So Cal, but those pursuits are a part of life that reasonably can't be avoided.
So here I am conflicted by my choice to encourage and mentor my son in the pursuit of climbing. I can't undo my son's passion for the sport. I can only mentor him, remind him of the dangers, and pray.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Oct 23, 2017 - 12:19pm PT
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Flip Flop:
I wouldn't get too down on Hemingway for the quote!
(I may be remiss for my use or abuse of context, however, I don't think so, and in the end, it's just my opinion)
> The only value we have as human beings is the risks we're willing to take.
Clearly Hemingway valued risk-taking in the most visceral sense, but besides risking our lives outright, his notion can apply to many things.
There are myriad personal attributes and investments that can and do get laid to risk through our routine commitment to individual choices, such as: risking our vulnerability, emotions, relationships, education, reputation, career, and health. It all gets hung out there and laid on the line, one way or another. Risk is a part of life. Nothing risked, nothing gained. Our value and our strengths and very character are all revealed (actualized) through investment and risk, of one kind or another.
What Wendy is addressing, as I see it, is that along this continuum of risk, there arises the soul-searching question: when is it time to say, enough … enough?
That's something each of us can only answer for ourselves, and I don't believe making value judgments about one another in this regard gets us anywhere.
(Not to indicate the latter is what you are doing specifically, or personally, FF, just a general statement of my perspective)
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Oct 25, 2017 - 07:10am PT
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^^^good perspective Tarbuster, interesting with age how we step back further from those thresholds and start listening more to that little bird on our shoulder.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Oct 25, 2017 - 08:30am PT
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As Roy points out, there are risks in everything we do: emotional, physical, reputational, financial, etc.
This tragedy made me think about the risks of having children: parents willingly expand the probability that they will suffer heartbreak when they decide to have children, as they are destined to suffer vicariously for the slings and arrows that their children most certainly will endure.
Yet, that risk is the most mundane thing in the world, but it is rarely discussed.
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Oct 25, 2017 - 01:24pm PT
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^^^Amen Rick no doubt about it, that said parenthood can also get people to dial it back. As my wife says as I head off to the Intermountain West to ski the backcountry, "hope you're skiing with your buddies who have small children."
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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Oct 25, 2017 - 05:23pm PT
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Sort of along the lines of what Rick said. I think that loving in general is the most courageous act we can do, especially deciding to have children. So much can go wrong....and at the very least, in any loving partnership, SOMEONE is bound to go first! And yet, away we go, because that risk is SO much better than flatlining through life!
Pam
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yosemite 5.9
climber
santa cruz
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Oct 25, 2017 - 06:17pm PT
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Someone said that love always results in loss. I think it might have been the Queen of England speaking of Princess Diana.
"I could have missed the pain, but I'd have missed the dance"
Garth Brooks.
"It is better to have loved to climb, then to not have loved the mountains at all" William Shakespeare, maybe, if he would have been a climber.
My thoughts after climbing sporadically over thirty years? I made a couple of 5.10 moves at age 64 in September this year. Be safe. Climbing can be a joy without taking unnecessary risks. I ride dirt and street motorcycles and have parachuted a few times. Keep your ego in check. I only ride a motorcycle or climb when my mind is free of negative thoughts that can lead me to make bad decisions, including anger or the desire to impose my will on the situation. I believe that it is extremely important to have a realistic assessment of your mental outlook before you begin what might be a risky activity.
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yosemite 5.9
climber
santa cruz
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Oct 25, 2017 - 06:28pm PT
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Jaybro, I have to agree with you that climbers embrace life. Far too many people are couch potatoes. I always enjoy reading your posts.
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E
Ice climber
mogollon rim
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Oct 26, 2017 - 07:47am PT
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we climb and we die...that is how we live
the only times that i have felt happy is when i am out there on the sharp end solving something that is truly dire
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Oct 26, 2017 - 08:58am PT
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Tell 'em, E.
