tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47908185052509183022024-02-19T07:48:36.147-07:00Mountains and WaterClimbing MattersPeter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.comBlogger523125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-15208934238110268922022-05-31T14:08:00.010-06:002022-05-31T16:12:35.187-06:00Farewell to Print, Farewell to Climbing<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> How we went from <a href="https://www.dailycamera.com/2021/08/22/boulder-area-already-a-publishing-hotspot-poised-to-become-media-mainstay/" target="_blank">this</a>:<br /><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">This is a transformational day for our company and our customers,” Robin Thurston, CEO of Outside Inc., said in a written statement when the acquisition closed. “Everything we do is driven by a belief that a hike, run, ride, or yoga practice can change your life, and these new brands will help us fulfill our mission to build the world’s best consumer experience across a wide range of activities. With these moves, we can now deliver world-class content 24/7 to almost every home in America across every platform, screen, and device.”</span></i></span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Outside didn’t stop there, either. In July, it acquired a trio of cycling brands — video-centric website Pinkbike, road biking and racing site Cycling Tips and GPS trail database Trailforks.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">With all of that in its portfolio, Outside launched Outside+, an annual subscription service that gives customers access to all its content, training plans, adventure sports experiences, videos and events on a single platform.</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Our vision was transforming these from print companies to digital platforms,” Thurston told BizWest in an interview in May. “We want to bundle everything so we give you all you can eat of active interest media and activity. Whether it’s active lifestyle or home and cooking — these verticals will attract audiences back. All publishers have to get into the first-party data business and better understand their users to get people to sign in, to use all the services.”</span></i><br /><br />To <a href="https://www.5280.com/2022/05/outside-inc-makes-significant-staff-cuts-shifts-away-from-print-media-offerings/" target="_blank">this </a>in less than a year</span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;">"<span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif" style="font-size: 20px;">In addition to traditional print media offerings, the Boulder-based company bought a wide-ranging list of active-lifestyle brands, the complete Warren Miller film catalog, mapping services, and even a company that takes finish-line photos at race events. Thurston’s plan was to have those brands become part of the Outside+ subscription model, which targets individual reader’s interests and anticipates future pursuits. The goal: to directly sell content, goods and services to subscribers for an annual fee. In the process, Outside Inc. would de-emphasize the advertising revenue model that has become so challenging for print media. Perhaps most impressively, Thurston told</span><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif" style="font-size: 20px;"> </span><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 20px;">5280</span><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif" style="font-size: 20px;">, he’d transformed his company from a few dozen employees to one that had more than 500—and he’d made all the acquisitions without laying off a single person.</span></span></i></p><div class="ad-slot-ip" id="in-article-ad-1" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 20px; margin: 36px auto; text-align: center;"></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">That changed last week when the company told its staff in a video conference meeting that it would eliminate roughly 15 percent of its workforce, shutter some of its print publications, and reduce the frequency of most magazines to one or two print runs per year. The change came as a shock to Outside Inc. employees who had hoped Thurston’s ambitions would result in a rejuvenated era for the company’s publications.</span></i></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">“This is demoralizing,” one Outside Inc. employee told <span style="box-sizing: inherit;">5280</span> on the condition of anonymity to speak openly about the cuts. “You do the work because of the people around you, all these brilliant minds. Now, people are wondering how long they want to stay in this industry.”</span></i></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">The layoffs were spread across the company, according to a slide presented to Outside Inc. employees and obtained by <span style="box-sizing: inherit;">5280</span>. Of those listed as “exits,” 31 were from “content”—or 18 percent of that sector—among them, three editors at <span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Outside</span> magazine, the company’s flagship brand. Sixteen employees were laid off from the sales and marketing departments; 13 positions were eliminated from “commerce,” 12 positions were eliminated from “product engineering and mapping;” another seven were “general and administrative” employees. The company’s “events and experiences” and “customer support” staffs were untouched.</span></i></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial;">should be a story reverberating around the climbing world as it implies the end, not merely of the print edition, but the actual end of the magazine of record in North America chronicling the sport of climbing. Yes there are journals such as <a href="http://www.alpinist.com/" target="_blank">Alpinist </a>or <a href="https://climbingzine.com/" target="_blank">ClimbingZine</a> or <a href="https://gripped.com/" target="_blank">Gripped </a>still continuing print editions (for now) but none of these have the reach or the mission that Climbing had. And I emphasize "had" because the warning bells should have gone off as soon as folks read Thurston's public statements about platforms and data business.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.5280.com/2022/04/can-outside-inc-save-outdoor-journalism/" target="_blank">As in</a>,</span> "<span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>It’s about personalization,” Thurston says. “It’s about having data to be able to understand and hopefully predict what you’re going to do next.” As the company aims for profitability within the year, it has plans to break into documentary films, offer more podcasts, and develop short videos for TikTok and Snapchat."</i></span><br /></span><br /><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif"><span style="font-size: 20px;">Any non-Thurston-koolaid-drinking entities would have surely recognized that there is zero possibility within the outside industry for media-linked revenues sufficient to support a <a href="https://www.dailycamera.com/2022/05/23/outside-reduces-staff-plans-to-push-print-titles-into-digital/" target="_blank">reported </a>150mil investment (among other unreported amounts) in this venture:</span></span><br /><br /><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif"><span style="font-size: 20px;"><i>"The acquisitions resulted from the closing of the Pocket’s series B financing, which enabled investments in audience, technology, and product development, according to information supplied by the company in announcing the additions. The company’s series B financing was led by Seqouia (</i>sic<i>)Capital Operations LLC, which invested $150 million in the company and gained a position on the company’s board of directors."</i></span></span><br /><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif"><span style="font-size: 20px;"><br />I will state/predict for the record that there is a next to zero chance for Climbing to still be operating under the Outside Plus umbrella in anything like the form it had say in April of 2022 when 5280 published this <a href="https://www.5280.com/2022/04/can-outside-inc-save-outdoor-journalism/" target="_blank">pie-in-the-sky pronouncement in a profile</a>.<br /><br /></span></span><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif" style="font-size: 20px;"><i>“Do I think I’m doing something revolutionary?” the 49-year-old Outside Inc. CEO and Colorado native says. “You know, it’s not like I’m building a rocket going to the moon.”</i></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Outside Inc. would not confirm how many people have already subscribed to Outside+, the service that charges users $99 per year and includes two magazine subscriptions, mapping services, books, reduced entry fees to events, the entire Warren Miller film collection, and discounts on things such as travel, lodging, and gear. But Thurston says he hopes to grow Outside Inc.’s digital subscriber count to 20 million in the next five years.</span></i></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i style="font-size: 20px;">The web of information and offerings is based on a data model that can anticipate a user’s future activities based on their current interests—and other users’ past interests. Outside+, Thurston says, could detect a customer’s shift from mountain biking to trail running, for example, then deliver everything from news stories, running shoe reviews, yoga and food recommendations, and event sign-ups—plus travel and lodging resources—to a computer or smartphone screen."</i><br /><br /><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif"><span style="font-size: 20px;">20 million? Uh huh. "Outside Inc. would not confirm how many people have already subscribed" says it all. And that "data model"? The vaporware feels are strong with this one.</span></span><br /><br /><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif"><span style="font-size: 20px;">A coincidental union drive in editorial in January that got quashed/was withdrawn had nothing to do with any of this I am sure.</span></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif"><span style="font-size: 20px;">In the end (and this will end and end badly IMO) the reality that underlay the whole scheme was financial speculation, pure and simple.<br /></span></span><br /><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif"><span style="font-size: 20px;">In another </span><a href="https://www.5280.com/2022/05/outside-inc-makes-significant-staff-cuts-shifts-away-from-print-media-offerings/" style="font-size: 20px;" target="_blank">5280 piece</a><span style="font-size: 20px;">, Thurston was described as saying to (what was left) of Outside's employees </span><span style="font-size: 20px; font-style: italic;">"that current economic conditions made it more difficult in the short-term to move the company from private ownership to a </span><b style="font-style: italic;">publicly traded company</b><span style="font-size: 20px;"><i> (</i>my emphasis<i>) and forced the cutbacks. The savings, Thurston said, would give the company more operating “runway” in the meantime."</i></span></span><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif"><span style="font-size: 20px;"><br /><br />And there (5280 burying the lede nicely) is what was going on the whole time. Blue-sky/fever-dream "visionaries" imagining that the outdoor industry media "space" could generate sufficient buzz (forget about actual revenues, are you kidding) to justify VC capital investment and eventual IPO scenarios. That 20 million paying subscribers would materialize in five years (the classic timeline) and make everyone rich. Except the ink-stained (okay pixel-stained) writers, photogs and editors of course.<br /><br />Not so long ago Outside was the Everest of outdoor publishing. Writers knew they had made it when their byline appeared in its pages. Significant issues were explored there, careers were made by some writers, and classic articles were published that reshaped the nature of people's relationship with the outdoors. And now what? Thurston predicted in April the arrival of "Outerverse" (NFTs and all) but my guess is what will happen next is more along the lines of Jon Krakauer's classic Outside article and book, that chronicle of hubris, mismanagement, and disaster, <i>Into Thin Air</i>. Because that's where Sequoia Capital's money is going unless something drastically changes at the top.<br /><br />And in the meantime if there are any responsible socially-conscious investors who want to bring Climbing back from the brink and keep it sustainable for decades to come for a much more modest outlay, get in touch.<br /><br />Thanks to 5280's <a href="https://www.5280.com/byline/robert-sanchez/" target="_blank">Robert Sanchez</a> for his excellent reporting on this subject. Also check out Adventure Journal for their <a href="https://www.adventure-journal.com/2022/05/outside-inc-ends-print-run-of-backpacker-climbing-and-more-amid-layoffs/" target="_blank">thoughts</a><br /><br />Good <a href="https://coloradomedia.substack.com/p/layoffs-at-boulders-outdoor-inc-follow?s=r" target="_blank">summary </a>of the whole debacle</span></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Full Disclosure: I have been published in Climbing and the (recently) let-go editor Matt Samet is a good friend. Also I am a subscriber (though not renewing) who has yet to hear anything from Outside Plus about the implications of any of this for my subscription.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span face="adobe-caslon-pro, serif"><span style="font-size: 20px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br /></span><br /></span></span></p>Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-43202725857252916332021-08-14T10:22:00.001-06:002021-08-14T10:22:49.201-06:00Post-Olympic Climbing: Where Next<p> The post-Olympic climbing landscape is now officially with us. It's a topic I wrote about extensively in the past and maybe some posts aged better than others<br />http://www.mountainsandwater.com/search?q=olympics<br /><br />This post was probably the one that aged best<br />http://www.mountainsandwater.com/2013/06/climbing-and-olympics-agon-and-arete.html<br /><br />In it I argued that comp climbing still has no idea what it stands for in terms of testing athletes. I wrote in 2013:<br /><br />"My personal feelings are mixed at best. I think bouldering especially has real possibilities for a great display of athleticism and sportsmanship, though some recent setting in the World Cup comps has me wondering. But I also agree with those concerned about a split between "real" climbing and competition climbing growing ever wider. The continued persistence of speed climbing as an event lingers mostly as an embarrassment for both camps, if comments are to be believed. I will say that the bigger issue for mainstreaming competition indoor climbing is sorting out what the sport actually stands for. The Olympic motto is "Citius, Altius, Fortius" meaning higher faster stronger and while faster could be dropped for climbing, the other two are very apropos for the world of climbing."<br /><br />Nothing I saw in Tokyo indicated anything has changed. Indeed, the scoring controversies (too numerous to recount here) underlined the problem. Separating speed is a welcome move for Paris 2024 though I would argue that speed will ultimately disappear unless it's changed significantly and soon. But more importantly the fact that some very strong outdoor climbers didn't make finals despite a dedicated period of Olympic training indicates, among other things, that whatever comp climbing is becoming, it's so radically different that a climber who flashed 5.15a outside was out of contention for the podium.<br /><br />I saw a number of attempts by announcers to convey how climbing difficulty works, attempts that had limited success and were rightly lampooned here in perhaps the best commentary I saw.<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zxj-O-51WFs" width="489" youtube-src-id="Zxj-O-51WFs"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><p>So where next? Good question! I imagine the current NBC equivalent of Jack Donaghy looking at speed climbing and saying "Nuh-uh" and the TV appeal of people sliding off boulders barely a foot off the ground has to be tenuous at best, once the novelty wears off. <br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VP4E9CtQIxo" width="504" youtube-src-id="VP4E9CtQIxo"></iframe></div><br /><div>In my opinion, the future direction of comp climbing needs to focus on a more relatable athleticism in all the events with a trend towards standardization in what skills and strengths get tested. Bouldering in particular needs to get its act together to avoid looking like a lottery while speed has to get away from the race format and build a bigger better wall and route, focusing on time only.<br /><br />The larger question is the degree to which climbing's appearance on an international stage will increase its popularity, especially in an already stressed and crowded outdoor environment. That's a hard one to forecast since gym climbing really is so different from outdoor climbing and the appetite for its peculiar problems of terrain protection etc may not carry over as easily as some may think. We will see.<br /><br /><br /></div>Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-33265652097995664892020-04-10T09:59:00.002-06:002021-05-04T15:35:47.286-06:00Better Stop ExploringLike everyone else, well almost everyone, I have a fair amount of time that I once spent climbing that I can now dedicate to browsing the interweb/social medias. Few companies spend as much money shipping their "athletes" to far-flung destinations (which are a thing under discussion in analyzing the pandemic) as The North Face and for no particular reason, I thought about the company motto "Never Stop Exploring." TNF was so worried about exploring they posted this last year:<br /><br />
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Well climate change is still a thing as everybody knows, but what is actually helping slow down climate change thanks to COVID-19 is (ironically enough) people staying put. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/5-ways-the-economic-upheaval-of-coronavirus-may-impact-co2-emissions/" target="_blank">CO2 emissions have been down </a>drastically in areas under lockdown and of course everyone has seen this fun photo or something like it from Llandudno in North Wales. The goats (a non-native species) typically live on the Great Orme, a limestone headland (and climbing area) near town. <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dolphins-swans-italy-lockdown/" target="_blank">Sadly the dolphins swimming in the Grand Canal in Venice turned out to be fake.</a><br />
