the climber's death

[archenemy]

Depends...

[wfinley]

I agree with your girlfriend.

Actually that girlfriend moved out once while I was away on a climbing trip. My new girlfriend is also a climber thus we both have issues and can equally relate to each others selfish endeavors.

[TeleRoss]

Dude, when your time is up your time is up...there's no such thing as a "life cut short"...it was just that persons time to go.

That line of thinking has never resonated with me. I just can't picture some god or "force" sitting up in heaven, or wherever, with a list, and a date and time of death next to every individual's name.

 

 

I think of the human being as having an average lifespan, just like a dog, a whale, or any other creature. Sometimes a creature dies "early" (meaning before their body dies from the effects of aging), by being in the wrong place at the wrong time (getting struck by a car), etc., or by disease, causing the body to malfunction and die early, or by killing themselves.

 

Despite the oft-quoted belief that you are more likely to die driving to a climb than on the climb itself, I've always thought of climbing as putting your body in places and situations where there is inherently more danger than most places humans hang out. Same with paragliding, BASE jumping, etc. We have developed tools to keep our bodies safe, for the most part, but still, the human body is like an eggshell against rock and ice.

 

I guess that driving or riding in a car is about the same. Most of us have just determined that the risks outweigh the benefits.

 

I guess that's what it boils down to with climbing, too. For most of us the benefits outweigh the risks. The risk of dying from the activity is fairly remote, and the risk is worth what is gained.

 

Man, you totally missed it..there's no god anywhere doing anything. We show up on this earth and there are no guarantees...you are not "supposed" to do anything...however to say that a life has been cut short presumes that there was something that that person was supposed to have done with their life.

so who is talking predestination?

Too many people take it for granted that they are going to be around for some kind of "average life span" so they don't do the things that they should with their lives...they pour themselves into collecting a bunch of shit and piling it up in big storage bins that people like to call a house. Then when this "average life span" begins to expire they realize they haven't lived a life at all...

[ashw_justin]

I've heard this many times, that climbing is the shizzle; no, not really the shizzle but the pursuit of it is some lofty, noble endeavor. I wonder though if it's not really an indicator of something else. What is it called...? Transvaluation?? Where values are reversed based on their framing? Maybe the impulse is more base than that. That rather than a noble influence, it's more something like hatred. Of fear, of weakness, of anonymity, of inferiority...

 

The goal is the same. To make us more than we are or ordinarily would be. I suppose you could call that impulse Promethean in which case there is a price to be paid.

 

It's not about the ego or the self. It's about the experience. That shit is real and intense. Of course climbing isn't the only way to get this feeling, but whatever it happens to be, it's always dangerous, or at least scary.

 

Then again, you could masturbate your whole life and stay safe...

[EJohnson]

Death is only tragic for the living.

[cj001f]

Death is only tragic for the living.

Rarely do the dead wish to be so.

[treknclime]

Some deep think'in going on here. Interesting stuff, and all good contributions. Will look forward to hearing more.

[Norman_Clyde]

the juxtaposition climbers face when they must weigh their own life and the ones they love against a congruent world which simply doesn't care.

 

I just arrived home from an utterly grinding 24 hours in the ER, my head spinning with thoughts and images of death and fear. When you're severely sleep deprived, as I am currently, it's sometimes hard to make emotional sense of events-- yet sometimes this state of exhaustion seems to bring clarity. As I drove home, I knew I needed to write down some of the thoughts I was having; but I didn't know that cc.com would provide such a neat forum of communication. Several of the thoughts already expressed in this short thread are among the best I've read anywhere on the subject of climbing, risk, and the climber's responsibility to others. Someone should start collecting them for a book (maybe I will!).

 

IMO, climbing is no more egotistical than most activities directed toward self-gratification. Climbers are out there for themselves, not others-- just like bowlers, fisherpeople, model railroad enthusiasts: most climbers are no more callous than everyone else in balancing altruism and self-interest. For the "average" climber, in my estimation the assumption of risk is not much different from the model railroad enthusiast who eats too much and never exercises. By this measure, anyone who smokes tobacco is incrementally more selfish than a climber, because there is no way to mitigate tobacco-associated risk. Tobacco erases more life-years than climbing ever will.

 

After a close call on the unnamed glacier beneath Forbidden's W. Ridge in 1996, I spent about six months of intermittent brooding on this subject. One of the more disturbing things about this close call was that none of our party had any clue of what was coming before it happened (the tongue of the glacier busted up and slid away under our feet as we stood on it). Prior to that event, I had fooled myself that I was conscious of all the risks I faced, therefore able to control them. This is wishful thinking and denial. Just as there is always a car across the yellow line that could end you instantly, in the mountains there is always a rock ready to fall. I was glad I had the chance to recognize this while having the chance to keep on living.

 

Eventually, I decided that I would keep climbing. I try not to be callously stupid about what I choose to do in the mountains, and I try to keep the relative risks balanced with the risks and burdens of my family/working life. That seems fair to me. If I gave up on daring pursuits, I would feel so defeated by modern insipid existence, I'd be hopeless and lost, I would despair. I'm one of those who feel that late 20th and early 21st century life has lost its moorings. I can't wrestle meaning from it. I don't exactly wish I lived in another time, but I do feel much better suited to another sort of life. A longer life is not inevitably better. Harder and shorter might actually be all right, if something in that life gives it meaning.