I grew up around motor racing in the 60s and 70s, when Jackie Stewart noted the mortality rate for Formula One Grand Prix drivers was something like 40%.
Alpinism, for the Brits in the Himalaya around the same time was probably somewhere close?
(Stewart was also instrumental in shifting that paradigm, lobbying for trackside safety measures: it took until 1994 when Ayrton Senna died, for the engineers to really make the necessary changes to the cars themselves)
Elga Andersen:
But, what is so important about driving faster than anyone else?
Steve McQueen:
A lot of people go through life doing things badly. Racing is important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it ...it's life.
Anything that happens before or after, is just waiting. [Click to View YouTube Video]
Somewhere I read that quote was originated by some French guy from another milieu.
And McQueen was no poser. He could really drive and stuck it out there with the best.
Macho BS you say? ( ... to each his, or her own)
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pocoloco1
Social climber
The Chihuahua Desert
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Oct 26, 2017 - 09:26am PT
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Hello Roy:
New email? The old address just bounced
Thanks
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Oct 26, 2017 - 09:28am PT
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^^^Taken care of. Thanks John!
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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Oct 26, 2017 - 09:31am PT
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I'm just in it for the mandatory zen when you hit the business of a new, scary pitch.
Loss occurs whether or not one is part of our weird rock worship.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Oct 26, 2017 - 09:09pm PT
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At least as climbers, we get to climb and experience a dimension of life most don't while we're here
The fallen would not want us to grieve, so why dwell on it?
Well said Kevin. I've never met you but find you to be a very clear thinker.
edit: the story of widows tears FA is lodged in my mind.
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dirt claud
Social climber
san diego,ca
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Oct 27, 2017 - 08:51am PT
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Not sure if this was posted here yet, but while checking out the "Evening Sends" site I came across this article I thought was really well written by Andrew Bisharat.
http://eveningsends.com/fear-and-judgement-in-risk-and-death/
Fear and Judgement in Risk and Death
Thoughts about what happens when climbers die
By Andrew Bisharat
August 11, 2017
Death visits Mount Everest each season with the reliability of a monsoon, and this year was no different. What was different was the ironic nature of the deaths on Everest in 2017. On a mountain where inexperienced climbers routinely die, it was actually the mountaineer with the most experience, skill, and talent who died first.
Ueli Steck, perhaps the best mountaineer in the world, fell on April 30 during solo acclimatization run up Nuptse, a 7,800-meter peak near Everest. Steck had originally planned on acclimatizing on the normal Everest route, but for whatever reason, he changed his plans last minute and headed to Nuptse, leaving at 4:30 a.m. Steck climbed to an altitude of 300 meters below the summit. Various climbers in the area reportedly saw Steck fall from this position, ultimately tumbling around 1,000 meters down the mountain.
The exact cause of his fall remains unknown, although the circumstances of his fall do seem odd. How could this have happened to someone like Ueli Steck?
The response to his death was largely one of deferential shock. “I had not expected that, at age 40 and with his enormous level of mountaineering experience, he would fall at this point in his career,” said Reinhold Messner in an interview. “He was someone who knew exactly what he was doing.”
It’s a haunting thing to consider that even the best among us aren’t protected from bad luck or, worse, human error. Still … luck (both good and bad) is pretty rare. And as Messner seems to be pointing out, for someone of Steck’s caliber and experience, human error seems even less likely.
We may never know what happened to Ueli Steck, high on Nuptse, but I do find it interesting to consider the disparate and often dishonest narratives that emerge in the wake of a climbing tragedy. When it comes to making sense of senseless death—and really, aren’t all climbing-related deaths “senseless” in hindsight?—what we’re “allowed” to say publicly is often very different from what we tell ourselves privately or whisper in confidence to those whom we trust.
A few weeks after Steck’s death, a strange report emerged about how a group of guided climbers, apparently on a budget commercial trip, were found dead in their tents during a period of good weather.
