Why?

[Fejas]

texplorer said:

When I was a child on family vacations to colorado I was always being scolded for climbing the rocks, trees, and anything else. I guess even as a child I was a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I still remember being 4 yrs old and falling out of a mesquite tree and landing flat on my back.

 

Fast forward 20 years later- I moved to the NW to get better at climbing. I had always been a good endurance athlete so I thought I could be good at climbing big mountains. Figuring that you need to learn rope and pro techniques I began rock climbing. Since then I have discovered the many diverse realms of climbing and have spent the last several years trying to gain proficiency at each of them. I still like climbing snowy big mountains, bouldering, sport climbing, ice climbing, and aid, but I now am in a lurid affair with trad climbing clean crack systems.

 

What makes you a climber is hard to say. I do believe is that once you become a climber it is like being knighted. Once your are knighted you are always a knight even if you seldom go into battle or ever fight again. Will Fred B. cease to be a climber when he can't get out of bed? I think not. Becoming a climber is something within that is probably different to alot of people. Now whether you are a bad ass or a "committed" climber is something else entirely with which to debate.

 

FUCK your beautiful man

seriously I totally agree...

 

[Dru]

because it is there thank you george mallory

[texplorer]

He's still up "there"

[chirp]

I saw it as (at the time) an obscure sport that made you think. It was not a mainstream activity and therefore, being on the fringe it was an attractive alternative to the generic and cumbersome "American sports". At the time, very few people were climbing and because of that there were few "rulesets", no one could critisize you for what you did, and there was no dogma as associated with ball and team sports, you just enjoyed the sport as an end in itself and found within it a brotherhood of kindrid, free spirits.

[wayne]

Some things , you were meant to do. I prolly climbed out of my crib as soon as possible. I always went up trees. a seemingly easy target. It was possibly 1969 ,and my then parent and her boyfriend took me to smif. They saw someone climbing and I couldnt belive it.

I still cant.

It is such a better sport than we are its suitors.

We will always grovel at the mts and their prizes.

[fleblebleb]

iain said:

If you trip over cans of white gas in your living room you might be a climber.

 

Check, dammit. One of these days I'll find a place for the darn things.

[ken4ord]

Two reasons.

 

I loved being in the mountains and climbing them by any route. Originally I started with staying on the main hiking trails, but then got into bushwhacking up them. Then scrambles, but scrambling scared the hell out of me, which leads me to the second reason.

 

I was afraid of heights and I wanted to get over it. Some friends were just getting into climbing so I would go out with them and TR at the local quarry. The first couple of years I could only deal with getting about 10 feet off the deck before I would freeze. Eventually a friend who was a guide took me and another newbie friend up Sliding Board (5.7) on Whitehorse in North Conway. It was awesome. It was my first time going higher than 10 feet and 7 pitches later I was 800 feet off the deck and top out on my first route and I didn't freeze up.

 

Ever since then all I have wanted to do is climb.

[EWolfe]

Because I would get road rage if I didn't

(whoops! I already do ) amend:

 

Because I would RAM stupid road idiots (with my car, assholes) if I didn't

[RuMR]

Make my hands stronger for wrestling...then decided i was sick of wrestling and switched to climbing only...haven't looked back since...

[iain]

it quiets the voices in my head that tell me to kill zem, kill zem all mwahahahahahahah

haha

ha

eh

[obsydian]

This thread is long (been out climbing!) but I'll answer the first question.

