The post-50 years period of a climber's life are fraught with peril. In recent years any number of high-profile climbing athletes have died heroic albeit regrettable deaths whilst climbing, John Bachar, Guy Lacelle, Charlie Fowler and Jack Roberts to tick but a few. A freshly-minted 50 I made a daring solo exit from the Box Canyon following my run in the 2012 Ouray Ice Festival Mixed Climbing Competition, Whit Magro later chastised me for my "WTF were you thinking?!" (me being a married man and father) so I got to thinking what takes over the mind of the seasoned climbing athlete and leads to calamity.
A quick review of the literature and acquaintances led me to identify three basic groups of post-50 climbing athletes they are:
1) Retirees- They gone...
2) Muddlers- Various old wrecks who can neither fight nor run away. They haunt the crags and climbing festivals in particular taking up space and drinking too much. If you are young and female avoid running into them at the hot-springs as the image of their sagging bloated pallid form will blaze its way into your retinas for all time...
3) Monsters- Think Lady gaga here, That boy is a monster, M-M-M- monster... lads and lassies surfing Hawaii 5-0 this is where you want to be, dignified pulling down and able to chat-up amiably those young things.
Ah... But how?
After over 34 years of climbing hijinks I have an idea a formula as it were that has worked for me the salient points are thus:
1) Have a Life! The "all I do is climb" approach to long-term climbing survival seems like something of a blind alley. There comes that day when, having nothing to do, you go climbing when you probably shouldn't and the rest they say is a brief write-up in the early section of a climbing rag right next to the quick-draws-made-by-convicts advertisement. Had you gone fly-fishing that day you might have caught zero fish or got a hook stuck in your neck but not so serious as taking the big Kahuna.
Family, occupation, other pursuits, all add to the complex mosaic of life, things to enjoy aside from time spent at the crag or on the hill. Life is all in the living spend all that time climbing and you will effectively miss the living.
2) Train... There is no way out of this box so best to embrace the pain. Once you have an actual life you will need to train to stay up to snuff for those less frequent albeit exceedingly engaging days on the hill.
The off-the-couch myth is exactly that, I can't recall how many times I've witnessed some aging hard-man turn up at the crag only to make a utter spectacle of themselves. We all have bad days (and hangovers) but if this is a pattern for you you should probably investigate entering group 1 above before you are forcibly recruited into group 2...
3) Choose Wisely. Partners and projects. Don't climb with anybody who actively tries to kill you through either sheer ineptitude or belaying nonchalance. Avoid the Chi-Thief that "teats-on-a-boar" turd who invites themselves along then contributes absolutely nothing to the outing whilst simultaneously sucking all the oxygen out of the mountain air. The best partners are engaged, competent while setting a mildly competitive tone to the day exhorting-pushing you to climb harder and suffer more profoundly (and you the same for them). Cherish them...
Similarly choose your own projects that match up well with your particular strengths. A route must draw my eye, possess a commanding position, have steep bile-gulping mixed and ice terrain, I prefer a certain fierceness to a climb...
No climb or day of climbing is worth your life. Ice and mixed are very much condition-dependent so I will wait as long as it takes for things to be optimal before I start swinging. In 2011 I did the Direct Super Couloir a route I first attempted in 1988, again in 1989, then in 2005 and again in 2008 so a mere 23 years in the making. That's either perseverance or obsession, I can't decide...
4) Pare Down. Stay lean go light. Lugging a big pack around the hills not my idea of fun. When packing I have little patience for complex choices such as to which rope tools boots to bring so I have one set of tools one pair of boots one type of fruit boots one of two ropes to choose from. Decision made. Massed-produced climbing clothes makes for massed-produced climbers little climbing-gear mannequins running around the hills with their personal paparazzi to capture their every fart and grimace. I've got one outfit I wear for area skiing, alpine climbing or competition dry-tooling give or take a piece or two it's very loud so the chopper can spot me easily.
Sometimes I am a little light but I suffer through. It's called mental toughness.
5) Take Care of Yourself. Wear sunscreen a good helmet get some sleep eat right take time off. If you drink like a fish smoke like a chimney and eat like a garbage can you are not going to go the distance. Similarly extreme exercise programs in the interest in staying perpetually 25 will likely kill you early on. As of late a new type of climbing "athlete" has emerged the "perpetual train wreck" with a punch card at the local trauma surgeon's clinic. I sat/stood/fidgeted/drank through two of these slideshows at Ouray in 2012. Unbelievable...
6) Get Over It. We are all aging. How well you pull this off is up to you. You will be 24 years old for exactly one year so have fun then let it go.
7) Evolve. I climb a little differently every year. Crampons with straps leashes spurs have all come and gone and good riddance I say. When I started ice climbing in 1978 with hinged crampons and an ice-axe as long as my leg I could never have imagined a future in which dry-tooling on plastic holds with leashless tools was possible. Still, I have embraced the new ways even contributing to this ongoing evolution with a simple creed, if it involves ice tools I'm in...
Nobody likes an anachronism.
8) Keep at it. Let no day go by when you do not in some way prepare for your next climbing project be it a major route in the mountains a competition that first cold thin day that kicks off the season. One three minute lap on the power-panel if performed with gusto should suffice to make the forearms shriek.
9) Crush It. You might as well. You can rest when your dead...
10) We Are All Going to Die. But not today...
Photo: Crushing-IT after 50. Image courtesy of www.coloradocrackgear.com.
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