 

It's a little like how our immune systems work. There is evidence that the dramatic increase in asthma and autoimmune diseases is due to the lack of immune system challenges in our modern hygienic environment. Our immune systems have spent millennia learning to fight off nasty microorganisms: now, they don't have enough to do, and they end up getting restless and stirring up trouble. [some studies suggest that parasitic intestinal infestations, like tapeworms, can actually reduce symptoms of asthma.] I am not proposing that we turn the clock back. We can't. (If I thought we could, maybe I would propose it.) We would not get a healthier population leading longer lives. It's just that all the wonderful benefits of our long, cushy modern existence come with a price. I submit that, like our immune systems, our spirits have evolved to cope with a different life than most of us are leading. A shorter life, perhaps more loaded with unexpected grief and pain, might in fact be more what the spirit expects. Not necessarily what every spirit needs-- but maybe what the spirit expects.

 

In this country, where we rarely lose the young, most people can pretend they are safe until they get old. Then when they're old and can't pretend any more, they seem ill prepared emotionally for their situation. The vast majority don't want that kind of preparation, either: they want me to help them keep pretending. Work in the ER is a lot like holding back the incoming tide. I flurry about, moving people to ground a foot or two higher, giving them a little more time to watch the waters rise. Rarely am I allowed to say, "Sorry, but there is no rescue boat coming. Maybe we should take a minute to think about that."

 

I've read enough accounts of families coping with a loved one's death in the mountains to know that it's very hard on those left behind, harder than the seemingly random deaths that occur in the human-defined realm. This probably does make climbers a little more selfish than others, if they don't do some work with their loved ones to assert their priorities in life and explain themselves. At least where spouses are concerned, if one can't accept a climber's choices, this gives them the chance to opt out of the relationship. Children will have a tougher time, since you can't exactly opt for different parents. I suppose the least a climber with kids can do is to explain himself/herself to the kids old enough to understand, and to write a letter or make a video for those too young to do so.

 

Climbing is a way of facing that there is no rescue boat coming. It keeps me honest about life. I climb, as I pursue other similar activities, because when I’m engaging with “the congruent world that just doesn’t care” I feel more deeply connected with the whole of material existence. I get a sense I’m doing part of what I’m here on Earth to do. It's ironic, I know, that it takes a dangerous play-activity to keep me in touch with reality. But this game helps me to stop pretending. And in the process, it makes me more alive.

[MisterMo]

 

In this country, where we rarely lose the young, most people can pretend they are safe until they get old. Then when they're old and can't pretend any more, they seem ill prepared emotionally for their situation. The vast majority don't want that kind of preparation, either: they want me to help them keep pretending. Work in the ER is a lot like holding back the incoming tide. I flurry about, moving people to ground a foot or two higher, giving them a little more time to watch the waters rise. Rarely am I allowed to say, "Sorry, but there is no rescue boat coming. Maybe we should take a minute to think about that."

 

 

Wow. Well & powerfully put.

[JayB]

Not a terribly eloquent or profound revelation here - but the fact of the matter is that climbing is considerably more dangerous than anything else that most of us do - probably by an order of magnitude at least. Certainly far more dangerous than driving - the fact that we think otherwise is due to the fact that in making such comparisons we're comparing two unlike statistical sets. If you normalized the death rate involved in driving and climbing by the number of hours that the population spends driving versus climbing, that'd be quite clear. Put another way, if the average citizen spent as much time climbing as they did driving, the death toll from climbing would be several times more than the toll from driving.

[PaulB]

Like the idea that you are just as likely to die driving as climbing, so one might as well climb. I don't believe this, and in my experience you don't have to be climbing for very long before the list of your peers who died climbing (or skiing, etc.) is longer than the list of your peers who died in other means (car accidents, illnesses, etc.)

Will Gadd has a piece in the latest Gripped magazine which deals with this very subject. His take on it is that climbing is a dangereous activity, and that "If you climb regularly for long enough you're either going to get seriously hurt or killed.". It's an interesting read.

[Norman_Clyde]

Why do people say "at least they died doing something they loved"? Does it matter if you die prematurely from a heart attack, a car crash, or a climbing accident? You are still dead. Do they think that because a person was doing something they liked when they died that at the end they weren't petrified and fighting with every ounce of their being to live? Dead is dead, nothing will change that. What you did in life is what matters.

 

I don't like the old line "at least he/she died doing something he/she loved." If this is the only good thing we can say in the face of a climber's death, it's pretty feeble. You could say the same of every accidental drug overdose. But IMO there is something true behind these words.

 

I think what people are trying to say is "His death was consistent with the life choices he made." That is, the person died as the actor, not as the acted upon. It's much easier to cope with the helplessness of being mortal, if at least we can make some of the rules we live by. Dying because one willingly went into danger seems better than dying because one was forced into a dangerous situation. But for most of us, our daily lives are pretty safe. If you die while taking out the garbage, does that somehow compound the tragedy? If you die in a car wreck while on an important errand, is that less sad than if you die on a drive you took for more frivolous reasons?