<img alt="Goats Move Into Welsh Town Empty Due To Coronavirus" height="133" src="https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2020-03/31/21/asset/da8e52cc15d2/sub-buzz-418-1585691362-1.jpg?downsize=700%3A%2A&output-quality=auto&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto&output-format=auto&downsize=360:*" width="200" /><br />
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The natural world, it seems, is exploring us in some interesting ways. Which is cool. Except when its a potentially lethal virus. Which humans are in a way too, so there's that. But anyway, what is more interesting is a consideration of whether climbing in "exotic" locales is, or has been, contributing in some small way to the release of dangerous organisms into wider human populations. The bats that carried COVID-19 lived deep in limestone caves in China. As it happens, climbers like limestone caves too. It doesn't take a genius to consider how easily something might transfer to a broader population from a climber hiking into an area and "cleaning" (i.e. disrupting an active biome and releasing heaven knows what into the air) a route in such a place, climbing it, then flying out with their gear (covered in heaven knows what) back to "civilization" to make a video about it and encouraging others to visit too. Those others bring yet more people encouraging further disruption and encroachment on wild habitats. These zoonotic transmissions <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/04/03/coronavirus-wildlife-environment/" target="_blank">are more and more likely</a> as globalism continues to extend its economic and cultural influence.<br />
<br />
I just read in 8a.nu about the establishment of climbing in Suriname, a country on the Atlantic coast in South America. It has extensive natural rainforest areas and apparently some potential for climbing. Yet is climbing good for the wildlife there? And maybe as importantly is climbing there good for us? A New York Times Travel section article blandly describes the market in the capital city of Parimaribo as follows: "Maroons and Arawaks, one of the country’s indigenous tribes, sell nearly everything under the sun from the country’s interior at the Freedom Market — from bush meat to live monkeys and bottles of casiri, a brew made from cassava." Street markets selling "bush meat" sounded so, well, exotic, in 2011. Today, we know that its equivalent in the "wet markets" of Wuhan and elsewhere launched the global pandemic that everything and everyone afterwards will remember 2020 for.<br />
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In other words is there a point at which we really would be better off not exploring? When do we finally say enough is enough? Disturbing sensitive ecological areas for fun and profit needs to be looked at quite a bit more carefully going forward, especially in profoundly biologically diverse regions where the human/biological interface is especially porous and potentially hazardous. Climbers like to consider themselves somehow exempt from the laws of nature as they "adventure" around the world in climates and environments that would be better left untouched. When you consider the possibility that one pried-off flake or the disturbed bat nesting area behind it could unleash a pandemic that could kill hundreds of thousands or millions of people and bring the global economy to its knees, maybe, just maybe, it's not worth it?<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">Note: for a compelling account of the ideological origins of this pandemic, please read "<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.1em;"><a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2020/04/01/covid-19-and-circuits-of-capital/" target="_blank">COVID-19 and Circuits of Capital"</a> in which I saw the phrase "</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 27px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the frontiers of capital production</span><span face="Open Sans, arial, sans-serif">," </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">a phrase</span><span face="Open Sans, arial, sans-serif"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 27px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">which perfectly echoes both the terrain and theoretical premise of the outdoor industry and which helped inspire this post.</span></span></span><br />
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<br />Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-7101598897386470642020-04-07T10:13:00.000-06:002020-04-07T10:22:15.510-06:008a.nu (and Mountain Project), Why Are You Still Allowing Climbers to Publicly Post Climbs?This one is going to be short. Virtually every climbing area in Europe or North America is located in a jurisdiction under "shelter-in-place" at this point. There are various interpretations of this but the emphasis on staying local and avoiding crowds is universal. Rural communities where most climbing sectors are found are pleading for visitors to stay away from them. Climbing organizations are echoing the same theme. Yet every day I see fresh ascents logged in these days and posted on the 8a website and elsewhere for all to see. This is not appropriate for too many reasons to count.<br />
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So I am asking these websites to look again at their actions and make changes. It's very easy to put the message out there that public posting of climbs is not helpful at this time. It's also easy to change the settings on the website to make such posting impossible for the time being. For guidance on this, check out <a href="https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/latest_ascents.php" target="_blank">UKC's proactive attitude</a>. They locked down their logbooks March 18.<br />
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Here are the two primary sources for such posts.<br />
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<a href="https://www.rei.com/" target="_blank">REI</a> owns <a href="https://www.mountainproject.com/" target="_blank">Mountain Project</a>. No more publicly available ticks of routes please.<br />
<a href="http://a.nu/Index.aspx?CountryCode=GLOBAL" target="_blank">8a.nu</a> please just stop. We get that Sweden, for now, is more relaxed about restrictions. How much longer?<br />
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Climbers, if you really think that going climbing is okay right now, I can't alter that attitude but I will ask you to stop posting about your sick sends on social media and elsewhere and I can guarantee that if you are sponsored, others are taking note of your lack of awareness, including athlete and brand managers. Times for climbing brands are going to be very tough going forward and failure to grasp the need for everyone to get on board with true social distancing will have consequences.<br />
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Thank you.<br />
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<br />Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-32833520679080361522020-03-16T19:36:00.002-06:002020-03-24T11:57:52.140-06:00Climbing Hits the Wall<div class="MsoNormal">
The world is reeling from the pandemic Covid-19 and fortunately
it's no longer still being debated whether it's appropriate to go outside
climbing. Ugh. My answer is, right now, definitely not, unless (maybe) you are free soloing, where, in the event of a
mishap, you will likely not strain local medical resources. The thought of
bouldering has me on edge (hold-sharing with Broseph and his buds ewww) but
pictures of dozens of climbers in close proximity lapping up the Front Range's
crowded cragging scene makes me a little freaked out. Meanwhile locals in
places such as Moab are pleading with would-be visitors to stay away. (Update:
Moab, like Hueco, Yosemite Red Rock Smith Rock, etc. closed) They aren't
pleading In Europe, since the authorities are simply quarantining EVERYTHING. Will
Instagram will develop a conscience about this issue of #vanlife and outdoor
recreation in the time of coronavirus? We’ll see.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
But speaking of free solo, the bigger picture (see what I did there), setting
to one side the extraordinary catastrophe this is handing to the world's
physical and economic health (and hopefully very swiftly setting aside in
November the catastrophe's enabler here in the States), this pandemic came
along just as climbing was hitting the big time and will be dealing a very hard
blow to that surge in popularity.<br />
<br />
This is for a number of reasons:<br />
<br />
1. Climbing gyms are closing down and it could be a while. This really sucks
and not just because I work part-time at one locally. In Boulder and many other
locales climbing gyms are an integral part of the climbing scene. They are the
place where beginners often get started and where veterans (myself included
haha) are able to stay on top of new developments. They support strong climbers
through employment as setters and coaches. They host competitions and other
community-building events. Though there are downsides to gyms, they remain real
anchors for local climbers and sources of community and communication. But
their vulnerability to communicable diseases (nobody quite knows how long
Covid-19 will stick around) is certainly going to cause both investors and the
public to rethink the business model and a few months (very likely scenario)
with minimal revenue is going to wipe out more than a few of them. New gyms
(and we were maybe hitting peak gym as it was) are going to be facing strong
headwinds since the investing climate just tanked. And of course many members
or would-be members may find themselves unable to afford paying gym
memberships. And you don't want to be a hold manufacturer right now. Nossirr.
NO. Which sucks because they provide the cool stuff we climb on.<br />
<br />
Pro tip: If you can afford it, <b>PLEASE <i>do
not freeze or cancel your gym membership</i>.</b> Nobody else will be open
anyway and if you don't support your gym now, it won't be there when you can
come back.<br />
<br />
2. Goodbye Olympics. Everybody (well maybe not everybody- thanks a lot, speed
climbing) thought the arrival of climbing at the Olympics meant its future was
assured. And now the chances of the Olympics happening in Tokyo are slim to
none, as numerous news stories are predicting. In Italy, a person is dying
roughly every 5 minutes. France, Spain, and Germany are locked down as is the
EU generally speaking. The UK just woke up to the seriousness of the situation.
We’re next. The Olympics are not happening and that's a fact. Only a lunatic
would convene tens, probably hundreds of thousands of people in a tightly
crowded city hot on the heels, let alone in the middle of, a global pandemic.
Repeat. OLYMPICS. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. (OK that just got confirmed) And worse, climbing is not going to get
a second chance at them because...<br />
<br />
3. This pandemic is getting scary. I read things every day that scare me the
way watching Free Solo on IMAX never did. Only lunatics enjoy scaring
themselves for fun climbing rocks in an already scary world. We used to call
such people climbers before sport climbing and gyms made climbing welcoming to
more balanced people. Now the world is ultra crazy-real scary and the thought
of picking up or even spectating one more risky activity has most of the
population reaching for a cozy evening of Netflix and chill. Normalizing death
and dismemberment has long been an Achilles' heel of this sport especially
given the past year or so's casualty list. Even the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/02/survivors-guilt-in-the-mountains" target="_blank">North Face "Team" has hired a therapist </a>to
deal with managing the trauma that is caused by risking one's life in the
mountains with the goal of "testing" gear that mostly ends up
traversing college campuses and pub crawls. Also people won't have much money,
see above.<br />
<br />
4. Governments are going to close down public lands for a while, maybe quite a
while. The "dirtbag" #vanlifer roadtrippers are going to be
considered as potential disease vectors and invited to quarantine themselves
for a couple of weeks in their vans at locations all around the world which won’t
be much fun for anyone and a wake-up call to more than a few. The rest of us
are going to buy a sh*t ton of hangboards which will wind up on Craigslist next
year as everyone realizes how boring and difficult using a hangboard actually
is. Watch one of the 5000 videos that have popped up on Youtube recently and
see for yourself. And I love hangboarding! Some of us will build home walls but
most of them will suck and, well, see hangboard comments above. Long story
short, soon there will be an abundance of opportunities for climbers to pick up
amazing deals on "intro" level shoes, harnesses, ropes "no
falls, only used a few times" and cheap ATC-style belay devices. Climbing
gear manufacturers might be having an excess inventory problem very very
soon. Also people won't have much money, see above.<br />
<br />
So climbing is in a bad way right now. Big time. Along with a lot of things.<br />
<br />
If you have any idea how climbing is going to hit the big time now, I would
love to hear it. I'll be at Summer OR (seriously, that probably will not be
held this summer) or maybe CWA (are you KIDDING ME? UPDATE CWA was cancelled)
or more likely glued to social media and the news watching as the world burns
and hoping to somewhat save my skin and that of my family. The sick sends will
have to take a back seat for quite some time.<br />
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Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-37836011953440650032020-02-22T11:52:00.001-07:002020-02-22T11:54:56.161-07:00Misogyny in the Rocks<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Posted this up on Facebook today regarding this piece on Medium:<br /><br /><a href="https://medium.com/@alexcasar/misogyny-in-the-rocks-the-tinder-pussy-rock-climbing-dilemma-c312712b0777">https://medium.com/@alexcasar/misogyny-in-the-rocks-the-tinder-pussy-rock-climbing-dilemma-c312712b0777</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Great essay, thoughtful and thorough. Route names in areas that have associations with native culture and traditions, especially spiritual ones, and most especially obnoxious names like the one under discussion, reek of old-school imperialism and colonialism, just under a modern adventure sport guise. The least that climbers can do is honor both the natural setting and native culture in creating and naming them. This goes triple for visiting climbers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here in the USA, the mos<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">t egregious example I can think of are the numerous obscene names for boulder problems at Hueco Tanks, most of which have strong misogynistic contexts, and have no place in a sacred area for Native Americans, not to mention a place with its own natural beauty. Thanks to Fred Nicole for beginning to turn around that tendency with both his amazing FAs and their evocative names. I wonder if/how the new edition of the guidebook will handle this problematic legacy."</span></span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">Jeff Achey at <a href="https://www.wolverinepublishing.com/" target="_blank">Wolverine Publishing</a> was quick to follow up with this comment:<br />"</span><span style="background-color: #f2f3f5; line-height: 16px;">We all discussed it back and forth quite a bit, and none of us had exactly the same opinion on what to do... </span><span style="background-color: #f2f3f5; line-height: 16px;">In the first edition of the Wolverine book, Matt and Dave retained all of those names. At this point they are part of the historical record, in a way, maybe best serving modern and future climbers as an example. Jason Kehl in particular was against "censorship," and I'm sympathetic to that point of view. Also, the sophomoric misogyny seems a bit pathetic at this point, with women boulderers absolutely crushing in Hueco. Females are so well established in the elite bouldering community there that sexist putdowns lose much of their punch. It makes the misogynist simply look like a fool. But still. It's an unfortunate, weird situation. We did put a note in the intro about obscene names, and did a bit of judicious new abbreviation, but maybe not enough. I'd love to hear more people's comments on this issue and how we guidebook scribes should deal with it! Fortunately most books we deal with don't have this problem in anywhere near the degree as Hueco!"</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f3f5; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f3f5; line-height: 16px;">Thanks Jeff!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f3f5; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f3f5; line-height: 16px;">My view on this is that certain aspects of "climbing history" and their preservation are very open to debate, especially route names that later climbers find offensive, and that the "rights" of first ascensionists to preserve those names are basically non-existent. The whole FA culture that has developed in climbing (rooted in a quasi-colonialist worldview) itself is a topic for review in another and much lengthier post.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f3f5; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #f2f3f5; line-height: 16px;">I remain amazed that TPWD has not moved to modify or eliminate its use of any of the route and area names from the 80s and 90s when such names were much more common. I guess we'll see how that works out.</span></span></div>
Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-29615308888570113772020-01-30T10:46:00.004-07:002020-01-30T10:46:53.929-07:00Starting Up This Time For SureSo yeah I spend way more time than I should on social media (anyone remember when that wasn't even a thing?) fiddling while Rome burns. But in between that and working I definitely still climb haha. A new thing in the past couple of years has been semi-speed laps on the Second Flatiron behind town. It's a very basic template for running. 15 minutes to the base, 15 minutes up the climb 15 minutes descending. My fastest time is about 38 minutes, the slowest, well a lot longer. Speed climbing isn't really my thing but the Second is pretty much the perfect arena for a steady but mixed diet of aerobic conditioning. It certainly beats easy autobelay laps in the gym!<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrlgYeViRyvcwfPhMzDGZapbyICPvjdfunwrqsNNsfG-7VKlqWxSWu55_Zg7Kcw-vP4nlCO56PTCJQhkuVwwtdESoa99z0rByuFplfuPCyny2CWI0qF4o1-gOSw8ytTg0jBBEr6U1deO8/s1600/82945841_10222354551281437_2267960405525528576_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="790" data-original-width="960" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrlgYeViRyvcwfPhMzDGZapbyICPvjdfunwrqsNNsfG-7VKlqWxSWu55_Zg7Kcw-vP4nlCO56PTCJQhkuVwwtdESoa99z0rByuFplfuPCyny2CWI0qF4o1-gOSw8ytTg0jBBEr6U1deO8/s320/82945841_10222354551281437_2267960405525528576_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You might recognize this climber! We did the Second recently as a fun run.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Anyway, this post marks a revival of this blog (as obnoxious as that word is) and I will be updating at least weekly on topics of general climbing interest as well as my own specific activities.Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-31107218289638202852018-07-24T15:36:00.004-06:002018-07-24T15:36:55.955-06:00Time To Go To Outdoor Retailer?I've decided after a hiatus to start writing this blog again. A logical step is visiting Outdoor Retailer, now in Denver, thanks in large part to the <a href="https://www.adventure-journal.com/2018/07/senator-mike-lee-of-utah-wants-to-eliminate-public-lands-as-you-know-them/" target="_blank">retrograde environmental politics </a>of Utah. I just sent a registration request to the show so we'll see what happens...Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-30112687268763471662016-11-22T13:14:00.001-07:002016-11-22T13:17:25.282-07:00Adam Ondra and the Dawn Wall: Veni Vidi ViciJust about the only bright spot in the unfolding catastrophe that the Trump-era United States is becoming was the autumn visit to Yosemite by Czech master climber Adam Ondra. His plan was to attempt the Dawn Wall, something he promptly got started on, going ground up to investigate the climb and doing substantial amounts of free-climbing on the route including an onsight of most of the last third of the climb. He worked in a trip up the Nose with his dad, in only 17 hours, during this phase as well. After further work on the crux section of the route, roughly pitches 10-16 he embarked on his single push ascent and in eight days was at the top, having cleanly led every pitch free.<br />
<br />
Interestingly, in comparison with the media frenzy that accompanied the first ascent, the major source of specific info about the climb was Adam's Instagram posts via his own account, that of Black Diamond and his belayer and more informal photographer Pavel Blazek. Indeed the tone of what media there was seemed to anticipate a comeuppance of sorts, as though Adam would be humbled by the peculiar nature of Yosemite granite and the sheer difficulty of the route. The New York Times, which appears to be uncertainly grappling with its future in the "post-truth" era, had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/sports/adam-ondra-climbing-dawn-wall-yosemite.html" target="_blank">a story on Ondra</a> which came in for justified criticism for both its title and its tone. The title "Adam Ondra Expected a Short, Hard Climb. Now He’ll Be Happy Just to Finish." implied that somehow Ondra had come to the Valley expecting the proverbial walk in the park but had been humbled, a sentiment that came through elsewhere, where the reconnaissance ascent was described as an "aid climb" instead of what it actually was. And of course there was the usual "he's just a sport climber/boulderer/comp climber" internet commentary. One writer stated "It’s safe to say that it’ll be a long time before anyone repeats this rock climb." That was about a year and a half ago.<br />
<br />
In the end, despite the qualifiers and naysayers, the fact is he took the route down in eight days with no real problems to speak of and with plenty of time left still for an onsight attempt on the Salathe Wall. It was done with minimal support or fanfare. It was done using mostly ground-up tactics. Adam was gracious, crediting Tommy and Kevin for their vision and acknowledging the effort and difficulty of the climb, not to mention its boldness. Yet, it's worth saying, he wasn't the only one doing amazing things on El Cap this fall. The Zodiac (5.13d) had a third free ascent, the Dihedral Wall (5.14a) saw a long-overdue 2nd ascent, the Pre-Muir had a 4th ascent and Freerider was rope-soloed free in a day. Oddly none of these were accomplished by "pro" Americans. Where were they? Good question. Climbing boulders in Colorado, some, though still no American repeat of Hypnotized Minds, despite a rapid ascent by Rustam Gelmanov in grim summer conditions. Ticking routes in Rifle? Sure, though Mark Anderson doing Shadowboxing underlined that Rifle 8c+/9a is hardly the preserve of fulltime climbers anymore. And of course there's the Red River Gorge in fall. So what's up? Is everyone too depressed by the election? Too busy staying current on their Snapchat posts?<br />
<br />
The Instagram/Facebook game may be strong for Americans but all the social media marketing in the world cannot make up for this truth. Once again the bar has been raised substantially and the question has to be asked whether there is anyone ready to match it? I'll be interested to see who rises to the occasion.<br />
<br />
For more insight into Ondra's mindset read the interview I did with him a while back<br />
<a href="http://www.mountainsandwater.com/2012/03/interview-with-adam-ondra.html">http://www.mountainsandwater.com/2012/03/interview-with-adam-ondra.html</a>Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-24012265398131113852016-08-02T13:32:00.000-06:002016-08-02T13:46:15.612-06:00The Five (okay make it Six) Stages of a Route in the Social Media Age<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now that <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/selling-rock-climbing-in-the-social-media-era" target="_blank">the millennials are firmly in charge of the climbing bandwagon</a> and Brooklyn Boulders is <a href="http://www.businessden.com/2016/08/01/brooklyn-climbing-gym-plants-feet-in-denver/" target="_blank">headquartered in Denver</a>, it's time to talk <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=influencer" target="_blank">influence</a>, how to get it and how to wield it. Maybe some of you are toting your climbing resumes to Summer Outdoor Retailer right now in the hope of getting <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Free%20Stuff" target="_blank">free stuff.</a> Maybe some of you are getting <a href="http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=846" target="_blank">free stuff</a> and still want to keep getting it. No matter, you need to get your rep past the bean counters and the marketing specialists and to do that you must understand the process that lets you post that sponsor junkshow shot on the instagrams.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Back in the day (i.e.1895), a hemp-rope-carrying alpine dude named Mummery stated, "<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;">It has frequently been noticed that all mountains appear doomed to pass through the three stages: An inaccessible peak - The most difficult ascent in the Alps - An easy day for a lady.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;">" Much more compelling stuff than "Because it's there" from that other M-duh-duh-ly guy who also perished up high on a cold (albeit more famous) mountain.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;">In other words, nothing has changed, including possibly the sexism. If you want a reputation, you have to understand the relative value of your achievement. It's not a bad idea to see it in the context of the Mummery Grade system, a system that BTW uncannily reflects the Gill bouldering grade of B1, B2 and B3. Climbers have to realize that like <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21615616-not-what-it-used-be-grade-expectations" target="_blank">grades at Harvard</a> (and most everywhere else) climbing grades keep going higher and are worth less and less over time. It's kind of like Moore's Law, except for the fact that really climbing grades don't matter. Okay they do, but we don't like to discuss them too blatantly anymore than we don't want to be that gauche dude who asks how much that sweet Sprinter van costs.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;">Climbing grades are like money in a lot of ways. At the top end, those who have the highest numbers need them the least. At the bottom end, we scrape and grind away to get a pittance of reward. But who cares about either of those categories, let's get to the middle class, the climber who is actually well, kind of good, as in C leaning toward B-Team good and thinking that <a href="http://skimonline.com/basics/skim-school/getting-sponsored/" target="_blank">free stuff</a> sounds like not only a good idea but what he or she deserves for that effort, "Murica" being a nation dedicated to free enterprise and whatnot.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;">How can this aspirant navigate this maze without putting a foot wrong and punting in sight of the chains to use a metaphor that appeals to climbers? How can you ambassadorize yourself with maximum impactfulness through Faceblock, Snapshut, and the Instagraph Machine? These are vital questions lest you have to <a href="http://cruxcrush.com/2015/04/17/alex-puccios-controversial-crowdfunding/" target="_blank">Kickstart yourself </a>to sponsorship.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;">It's actually quite simple. First you must familiarize yourself with the (roughly) five (or six) stages of any route. Learn these basic principles and your brandworthyness will rise to the surface like a rich algae froth on a hot summer afternoon. And <a href="http://www.rockclimbing.com/forum/Climbing_Information_C2/Gear_Heads_F40/Sponsorship_P119659/" target="_blank">free stuff</a> will surely come your way.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><b>Stage 1</b>: Nobody can climb the route. The route is impossible. This is getting harder to find everyday, mostly because nobody ever wants to work hard enough to say they can't do it because they aren't strong enough. Conditions, trade show commitments, video shoot on the Canary Islands, imaginary hold breakage, whatever; the excuses are legion but occasionally someone puts <a href="http://climbingnarc.com/2010/03/the-lowdown-on-first-round-first-minute/" target="_blank">some serious time in </a>and is coming back e<a href="http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=69810" target="_blank">mpty-handed</a>. The rig is really really hard!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><b>Stage 2</b>: The route gets done. It's a thing! Could be someone obscure, could be someone famous (see Stage 3) but it goes and it's obviously hard. Cool. Plus it's a route that people actually want to climb. If you FA it, <a href="http://dmmclimbing.com/about/sponsorship-support-faqs/" target="_blank">free stuff</a> might be available. Or not. Hope for Stage 3 to happen soon.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><b>Stage 3</b>: The route gets done by someone famous. This could be the FA or it could be the 2nd ascent or even the 3rd, maybe, but that's pushing it. Okay, now the media spotlight is on the climb. If this is you, you are probably already getting free stuff. But if you aren't, now is your time to shine. But you have to act quickly before it slides to Stage 4.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><b>Stage 4</b>: You get some (limited) attention for simply climbing the route. This is a fragile and easily disintegrating state. You need to get in and do the route while the grade holds and people are interested because of Stage 3. You won't get much attention though because the route then fairly rapidly slides to Stage 5. You probably won't get <a href="https://www.scarpa.com/sponsorship-request" target="_blank">free stuff</a> at least not from A-list companies. 6th ascent? I don't think so.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><b>Stage 5</b>: You get attention for the category you are in when you climb the route. First Female Ascent, Youngest Ascent, Climb for a Cause, etc., etc. Ironically this might be a very feasible way to get <a href="https://www.mountainproject.com/v/how-to-gain-a-climbing-sponsorship/106358345" target="_blank">free stuff</a> but choose your objective and social media strategy carefully because the final stage is approaching...</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><b>Stage 6</b>: The deadpool stage. This can happen frighteningly quickly. Day late, dollar short. Nobody cares if you did the route. Your friend just did it and even worse your frenemy did it in fewer tries than you. The local climbing team is running laps on it. The crew found six new kneebars. If you post a video, the only people who watch it are mining beta and the Insertgram likes are from your mom. But hey, the best climber in the world is the one who is having the most fun! HAHAHA. LOL. As if. It's time to rethink your strategy if you want <a href="https://rockclimbinglife.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/can-we-trust-sponsored-rock-climbers/" target="_blank">free stuff</a>.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;">I hope this helps you formulate your self-brandification strategy as you monetarize your social media outreach via your FB athlete page and Twooter feed. Happy influencing! And remember Craigslist is always ready to take your <a href="http://boulder.craigslist.org/search/sga?query=climbing+gear" target="_blank">free stuff</a> and convert it to hard ca$h.</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 15.75px; line-height: 25.2px;"><br /></span>Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-26963251949500016982016-05-27T12:15:00.002-06:002016-05-27T12:15:33.881-06:00We Are So GoodThe news on social media is that we are all so good. We are winning at life. We are falling down sometimes, but in an interesting way, and we are always getting back up. We are alive. We are smiling. We are laughing with our similarly garbed, similarly featured, similarly vaguely employed peers just enjoying the vibe. There's a lake and a mountain nearby. Maybe a cabin too.<br />
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It's cool, an honor, humbling even, to be this good. We are starting up, getting down, and making it happen. Our selfie game is top-notch. We are Instagram-ready, always. Our brand is building momentum. Our Kickstarter is kicking butt, albeit in a friendly, kicky way. Our plane ticket to paradise has been bought, punched and posted up.<br />
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We still do Facebook. Of course we do. Curating a life across multiple platforms in a disarming, pleasantly aggressive way takes time. But we're grateful. Really grateful. We've learned a lot in the process and we are always hungry for more. We are so good.<br />
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In fact we are always getting better. We are winning at fun, at joy, at savoring the best life can offer. We look great while we do it and we feel even better. We are getting some and this is sweet. We love it. You love it too.<br />
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We said "Buy experiences, not things," and we bought both. We are winning. We are getting psyched. We are rich in the things that matter. We will share and we will never ever stop sharing. We always deliver.<br />
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We are liking, sharing and commenting. We are inspiring. We are telling our story. Anything is possible. We are faster, harder, keener, more aware and we feel great. We know what it is like to work hard and play harder. We believe. In ourselves. In you.<br />
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We are sending. We are humbled and grateful to be sending. We are kinda rad but we know this is just part of the process. We are working on some things. We are releasing trailers and previews. We are having a great time just being part of it all. We are refreshed.<br />
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We are having an adventure. This journey is our destination. We are going off the grid. We are getting published. We are at an event. We are part of the event. We are at the premier of a thing. We don't know what to call it. That's cool too. It's all a story. Come check it out.<br />
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We really think we are beginning to get it after all. But we're not proud. Just quietly joyful. And that's kind of cool. We are ambassadors. We are stoked. We are epic.<br />
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We're reflecting on this. What it all means. How it makes us better so we can be better lovers, friends, and residents of this great big beautiful world. We took some video. We're editing it now. We're thanking our sponsors.<br />
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We're celebrating life but we're thinking about why. We're posting something about it. It might get some likes. That's cool.<br />
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We are so good.Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-82645104105946557892016-04-22T18:29:00.000-06:002016-04-22T18:36:37.434-06:00Why Sponsorship is such a Thing<div class="MsoNormal">
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A couple of web pieces came out recently on a topic that the
print journals tend to eschew, namely the peculiar game of discussing who
