Climbing and the Olympics: Bouldering is the Future

This week marks the happy coincidence of the 2012 Olympic Games in London and the Outdoor RetailerSummer  in Salt Lake City. Needless to say I am going to neither one but their chronological conjoining brought back in focus the expressed desire to "make climbing an Olympic sport." Now I have written on this topic before, but the question keeps reappearing so I will have one more go at it.

Will climbing become an Olympic sport? Well first which kind of climbing? Obviously outdoor climbing is out, as being unmeasurable and too obscure. Will it be onsight leading as in lead World Cups? I am guessing no as the drama and the telegenic aspects are really lacking. Lead climbing is a slow and laborious enterprise to watch with no clear way to understand what is going on in terms of scoring. How about speed climbing? Impossible. Nobody takes this category seriously and at some level, even synchronized swimming makes more sense. In my view the only category that has any chance will be bouldering, and that is only if there is a drift towards gymnastics. That is to say, there will be a pre-arranged set of skills that will be tested across a range of problems in both men's and women's divisions. The parallels with gymnastics are obvious and the visuals are similar, making for an easier introduction into the Olympic environment.

I also think this type of climbing being in the Olympics is least likely to affect the mainstream of climbing except possibly in a good way. The positive aspects of bouldering as an Olympic sport is it will finally force at least one group of climbers to think about training at a level that very few have had to before. I thought of this as I was watching Sean McColl's new video of his training regimen:

Now Sean McColl is a beast. He has climbed at a very high standard both in comps and outside, and in fact he is the best male comp climber from North America as far as I know. However, this video, which is well worth watching by the way, only hints at the work that will be needed to be a truly world class climber at a world-class level, in say 10 years, if climbing (or bouldering) actually entered the Olympics. I am not saying that Sean is a slacker by any means, but compared to the work required in other, more mature sports, climbing has a long way to go.

Andrew Bisharat, in his recent, and somewhat apropos, musings on the future of climbing points to Chris Sharma as a role model for climbers who will somehow be able to set a world standard by climbing only when they "feel psyched" (sic). He was thinking about the recent book Born to Run which studies the more "natural" running style of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico and its superiority to more structured modes of running as found in Europe or North America. He goes on to say that American success in distance running in the 79s and 80s was because "For these runners, with their feet clad in sneakers as primitive as their knowledge about training and diet, running wasn’t a grind. It was exalting." Bisharat's comparison with the contemporary running scene seemed to me naive and uninformed however. While it is true that American runners were very strong internationally in the 1970s and even into the 1980s, a more likely explanation for that success is some insane mileage put in by the likes of Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, Steve Prefontaine, et. al. Only in the last 5 or so years are runners in the US beginning to try to train on that level again, having been endlessly schooled by runners from all sorts of places, not just Kenya or Ethiopia. Their secret? More likely than not, real financial support, structured disciplined routines and incredible amounts of hard work.

In other words, it's not all about inspiration or "primal joy" or feeling psyched. Those are crucial motivators but they are not enough to complete serious work in any discipline. Climbers, because they practice such an immature sport, have been able to leverage talent and style to a striking degree. However, if bouldering makes it into the Olympics and serious training routines evolve to maximize human strength potential, we will see truly incredible things, both inside and outside. Something will be lost of course, especially the sense of climbing as a truly useless, self-inspired game. But in my view, that state of mind will always be accessible outside the media and the arena. There is no doubt in my mind that the days of laidback "athletes" just doing what comes naturally are drawing to a close and a new era is underway.

Now whether this is a good thing in itself is a debatable question. Running Times ran an excellent editorial "The State of Running, 2012 - Have We Gone Off Course?" which asks some questions that are relevant to a discussion of climbing as well. They have to do with whether a sport is beneficial to the society, the culture and most importantly the individuals who practice it. But that is a topic for another day.

UPDATE: here are two recent posts on the topic
http://www.falcon.com/features/long-onclimbing-olympic-sport
http://www.b3bouldering.com/2012/08/08/climbing-and-the-olympics/

On the Circuit and Welcome to the Hood: A Review

Two climbing films came out this spring, films that their makers kindly shared with me for review. PRAK Media, comprising Paul Robinson and Alex Kahn, have created Welcome to the Hood, a follow-up to their earlier (and favorably reviewed by me) The Schengen Files. Cameron Maier, a very talented photographer at Bear Cam Media, has been working, along with Paul Robinson and Carlo Traversi and others, on documenting a bunch of new problems that emerged over the winter of 2011-12 along the Front Range. Both films are available from the same distributor 27 Crags and both have a similar feel so it makes sense to review them together.

