The Cult of Incompetence

As of late I find it hilarious to be accused of engaging in "that there dry-tooling" to the detriment of "real climbing". Not too long ago a consortium of "alpinists" decried dry-tooling as being without risk, akin even to masturbation (one can only ponder furtively the homoerotic implications inherent for the author of this latter assertion). Tempers seem to have cooled somewhat (ah, the silver lining of Viagra and thinning hair), still very now and again some twerp echoes such sentiment, dogma always develops a following, does it not?

Ice climbing has always intrigued me, the idea of ephemeral ice lines that appeared mysteriously around valley bends is a seductive one, the thin, white hand and wrist beckoning with unheard pleasures. I have marched all over the bloody place seeking that streak of white coursing down a dark face, now is no different only that now the smears daggers and curtains that do not touch down are now fair game. Yes, there are usually bolts, anyone who believes bolts remove risk is either hallucinating or has never been mixed climbing.

Indeed, I have witnessed every manner of trauma self-inflicted, fatal and otherwise at the mixed crag, the imagination of participants in either injuring or offing themselves is truly sobering. One could in fact not only break bones but certainly cut fingers right off, put out an eye? No problem you are in the right place! Vail in fact has been the site of any number of spectacular accidents, the strenuous climbing, chossy limestone and half-assed bolting can make for some fairly hairy outings, famous names and nobodies alike have met disaster there. For that reason I treat the place with respect, after all is not gravity always having a grand day out?

Things will fall down, climbers go boom judgement operates under a thick haze of marijuana smoke, belayers doze. My favorite are the breed of "new" ice climbers, the manikan-perfect blokes who blast away with shiny tools dislodging a season's worth of chunks and shards in a matter of minutes so forever lost in a world of self-adjulation to ever yell ICE, what a gaggle of colossal whankers.

But I digress, ah yes real ice climbers, what exactly was it they were climbing anyway? Waterfalls? Oh, there's a worthy objective, climbing waterfalls makes curing the global malaria pandemic seem a trifle. Alpine faces? How about in the Alps? Nepal? Between which marriages did you perform this particular feat, one and two? After two you say? Sometime prior to wife #3, yes? Right-on, you da' man, my daughter's going to college next fall, how's your cat?

So, it's all drivel, Lionel Terray alone was man enough to label his remarkable conquests "useless" (Le Conquerants de l'inuitile, L. Terray 1961.*), everyone clings to their climbs, only they seem to have done anything interesting or relevent.

Then there is what I refer to as the "Cult of Incompetence". Open any climbing catalog or magazine these days and there they'll be, the confessionals regarding all manner of absolutely stupid climbing mishaps. Oh sure, accidents happen, but why purportedly "famous" climbing personalities now write reams on the topic of their boggling ineptitude is wholly beyond the pale. No crawl down the Ogre here, just a bunch of well-to-do over-achieving yuppies falling off trade routes or having epic retreats off stuff that if they had been born with the sense God gave buttered-toast they would have never ventured up onto.

Shackleton had to go to Antarctica, get stuck in the pack ice then sail a dingy half-way around the southern hemisphere to gain notoriety, now ever fool who gets his foot stuck in a gopher hole, chews his own leg off subsequently goes on Oprah to plug his million-dollar foundation devoted to preventing the criminally stupid from getting jammed in rodent rodent burrows. ("Give generously, so much is at stake!") Of course whole bestselling books are devoted to idiots out wandering on glaciers, falling in a crevasse then going to pieces immediately before axing their mate in a panicked attempt to save their own pathetic life, indeed some individuals whole careers seem based on precipitating such catastrophes so as to keep their publisher freshly provisioned with such claptrap.

Maybe I am old-school, that old Mountain Magazine understated way of recounting things, which in fact was equally disingenuous. No, I am certain it is the soccer-mom telling their kid that even though they scored 3 goals on their own team they played great so let's go buy you a new car. That kid now is 20 or 30 something, well-endowed financially owing to dad's having down-sized countless workers who now though nearly destitute can still appreciate the "lifestyle choices " of the rich, that kid is now a "climbing athlete", so when they blow a clip land on their head and chip a nail watch for the 600 word essay in the upcoming Patagonia catalog on how they overcame their adversity to finally go back up and send that darn M5.

Look, adventure should be just that, but if scoring goals on your own team is your forte maybe you should take up pottery. My own approach is pretty simple in that no climb no where no how is worth any trauma worse than a skinned knuckle. So despite the assertions of the Cialis sect, you break your leg up at the crag at 4Pm on a 10 degree F day and you will be very sorry at least until they come back for you or you die.

Keys to success? Use a stick clip/never take a grounder, don't climb with dopes, know when to call it quits, likely you will get another chance. I am never even remotely concerned about expressing my doubts over a route's condition, the hour, my own abilities, or my misgivings over my partner's conduct. Life is sweet, strawberry sweet, like a big-snow-day. When winter ends there is always sun, flowers, lithesome young women in diminishing attire, bouldering, it is all truly good.

So, what to get out of day on the hill? Well, climbing of course. What I send, the grade or reputation of a route concerns me less than my own sense of "how well did I climb?" First I always warm up, my rig's a little old but that don't mean she's slow, just the same I like to start on something well within my ability warm the block. This may involve several such routes or a few laps on the same route once the draws and screws are in. I eschew top-roping, leading and making clips is what's important. I once heard that a fighter must first throw 5000-10,000 jabs before he or she can reliably throw a jab in an actual fight so making clips, lots of clips, matters.

I may therefore date a particular route but assiduously avoid marriage, no one route is worth all your time. I've watched guys spend whole seasons lapping the same route, why? Mainly because people prefer to stay in their comfort zone, human nature I suppose. I have my favorites, but I try and push somewhat, if I am not scaring the shit out of myself or getting utterly pumped the day is perhaps not all it could have been.

So then there is either the "send" or the project option. Send being "this thing is going down", project meaning "this thing is going down but maybe not today". Projects can of course take days, weeks or years, conditions matter whenever ice is involved, some routes need the right ice build-up to become truly feasible. Which now brings up the issue of what constitutes being "in".

One route near my home, BladeRunner in Rocky Mountain Park comes to mind, put up in the mid-90s during a heavy ice year the route seemed never to re-form, I would gaze wistfully up at a lonely retreat 'biner squeaking in the wind on bolt #2 and wonder, when? Then one year I regarded the menacing streaked rock and fragile icicles lustfully, why not now? Over the last three seasons I have climbed this route a number of times with varying degrees of ice, this past autumn a sudden warm spell in November meant virtually no ice including the absence of a key dagger, a new route was born. Off-World, unfinished sequel Harrison Ford maybe should have made, total-dry except for a few giddy sticks at the top and some of those were turf.

So here's the planet getting warmer the Rocky Mountains where I live steadily drying up becoming desertified, don't even bring up the western Alps as I'm likely to cry, what solution is there but to dry-tool the classics?