should be a sponsored climber. <a href="http://eveningsends.com/setting-and-revising-the-record-in-climbing/" target="_blank">Andrew Bisharat </a>asked what was up with media and
“<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/climbing/comments/1g9qtv/how_do_professional_climbers_earn_a_living/" target="_blank">professional climbers</a>” when the hyped grade turns out to not be all that?<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Another post by Georgie Abel, entitled “<a href="https://medium.com/@georgieabel/confessions-of-a-spray-queen-87c7abc5d8e0#.ksipnfcrt" target="_blank">Confessions of A Spray Queen</a>” appeared to claim that self-generated spray was just part of the
cost of doing business and certainly a number of comments on Facebook seemed to
agree. Indeed the dominant influence on climbing by marketing seems inevitable by
all accounts, even desirable in the eyes of many.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
And yet… I would
suggest that the reason the topics of grades spray and sponsorship are so touchy
is that deep down we are well aware of the arbitrary and superficial discourse
that surrounds the topic. That is to say, a motion is made to defer the
decisions on remuneration to companies who hope to sell products because, hey,
capitalism, and the people have spoken and apparently the people want young
vibrant millenials in somewhat skimpy clothing clustering at the base of a
boulder at Red Rock or Bishop. Or that we are all special and everyone has a
story, whether it’s on a 5.8 or a 5.15, doesn’t matter, because community, and
we’re all in this together, really, bound by inspiring words on Instagram. But in the end I would argue none of this really satisfies those who are serious about the sport of climbing.<br />
<br />
So why not? I don't hear nearly as much speculation and controversy in other sports regarding who deserves support and why. Are other sports infested with the same sense of grievance and complaint regarding compensation? It's remarkable to see this especially in relation to such a small overall pie, a pie the slices of which remain an unknown quantity owing to nondisclosure clauses in sponsor contracts, again something unheard of in real professional sports.<br />
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I'd like to suggest a few issues that climbing presents when we decide about "athlete" support, questions that are endemic to the sport if not actually unique to it. I apologize for the quote marks around "athletes" but I feel it's appropriate given the Greek etymology of the word which specifically refers to contests.<br />
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1. There is no fixed objective standard to any achievement in climbing. Grades? At best a variable quality, grades rise up and wither away, changing from week to week, place to place, person to person. There is simply no compelling way to prove who the best climbers actually are and who is logically deserving of support. In the context of other professional sports this is insane. To succeed in major league baseball, football, etc, you must perform in public at an agreed-upon level against similarly able competitors. In climbing there is no such requirement nor are there organizations who determine who is eligible to compete in sanctioned events that would truly decide who is worthy of support. In climbing you can do what you want and if it appeals to the right set of people you can actually get paid. Crazy but true. Which leads to #2<br />
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2. There are no actual teams or governing bodies that have a set standard regarding compensation or support in relation to performance. Did you hear about The North Face "team" tryouts? Me neither. The word team is thrown around a lot but are they actual teams? No, in large part because of #1. Nobody in the climbing media would dare call out a company for sponsoring an unworthy athlete or speculate who would get cut from a "team" the way regular sports journos do. And since there is no way to determine who or what a valuable player actually is, everyone is defaulting to commercial justification for sponsorship.<br />
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3. The standard for sponsorship is increasingly social-media-oriented, which is to say presence on the big three SM platforms; Facebook, Instagram, and... well I forget, but it sure isn't Twitter. Anyway this creates big problems for people who are good at climbing but not so good at marketing. Some reply, "Well that is the new reality, that "athletes" have to be good marketers, not just, in fact not even, good climbers, because what matters to sponsors is how many shoes or raincoats or whatever can be sold thanks to that 'athlete's' influence in social media." And hey anyone can count Instagram likes or #s of video plays and tell themselves that supporting a mediocre but high-profile athlete translates into ROI. But this rapidly degenerates into #4<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCPXVzTobwe8jTbXaI4UCovHsq9aBEWaVk4XAzDBI6LIhCUi-DbTWU8pUBIa5vk11wKuxEsQZRnUMiFVRBpVznkdVzlB5kOoazkhqM5yuIU5J5niNXkhW9SstnWzLc0BPreAlxVn1zJ5k/s1600/cliffhanger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCPXVzTobwe8jTbXaI4UCovHsq9aBEWaVk4XAzDBI6LIhCUi-DbTWU8pUBIa5vk11wKuxEsQZRnUMiFVRBpVznkdVzlB5kOoazkhqM5yuIU5J5niNXkhW9SstnWzLc0BPreAlxVn1zJ5k/s320/cliffhanger.jpg" width="221" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sly keeping it on the reals. We've all been there though. #legday</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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4. Image is becoming everything. Ironically, there was a time when real climbers derided commercial attempts to represent the sport either in entertainment or advertising. Cliffhanger, the notorious 1993 movie, its title a spoof on the serial thrillers of yesteryear became notorious for its failure to mesh together Hollywood action and the world of high-level climbing. None of the climbers involved, to my knowledge, looked upon their participation in the project as reflective of the actual sport. It was a highly remunerative job and that was pretty much it. Today real climbers actively court interest in their activities by any means necessary (American Ninja Warrior anyone?) including of course relentless social media updates, designed to induce FOMO in their followers. Whether anything is actually accomplished is increasingly beside the point. Which leads to 5...<br />
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5. Image has nothing to do with athletics. Or at least it shouldn't. But sponsorship clearly has a lot more to do with image than it should. And the problem with image (and therefore sponsorship) is that we know the qualities that go into a desirable image have a lot more to do with accidental qualities like innate charisma and appearance than they do with deliberate and therefore morally laudable effort and dedication and that unfortunately in too many instance image plays into easily marketable stereotypes, especially for young women. Obviously the marketing unicorn is the climber who has both attributes but there is little doubt that the benefit of the doubt will go not to the less-attractive achiever but to the lower-achieving attractive climber. And given the lack of structure or criteria for judging achievement outside of commercial viability, that is no surprise. Money talks and everything else walks.<br />
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So in a relatively anarchic world of unjudged and unjudgeable climbing "athletes" each doing his or her own thing, with no clear path to joining the ranks of the "pros" and of course nobody saying what the actual financial reward is for any of this, it is hardly surprising to find that there is controversy regarding who deserves what, especially as any compensation involved is relatively small and hardly adequate to support a truly "professional" status. The controversy is enhanced by images of said "athletes" hard at work leading a fairly laid-back life that consists primarily, if we read Instagram correctly, of climbing what they want, where they want, when they want and how they want.<br />
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Takin' Care of Business and workin' overtime</div>
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This is not the life led by athletes in major actual professional sports. Those actual athletes lead high-pressure lives with relentless practice and travel schedules often with serious risk of degenerative disease as in the NFL, always in the public eye and always with significant risks for non-renewal owing to poor performance. To get to this place, such real athletes have endured years if not decades of specializing in their sports, beating significant odds and a host of competitors to get there. Their compensation is not just a matter of public record; it is a critical aspect of their identity. We may decry their often extraordinary salaries but we rarely dispute that they have worked remarkably hard to get there. But there is no way to get an NFL contract merely by looking good or keep said contract by having many thousands of Instagram followers. Yes lucrative endorsements may follow a winning athlete who has sufficient charisma but in real sports, charisma is never enough. You must win and win convincingly or face the risk of getting cut. And because such a thing does not exist in climbing, we wonder about the score and who is keeping it.</div>
Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-49335080721206577052016-02-07T12:48:00.001-07:002016-02-07T14:22:42.448-07:00To Blog or Not to Blog: Is that the question?""There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Oscar Wilde<br />
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I have been diving deep in the waters of writer's block for the past year, in part because I have been really busy, bogged down in family, work and actually training and climbing. The other issue is deciding what's worth writing about. I tend to seek out issues of contention instead of the feel-good mode typical of most climbing media these days. It's not that climbing is not worth writing about but that the current ecosystem of magazines, videos, and social media posts is a self-reflecting pond of complacency and plenty of marketing. How to move past this to the real thing is the only interesting path to follow in my view. To cut through the noise and image seems the only goal worth pursuing.<br />
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Truth is I don't mind marketing <i>per se</i>. We all need things in order to climb well. Good products deserve our support. It's the mindset that in the end the market is all that matters that is the problem. Climbing becomes a mere conduit to the market and the value of a climb is its marketability. This is giving rise to a startlingly large number of social media presences who are far more about the marketable personality and photogenics than substance. If I point this out, I will be described as a "hater" and a critic. But what's wrong with being a critic?<br />
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Basically there is a double standard at work here. For whatever reason, someone decides to tell the world about something and how awesome it is and then there is a video or a Kickstarter, etc. The key point is that this person wants something from us. Attention, time, money, whatever. They want to be recognized for their work. I consider this kind of presentation more of an argument than a statement of fact but many are surprised that a statement regarding the excellence of something could be debatable. In the current mode of thinking a critical reaction is seen as a problem, as though somehow everyone has an equal opportunity to be heard and to benefit from it. This equality of opportunity and reward is to say the least highly debatable. Why can't we say this and debate it?<br />
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In fact climbing used to be full of arguments and critique. Questions of style, ethics, the environment and so on filled the pages of climbing magazines and journals in the past. Granted that some of this argument was competitive bluster, nevertheless a lot of it was actually serious and very relevant to the present day, which, for the most part, sees next to no discussion in public fora on important topics in the areas mentioned above. If we factor in the deadening hand of social media which tends to flatten all too quickly the contours of a question and combine in with that a general tendency to present a cheerful and likeable social profile, suddenly there is a vacuum regarding serious discussion of serious subjects.<br />
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This vacuum certainly exists today. If any readers can point me to people writing regularly in even a mildly polemical mode, let me know. I'm still making up my mind as to whether it's worth it. I kind of think it is but then again I'm a busy person with too much to do and not enough time or money to do it. We'll see.Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-61201653470271854092015-09-19T12:36:00.002-06:002015-09-21T06:28:22.846-06:00Reel Rock 10: A ReviewLast night I caught the second showing of Reel Rock, the closest thing the climbing world has to a blockbuster release, or at least it was until Meru and Everest came out making this fall one of the busiest for climbing video in quite some time. I doubt I will ever see Meru or Everest so this will have to do.<br />
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Reel Rock is kind of a big deal here in Boulder, since it acts as a showcase not only for Big Up and Sender Films ( they are the only outfits whose work is shown at Reel Rock) but also for local and national climbing and outdoor brands, whose tables and tents I wandered by in the "vendor village" after picking up my ticket. So it's a thing for sure, especially for the increasing number of young adventurepreneurs who seem to be flocking to Boulder to feed off the outdoor media buzz the town generates.<br />
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Readers of this blog know that I have a jaundiced view about outdoor media buzz as it is, that my view is that the distance between reality and image seems only to be widening as the public's access to climbing via HD video is increased. I wasn't impressed by last year's <a href="http://www.mountainsandwater.com/2015/01/valley-uprising-review.html" target="_blank">"Valley Uprising"</a> and wasn't planning on going to this year's Reel Rock until I was offered a ticket by a generous third-party donor. So why not? At least I would get to check out the latest style in plaid short-sleeve shirts.<br />
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After the usual sponsor shout-outs faded away in the dark cavernous interior of the Chautauqa Auditorium, the films opened with "A Line Across the Sky" which chronicled the voyage of Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold across the Fitzroy massif's ridgeline. This climb was a big deal and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOScetWwEwc" target="_blank">trailer on Youtube</a> gives a good sense of the full movie, in fact to be honest, it's not a bad substitute for it since the vast majority of the footage is that taken by Honnold and Caldwell presumably from a Go Pro. Comedic moments from the climb dominated the full-length feature giving a bro-ey vibe to the film even as Tommy tried to explain the conflicts between high-level, potentially fatal, alpinism and the desire to be there for his family after it was all over. The fact that really nothing went wrong, the weather held and that the climbers were certainly more than equal to the task meant that any real sense of conflict, suspense or uncertainty was pretty much absent. Just a couple of guys up in the mountains having a good time.<br />
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Next up was a tribute to the recently killed Dean Potter. Again nothing that reached deeper into this man's life, just "sick" footage that most in the audience would have seen elsewhere of the usual highline, BASE jumping, soloing stuff. And then the lights came up for an intermission.<br />
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The next film "High and Mighty" was ostensibly about bouldering but what it was really about, apparently, was that bouldering is all about "manning up" and falling from way up there. Daniel Woods felt a bit like a sacrificial victim here, set up in the film as a lowball hero who finally learns the "real" way to climb from Jimmy Webb, especially after Jimmy repeats the Nalle Hukkataival V15 monster in South Africa called Livin' Large while Daniel is shown flailing on TR on the same problem.<br />
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The only problem with this plotline is that it is total BS. Daniel has plenty of gnarly highballs to his credit including Lucid Dreaming and Evolution in Bishop and Shining Path in Red Rocks. Furthermore his ascent of the Process, which is what "High and Mighty" was supposed to document, actually occurred six months before Jimmy repeated Livin' Large." Thanks to the way the film was edited, uninformed viewers would assume that Daniel, who is shown earnestly trying to master his fear of falling from the top of the Process (and no f#*king wonder) via meditating and self-help books was some kind of novice at "real" bouldering, at least as it's described by the double-artificial-hipped and multiple-concussed John Sherman.<br />
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Really, this segment upset me the most as Daniel is one of the strongest climbers in the world and has established first ascents and demolished numerous testpieces around the world. To fabricate this rivalry between Jimmy and Daniel, who are very good friends, on the basis of who can "man-up" when the occasion demands is nonsense and does a disservice to the sport of bouldering as a whole. I have discussed this with John Gill on occasion and he has made clear his impatience with the notion that bouldering needs to be dangerous to be considered worthy. Heroics were precisely what he sought to avoid back in the 50s and 60s when his most innovative problems were established. Only a later wave of boulderers sought to create a different approach, often based on the headpointing style common in Great Britain. Gill's answer to these debates? "Use a toprope." Problem is that doesn't create crazy footage or a compelling story for a general audience. Oddly the film omitted the fact that not long after Daniel's ascent, a crucial hold broke off the problem rewriting the story yet again.<br />