Welcome to the Hood surveys a range of European problems, beginning with a series of scenes with mostly Paul Robinson at Fontainebleau. This will look pretty familiar to viewers of The Schengen Files and little new ground is broken here. Indeed the forest is treated pretty much like any other place in the video, a backdrop to pulling hard moves, a place for the "boss life" or was it "bawse"? Doesn't matter really, does it?

Then Switzerland and there are some beautiful problems shown here, nicely filmed, but again with zero context for any of it, just climbers cranking in the woods accompanied by the usual soundtrack of hip-hop/dubstep/techno. Since few of these were first ascents and most were repeats, it is unfortunate that we are not told more about the problems, who did them and what they meant to the FA-ist. There is a history to bouldering in Europe that a viewer of WTTH would do well to learn if he or she did not know it already. Furthermore, the environments of these boulders deserve more attention then they receive here, acting as mere backdrops to names and grades.

But as the interview emphasizes, this is about the 'hood, hanging out with friends and bouldering not about real life. WTTH portrays a fantasy world of apparently unlimited leisure enjoyed by white adolescent males (there is not one female ascent in the entire video) who can travel at will wherever they please and climb whatever they want. The laidback atmosphere of this video seems to me at odds with the levels of effort and commitment that the sport of bouldering requires from most of us and for this reason I found it less than inspiring. The denizens of a real 'hood would probably deride the "gangsta" scene as fairly "whack".

On the Circuit also tries to apply a concept, with a bit more success. Unfortunately there is some lengthy and over-serious discussion (which begs for parody) of what "The Circuit" actually is. I think very few viewers are going to worry very much about whether or why there are even more V13 and V14 problems on the Front Range of Colorado. The only thing that really makes the video stand apart is the effervescent personality of Dave Graham who once again has spearheaded a revival of bouldering in the area. Whenever the camera focuses on him, things brighten up a lot. Anyone interested in the goings on at Wild Basin, the roadside areas in RMNP such as The Bridge Boulders or Sprague Lake will find plenty to interest them. They will also want to check out Cameron's short follow-up featuring Dave on a few new classics, including The Grey.

Here's a short interview with Cameron, who in my opinion has a great deal of potential as a filmmaker and a photographer.

1.  How and when did the idea for the Circuit as a film emerge?

I would say that the basic idea of the circuit and then for turning our exploits on the circuit into a film emerged after Dave and I returned from Hueco Tanks and looked for more new climbing to fit into the later Winter/early Spring time period.  The seed might have been planted in November, when we got started at Elkland, before going to Hueco until March.  So in March climbing at Elkland even began to get a little warm and therefore we were on the hunt for more boulders closer to DG's residence in Nederland.  

Enter Wild Basin, and Bear Lake Road of course.  Daniel was keen on Elkland, and Dave and Paul got psyched on Paint it Black, which was just a little bit south, and then Wild Basin even a little bit more south, which makes up the local zones we have here On the Circuit.  You can start at one boulder/area and take pretty much the same road to get to any of the other areas.  Even that idea right there is tangible and worthy enough, we thought, to base a film from.  I had been shooting Dave, documenting most of the climbs from Elkland, Bear Lake Road, and Wild Basin, and this became part of the story.  Paul and Carlo were in town and were out on the circuit a lot and they as well became part of the story.

2.  What message did you want the Circuit to convey? Do you have an overall vision for your photography and filming?

We wanted the film to convey the message that there is really a huge potential in the front range here, and the more you look and explore the more you realize that.  And what is even better is that we are finding more stuff that is even more accessible, less of an approach, and on the same "circuit."  That is talked about a good amount in the film.

My vision for my photography and videography right now is to tell an engaging story that is rich with personality, humor, and passion for climbing as a way to experience our world.  All-out devotion to what it takes to develop new boulders/areas and to leave a positive mark wherever the journey leads.  Of course shooting with Dave for the past year has let me capture a person that is so passionate about what they do for a living that it's become something that will last as long as climbing is a sport.  Telling Dave's story through still and moving images gives me everything I can ask for right now.  And of course it's great when the other guys get in the mix like we had here with this film.  Everybody adds their own flavor and that's what we hoped to capture by collaborating.

3.  What equipment did you use to make the film?

Paul, Carlo and I all shot this film with our Canon DSLRs; the t3i, 7D, and 5D were all used.  Tripods, sliders, reflectors and automobiles made up the vital accouterment besides the cameras.