Before any further details had emerged, various climbers, guides, and pundits preyed on this story as if it were delicious carrion, using it to launch the usual salvos of criticism against Everest culture that date back to Into Thin Air. Mostly, folks attacked the unregulated commercialism on the mountain, as well as the inability of the climbers themselves to to honestly balance their ambitions with their skills.
The problem was, the story turned out to be bullsh#t. No one died that week on Everest, and it’s still unclear how this story made its way onto the international news wire. The story began to change. First, bodies in a tent were found, but they were subsequently presumed to be unidentified remnants of a past season. Then, it turned out maybe no bodies were found and the whole thing was perhaps just a morbid oxygen-starved hallucination.
Yet, it could have happened, which certainly helps explain the reaction to the fake news story.
“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.” Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite authors, wrote that beautiful sentence.
Indeed … just as there is ugliness in life there is ugliness in death, too. Just as we hold people to double standards in life, so too do we in death. “Celebrity” climbers we revere often are excused from the kind of postmortem autopsy of ambitions, skills, and decisions that others receive when they die doing the exact same sport, albeit at a lower level.
I wonder why?
Maybe that’s the wrong question, though. Maybe the question isn’t why the double-standard, but why do we feel the need to weigh in on any fellow climber’s death? Perhaps the answer is that we seem to want to give outsized meaning to someone’s life, especially when that someone is an idol. On the other hand, we also seem prone to turning the deaths of those who we don’t feel particularly connected to into opportunities to make ourselves feel better or more secure about our own life.
Who knows? I’m as guilty of all of this as everyone else. But I will say that the canonizations that take place for our best and most beloved fallen climbers often feel as dishonest as the judgments and criticisms that befall those are held to different standards.
So, with that, I leave everyone with this poem from Langston Hughes:
Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Oct 27, 2017 - 09:02am PT
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I turned to climbing because ‘Nam ruined war for me.
It’s all about the intensity. Birdwatching is also intense,
if a little less physical and dangerous.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Oct 27, 2017 - 09:31am PT
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^^^
Andrew Bisharat. I like his stuff. Good post!
Grieving is for the living. I've always felt that funerals and postmortems are only something we do to comfort those around us who remain. Nothing wrong with that; but what we are really doing is honoring the living, more so than the dead. I see that it's best to honor someone while they're still alive, when they can appreciate it. After that, it's only about those who remain.
Something Pam said reminded me that the emotions of pain and loss and joy often intermingle and even exchange places. A deep feeling of pain and loss can, somewhat counterintuitively feel very similar to intense gratitude and love. Tears of loss and tears of appreciation, sometimes they are hardly any different, and probably come from the same place deep within, where we harbor our most important connections to those with whom we have shared our lives, no?
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jeff constine
Trad climber
Ao Namao
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Oct 27, 2017 - 09:34am PT
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The only grief is NOT CLIMBING AND LIVING Period!
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dirt claud
Social climber
san diego,ca
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Oct 27, 2017 - 09:36am PT
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Who the hell said bird watching isn't dangerous Reilly ;)
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cat t.
climber
california
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Oct 27, 2017 - 02:38pm PT
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I think the way we experience grief is different with each loss. Anytime someone dies there is the pain of a severed connection and the regret of missed opportunity, but the manner of death adds strange layers to those feelings. I've lost friends and family to suicide and overdoses (as well as climbing), and it's sort of inevitable that those sorts of deaths bring up a whole host of philosophical/existential questions that get tangled up and interwoven with the more visceral feeling of grief/loss.
With climbing/biking/skiing/BASE/surfing/etc deaths, there's a similar additional layer: in addition to losing your friend, your relationship to climbing/biking/skiing/etc suddenly becomes infinitely more complicated. It can feel almost like a loss of spirituality. Instead of feeling like an escape, it's a reminder of this person you lost. Instead of making you feel more alive, it makes you acutely aware of your own mortality. I don't think those feelings are bad, or that they necessarily steal away the joy of the activity--I think they just change it. For me, the innocent, pure enthusiasm has morphed into a softer, more measured appreciation, with heartbreak and happiness muddled together...and that's okay. I like what Roy said here, and think it captures that idea well:
Something Pam said reminded me that the emotions of pain and loss and joy often intermingle and even exchange places. A deep feeling of pain and loss can, somewhat counterintuitively feel very similar to intense gratitude and love. Tears of loss and tears of appreciation, sometimes they are hardly any different, and probably come from the same place deep within, where we harbor our most important connections to those with whom we have shared our lives, no?