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In terms of actual audience response, by far the most popular was the segment about the 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell. The rivalry angle was played up again here between, yes him again, Alex Honnold, and the team of Nik Berry and Mason Earle as to who could get the most points/climbing done in 24 hours. Laugh-out loud funny at times, its light-hearted approach to climbing was welcome relief from the earnestness of the previous three segments.<br />
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The last piece was a short preview of the Dawn Wall ascent from this spring and not a finished film so I'll pass over it in the hopes that it will reach fruition later this year.<br />
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Overall reactions: No stand-outs, that's for sure. Upside? Lots of laughs at times which was welcome. Some excellent aerial footage in Patagonia and elsewhere. Downside? Kind of a bro-fest. Virtually no women appeared in any of the films. A few comments from Becca Caldwell, some drunken women turning up at the Horseshoe, and other assorted brief appearances but in 2015 for no women to be profiled in-depth seems a shame. Another peculiarity and maybe blame climate change, but there's a lot of night-climbing and headlamp footage and frankly that's something nobody's going to be psyched to see a lot of.<br />
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In conclusion I would like to see a climbing film collection that was much more widespread in its scope featuring other film-makers and locales. The other issue is the types of stories being told. They ultimately feel relentlessly upbeat, even awkwardly jokey when they shouldn't be, naturally triumphant at the end and in some ways profoundly unreal. Great stuff for a studio's highlight reel or a sponsor's marketing campaign but hardly a believable portrait of what it really takes to get these remarkable climbs done. It would be nice to see truly innovative film-makers emerge to take advantage of the remarkable new technologies out there but so far I haven't seen it. Maybe someday.<br />
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For more info about the 400+ locales Reel Rock is going <a href="http://reelrocktour.com/">http://reelrocktour.com/</a><br />
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<br />Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-60592859417556963862015-05-20T09:57:00.000-06:002015-05-20T16:21:38.488-06:00What We Talk About When We Talk About Death in Climbing<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">"To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth" Voltaire</span></i><br />
The world of climbing has been in a state of shock since learning of the death of Dean Potter and his companion Graham Hunt in a BASE jumping accident near Taft Point in Yosemite last Saturday. Among other effects, this accident rapidly brought back to earth the climate of euphoria and celebration that existed in the wake of the Dawn Wall ascent in March and the movie Valley Uprising that ends with footage of bootleg BASE descents in Yosemite. Maybe climbers are revisiting hard truths about the vertical environment that cannot be easily dismissed as handwringing or timidity or obscured through redemptive fantasies of "he died doing what he loved" or the like.<br />
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The truth is that climbers become remarkably inarticulate in the face of death. Far too many use euphemisms like "passing" or even worse "transitioning" as if slamming headlong into granite at 80 mph is like switching trains or getting a new job. Others implicitly praise themselves for somehow learning something profound or growing from the death of another climber. Pseudo-mystical or poetical utterances about imagined afterlives and "happy hunting ground" scenarios abound. But the truth seems to me to lie elsewhere, away from the quasi-religious speculations and faux-Zen platitudes, the worst of which are expressed in this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QosgrQdKLiQ" target="_blank">video</a> interview with Dean Potter. What business a clothing manufacturer has discussing the most serious and unknowable aspect of human existence is beyond my ability to fathom but there it is.<br />
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Death is something about which we ultimately know nothing beyond our perceptions of a once-living thing now gone. In climbing it takes on a spectacular aspect because of the nature and locations of most climbing deaths. In dangerous situations climbers like to say they have "cheated death" or "escaped" it, the most foolish saying they "defied death." Death doesn't get defied or escaped, it just is, like math or physics. Climbers like to credit their will or their "mindfulness" or whatever in somehow overcoming death but it seems to me that death works in the way of most things in the universe, things that exist eventually are destroyed, dissolved, disintegrated, and obliterated. In the words of David to his son Solomon in the King James version of the Bible we "go the way of all the earth..."<br />
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Climbers have an especially hard time with death because it brings up a number of unpleasant truths we all devote considerable time and energy avoiding. Among the mot important is the fact that we do not have the level of control over ourselves and our environment that we like to pretend we do. There is a kind of selection bias involved whereby, having survived a situation, we imagine that it was because of our preparation, our courage, our choices, even our moral character when of course any number of things could have happened beyond our ability to control that would negate those factors. A climber's death is the surest evidence of the limits of this way of comprehending the world. Thus we turn away and imagine that we would never be caught in that situation ourselves, that we are somehow made of the right stuff<br />
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We also like to believe that our aesthetic responses to dangerous situations confer some kind of immunity to harm or catastrophe, or at least provide a justification for being there. As with the magical thinking described above, climbing deaths abruptly foreclose on the rapturous wonder of high places forcing the awareness of the terrible price to be paid for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just because we have or believe we had certain feelings about climbing can we really claim that a violent death is justified by those feelings?<br />
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Most chillingly to me, that aesthetic feeling leads to the "he died doing what he loved" reaction, a dubious consolation at best. Climbers die hitting objects at high speeds or being hit by those objects. They die smothered in snow and ice or freezing to death. They do not expire blissfully having just completed the climb of a lifetime. Again reality is elided in favor of a fantasy best summed up by the ridiculous but oft-quoted phrase from Peter Pan: "<span style="text-align: justify;">'To die will be an awfully big adventure." This romantic Rupert Brooke-ian nonsense, which was seen often in late Victorian and Edwardian England, died a less-than-glamorous death in the muddy battlefields of the Somme and elsewhere in World War I. However it keeps popping up in the sport of climbing, a sport which in many ways finds its historical origins from that time and culture.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Climbers know deep down that their sport, which is by any rational measure, without real purpose or justification, is potentially very very dangerous. By some this is seen as a form of character-building virtue in its own right, "the moral equivalent of war" as the founder of Outward Bound Kurt Hahn quoted William James. I am skeptical of the extension of this to climbing, not least because there is no moral equivalent of war, war lacking any morality in the first place. Arguing for climbing as a morally virtuous activity because of its danger ignores the very real consequences of that danger and its largely amoral component. The serac doesn't care when it falls, the loose hold merely breaks when it's pulled on. Just because climbers might project a psychological or moral structure to their activities hardly necessitates that such a state actually exists in reality.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Too many authors to count have commented on the fundamentally amoral aspects of combat. From the beginnings of Western literature with Homer' s Iliad and Odyssey, we see the first-hand accounts of those who were there emphasizing not glory or redemption but confusion, disaster, decay and misery. Knowledgeable climbers know that the same applies to climbing accidents yet the same tropes are pulled out to justify what we do: the aesthetic response, the joy, the intensity, the bonds of friendship ("we happy few, we band of brothers" to quote Shakespeare) the claims to heightened awareness, the "carpe diem" BS that clogs online climbing forums every day.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Particularly frustrating is the fact that at least in part this is used in the service of commercial interests, a game that Dean was forced to some degree to play to remain a professional climber. Are words like "risk" and "extreme" just euphemisms for "potentially deadly," euphemisms that are used to sell a vicarious adrenalin rush to an uncritical audience? Should we be thinking more clearly whether the vision of sports sold by Red Bull, to take the most egregious example, is really worth supporting? As long as we stay in denial about the realities of death and dying in climbing apparently the answer is yes.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;">So how should we respond to climbing deaths? In my view, we do best by acknowledging the truth about them, that they are ugly, they are real and to some extent unavoidable, simply statistically unavoidable since we are imperfect beings in an imperfect world. We should also acknowledge the possibility that there is really only loss to the survivors, that trying to create redemption in fantastic or magical thinking only denies the truth of someone's death. If the climber or climber's family was deeply religious, that is their business and not the concern of those outside that close circle. We should certainly not try to fit a climber's death into a preconceived idea about how or why climbing should be practiced. Nor should we be fatalistic about climbing deaths, overly accepting of them. They are as mentioned above, unnecessary, ugly and devastating. If we learn from them, it should be on the most humble terms possible, acknowledging and honoring the sacrifice of life above all.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;">I still think it was best expressed by the survivor of one of the most notorious climbing accidents of all time, Edward Whymper: </span>"Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.” What the end might be for each of us is unknown but I think we would do well to consider it deeply from time to time. In the words of John Donne, "never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."<br />
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<br />Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-41796659687653560022015-01-15T11:53:00.000-07:002015-01-15T11:57:14.307-07:00Valley Uprising: A ReviewSome months after the Boulder premiere of Reel Rock 9's feature film "Valley Uprising" I was finally able to view it. It played to sold-out crowds here in Boulder and generally the reaction to the film that I heard was favorable. At least two other bloggers were given advance viewing (I wasn't invited or given access to the film before or after its release) and they were a bit more skeptical, with <a href="http://eveningsends.com/climbing/valley-uprising-nostalgic/" target="_blank">Andrew Bisharat </a>decrying the nostalgia aspect of Stonemaster-oriented media and <a href="http://rockclimbinglife.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/reel-rock-tour-9-an-honest-review-of-valley-uprising/" target="_blank">Wesley Summers</a> noting, quite accurately, that the film consists largely of deftly recycled visual material from earlier productions.<br />
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I knew from the trailer I would have a skeptical response and not being a member of the inner circle of the climbing world has its advantages in this respect. I have the freedom to step outside what has become a very self-celebratory scene and give an honest opinion and appraisal of its products. Because of the serious scope of the project, I think this film deserves a serious and more objective view.<br />
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I think a lot of this self-celebratory tendency is revealed in the reactions to "Valley Uprising" which is a historical survey of climbing in Yosemite Valley from roughly the late 1950s up to the present. While its main audience is intended to be climbers, there are nods to a general audience, not least in its paradoxical title which hints at rebellion and unorthodoxy, which is of course a staple of mainstream corporate marketing these days. In aiming at this broader audience however, something important is being lost.<br />
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"Valley Uprising" is organized into three main eras defined by (more or less) the leading personalities of the day. This lends itself to broad generalizations and myth-making as occurs in the case especially of Royal Robbins and Warren Harding and the Dawn Wall episode. Harding died in 2002 and while I am sure he would have thought this film project amusing, I doubt we are given a clear picture of his personality which seemed above all to be that of a regular working Joe with a penchant for suffering. Robbins, who I talked with after the publication of the first volume of his autobiography, was a genuinely creative and highly motivated climber whose greatest hour might not have even been the famous Salathe Wall but the unmentioned North America Wall, an ascent which ushered in the great age of El Cap's right-side A4 and A5 horror shows.<br />
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The era of the Stonemasters is complicated by the absence of Charlie Porter, again recently deceased, who reshaped the future of El Cap with routes like Mescalito, Tangerine Trip, The Shield and the well-traveled Zodiac and possibly just as important, Ray Jardine, whose redefinition of style and method ushered in the era of hard free climbing and whose "experimentation" on the Nose facilitated the free ascent by Lynn Hill. Both individuals seemed never to have been embedded in the Valley scene and Jardine in particular was viewed with considerable suspicion because of his "hangdogging" and willingness to work routes initially too hard for him.<br />
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The star of this period is of course Jim Bridwell but even more so the air of rebellion and counterculture embraced by Bridwell and his followers. Part of this of course was linked with the popularity of drug use at the time but it is telling that in interviews with climbers from the time, it is clear that in the only actual "uprising" from this time, the Stoneman Meadow riots of 1970, climbers stayed conspicuously away from the action. The only net result of this conflict was apparently a tighter presence of law enforcement, something the resident climbers would have been anxious to avoid. This <a href="http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1209560&tn=0&mr=0" target="_blank">supertopo discussion</a> fills in the story from the climbers' side and makes clear that this non-climber related incident really changed the dynamic between park officials and climbers, a dynamic that remained in place well into the 90s when the demographics of climbing began to change and it became more mainstream. In the end the movie fails to flesh out the fuller picture as to why rangers have to do the job they do. Climbers are described as somehow special, above the law by virtue of being climbers, not realizing that without laws, without "the man," the park would not exist at all. It is certainly naive to imagine that because you can climb a big wall, you should have free run in a beautiful place a few hours drive from a major city.<br />
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(This PBS documentary gives some background on the job of a ranger and what rangers were thinking of their jobs in the mid-1980s. A persistent theme of rangers not wanting to be cops emerges.<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpdPz0cq8jk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpdPz0cq8jk</a><br />
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This supertopo discussion has more on the theme of rangers and climbers. Needless to say it's a popular topic but the advice of the majority of commenters is keep your head low and don't break the law. Not exactly the stuff that's going to entertain audiences.<br />
<a href="http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=870550&tn=0&mr=0">http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=870550&tn=0&mr=0</a> )<br />
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More important is how the rebellion theme basically overlooks hugely important things like, say, climbing. So the free-climbing achievements of Ray Jardine are not mentioned, Ron Kauk's achievements are overlooked, though his routes are critical for the time and at the tail end of this time, the incredible achievement of the Salathe Wall being climbed free is not even mentioned. The exploratory efforts of Mark Hudon and Max Jones aren't mentioned either. Henry Barber, definitely not a rebel, is ignored. Instead it is the familiar narrative of John Bachar, super soloist, which brings up another issue.<br />