4.  Was this a self-financed production? 

This was indeed a completely self financed production.

5.  What's your next project?

New releases coming up are going to be a video of DG putting up more Wild Basin first ascents and also The Warrior Path (DG in Hueco) as a feature film, featuring new never before seen boulders/footage!  Going to be a fun movie for sure, plenty of drama and action.  The next 'new' project will start in South Africa when I meet up with the crew down there in a couple weeks.  I'm fully engaged by my work nowadays and look forward to making more, and want to thank everybody who takes the time to check it out!

You can find out more about Cameron at his website http://www.bearcammedia.com/

A final note about these films. I want to add that from a technical standpoint they are excellent. The problems are all world class and the climbers do a great job. However, I think, especially given how easy it is to create decent production values these days with DSLRs, that the wave of the future has got to be more along the lines of this:
or even this, produced by Prana and made by Chuck Fryberger:

While I think the snowboard/surf formula has marketability on its side, I would really like to see more video that goes against the grain and tells a compelling story that is not just a compilation of climbs held together by a soundtrack. I think it's possible but people have to step up and try to do it. If anyone has suggestions of noteworthy independent climbing film efforts I might not have heard of, please let me know!  

Good Crazy, Bad Crazy

People in Colorado and around the world are trying to cope with this morning's horror in a movie theater in Aurora where a lone gunman, armed with numerous weapons and wearing a gas mask and flak jacket, killed at least 12 and wounded 50 at a midnight showing of the new Batman film. I learned of the shooting just as I was heading out the door to go to Rocky Mountain National Park and do some bouldering in Lower Chaos Canyon. Instead of listening to music, I kept the car radio tuned to NPR the entire drive, as reception allowed, taking in the details, including the suspect's booby-trapped apartment and careful preparation, all too reminiscent of the Columbine High School killings of almost 15 years ago.

 I hadn't been up to the Park in almost a month, having spent the last three weeks in Florence, Italy immersed in a world that revolved around scholarship and art, libraries and museums. It felt good to hike up the familiar trail and breathe in the cool fir-scented air of the forest morning. The splendor of the canyon opened up to the west, gleaming gray and gold, and the bright blue sky was reflected in the still waters of Lake Haiyaha. It might seem even more pointless than ever, I suppose, to walk into this high alpine canyon to climb little rocks, or try at least to climb them, and then walk out a few hours later. Even the beauty of the setting or the physical benefits of hiking and climbing cannot entirely obscure the absurdity of the enterprise of bouldering, especially in the context of a world that has apparently gone insane.

 I wondered on the walk out, after getting thoroughly beaten up by my project, whether we all could stand to reflect more deeply on why things like climbing or art matter, whether we should as a culture stand up to defend what I would describe "good crazy" as opposed to its bad counterpart. Climbing to me, in its best moments is the epitome of good crazy, a peculiar quest to understand something deeper about the world we travel through. At its best it is an innocent pastime, neither seeking reward outside itself nor recognition beyond a small circle of similarly inclined individuals. Obsession, despair, and sorrow, all are aspects of this experience along with insight, joy, even exaltation. Good crazy embraces paradox, frustration, imperfection, and the concretely experienced truths of transience. Good crazy works itself out as it goes along, seeking the passive path whenever possible and eschewing destruction and injury. Good crazy blames itself when things go wrong and vows to do better next time.

Bad crazy, which the world is too full of these days, seeks none of these things.It believes in a deranged rationality, upholding abstract ideals whose enforcement only results in more suffering. Bad crazy believes in the desirability of unfettered physical power and the self-imposed right to decide guilt and mete out punishment. Whether through drone aircraft in Afghanistan, suicide bombings, or deranged shootings, as have been all too common around the world in recent years, violence is the hallmark of bad crazy. Bad crazy never apologizes. Bad crazy happens in windowless rooms and in front of computer screens where an ever-present enemy is represented and enlarged all out of proportion to reality. This attitude is represented best by the quote from the Vietnam War, "It became necessary to destroy the village to save it." Regardless of the veracity of the source of the quote, its persistence in the popular imagination speaks to a sense of the insanity at the heart of the contemporary imperial-capitalist enterprise.

One of the potential virtues of climbing is that it promotes a good kind of crazy, a kind that reinvents the world in a positive way, that promotes curiosity and believes in complexity and diversity. It may ultimately be the most meaningful meaningless pursuit that many of us will pursue. I think that the most interesting forms of human culture speak to this enterprise of understanding over interfering. When I stand in front of a wall, whether in a museum or in a boulder field, I begin to hear voices, voices that tell me to think again, reconsider, try another vantage point, and I in turn speak back. Out of this dialogue comes something new, something that persists across time, that in turn creates its own new ideas and phenomena.