 

I started climbing in '97, friends say to ward off a midlife crisis. Did a lot of hiking before then. A freind talked about climbing Mt. Rainier, which sounded interesting, said I already had all the gear (ha!, several thousand $ later found out he was wrong!) and so we practiced on a Mt. Hood climb, turned around at Muir etc. that year, but my appetite for climbing was aroused. Climbed Hood again in '98 with friends, was a bad experience or a real wakeup call, the party separated, lost a climber on the mountiain in a whiteout for a few hours (eventually found safe), shook me up, let me know this was serious business and that I didn't know what I was doing. So I joined the mounties, took the basic class (yeah, I ran into a Nazi or two, but the experience was well worth it). The basic class is where I was introduced to rock climbing, which I really liked, didn't know it was even tought as I was just wanting to climb volcanoes. Anyway, took the intermediate class so I could learn to lead rock (just graduated), and over the last couple of years have discovered the wonders of mixed alpine climbing in the North Cascades, and in introducing others to climbing by leading climbs. I expect to keep at it until my knees give out, current goal is to bag the top 25 and then top 50 peaks in the state. I'm not a high end rock climber, but sure enjoy the mixed alpine routes necessary to bag a peak. The more I go out the more I realize how much there is to see and learn. Just a wonderful sport.

[skyclimb]

It is the only true way to define reality. To rock climb, and wrap your head around something so deeply that everything becomes one.

To climb a mountain and journey to the center of everything. It isn't about getting to the top, but the reality you find while doing it.

Climbing is REAL

Nick

[ketch]

I was always the hiking, outdoorsy type. In the early 70's myself and friends used to spend weeks camping at the south end of Lake Dorthy. We used to get up each morning and toss a rock at the local topo, thats were we went that day. After a couple years we thought it would be easier to go some of the places if we could just climb to um. I took a class with the mounties and was pretty well hooked. I didn't get along with the mounties but not unusual as I'm kinda the antiestablishment type. This kept me in climbing since. I would much rather when I travel to foreign countries do something real than just say "I went to disney land in Japan"

I'm still in it for the great times but cancer slowed me down a few years back. Now I'm going back to bigger rocks and longer days. Still havin a huge job and all keeps me from bein the every weekend type. Oh well climbin is where I'm at for the last 28 years, guess I don't care I'm not average.

[Phil K]

Nothin', but nothin' makes me feel like climbing does. I've been at at since.... Well, I was one of those kids who just grew up climbing out of the crib, up furniture, you name it. Eventually moved on to rocks, trees, whatever. You may be a climber if you can't imagine not being one. I moved to WA in 1984 after visiting and getting a good look at the amazing mountains out here. I still just can't get enough. Challenge, focus, beauty, comradarie, lurking fear, that incredible feeling after a hard lead. Noting else does it.

[catbirdseat]

Dru said:

Why did you start climbing? What made you want to try it?

 

I have heard the "average climber" (90% of those who try it once) only climb for a few years before moving on to another sport. If you have been climbing for 3 yrs +, why did you stay with climbing?

 

Did you start with another outdoor sport and switch to climbing, or did you start with climbing and stay with it?

I was never any good at sports in school. I tried all the usual ones and sucked. The only organized sport I ever loved was cross country running. Even though I didn't measure up to other competitors, I had a need to push myself and try to get better. In college I got very involved in competitive sailing. It seemed like the first sport I was every any good at. I could actually beat people who had been sailing for years. I found what made one good was passion. The more you think about the more focused you get, the better you get. When I started going up against the big boys, I had a nasty surprise. Money is what counts in sailing and it doesn't matter how good you are if you don't have the money to put into sails and hardware. The money factor really started to jade me to sailing. So where does climbing come in?

 

I'd always loved hiking and backpacking. I loved climbing trees as a kid- dirtpiles, hills, rocks at Joshua Tree with Y Indian Guides. Sometimes I'd think it would be cool to get into climbing, but it seemed totally inaccessible. I didn't know anyone who climbed. It seemed ridiculously dangerous too. I lived many hours from the mountains and so climbing remained a dream, until I moved to the PNW in 1990.

 

I bought my first house and it and my young kids took all my time for several years, but in 1997 I took the Mountaineers Alpine Scrambling Course. That got me on top of mountains with other like minded people. Some of those people were also technical climbers. I was good at it so I was encouraged to take the Mountaineers Basic Course in 1998. I was still doing a lot of sailing at the same time, so my attention was divided. I soon realized the climbing was much more engaging. Besides, the wind only blows in the PNW when it's raining. If the sun is out, it's usually dead calm.

