Climbing and modern frustrations

[lancegranite]

I climb because I cannot build a ship, sail across the world, kill you and steal your golden treasures, take your land, destroy your cities to build a giant statue of myself, then sail back home to write my memoirs at my country estate.

 

It is our obsession to shape the land, to plow and till, to name and catalog, blast and cut.

Fighting this urge is a new thing, constricted by law, bound by popular opinion, we languish in plastic handcuffs,

Our grandfathers built the highways and cities, while we build nothing, frustrated and listless.

 

Tell me what you thought the first time you held an ice axe....did you imagine thrusting it into the pitiless ice and snow on some unimaginable face?

Welding it felt good, natural...like a hammer, it begs to be used, to be mastered.

Swinging it at imagined ice, you decide right then...you are a climber, and this is your weapon.

[Szyjakowski]

yes, as a human, we must fuk sheit up or nothing is accomplished.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

yes, as a human, we must fuk sheit up or nothing is accomplished.

 

Well, duh. Did you just learn this or something?

[Szyjakowski]

yes, the other day at index I had a fukin revelation man!

[JosephH]

Well, mine was a wooden handled Chouinard ice hammer, I was on a 1200ft ice fall, I was wearing jeans and a bunch of wool, there was cold water running down my wrists, and my belayer kept yelling "GET BACK ON THE ICE...!" - I wasn't really thinking about either as I was too busy trying to keep water from running down my leg...

[specialed]

Pillaging is cool.

[Drederek]

When i was young i thought we would be pillaging the universe by now. Blowing a hole in an asteroid is a pretty lame start. Those JPL geeks need to think big and go blow those suckers where they live!