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It is remarkable how much of this film features recycled footage from films that many many viewers will be familiar with. TV show such as American Sportsman, Wide World of Sports and excerpts from Masters of Stone videos abound, not to mention standbys such as "El Capitan" by Glen Denny. Interspersed with the special-effects altered still photos from this era, the visuals add to an overall patchwork/collage effect and serve to undermine a bigger sense of visual or directorial unity. In an extreme example of this, a voice-over describes the first ascent of Half Dome's NW face while footage and pictures of El Cap are shown. To a non-climber none of this matters, I suppose, but it reveals the degree to which the vibe of the story outweighs actual accuracy.<br />
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This is echoed, so to speak by the interviews which are mostly choppy and extravagantly larded with profanity, perhaps to emphasize that the greying and paunchy men you now see were once upon a time actual masters of the universe who could stand up next to a mountain and chop it down with the edge of their hands. It seems to me that bourgeois middle-aged guy profanity should be reserved for times like hitting your thumb with a hammer or drinking with your friends, not films where families and kids might be present. But I digress.<br />
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That is why it is such a breath of fresh air to see and hear Lynn Hill, one of the few real survivors from this period (along with Peter Croft who, you guessed it, isn't mentioned.) Lynn Hill has remained a serious climber in a way unmatched by virtually all of her contemporaries and there is a certain wry wisdom in her words as she dissects the testosterone and posturing of the male peacocks of Camp 4. One wishes there was a lot more from the women of this time, especially regarding the pretensions of the male-dominated scene, but unfortunately we are left wondering how they fit in.<br />
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The film closes on the more-or-less present where the Stone Masters are replaced by the Stone Monkeys. Setting aside the issue as to whether such a group ever had the status of the Stonemasters, these individuals lack the historical distance and gravitas of their seniors and for them is reserved the indignity of hiding out in dank caves as opposed to the luxury of endless weeks in a restriction-free Camp 4. There is something very reflective of the general economic picture for young people these days but that is not developed very much, if at all. Dean Potter, who blew the lid off speed climbing The Nose, is the patron saint of these climbers, climbers who increasingly are mixing walls and vertical mediums, especially the medium of BASE jumping.<br />
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By far the best scenes in the film are the contraband BASE jumps. The blather with escaping rangers etc. is neither here nor there. Obviously BASE jumping in the Valley needs to be prohibited or it would be a nightmare on many levels. But for cinematic appeal, there is no doubt that a GoPro view of tunneling through groves of pine trees at high speed beats the heck out of crawling up granite walls, even if you are watching Alex Honnold soloing Half Dome. However the history of BASE jumping goes way back, well before the present day. Ray Jardine has an intriguing mention of hang-gliding into the Valley on his website.<br />
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And speaking of Alex Honnold, those in the know will savor the irony of watching America's best known (and very lucratively sponsored) climber living the simple life, driving into the Valley, and punching in at the entrance station, before heading off for another day of hair-raising soloing. You have to wonder if only Alex can afford to live a pure climbing lifestyle, unlike Chongo Chuck or the other cave-dwelling ne'er-do-wells. He and Tommy Caldwell, who, along with Kevin Jorgeson recently (yesterday, just Google it) freed the Dawn Wall on El Capitan, are the new face of Valley climbing, about as far from rebellion as it gets. The only people I have seen that were upset by Tommy Caldwell's work on the Dawn Wall for example were some querulous SuperTopo residents warbling about whether there were too many added bolts on the formerly aided sections, a ludicrous question but one that periodically reappears.<br />
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In a nutshell, I'd argue that the rebellions contained within the history of Yosemite climbing were largely internal, fueled by the prosperity of the American empire and in no meaningful way offering real alternatives to that empire's triumphant vision of capitalism and materialism. The fact that a significant number of the stars of the 60s and 70s went on to establish very successful businesses of their own speaks to this. The true rebels such as Chuck Pratt or Charlie Porter again are mostly left out of the picture. Even more troubling is the degree to which the Native American presence is written out of the history of the Valley. As the original inhabitants and shapers of the landscape of the valley floor, they deserve some time in the film.<br />
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Valley Uprising is an uneasy mix of celebration and history that in the end, for better or worse, may stand as the last word on the subject, at least in terms of video, for some time. However it would be really helpful if there was more conversation about the degree to which this film clarifies or distorts the history of this critical period in world climbing. The film is a serious document that is worth a serious discussion at some point soon.<br />
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Valley Uprising is available via DVD and download at <a href="http://www.senderfilms.com/index.php" target="_blank">Sender Films</a><br />
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<br />Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-80141840693027817332015-01-09T09:42:00.002-07:002015-01-09T10:02:19.920-07:00What is Really Not Being Said about the Dawn Wall Free Ascent<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.1999998092651px; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">The long dreary winter here in Colorado is teasing climbers with occasional glimpses of sun that give hope to dreams of finishing projects before plunging them back into the grim reality of iced over roads and snowed in crags and boulders. It's so bad out there that America's rockclimbing sweetheart,Sasha DiGiulian, is going to the Ouray Ice Festival!</span><br />
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It's hardly surprising therefore that the goings on of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson on El Capitan have garnered so much attention in the climbing press. Besides Ashima doing the Swarm (the most famously slash-graded problem in the country) literally nothing is going on (except sends of Lethal Design, photos of which are now banned on Instagram, along with those of Scare Tactics). Basically if you are not on a huge overhanging south-facing granite wall, you aren't rock climbing in North America.</div>
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But it's not only breathless up-to-the-minute updates from Andrew Bisharat at <a href="http://eveningsends.com/" target="_blank">Evening Sends</a> on Facebook. In the past two weeks (and we are at something like day 14--I've lost track) virtually every major major news outlet has weighed in on this climb. Naturally the lack of familiarity with the practices of big-wall free climbing has led to some amusing (to climbers anyway) journalistic faux pas, <a href="http://www.dpmclimbing.com/articles/view/7-hilarious-dawn-wall-quotes-mainstream-media" target="_blank">the choicest of which have been compiled</a> by the good folks over at DPM. And then then there are the comments from the readers of the New York Times, who are by far the most polite of the major news outlets. A surprising number of these readers find the Dawn Wall attempt ludicrous, incomprehensible or contemptible, reactions which should give pause to those dedicated to expanding the sport.<a href="http://semi-rad.com/" target="_blank"> Brendan Leonard</a> over at Adventure Journal has <a href="http://www.adventure-journal.com/2015/01/ny-times-commenters-explain-why-the-dawn-wall-climb-is-dumb/" target="_blank">collected some of these </a>to save time for any of you who want to understand how the American public looks at cutting edge (literally--the climb depends on sawtoothed granite edges for its existence) free climbing. For proof of the problem with skin, one need only consult Tommy's <a href="http://instagram.com/tommycaldwell/" target="_blank">Instagram page</a> where we learn, "I have resorted to setting my alarm to wake myself up every four hours to reapply <a href="http://skinourishment.com/collections/climbon" target="_blank">@climbonproducts</a>." This is what we call media saturation, I believe.</div>
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Besides the numerous chronicles of the duo's progress including Tom Evans's awesome <a href="http://www.elcapreport.com/" target="_blank">El Cap Report</a>, there have been the "what does it all mean" pieces, including this one, perhaps most prominently a <a href="http://fringesfolly.com/2015/01/05/what-nobody-is-saying-about-the-dawn-wall/" target="_blank">piece over at a blog called Fringe's Folly written by Chris Kalman</a>. This essay diplomatically brings up the possibility that somewhere, somehow, that perennially cited and honored (mostly in the breach) quality known as "adventure" may have gone missing. For daring to mention this, Kalman was savaged in various online fora including <a href="http://www.mountainproject.com/v/what-nobody-is-saying-about-the-dawn-wall/109907651" target="_blank">mountain project</a>. I thought Kalman was being too polite in his arguments and told him so but lo and behold, Freddie Wilkinson referenced his post in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/yosemites-challenge-in-the-facetime-age.html?ref=opinion" target="_blank">New York Times op-ed section.</a> Why the Gray Lady opts to probe the world of climbing so frequently is a mystery that someone must tackle at some point but I digress...</div>
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Anyway the most popular response was framed in roughly this fashion, "It's really hard and what do you know anyway. And Tommy and Kevin are really cool." Which is true. But that's not really an answer and it's especially not an answer because the Dawn Wall has long been the locus of discussion, brutal at times, as to what the point of climbing is. It's really interesting to see how the history behind this climb has melted away because in 1970, Warren Harding and Dean Caldwell's 27-day epic first ascent gripped both the general public and the climbing world alike. The aftermath of the ascent and the afterlife of the route forms one of the most interesting chapters in the overall story of climbing in Yosemite and indeed world climbing.</div>
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Climbers today are unused to the idea that someone would be watching over your shoulder to make sure you climbed something correctly, that in essence you had to "deserve" to get the first ascent of a route. Climbing was seen in very moral terms in the Yosemite of the 1960s, an ethic that ultimately borrowed much of its ideas from British practices, summarized by the statement, "The sort of man who would drive a piton into English rock would shoot a fox." The object of scorn and derision was not the piton, which was pretty much essential to protect the Valley's many cracks, but the bolt. Ironically the insistence on removing pitons left countless scars in the rock, most famously on Serenity Crack's first pitch. Bolts were a symbol of weakness, of not having "the right stuff" and the high point of this attitude was the Salathe Wall, a circuitous route left of Harding's sieged 100+ bolt masterpiece, The Nose. The Salathe was climbed with only 13 bolts and had a number of serious free climbing sections, making it emblematic of the approach favored by Royal Robbins, the leader of the first ascent team.</div>
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Over the course of the 60s, there was a rivalry of sorts between Robbins and Harding. Robbins' advocacy of so-called "purist" methods caused Harding to call him and his followers the "Valley Christians." This difference of opinion reached its climax when Robbins decided that Harding's route to the right of the Nose, now called the Dawn Wall, had too many bolts and needed to be erased. As it turned out Robbins found himself acknowledging the difficulty and quality of the line and stopped chopping bolts very early in the route. The initial action however was enough to raise a firestorm of controversy, a controversy that saw its final gasp of breath in the rappel-bolting wars of the 1980s. Incidentally both Robbins and Harding no longer climbed seriously in the Valley after that. For many, the Dawn Wall episode was the closing of the so-called Golden Age of Yosemite climbing.</div>
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Now we are in a very different place, style-wise, where aid climbing is seen as no longer cutting-edge, indeed not even as actual climbing by many climbers. The flanks of El Cap are criss-crossed by multiple lines, some free, many still requiring aid. The blank on the map no longer exists as far as El Cap is concerned and if the blank on the map is gone for El Cap then basically it's over for climbing in North America. And this, in my view, is the reason for the media frenzy, that we are watching the extinction of an old frontier in climbing in real time. This is the first thing nobody is really saying about the Dawn Wall free ascent. People said this about the first Dawn Wall ascent and they were right.</div>
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There will be other free climbs on El Cap, especially once the obsolete insistence on not adding bolts to old aid routes passes away, as it will. Perhaps there will be harder free climbs on El Cap, especially on the right side where the steepest and most featured rock exists. But there will never be another blank canvas like the Dawn Wall, nor another meeting of climber and climb quite like this matchup. So our celebration of this extraordinary achievement is tempered by the knowledge that for better or worse it's the end of an era of exploration that began in earnest with the post-war achievements of climbs such as the Lost Arrow Chimney.</div>
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That is the important adventure in the end, not knowing what is next in the bigger picture. What happens when we are done scouring cliffs for difficulty? It will take some serious thought to get past the current mindset that climbers are athletes, that difficulty is an objective reality that can be measured and compared and that exploration and first ascents and the heroic mode of climbing achievement actually matter, as all these ideas are becoming obsolete and washing away beneath our feet like sand on the edge of the shoreline.</div>
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The confusion of the average American news reader is forgivable because honestly, and this is the other thing nobody is really saying, climbers don't really know what they are doing right now or why. As climbers we are pushing ourselves into an unknown future where the complexities and uncertainties faced by Tommy Caldwell in 2015 will seem as quaint and out of touch as using actual stove legs for pitons on the Nose or the idea of chopping a bolt ladder because there were "too many" bolts. Ashima's effortless dispatching of a reachy and powerful V13 (or V14, depends on who you ask!) points to the dubious validity of what a really hard climb actually consists of these days. Adam Ondra's 100+ 9a or harder ascents, most done in a matter of tries, undermines any notion that we really understand what hard free climbing consists of.</div>
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On the Dawn Wall, as on most of El Cap, we are climbing over ghosts and relics of a bygone age, tiptoeing past the presence of those who came before, a striking number of whom are dead or no longer climbing at all. We share the rock with this past but it's time we also recognize that the present has a claim on this place. The old definitions of adventure may yet apply but in ways that we have yet to recognize. As I have written elsewhere, the temptation to mythologize and idolize the past is especially strong in climbing. The Dawn Wall reminds us that a new era is always just around the corner.</div>
Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-26379359747014088262014-11-25T12:52:00.001-07:002014-11-27T07:57:26.834-07:00The Trouble with Hubble: Be a Climbing LocavoreThe climbing manufacturer Mammut has been releasing a series of short videos about classic hard routes from the beginning of sport climbing. Most recently Hubble, in the Peak District in England and freed by Ben Moon in 1990, came in for this treatment with a short segment featuring Sean McColl, the super-strong Canadian climber. McColl came in for some heckling because he wore a kneepad in order to kneebar his way through the undercling crux. I had a theory that McColl was set up by some Sheffield locals in the pub the night before. These locals saw that since McColl was new to the Peak climbing scene, he could be persuaded that,"of course we're all kneebarring this (iconic power) route these days." This might explain a certain sense of detachment that can be seen on the part of Ben Moon when McColl discusses the beta he's using. Regardless, the film concludes with McColl walking away empty-handed as all contenders have done since Steve McClure.<br />
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Here's the Mammut video:<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5Nbzj3TxDKE" width="640"></iframe><br />
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Here's Steve McClure on it with no kneebars along with footage of Ben Moon on it.