 

In 2000 I took the Intermediate Course because I thought Basic Climbs were pretty lame and I wanted to do harder stuff. Lead climbing in rock and ice I decided was really fun and challenging. It was also really scary, but I liked the feeling I'd get after topping out. It was almost drug-like.

 

For some reason I never made any contacts outside the Mountaineers until 2002 when I joined CascadeClimbers.com. In one year I have probably learned as much as in all the previous years. Certainly unemployment has helped my climbing a lot too.

 

I'll probably continue to do some climbs with the mountaineers because I like teaching other people and sharing my passion and joy with them. But it really is cool climbing with all sorts of different people from different backgrounds that I've met through cc.com. It's like a light went on for me. I still will never match the natural althleticism of many of my fellow climbers, but as long as I can measure my progress against my past performances and continue to improve, it will remain very gratifying to me.

[Lowell_Skoog]

I skied and hiked with my dad and brothers when I was a kid. My older brother and his friends introduced me to climbing the summer I graduated from high school. I climbed my first "mountains," Mount Si and Mount St Helens, in 1974. With that experience behind me, my friends thought I was ready to join them traversing the Picket Range. Somehow despite rented equipment, tube tents, and a plastic rope for crossing the glaciers, we survived. Basically we were careful and didn't try to climb anything too difficult.

 

After that I gradually climbed more and more peaks and learned techniques from friends and books. I think I stayed with it because I liked being in the mountains, going new places, and learning new skills. I was lucky to have a group of friends (Gary Brill, Jens Kieler, my brothers and others) who had pretty good judgment and similar tastes. Good partners are hugely important in climbing.

 

Today I keep climbing most of all because I enjoy mountains aesthetically. I also like how climbing keeps you in shape and requires you to stay fit. (Some aesthetic sports, like paragliding, don't require much fitness at all.) I also like how you can climb at so many levels and in so many places--just going for a hike, an easy snow summit, a day at the crags, or a tough alpine climb. I climb much less often than I used to, due to family commitments and the realization that I don't need to get out every weekend anymore. There are other things I want to accomplish. I think I'll always consider myself a climber, even if I just hike and ski in the mountains, like I did as a kid.

 

[Beck]

there is something indescribable out there in the mountains we all reach for with or hearts, regardless of the more rational and desirous reasons to be out there- the camaraderie, the silence, the natural experience, the pleasure of pounding pins or sending your free climbing ability higher.

 

I grew up in a town than had granite and sandstone cliffs all over town, including a very impressive city park that had about two miles of sea cliff 40-80 feet tall of clean granite.

 

I could, quite literally, and did, climb on the way home from school.

There was also six months of winter, so I grew up skiing to school and out the back door into some pretty impressive terrain.

I fell of my first cliff, thirty feet, when I was twelve or so.

I learned how to place pro soon afterwards, and began to climb with buddies in swami belts and figure 8 leg loops back in 1982.

Hitchiked to the american west at age 16.

Got a job in the Ruby mountains of Nevada running a gin joint and slot house at 17.

Ski and climbing bum thru college, many spring breaks became extended vacations.

Now, I don't climb nearly as much as I used to. But I climb.

 

Because I have to.

 

I can't thing of anything more enjoyable than a good grovel and sleeping in the dirt, eating bugs and drinking glacial milk.

[lummox]

Dru said:

Why did you start climbing? What made you want to try it?

i fell out the fucking tree and needed to climb back home.

[Bug]

Sorry to break in so late. I was climbing.

