Sounds like it is fair to characterize.
If the guy has been climbing for "twenty years" and reacts that way, I wouldn't want ANYONE to climb with him.
Well... maybe Chaps.
Only if scooped fresh from the eviscerated bowels of a snaffle. Snaffels are the only creature able to olfactorially locate this rare foodstuff, and since snaffles are impossible to domesticate, you gotta kill 'em and gut 'em.