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AE9uoj0ioRQ" width="640"></iframe><br />
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Ire was expressed at ukbouldering.com <a href="http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php?topic=24273.0">http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php?topic=24273.0</a> where this kind of situation was seen as a national emergency, which in a way it is, primarily because what the route represented and still represents for British climbing. In an era where "pros" seem to spend most of their time on 40 meter monster pitches in sunny Spain (whatever happened to France?) or on quickly forgotten film projects in some previously unheard of remote tropical/desert/arctic locale, Hubble is a semi-obscure relic of an era when top climbers in Sheffield had issues affording bus fare to far-flung destinations such as Cheedale. During my time in England, only a few years before Hubble, affording the 2 or 3 pound round trip fare to the limestone areas in the Peak was a real issue, one that apparently also hampered the efforts of the second ascensionist Malcolm Smith.<br />
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Thanks in part to the overtaking of media production by commercial interests, climbers get the impression that the best chance of recognition and sponsorship comes from tackling projects that look good, that are so-called "king-lines." A certain degree of scorn is visited upon local testpieces that lack the perceived quality of routes or problems in celebrated (and often more softly graded) areas. For sponsor-fed media, grades, which are hard to settle on and even harder to portray on video, are secondary to photogenic qualities which can be reproduced for branding possibilities across multiple social media platforms. The reality of these king-lines often enough turns out to be more complicated in retrospect. Does anyone remember Ambrosia or Luminance in the Buttermilks?<br />
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Relatively scruffy short roadside testpieces such as Hubble are overlooked today. Indeed it is easy to write off failure on such routes as the inevitable effects of their "uninspiring" nature. Even Adam Ondra felt it necessary to apologize for both his Hubble-like 5.15c route Vasil Vasil and the 2011 V16 (and still unrepeated) boulder problem Terranova. Sadly both will probably go unrepeated unless someone puts up a bounty of some sort. There is no question that Hubble clearly needs to be <a href="http://www.planetmountain.com/english/News/shownews1.lasso?l=2&keyid=39015" target="_blank">upgraded</a>.<br />
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In my view this situation has got to change and should be actively discouraged by all means possible. Are we reaching a point where many elite climbers actively avoid investing effort in creating and repeating local testpieces, instead pursuing photogenic sponsored projects in distant attractive and "exotic" locales? My view is that the future is in local testpieces which among other things offer more sustainable climbing practices and much lower carbon footprints. Here in Colorado, I feel especially blessed with the plethora of local roadside projects across the difficulty spectrum. Lacking the mysteriously copious financial resources of my underemployed peers, I will have to make a virtue of necessity and remain a climbing locavore. I hope that others follow in the footsteps of climbers like Dave Graham and Daniel Woods, who, in addition to various globe-trotting adventures, have found so many good accessible problems here on the Front Range. Who will produce the next Hubble?<br />
<br />Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-54131486578387713802014-11-15T16:37:00.000-07:002014-11-15T16:46:04.214-07:00Clif Hanger: Raising the Bar on Sponsorship?The latest mini-whirlwind to strike the micro-world of climbing was the announcement, first made by <a href="http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/honnold-potter-and-others-fired-by-clif-bar-for-soloing" target="_blank">Rock and Ice</a>, then <a href="http://www.clifbar.com/text/a-letter-to-the-climbing-community" target="_blank">confirmed by the company</a>, that Clif Bar was no longer sponsoring five climbers (and no I won't call them "athletes" or "ambassadors"), the most prominent of whom, Alex Honnold, is primarily known for hair-raising solo exploits. Vituperation was swift from the Internets, including a remarkable variety of unflattering flavor comparisons and vows to never eat Clif Bar products again, because you know, there's a picture of a climber on the wrapper and now Clif Bar hates climbing. Or something. Clif Bar will surely rue the several thousand dollars it loses from all the slackliners out there who will take a hard stand against this injustice<br />
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Clif Bar's take on this was relatively sane. As a company with over 500 mil in sales, they realized the potential for liability lawsuits and bad publicity linked with promotional material featuring soloing, especially. The statement noted:<br />
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<i>"We concluded that these forms of the sport are pushing boundaries and taking the element of risk to a place where we as a company are no longer willing to go. We understand that some climbers feel these forms of climbing are pushing the sport to new frontiers. But we no longer feel good about benefitting from the amount of risk certain athletes are taking in areas of the sport where there is no margin for error; where there is no safety net."</i></div>
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The rest of the world, outside of climbing, tends to be horrified by the thought of climbers plummeting to their deaths from a high height, and finds statements such as "at least he/she died doing what he loved" small consolation to those left behind. The company's association with the Yosemite "outlaw" epic "Valley Uprising" (<i>in the spirit of which, can someone send me a bootleg copy so I can review it? Just kidding, kind of....</i>) must have clarified some thinking up in the executive suite as well since illegal BASE jumping and drug consumption, among other diversions, feature prominently.<br />
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The climbers let go were relatively nonplussed because, well, you have to be when every OR can bring the hatchet down on your measly stipend. This stuff happens, like, a lot. Apparently Clif Bar had second thoughts with a couple of them but Cedar Wright rebuffed the offer of renewed affiliation, being quoted in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/sports/clif-bar-drops-sponsorship-of-5-climbers-citing-risks-they-take.html" target="_blank">New York Times</a> as saying, "It’s like your girlfriend who breaks up with you and wants to get back together. But she’s not really that loyal.” I wonder though, if one had a girlfriend worth half a billion and is paying you to go climbing, whether there are more than a few self-professed "dirtbags" who could overcome their scruples to come back, for a little longer anyway. But I digress.<br />
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So what's the upshot of all this? Mostly the sorry spectacle of a climbing scene once again seriously overestimating its marketing clout, let alone its purchasing power, and even more laughable, endorsing the notion that somehow a company has a responsibility to support climbers and activities that are "pushing the boundaries of the sport" or whatever it is that sponsored climbers are supposed to do. I'm sure we can all think of prominently publicized and sponsored climbers who are not all that. If I name a few everybody will hate me so discuss amongst yourselves.<br />
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Perhaps most laughable of all is the utter absence of actual dollar figures, that perennial conversational staple of sports with real compensation. If an NFL player is let go because of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_sportspeople_convicted_of_crimes#American_football_.28Gridiron.29" target="_blank">criminal activity</a>, we know what's at stake. A lot of green. But in climbing, what are we talking about? What a lousy semi-pro golfer makes at a master's tournament? Is this like academia, where it is said, "the fighting is so fierce because the stakes are so low"? Will we never know what so-called pro climbers actually earn, what kind of income they are supposed to be risking their necks for? Apparently that topic is reserved for the lower orders in the climbing hive such as the Sherpas on Everest who actually work and really risk their necks and are dying en masse in recent years.<br />
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None of the media covering the story bothered to ask and nobody has offered to tell. That all fits nicely into the self-deceptive narratives of climbing and its threadbare concepts of individual freedom and independence. How gauche to discuss money and corporate policy and while we're at it, damn the man for not paying me to climb rocks! Whatever. Dear pro-wannabes, my advice is, if Clif Bar comes knocking, answer the door quickly and reply nicely, even enthusiastically, "YES." And wear a helmet while you're at it. Plenty of room for sponsor stickers there.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Full disclosure: I have eaten many Clif Bars including the frequent free samples left at local gyms, and not having such sensitive taste buds as others in the climbing community, have found them delicious)</span>Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-1097519471918048262014-11-01T09:23:00.000-06:002014-11-01T09:41:30.065-06:00Change: A Review of the new film from Petr PavlicekFor various reasons I have been uninterested in writing recently, in part at least because I have been spending every spare moment either bouldering or playing guitar. And besides that what is there to write about? Climbing is in deep stasis right now and shaving a few seconds off an El Cap speed record or creating a Kickstarter video for your latest media project is not going to change anything very much. We are all in self-promotion mode these days, everyone a brand ambassador for something or another, even if it's only ourselves.<br />
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The state of climbing media feels more closely brand-driven than ever as companies have embraced the need to "tell their story" to viewers who are busy telling their own stories via social media in the hopes that a brand will be interested in picking it up to make them a brand ambassador/athlete so they can tell their stories with a cool #hashtag attached. This has made for a remarkably homogenous series of productions featuring agreeable photogenic people getting to the top of things with the assistance of slider shots, focus pulls and plenty of time lapse. At some point I just began to swear off watching anything involving climbing, at least until I saw this:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/108303839" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/108303839">I Heart Estes</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/scientia">scientia</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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Then I got a FB message from the maker of 2012's sprawling and uneven <a href="http://www.adamondrafilm.com/EN" target="_blank"><i>Wizard's Apprentice</i> </a>and saw a glimpse of light on the horizon that promised to cut through the torpor. His long postponed film about Adam Ondra's 9b+ first ascent in Norway from 2012 was finally ready. Two hours in length and described on the author's website as unconventional, <i>Change</i>, named after the climb it chronicles, seemed like a film that I needed to see.<br />
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It opens up with a disclaimer of sorts, namely that the filmmaker was tired of making films, that he wanted to get away from the crowds and media frenzy that seems to constantly surround Adam Ondra in the competition scene and the currently hot crags in Spain. Only when Ondra himself enters the narration in earnest do we find Pavlicek willing once more to document his next big project, far from the scene of Llieda or Oliana. Instead it's found in the colossal cave known by climbers as Flatanger, north of Trondheim in Norway.<br />
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Indeed one of the most remarkable things about this film is the deep involvement of Adam in its making. He personally narrates roughly 2/3 or more of it and does a fantastic job with a sincere and straightforward style that stands in marked contrast to his trademark screams on the actual routes. While the film focuses almost entirely on him, there is not a trace of ego or boasting in his voice or delivery.<br />
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The narrative arc of the film follows Adam from his decision to bail on going to university in 2012 and instead find a personal challenge on a route of his own, having by this time climbed almost every other high-end sport climb in the rest of Europe. Petr wants to take him north to Norway to what is in a sense the last frontier in European climbing and so it begins. Over the next few months we visit a number of crags and boulders in Sweden and Norway, ultimately focusing on Flatanger and the struggle to link up the monster pitch that will be called Change. We know that Adam will succeed; what we find out is how he changes along the way.<br />
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Especially refreshing is the normality with which he climbs routes and boulders, most of them at a stratospheric level of difficulty. With just a few friends and a very small camera crew (i.e. Petr and his friend Barbara), Ondra appears to be simply going climbing, not as part of an entourage. The sense of solitude and remoteness is enhanced by the lack of crowds and a scene. A short sequence of a bouldering comp underscores the point of how contrived and even aggravating such events can be. It's with a real sense of relief that we get back to the sublime glaciated landscapes of northern Norway<br />
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For those viewers used to a more aggressively plotted and edited mode of film making, the leisurely pace of <i>Change </i>may prove an obstacle. Petr and Adam have more than just a story of a climb to tell. This film is about retreat and renewal in the heart of a remote environment that one hopes will never attract the media circus which plagues more accessible locales. As the days and attempts on the project mount up, the film shifts its focus subtly but inevitably towards this environment and its extraordinary personality and presence, shaped by primal forces of ice and fire. It's a powerful and brooding granite landscape where every climb and feature is geometrically sculpted to some degree and then shaped by water and time.<br />
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In the end, this sense of place is what won me over the most. Change is a film that inspires the viewer to find meaning in place, not merely to chase a big number but to realize one's potential deep in a natural world that is full of so many more possibilities than we can even imagine. It certainly spoke to my own interests as a climber, writer, and artist in a way that most media out there does not. <i>Change </i>is far and away the best climbing film I have seen in a very long time.<br />
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Movie website with lots of extras including photos and video<br />
<a href="http://www.change-movie.com/">http://www.change-movie.com</a><br />
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Download link:<br />
<a href="http://store.payloadz.com/details/2157440-crafting-cross-stitch-change-adam-ondra-movie-2.html">http://store.payloadz.com/details/2157440-crafting-cross-stitch-change-adam-ondra-movie-2.html</a><br />
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A look into the process of making the film<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/68469466?portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/68469466">Adam Ondra - Change - Backstage movie</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user918903">BERNARTWOOD</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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Here are some stills I picked from the film.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN8RtwLSRh_uh9d4E1OvkzlmwOtKDQU0ZuHuzZ0OWvH-M1lr-hnTCa5Pg8_n4ziF1A4OdcO20Jq23ayCIla0KQ1Zlappx2tqnt-MmF_ICBMgHs-E-mBA9KXtPqQp0HnwEjqvaVpZyShvY/s1600/Ondra+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN8RtwLSRh_uh9d4E1OvkzlmwOtKDQU0ZuHuzZ0OWvH-M1lr-hnTCa5Pg8_n4ziF1A4OdcO20Jq23ayCIla0KQ1Zlappx2tqnt-MmF_ICBMgHs-E-mBA9KXtPqQp0HnwEjqvaVpZyShvY/s1600/Ondra+1.jpg" height="229" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Adam Ondra on an 8B+/8C in Metre</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU2A_fVDoembh9MaTuIkF961_vxU9MOQLDCucMmQarLllaqHNMW4qrqiw4C7HcMp7U9GB2LPw9S4zFZqoxgz6m4F11OjxfFIbKVCyVDX5JeprzkuRSYwnZy2tZMiP2N3YoHwlmmGOgcEM/s1600/Ondra+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU2A_fVDoembh9MaTuIkF961_vxU9MOQLDCucMmQarLllaqHNMW4qrqiw4C7HcMp7U9GB2LPw9S4zFZqoxgz6m4F11OjxfFIbKVCyVDX5JeprzkuRSYwnZy2tZMiP2N3YoHwlmmGOgcEM/s1600/Ondra+2.jpg" height="231" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The massive cave at Flatanger</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOnJdmPXkgpL_8ql2VRh3LndzTQ6Eqa0wJIFPSAU_0YtcwJM6yR27wbXgVyVB6dPk_geZIRznahkMJfeDqfA21fU6NxixAb7ry0GXvoZsoZiCW5M2vRmCDAeohsP0pVfyXpA3OzM9HMY/s1600/Ondra+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOnJdmPXkgpL_8ql2VRh3LndzTQ6Eqa0wJIFPSAU_0YtcwJM6yR27wbXgVyVB6dPk_geZIRznahkMJfeDqfA21fU6NxixAb7ry0GXvoZsoZiCW5M2vRmCDAeohsP0pVfyXpA3OzM9HMY/s1600/Ondra+3.jpg" height="230" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Adam on his 9a+ Thor's Hammer</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8z6FW2CXIGjqRi6eopTZZjMrLVT_pwNV4NP3mpoYekGI5BYJGIUlhFY3U0oz38uLafFKJ5rKxXfHBlhRSIdGMHJiHpxsS60UBXpHyVpx9zqAr8ZiCSSZiuoYjS0pikmy3dR80TnjwO8/s1600/Ondra+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8z6FW2CXIGjqRi6eopTZZjMrLVT_pwNV4NP3mpoYekGI5BYJGIUlhFY3U0oz38uLafFKJ5rKxXfHBlhRSIdGMHJiHpxsS60UBXpHyVpx9zqAr8ZiCSSZiuoYjS0pikmy3dR80TnjwO8/s1600/Ondra+4.jpg" height="230" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Adam on the infamous low crux on Change 9b+</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7E3v4mtAkg6l7Adj3-3oD27hjIk8O0UCAu6EitThQrwy7LgYB6n9seT0cKQkrA37OavXSmE_gQ8NOFUt7Hd74Oxw1qn507QWOkpDSDubYcNsHctMWCO-VU4eIj2T5djmzs3dXPMviw8g/s1600/Ondra+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7E3v4mtAkg6l7Adj3-3oD27hjIk8O0UCAu6EitThQrwy7LgYB6n9seT0cKQkrA37OavXSmE_gQ8NOFUt7Hd74Oxw1qn507QWOkpDSDubYcNsHctMWCO-VU4eIj2T5djmzs3dXPMviw8g/s1600/Ondra+5.jpg" height="227" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mist over the mountains of Norway</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYYw1GoZzrxPMpZigrmvao5RnHGqtW8NBj3Le40jGhlcDH5tsVg24yVq2lLAJUFPoP_fRfvkyoL-l9BcNrosGdH3lA4eJ9JdvEUNXh_tb_IwuP4U2tBCmjgzLbX00p9K0kvYivBhDbB6M/s1600/Ondra+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYYw1GoZzrxPMpZigrmvao5RnHGqtW8NBj3Le40jGhlcDH5tsVg24yVq2lLAJUFPoP_fRfvkyoL-l9BcNrosGdH3lA4eJ9JdvEUNXh_tb_IwuP4U2tBCmjgzLbX00p9K0kvYivBhDbB6M/s1600/Ondra+6.jpg" height="226" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of dozens of remarkable scenic shots</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwPTPFOU7kWsScD6MmFIAGO7Z5DaG9XNviCyO1MHc-TnBieGdML2DVsOoO2NVRuNt2d9lf3vmLDw70VmcOEOcSLN3AYz8W2dRIRuQ3C-tReV1swbGDcpLZHDlbHbNEj8Up-FndE-2xFs0/s1600/Ondra+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwPTPFOU7kWsScD6MmFIAGO7Z5DaG9XNviCyO1MHc-TnBieGdML2DVsOoO2NVRuNt2d9lf3vmLDw70VmcOEOcSLN3AYz8W2dRIRuQ3C-tReV1swbGDcpLZHDlbHbNEj8Up-FndE-2xFs0/s1600/Ondra+7.jpg" height="228" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The extraordinary glaciated coast of Norway</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCMFhRAZxsHSU20698G8pML011YzYgA-qOcBf0xYD5seLB9wRqdSbmUkFwKYEWF58isyiJiptvh1Hu67rS7Lx7bdoleeb9AEoT5sLlnOp0JSXwcjx1VRImnjSAckGXzIlXT3_jXueOtAE/s1600/Ondra+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCMFhRAZxsHSU20698G8pML011YzYgA-qOcBf0xYD5seLB9wRqdSbmUkFwKYEWF58isyiJiptvh1Hu67rS7Lx7bdoleeb9AEoT5sLlnOp0JSXwcjx1VRImnjSAckGXzIlXT3_jXueOtAE/s1600/Ondra+8.jpg" height="225" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mountains and water!</td></tr>