 

I started climbing because dad made good swimmers and mom's plumbing was working fine. There four of us boys in a little over four years. By the time I was 5, my mother was needing a little alone time. We lived in Montana so we had two choices, go drinkin or go outside. On my first backpacking trip, I had a $7 sleeping bag and a knitted wool blanket from grandma. We hiked 3 miles to the top of Boulder point which is about 8000-. It was June so there was still a lot of snow up there. We got to the top and looked around. It was cool. I asked my dad "where are we going to sleep?" He said, "Anywhere you want." I curled up inside a big bush after a dinner of white bread and vienna sausage. The wind howled all night. It ripped through my cotton covered bag like it wasn't there. When we got up in the morning, no one would admit to having had a bad night. We had hot ovaltine and eggs with white bread cooked over a sub-alpine fir fire. My father and one brother went down to Boulder lake to fish while the other three of us stayed up on the point and tried to dislodge a cornice. The afternoon was hot and we swam in Rattlesnake creek on the way out. It was icy cold so we just dipped in and out and made fun of each other's shrinkage. It was a twelve mile hike out the road since my mom hated to drive in the mountains. It was really hard to hike that far as a six year old but it was also really nice to be down where it was warm and green. We got home about ten o'clock and I slept until noon the next day. It was an adventure I will never forget.

There were a lot more 'adventures with dad' but there is one that I credit with really sucking me into technical climbing. I was nine or ten and dad, Paul and I went up Kootenai creek to the Bitterroot divide and then south to Lolo peek and out to the Lolo highway. We took four days and climbed every peak and fished every lake we came to. The climbing was great. we didn't have a rope of any kind. We were cutting steps with sharp rocks and passing Albert, our 20 lb dog up to ledges and across chasms. We caught only one fish. Fish was going to be most of what we ate so we were all pretty hungry. Albert would have been in danger but at that point he had lost so much weight, we would have been sucking on bones.

The climbing on granite, unroped, inching across steep snowfields, and summitting over and over, really caught me. I have always looked for ways to improve my climbing since. Even when I first had my kids and barely climbed twice a year, I was a climber.

I am just starting to come back. More importantly, I am bringing my kids with me. They beg to go backpacking. They love the freedom and adventure. The mountains have them. They are climbers too.

You will see us dancing in the light of the full moon.

[catbirdseat]

Bug, sounds like you learned in the "Sink or Swim" school of climbing.

[Bug]

Sinking was not an option. Only Albert took a fall on that trip. We had just crossed a really steep talus field and I looked back to see how the mutt was doing. He slipped off a big rock and started bouncing down the talus. I knew he was dead but I dropped my pack on a ledge and started scambling down after him. He hit a tree about three feet up and bounced back down onto a ledge. I was dumbfounded to see him pop up and shake. He saw me and headed for me immediately. There were no cuts or injuries I could see. He stuck right by my feet from then on.

This same dog was hit by six cars and feared by all dogs and mailmen. When the National Inquirer had an ugly dog contest, the winner was cute by comparison. He peed on everybody's packs, ate anything left unattended, and impregnated dogs ten times his size. When his end was finally near, his entire body swelled up and he couldn't walk. My mother had some Demerol from when my aunt died of cancer so we dosed him with four tabs to put him out of his misery. It only prolonged his existence. He got up and wove around the room looking for food or females, I'm not sure which. Then he layed down on his favorite hot air vent and went to sleep for a day or so. When he came to, he was in a lot of pain. He whimpered and yelped. So my father took him out to the back yard and gave him one merciful dose of lead. He was 17 years old. My mother still hangs a picture of him snarling at the camera. He hated flash bulbs.

Albert was a climber.

[catbirdseat]

Good 'ol Albert. Makes me think of trask.

[Ryan]

I started climbing 2 years ago, and have really been doing nothing else since then...this summer I have climbed probably every day- all types as well- sport, trad, bouldering, alpine climbing. I really don't know why I keep doing it, but it seems like it's the only thing that keeps me sane. If I haven't climbed for a couple days I get really on edge, it's like I have to go climbing in order to survive. And when I'm climbing I feel great (even if I'm climbing terribly or we're on a bad route)- so in short, I am addicted to climbing for reasons unknown. I suppose it's better than a drug addiction...