What I talk about when I talk about climbing or skiing or eating donuts
Al Black
-----------------------------
We all know we have a rich tradition of writing, pictures, video, movies,
paintings, and goodness knows even poems about climbing or various climbs
or climbing experiences. From my functional point view, I'd include
talking about climbing, and yes even the lowest common denominator, the
log. If you take a moment to think about sheer number or words, or time
spent reading and writing about climbing, its mind boogling. It may more
time than the time spent actually climbing.
On the surface, I'm sure that there all kinds of explanations for all
this blabbing about climbing. Certainly, there's a difference in
function between the casual recounting of some climb over a beer or two,
a blab in a local climbing club newsletter, and some of the fantastic
videos. Certainly, all this blabbing is in part due to the class,
educational, and artistic bent of climbers. Look at http://
www.canadianplowing.ca/ and you won't see any trip reports.
Over time I've come to think that blabbing about climbing is central to
climbing itself. Obviously, its not climbing. But we all do it in one
way or another, with varying degrees of skill, and enthusiasm. Indeed,
many of us have experience the strange phenomena of someone who never
climbed a damn thing, talking about the climbing they've done in the
first person. So the interesting questions are why the hell do we do
talk about climbing so much? What function does it serve? Is it all
about ego and fun?
----
In this meander of experience that started with the solstice, I've
included log entries. This has been deliberate; its what I do. As much
as I've tried to the narrative climbing story it just doesn't happen. So
when Sister Kellie said she'd read my trip reports, I wasn't left much of
an alternative. Cryptic little scribblings, the humbled notes of the log
entry will have to do.
I'm not sure what you put in your climbing, skiing, eating donuts logs.
(Trying to learn databases, I once tried to an electronic version, to
pull out grades and the like. Asking others what they put in their logs,
was informative in our lack of consistency.) They are the lowest common
denominator of climbing writing, like our diaries.
Its not even clear to me why I continue to log. Its not like I pour over
them analyzing grades or waxing, or clothes or anything like that. It
seems to be the coda of a climb, pulling out the information that seems
relevant, and the parts I want to remember or acknowledge. In a way
creating or recreating the climb as much as the act in itself. In this
sense our logs do strike me as elemental, not in a zen way, but in a way
that our other writing about climbing does.
----
02/02 sort of haig robertson traverse -10 +winds. ~ 15K 600m gain.
Tried to go up to the Robertson Pass and over the glacier. 9 billion
mile an hour winds pushed us back, literally, a bit before the top.
Note the track on the way in goes through an obvious terrain trap filled
with avi debri. <sigh> The snow pack other than the debris and track
was completely faceted. 1.4 meter on the glacier (according to the people
we met who bivied!) Boots not bad, toko blue worked great on the rolling
terrain back down.
-------
ps back to hardcore Kellie,
Klooch Man
Al Black wrote:
>
>
> Look at http://www.canadianplowing.ca/ and you won't see any trip reports.
Ha! You are funny, Al.
Your log makes me think of the sailing variety, and how one my
University roommates pointed out that the sailing magazine he
subscribed to advertised winches and the like in such simple prose,
just the foot-pounds of torque or the corrosion resistance, no
associations to bikini-clad women. At work later tonight I will look
at canadianplowing and see what there is to see.
> ps back to hardcore Kellie,
nice nickname
Perhaps all the climbing telling and showing is just the way our brain
chews things over, whether in dreams or awake. Our brain may be
another instance of a good thing pushed, for evolutionary reasons
outside our control, beyond sensible limits. Like suburbia, except
that should be under our control.
Personally speaking, climbing at its best soothes and regulates my
nervous system. Gives it focus.
Telling stories about climbing afterwards, well I guess that may be
the price to pay the piper.
kelli...@gmail.com
> I shoulda skipped work for a day last week.
> -----------------------------
> -------
>
> ps back to hardcore Kellie,
Softcore, Al, softcore.
I may actually get out and do something softcore this weekend, having
*finally* resolved my living situation (i.e., I'm giving up on finding
a new roommate who is both sane and solvent as such a person appears
to be nonexistant, coughing up double rent for one month, then moving
into some friends' basement where I will save quite a bit of dough).
So for the first time in a while I have the mental energy to devote to
climbing; how exciting!
I've always written about everything; it helps me to process my
experiences and to remember them as well. Plus I just enjoy the
process of writing.
kelli...@gmail.com
> -----------------------------
>
> We all know we have a rich tradition of writing, pictures, video, movies,
> paintings, and goodness knows even poems about climbing or various climbs
> or climbing experiences.
oh yeah and speaking of poems does anyone else remember that one that
started
In the state of New Jersey,
in the City of Nork,
the climbing traditions had taken a fork
?? Pretty sure Nathan Sweet authored it, though I'm not sure why I
think that.
Klooch Man
Klooch Man wrote:
> Al Black wrote:
> >
> >
> > Look at http://www.canadianplowing.ca/ and you won't see any trip reports.
>
I looked. All 3 pages. No sign whatsoever of contamination from the So
You Think You Can Plow? froth of our recent times. Didn't recognize
any of the corporate sponsors. World Championships in Slovenia,
though? Sounds like plowing crosses borders as readily as climbing.