 

I don't particularly like all the driving I have to do for work. I don't fool myself that it's just as dangerous as climbing (though the recent climber's death by logging truck gave me pause). But if I die behind the wheel coming or going from work, then I died "doing something I loved", because I love the life I have, where the work is challenging and rewarding and I get to enjoy my time off with my family, or climbing. If you are getting it right, your life is all of a piece, and what you're doing when you die is irrelevant.

[Gary_Yngve]

Bruce Tremper has a similar statement in his book, how with 99%+ correct avalanche decision, the life-expectancy of a BC skier is finite (see the book for the exact numbers).

[Geek_the_Greek]

Thanks for your well thought-out piece, Norman. But I do disagree with some of it:

 

IMO, climbing is no more egotistical than most activities directed toward self-gratification. Climbers are out there for themselves, not others-- just like bowlers, fisherpeople, model railroad enthusiasts: most climbers are no more callous than everyone else in balancing altruism and self-interest. For the "average" climber, in my estimation the assumption of risk is not much different from the model railroad enthusiast who eats too much and never exercises.

 

Well, no. There is a non-negligible risk of serious injury every time you go climbing. That risk does not exist for the other activities you mention. The matter of not exercising and eating too much is irrelevant, because the risk is only non-negligible when the activity (gluttony and sloth) is extended over years and years.

 

By this measure, anyone who smokes tobacco is incrementally more selfish than a climber, because there is no way to mitigate tobacco-associated risk. Tobacco erases more life-years than climbing ever will.

 

Sure, but smoking and climbing are independent. There are many climbers who smoke, and many non-climbers who don't smoke. And of course tobacco is physically addictive, and its risks are also only manifest in the long-term. Climbing is at most slightly psychologically addictive (for some people), and its risks are immediate. I.e. you can die just as easily your first time top-roping a 5.4, if the anchor fails. No one dies after smoking a pack of cigs.

[skykilo]

Rarely do the dead wish to be so.

But equally rarely do they rue it.

[cj001f]

But equally rarely do they rue it.

Based on the experiences of people I know who do hospice/palliative care few people want to die, and very few people accept it easily. Accepting death is a very time consuming process for most people - look at Oregon's assisted suicide law and how few people who know they will die choose to end life prematurely. Every day matters.

 

It's the young who accept death easily, perhaps because they don't know all life has to offer yet? I don't know, I do believe strongly that given a chance to live another day, and possibly climb another route most people would answer yes immediately. Perhaps many wouldn't regret the path that led them there, but few wouldn't change the last days.

[ashw_justin]

perhaps because they don't know all life has to offer yet?

 

yeah, like climbing!

[billcoe]

If you knew you would die climbing, would you continue to climb?

 

no.

[Dru]

I'm going to die. You're going to die. Lives end.

 

The only choice you have is in the style of life you live and in the manner of your passing.

[Mal_Con]

It makes no difference how you die, all that matters is how you live.

[knotzen]

I kinda like living. It's the only life I've ever known.

[knotzen]

Thanks, all, for weighing in on this. There are varying ways of looking at climbing, life, and death, as I thought there would be.

[wfinley]

Norman_Clyde: that was eloquently put. Thanks for posting something so insightful.

 

Last year my father passed away. He was in his late 70s and, according to him, had accomplished everything he wanted to do in life. He also was deeply religious and in the latter part of his life never once questioned his faith. He was fully prepared for his passing and I think approached death the same way he approached everything else in life - from working as a civil engineer in Nigeria to retiring as a cattle farmer in Virginia - with deep conviction that this was the path chosen for him and that he would not question it.

 

I am certifiably agnostic and have never understood religion or faith - but in watching my father die I began to comprehend why faith plays such a role in people's lives. It is the human need to believe in something greater than ourselves and the need to believe that there are greater things in our life then what we see around us every day.

 

Perhaps climbing takes the place of religion for many. For me it certainly offers the conviction that there are greater things in life than my measly computer job and the after work jog with the mutts. Likewise I look at great mountains and walls and have the conviction that there are greater things in life than my everyday routines. Whether this is nothing but justification is a good question - and not much different than Marx saying that religion is the opiate of the masses. As Clyde said - if we all lived 200 years ago we would embark on meaningful adventures - like bushwhacking across North America. Adventures that would eventually lead to something other then self gratification.

[badvoodoo]

This is surely a common youthful perspective, but I would rather die even somewhat spectacularly now than slowly and feebly at the end of my bodily tether, unable to so much as stand on my own.

 

However, I couldn't have said that a few years back, as I had been living in neutral, unable to remember something of note from whole months of time. If I were to die tomorrow, I would certainly regret the things I had not done, but I would not feel my opportunities had been wasted, and would not have died simply watching the clock.

[selkirk]

I'd like to die by having a heart attack induced by a long fall climbing when i'm a nice ripe 80 or 85.