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<br />Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-91517964247045816082014-08-04T12:47:00.000-06:002014-08-04T12:48:01.829-06:0025 reasons I am a lousy climbing writerI have been thinking about why my writing career is languishing and besides the usual reasons like actually having to earn a living or not having enough cash to head to the Trango Towers or even Alaska, I realized what the real problem is or more precisely what they are. Basically I do not have the right profile. So in the spirit of self-improvement and working on my weaknesses, here is a shortlist of reasons I am a lousy climbing writer. There are probably more but thanks to my daughter's pestering, I can't concentrate long enough to come up with more.<br />
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1. I have never been to Alaska.</div>
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2. I have never met Alex Honnold.</div>
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3. I have never lived in a van.</div>
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3. I scare easily.</div>
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4. I do not have any crazy hookup stories from the Valley or
Hueco or anywhere else.</div>
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5. I never went soloing because of a bad breakup.</div>
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6. I can’t use “stoke” or “stoked” in a sentence with a
straight face.</div>
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7. I have not climbed El Cap.</div>
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8. If I drink more than two beers I will pass out.</div>
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9. I have never flown in a helicopter or small plane.</div>
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10. I have never slept on a glacier.</div>
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11. I have never been to the Himalaya. I think I can find (some of) them on a map.</div>
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12. I have never broken a crampon 1000 feet up a north face of something.</div>
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13. I have never eaten anyone’s leftovers in Yosemite Valley.</div>
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14. I have basically forgotten how to climb cracks.</div>
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15. I cannot remember what a summit looks like.</div>
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16. I do not beard well.</div>
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17. I have never ridden on a “third-world” bus along with
livestock and colorfully dressed natives.</div>
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18. I do not own glacier glasses, snow pickets or a Jetboil.</div>
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19. I cannot set up a portaledge.</div>
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20. I have never ferried loads of any kind.</div>
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21. I have never beheld a glorious dawn from a precarious
ledge on the side of a remote mountain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
22. I have never been published in Outside magazine, Men’s
Fitness, National Geographic or the New York Times.</div>
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23. My frequent flyer miles stand at approximately zero.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
24. I have never ridden out an avalanche or been pinned down
by a storm (longer than half an hour).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
25. I have never met Yvon Chouinard.</div>
Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-43157652729425656742014-07-14T22:37:00.001-06:002014-07-14T22:41:30.155-06:00Great Everest ArticlesGrayson Schaffer at Outside Magazine has just published this very good piece on the 2014 Everest season which I highly recommend you all read.<br />
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<a href="http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/mountaineering/Sherpas-Death-business-Everest-Darkest-Year.html">http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/mountaineering/Sherpas-Death-business-Everest-Darkest-Year.html</a><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://cf-resrc.outsideonline.com/S=W1500,U/C=W100P,H100P/O=90,P/http://media.outsideonline.com/images/everest-avalanche-black-year-grayson-schaffer-new_h.jpg" height="171" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grayson Schaffer's awesome photo of lights heading up the Khumbu Icefall at dawn hopefully before the ice starts to move</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
For anyone looking for a survey of the many factors that went into the disastrous 2014 season, this is a great place to start. I also recommend "Everest Interrupted" by Tashi Sherpa in the latest Alpinist (#47) along with some wonderful portraits of Charlie Porter, one of the most important and least-heralded American climbers of the last century.<br />
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Speaking of high altitude siege tactics, I am mostly up to this kind of climbing. Here's a photo I took of Fort Collins local Blake Rutherford on Wildcat, on the other side of the boulder from Jade, which was just repeated by <a href="http://samdavisphoto.com/" target="_blank">Sam Davis</a>, the talented <a href="http://www.sammydavisphotography.smugmug.com/" target="_blank">photographer</a>.</div>
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Alex Puccio's back-to-back ascents of Top Notch and Nuthin but Sunshine were the other big news of the past week. Can't wait to get back up there myself after a week of training on the flatlands. Hoping to one-hang Automator after figuring out the end of it last week. </div>
Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-67606934394942710632014-06-12T20:06:00.001-06:002014-06-12T20:06:33.436-06:00Maybe Blogs are Dying After All? This Isn't Just Clickbait! :)There are times when I begin to wonder if Andrew Bisharat was <a href="http://eveningsends.com/2012/08/are-climbing-blogs-getting-old/" target="_blank">right after all</a>. OK so that link doesn't work. Here's <a href="http://www.mountainsandwater.com/2012/08/are-climbing-blogs-getting-old-reponse.html" target="_blank">my response</a> to it if you are interested. And maybe I was too harsh on it and got <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php" target="_blank">blocked </a>by him, like <a href="http://instagram.com/" target="_blank">everywhere</a>. Which I may well have deserved but whatever. Water under the bridge, as they say.<br />
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Anyway, maybe climbing blogs are getting old. Having just turned 50 myself, it's logical enough to see a connection between one's one encroaching mortality and a decreasing lack of enthusiasm for writing about the latest trend/event/marketing campaign in the world of climbing. And said lack of enthusiasm has been abundantly manifest in my not updating this blog in close to two months. And something important surely has happened in the world of climbing (besides Everest getting shut down). OK so nothing really important has happened but maybe I just forgot about it. Middle age has its blessings.<br />
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But seriously, what has happened in the last two years to climbing blogs is not inspiring much confidence in their future existence as a corrective to what is being published out there in the climbing MSM. I may be oblivious but I have not read a good polemic on the internetz in a long time (except maybe S<a href="http://steviehaston.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">tevie Haston's</a>) and even Jamie Emerson is apparently off doing something a lot more interesting than updating <a href="http://b3bouldering.com/" target="_blank">B3Bouldering </a>these days. In fact in an ironic twist that only <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic#Hegelian_dialectic" target="_blank">Hegel </a>could appreciate. <a href="http://eveningsends.com/" target="_blank">Bisharat's blog</a> is by far the most productive, excepting the ever-industrious <a href="http://climbingnarc.com/" target="_blank">Climbing Narc</a>. (OK he's linked on my blog but I might as well be consistent.) AB even gets real comments which makes me extremely jealous as all mine are spambot generated ones like "very inform blog. much informing and links. OK."<br />
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For now I will be thinking about what to do next and spending as much time <a href="http://www.nps.gov/common/commonspot/customcf/webcam/dsp_webcam_image.cfm?webCam=56868082F6D1C0684BC473899D0AF3784984E6619EACCFAF9ABC5F88B60A8606D5F7DF99909E8920CE92040C88D09D8B80&refreshRate=30&title=7D9D9A86A5908A7148D231C7A910AB764297&width=1024&height=768&altText=7D9D9A86A5908A7148D231C7A910AB764297E9419EACCFAF9A&description=729D9793B89B8B3F5DC77DA08118BE764380E9549ABDC5A0D78C1397A9009B46C7F5DAD6D98F931A8CB0180B9297999E894EB85F1738C5909A42AADC8E71BF9F860AD7989ABF8394AFDCDFEF8A89829A438F9ABA9893BBD985B3ABBA3E84A9934716FA3EE9DB879984EF0E519DBD9EB99CB5E9921686BAC7B0BD20B647B9539CD3B68A5E450BAAAAA42CF388155E124912B277FFB986A993B9FDA8B4A794EC8582461FEA758B9B1CBE9898399D43F85994A3AAA0971315BF8645F088AB0EAB5E2858E16DB8877245EDA95A8670C912D19297A3FE1A8D5EA29C5390BAB98650F8C759A0FD8AA68842E969966C84899F8411C1" target="_blank">here </a>while I do. That's all for now. And if you actually want to know what I am up to, please follow me on <a href="http://instagram.com/peterbeal" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.<br />
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<br />Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-84129045937102445702014-04-26T08:25:00.000-06:002014-04-26T13:24:05.843-06:00The Everest Show and the Post-Mountaineering EraAnyone following the climbing scene (which is just about everyone these days including NPR and the New York Times) has been following the disastrous inauguration of the 2014 Everest season with the tragic deaths of 16 Sherpas in the Khumbu icefall. This catastrophe, which is one of the single highest death tolls ever in modern mountaineering history, finally has exposed the contradictions inherent in the Everest system in a way that nobody can now ignore. There are conflicting reports that the mountain is "closed" though the financial implications of that for the country as a whole, as well as the Sherpa community are significant. And there are the grieving families of the victims, for whom one's heart goes out to.<br />
<br />
But it was all coming to this point, inevitably. The photos last year of the hundreds of climbers on the Western Cwm, the traffic jams on the Hillary Step, the incessant coverage of Everest the annual event and of course the occasional casualty, no more to be noted than a freeway car accident. In my view, there is no question that Everest is a spectacle now, feeding on its own image, becoming a bigger version of itself, if that is even possible. It is not just the tallest mountain on earth, it's the biggest show on earth, a Barnum and Bailey three-ring circus with ringmasters, roustabouts and tents galore.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00552/56224eb6-b2bd-11e3-_552841b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00552/56224eb6-b2bd-11e3-_552841b.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Adventure as far as the eye can see. Photo from the Times of London</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Isn't there some way to kill off the Everest mystique once and for all? The environmental degradation, the commercialized media events (the first wingsuit flight was to be televised this year), the frozen corpses, and of course the ceaseless tide of updates on weather, conditions, and ascents and behind it all money, money, money. At this point, I can think of no reason why anyone would want to climb Everest under the present set of conditions. It is devoid of all significance, the process being so methodical and choreographed that it resembles more closely the flotillas of gondolas one sees in that classic ersatz sea-level tourism locale, Venice.<br />
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It has been fascinating to see the debate about whether it's right to go on climbing this season, that somehow the deaths of sixteen young men crushed by falling ice has this time truly gone too far. But Everest has long been going too far, pushing it in exactly this fashion while watching the trash and bodies pile up. And for what exactly? Because it's there? The Sherpa deaths are forcing us to look harder and closer at that question. If we are climbing for money, why are we climbing at all? If people are dying <i>en masse</i> so that we can claim we climbed something, why even bother?<br />
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The question is pressing harder and harder in the world of climbing overall. What is the merit in climbing anything when the drift is constantly toward commercialization and professionalization? When the media clichés fall thicker and faster, it becomes clear that what is happening now is empty ritual, and more than ever, the closer the camera is, the farther away the truth becomes. The reality show of modern climbing has run into real reality and we are alarmed that this could ever have happened. The blogs, the news reports, the press conferences, the articles; all of them try to sidestep the question, "Why are we doing this?"<br />
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Sir Edmund Hillary, upon returning to Base Camp, uttered the classic quote, "Well George, we knocked the bastard off." His later line, "It's all bullshit on Everest these days" seems to close perfectly the arc of modern mountaineering from the nineteenth century to the present. All we are doing is shoveling it into ever more ornate piles. Let's stop.<br />
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(for an amusing and naive view from 2003, read <a href="http://www.mounteverest.net/story/stories/EverestHijackedMay12003.shtml" target="_blank">"The message is this – stop calling Everest a circus, and stop calling it bullshit."</a>)Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790818505250918302.post-66066844044640666462014-02-16T08:33:00.002-07:002014-02-16T08:33:35.539-07:00Notes from A GenX ClimberI am not necessarily a fan of defining generational eras, not least because it always seems to boil down to what cool bands you listened to in your 20s. And whining about your fate in the clutches of a less-than-providential historical trajectory seems so, well, negative in the age of social media's Upworthy-esque positivity and uplift. Given the contemporary emphasis on personal brand-building and the "community," it's hard to imagine that there was once a time when many top climbers apparently had an attitude problem best summarized by the 1991 profile of American star Jim Karn titled " The Positive Aspects of Negative Thinking."<br />
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I think this stereotype of so-called Generation X has persisted into the present era with remarkable durability. The lycra tights, the wobblers, the dieting, the finicky obsession with technical mastery are all seen as hallmarks of a best forgotten age. Almost without exception the climbers from that era have disappeared from the common knowledge and history of the sport. I think this ought to be changed.<br />
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The period of 1985 to 1995 was plagued by dysfunction on a lot of levels but I think its bad reputation is wildly overstated. Among other things this period marked the last time that Americans male or female were serious contenders on the world competition stage. It was also one of the most creative periods in American climbing as the focus shifted from the well-known areas of the 60s and 70s such as Yosemite and Eldorado Canyon to radically different locales such as Smith Rock, American Fork, and Rifle. That era is almost 30 years old yet I don't sense a lot of enthusiasm for remembering it. No photocopied articles or extended reminiscences on Supertopo or coffee-table books sold through Patagonia books. At least so far.<br />
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I think it is increasingly an article of belief that modern sport climbing and bouldering suddenly emerged fully formed in the person of Chris Sharma, a genial and phenomenally talented wunderkind who appeared to refute the intensity and obsessive approach of earlier leaders in the sport. Well maybe. But what is forgotten is the degree to which the leaders of new trends in climbing in the 80s were quite literally attacked by the old guard. Comments by the likes of John Bachar or Henry Barber that hard sport climbing was the equivalent of golf or that the likes of Fred Nicole were merely number-chasing Euros were matched by the destructive and hypocritical bolting wars (of which I was part of). In other words, there was next to no genuine support or positive recognition from the older guard that the world of climbing was changing. Karn lived in Europe in a cheap tent on terrible food while competing in the World Cup. Meaningful sponsorship was unheard of. Too many top-level climbers from the mid-80s to the mid-90s were considered the bastard stepchildren of the sport. We even had the famous "You Suck!" article by Dave Pegg in 1996. There was a reason we sucked and it wasn't just about anorexia and bad attitudes. Who really wanted us to get as good as the Europeans? Answer: not too many people, especially of the previous generation.<br />
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This changed with the arrival of the cute and youthful stars who emerged in the mid 1990s such as Sharma, Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden and Tori Allen. Often with substantial parental support or at least approval, they swiftly eclipsed their predecessors, breezing past the obstacles once posed by the old guard of the past. Climbing became a youth sport, not the pursuit of grumpy old men obsessed with ethical purity. Suddenly nobody cared about bolting on rappel. "Number-chasing" was seen as a media-savvy move for climber and manufacturer. Selling-out became a mark of authenticity and commitment to the sport, not a cause for ostracism.<br />
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For climbers who came of age in the GenX era, there is a certain satisfaction in seeing the old verities and personalities that dismissed their dreams now fading from view, or at least issued restraining orders, as in the case of Ken Nichols. Sport and gym climbing, and of course competitions are now the standard, not the exception. Bouldering is not just "for practice" anymore. Climbers from the US are still mostly irrelevant in the international scene, with only a few exceptions. And oddly, outside a very very elite crew, the standards set by the climbers of 20 years ago have proven quite hard to get past.<br />
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The standard take on Generation X is that they were the most neglected children in American history, overshadowed by the sheer numbers and cultural momentum of the Baby Boomer and superceded by the successive generations,Generation Y and the Millenials. I think this has been echoed in the climbing world to a large extent and those of us who emerged as young adults in the later 1980s are more or less resigned to it. Perhaps, however, a few more people will begin to look around and recognize the degree to which the shape of the sport of climbing is defined by the ideas and ultimately the attitudes of a now obscure group of climbers.Peter Bealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576690594320743452noreply@blogger.com12