 The world needs more good crazy, more good ideas, more new art, music, stories, even new rock climbs. We all need to nurture attitudes of responsible exploration and discovery that respect the reality and dignity of living things. The world doesn't need more violence, repression, and brutality. If climbing can be a force for good in the world, maybe this is the way; by promoting better ways of being crazy.

Off to Italia

I am leaving the mountains of Colorado for now to study the mountains of Leonardo da Vinci in Florence Italy. Interestingly enough, there is a bouldering comp in Florence the next weekend. Maybe I will post a report! Otherwise, I look forward to trying to get a session or two in at +GAZ and meeting some locals. Ciao for now.

Speed Trap: Let's Slow Down Instead

"We're lost, but we're making good time." attributed to Yogi Berra

While I was walking up to Chaos Canyon last Sunday at a fairly brisk pace, or at least as fast as three pads would allow me, a different kind of ascent was going on in Yosemite Valley. Alex Honnold and Hans Florine were trying to break the previous speed record for the Nose on El Cap. Which they did, very handily breaking the old record by about 13 minutes. Looking over the useful chronology provided by Planet Mountain, you can see that the record time for climbing the Nose went from about 3:24 in 2000 to 2:23 in 2012 so about it was lowered about an hour in 12 years More interestingly, if you jump to 2002 for a benchmark, you see that the record has been lowered about 25 minutes in 10 years. So by 2002 it is obvious that the kinks have been worked out and now it is down to details and not much else beyond really fast and very dangerous climbing.

OK so where is this going? I am asking because there was a fair amount of celebration of this achievement on the Internet and elsewhere as though some kind of breakthrough has happened. I wonder whether this kind of climbing is pointing to a dead end, that it might undermine both the natural setting of the sport and a more meaningful vision of its purpose. It also points to a reductio ad absurdum in terms of the act of climbing as opposed to an actual race, such as in running.

Let me begin with the last point first. While climbing a difficult route quickly has a certain appeal, there is little doubt that speed has never been an intrinsic quality at the heart of the sport. Solving problems, however long that might take, using the minimum of acceptable means, on the other hand has always been an intrinsic value in the sport. To contrast it with running, for example, racing on a track or a road is the simple pursuit of speed. You can run for fun or fitness but in a race, the goal is clear. Climbing is never initially about speed but about learning particular movements across rock. Speed is secondary, except as it helps to solve a specific problem such as sprinting through the crux of a sport route or getting off a dangerous section of a climb as in alpinism. At what point in the search for speed does climbing simply become running?

Speed ascents seem to mark the final stage of a route's life cycle, an admission that the problems are ironed out once and for all. The difference in contemporary climbing is that now speed ascents are considered to be meaningful problems and achievements in their own right. There certainly are problems to be solved. Logistics, division of pitches, pacing, etc., all play a role but at the heart of the action is something different. It is not just an ascent of the Nose that matters, it is a fast ascent of the Nose. That the Nose can be climbed, even in a day, is a given, just as we assume the Boston Marathon can be successfully run by a physically fit individual. But the route feels secondary to the climbing of it. This seems to me to be a serious problem.

Now let me get back to the first point as to why. First, it promotes a vision of the natural world as mostly a theater for human athletic achievement, asserting that ultimately great places are subordinate to human action and goals. This presses upon the environment fundamentally inimical goals and associated phenomena including film crews, support people, media attention and of course more aspirants and wider audiences all believing that the outdoors is something to be "conquered" in every more perfect displays of mastery.

This leads to the second issue of whether it offers a meaningful vision of climbing. Some might argue that climbing lacks meaning so the question doesn't matter, a nihilistic view I do not comprehend or share. Others might argue that meaning is individual to each climber, a position that has merit but also has problems. Are all possible meanings equal in substance? Can the climbing environment tolerate all the possible visions of meaning out there? Are some kinds of climbing practice ultimately destructive to fundamental aspects of the sport?