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Oct 27, 2017 - 07:50pm PT
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Thanks, Jim.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Well said, cat t. I think that's a big part of it for me.
BAd
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couchmaster
climber
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Wen said, quote: "I’ve often lived in fear of raising children who climb."
Yup. BUT, when my boy started to climb, after he had moved away, I kicked myself for not training him in it. I worried incessantly. He was often climbing in a fairly remote area (for the lower 48). One time he got benighted with 3 other climbers, was grateful that his dad had first bought him a zippered chalkbag AND stuffed a bunch of crap in the zippered pocket (knife, TP, tiny lighter etc) but most importantly a BD Ion headlamp - which turned out to be the only light they had in navigating a potentially fatal steep cliff downclimb. It evidently took them hours to get back to the car, but they did get there. Lesson learned.
Anyway, to my point. One day he's decided to brave the long drive in his car that doesn't have a working airbag and come home to visit. He's on the freeway, in the steep blind corners near Deadmans Pass (Folks believed to be the very first white people to hit it unexpectedly found a dead man there). Some drunk, speeding, weaving and driving against traffic the wrong way zipped past him so fast that he barely saw the car. Thank the dear lord the drunk was in the right lane and kid was in the left. Kid pulled over and called state patrol who by coincidence had a car in the area that zoomed right out. Not before the drunk head on'd the car right behind my kid who happened to be in the left lane and immediately killed the driver and himself. My son was so close to death he could have smelled it. We don't know how close we all are to death. When it comes, it comes.
We see the sad stories like the recent Hayden and Inga one. Yeah, that's a terrible thing and my heart breaks for their loved ones, no question. But I don't think climbers are the only ones who have this grief thing going on. It's pretty much part of the human condition I believe. As a collective, we are all but a few short min. away from total annihilation. I think on that a lot- more likely to be reflecting as I am driving out of town, and how I might game it, but in the end there's not a damned thing I'll do but vaporize along with millions of others if my town gets nuked.
My best to all: (thank you especially Pam, well spoken)
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
Wilds of New Mexico
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Yesterday...
I sometimes wonder if it's a good idea to take my kids climbing, though I do take them.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Nov 20, 2017 - 05:27pm PT
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hey there say, all... a friend just shared this... and, i had never heard it before, ... but-- it reminded me of hayden and his beloved inge...
i got to thinking of it... and, it seemed good to post this here,
too...
very sad, but-- cherish that they loved each other and had
built a life, here, WHILE they could...
and that is something to always be thankful for...
a REAL and GOOD love, is hard to find
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Nov 20, 2017 - 05:31pm PT
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hey there say, couchmaster...
oh my, as to your post about your son... :O
thank god, oh my...
and as to this quote:
But I don't think climbers are the only ones who have this grief thing going on. It's pretty much part of the human condition I believe
yes, it is... and, you know, i think, too, that different groups,
do mourn in different ways, yet = it equals, the same:
we are human and we understand loss...
:(
the best that we can always do, which i tried to let my kids know,
when they lost their dad, to death, is:
to GROW with WHAT THEY HAVE TAUGHT us... and that does honor the
fact that THEY (the lost loved ones) have BEEN HERE and done
something in our lives that NO ONE ELSE could have done...
and thus, we love them for it,
we share it...
and we make it grow, as, there are not here anymore to do so...
it can STILL make the world a better place, at least in our corner,
and-- you never know:
it may outreach even farther...
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Ezra Ellis
Trad climber
North wet, and Da souf
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Nov 23, 2017 - 04:02pm PT
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Bump for Velvet!
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