Now speed climbing is a complex topic because theoretically it does not damage the rock, as does chipping or other more clearly destructive practices. So does it do any harm? IDoes promoting a style of climbing and a type of competition that is reductive and appeals to the lowest common denominator, by doing something quicker or doing more of something in a given time add anything new or relevant? It is of course superb for media and marketing. There is the rivalry going back over at least a decade between Dean Potter and Hans Florine. There is the sheer danger of what is essentially a paired free-solo. And there is the superb position of the route. It's the "Race for the Nose!" Sender Films caught the action from 2011:

I wonder when the rules are going to be "officially" laid down. Although fixed lines are regarded as bad form, what is to prevent someone rigging the route with fixed gear for grabbing every four feet? At what point does climbing  the Nose become a more complicated version of jugging or rappelling the Nose? Is there is a point at which it really doesn't matter? A comparison with the world record in the marathon is apt. It's close to 2 hours but will that ever be broken? Only with some pretty stringent rules in place. Are they going to exist for climbing in the same way?

There is no doubt that speed climbing has a venerable history, both in the Valley and everywhere else that has big features and mostly moderate climbing. But I wonder about the statement  that "The only thing better than climbing is more climbing." How about the only thing better than climbing is better climbing, more aware climbing, more thoughtful climbing? Maybe even slower quieter climbing where the achievement is not measurable by a stopwatch and can't be captured on camera?

(An art-historical afternote: There is a famous anecdote about the 16th century painter and art historian Giorgio Vasari who in 1546 showed Michelangelo an extensive fresco in Rome that was painted by Vasari and his assistants in just 100 days. Michelangelo's only comment was "Si vede" or "It shows." Vasari knew of course that Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling took four years of solitary labor and thought to create something of true originality and power.)

Update! please read this excellent post on the same topic: http://zoomloco.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/dear-media-mountains-are-not-stadiums-even-for-speed-climbers-50/

Yes Everest is Still Relevant

Rock and Ice did a good job back in May of riling the climbing public with Jeff Jackson's editorial "Mount Everest is Completely Irrelevant." It was definitely trending with 100+ comments and counting. And a lot of them were downright hostile. But now about a month after the hype of this season's 500 plus ascents, it is clear that Everest is more relevant than ever. My impression was that never before has Everest seen more attention both in climbing and mainstream media. It seemed as though hourly accounts were coming in from Outside Online, National Geographic, and the North Face while daily, new articles and editorials were weighing in on the situation on the mountain, enhanced by numerous photos of apparently endless lines of aspirants on their way to the summit.

Alan Arnette's excellent Everest blog kept readers up to date (check out his season recap) on all the drama and there was quite a bit of drama. One seasoned expedition leader Russel Brice pulled his entire team off the mountain. Italian Alpinist Simone Moro appeared to have cancelled his Everest plans, describing the  atmosphere on the normal route like this:

"In short, I felt like I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I counted more than 200 people above and below me ascending up to the South Col. Unbelievable, it really was like being in an amusement park..."

 And this is exactly why Everest is so relevant. Like any classic amusement park, it has changed with the times. Not so much the mountain, though there was certainly discussion of how dry and dangerous the upper reaches of the Southeast Ridge and West Ridge had begun, probably because of global warming (my view, so disagree if you want). Everest has become the reflection of the new idea of climbing, that climbing is entirely what we make it and that this manufactured artifact is the only goal, since we long ago demolished the real thing, whatever that might have been.

By this I mean that it is significant to climb Everest precisely because of the degenerate state of what Everest has become, or what humans have made of it. The Base Camp scene, the trash, the lines of "climbers" and of course the frozen bodies of those who didn't make it back, all these and more are part of the curious and increasingly twisted image of the mountain. Everest the mountain has been transformed into Everest the abstract spectacle, morphing under the media's constant exposure in a continuous feedback loop. And given the extraordinary financial costs of an attempt (at least in the world of climbing) there is always the associated glamor of expending huge sums of money in a conspicuously wasteful and dangerous pursuit.

So Everest has become a green screen for a drama of Western-style consumption set in the Himalaya, fed by the constant drip, even occasional torrent, of media: video, interviews, and photos all building their own climate of fascination. As George Mallory, in an eerily prescient remark, considering the fate of his own body, doomed eventually to be part of the media cycle, "Because it's there." Isn't it time we started seriously asking what was/is actually there and what we are replacing it with? Everest appears more like a dying white elephant, steadily being killed off by an increasingly obsolete pursuit of exploration and adventure in a world less and less capable of sustaining it.

So yes Everest is relevant, if only because it perfectly reflects the hollowness of our understanding of what really matters about climbing and the world in general. It is an extreme case to be sure but its lessons are everywhere, if we can only turn our heads from the latest update from Outside or National Geographic. Here's hoping.