the climber's death

[Rad]

Beat my drum shoulders in taut, sunny rhythms,

Sing with the butterfly wind in my hair

Until the music stops, the dancers fly apart,

And all the chairs have been folded.

[archenemy]

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,

to front only the essential facts of life, and

see if I could not learn what it had to teach,

and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

[EWolfe]

I guess I will weigh in on this with some reluctance.

 

This thread is great, but it seems to me rediculous that you COULD KNOW YOU WERE GOING TO DIE CLIMBING.

 

It is a risk we all take, but there is no way of knowing that unless you are a Dan Osman type. If you are, then, obviously, it is not going to stop you. You are a warrior type that finds honor in such a death, and not doing it would equate to "death by ennui" of sorts.

 

It seems the nearness to death in my many close calls (both on the rock and off) is what makes me feel alive, lose my fear of death, and know that I am not risk-averse.

I agree that as your dependents grow, so should your willingness to forgo dangerous actions with high-percentage mortality rates.

 

"There are the old, there are mountaineers, but not many old mountaineers" (or something like that)

[Dru]

What a minute before you allow yourself to get sucked into this … because it becomes, like your destiny, initially you try it and you think this is too hard, this is horrible, I’m never going to do this, then you get mad with yourself, and you think ‘O come on, it can’t be that bad, maybe I should have another day on it’, so you have another day on it on a top-rope and it feels a bit easier, and suddenly you wire this trip, and you realise that you’re going towards that inevitably lead at some point in the future, a few of my mates had a word with me and said ‘why aren’t you doing this?’, and suddenly I thought ;I don’t really know’ – because it’s what I do, and you think ‘well, I’ve done this enough times, why do I just have to keep doing it and you do become addicted to the adrenaline – no question about it – or at least the whole process of building up and building up, and then doing the route, and the huge release that you get afterwards. You crave that sensation. And its bad…it’s really good up to a point, some people climb just to make a point, to impress people or burn people off other people climb purely for themselves, I see myself as somewhere in the middle there, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t affected by other people or competition, and I think most people are, but that isn’t my raison d’etre. I almost certainly would have done these climbs if I was the only person on the planet because I get so much out of them from a personal fulfilment point of view.

 

Back to the question, you can only go on getting that thing out of it for so long, and after a while you dry up and you think ‘this is just stupid, all I’m doing here is seriously reducing my chances of living beyond the age of 30’, I’m no longer getting that sense of spiritual awareness, that sense of enlightenment, I’m not getting that from it any more, I’m getting something else , I’m just getting an adrenaline hit, and its turned into something completely different, and that’s what causes a lot of people to jack it in. Look at Johnny [Dawes], [Paul] Pritchard before he had his accident, Seb [Greive] now, they all moved out of that and the only person still standing is [Nick] Dixon but then he’s reknowned for being a nutter.

[Stonehead]

[mvs]

Yesterday I had a terrible experience that made me feel pretty close to dying. My thoughts in those moments of falling were incoherent, but two things came to the fore. First, I felt regret and sadness, a simple sadness. What a shame, I thought, that my life, this special (to me), fascinating thing is going to end for such a stupid mistake. Secondly, I saw my wife and children. There was no time to think of anything more specific than that, it's just that they filled my thoughts, and were "overlayed" with the same feeling of sadness.

 

Not to open a whole side story, the basic facts are that a friend and I were climbing in Austria, on a 6+ gear/bolt route (like 5.10b?) in the mountains. We were halfway up, and past the crux. I wasn't strong at the grade, I was getting tired, and on top of that I misunderstood the guidebook (I thought I had an "easy" pitch). I also ran it out on easy ground above the bolted belay. I got to a hard spot, clipped a piton and backed it up with a nut. A few feet above things happened fast. My crucial (only) foothold broke off, but I held on. Then the rope came tight and popped the nut out, I was just at the worst angle right next to it to allow this to happen. Then I hesitated. Up or down? Can I climb down? Can I climb up? Okay up, it gets easier in 4 feet. Arms weaker than I expected owing to holding on when the foothold broke. Reaching, struggling for a jam in a pocket, feet pasted in a quasi-lieback. Fingers beginning to slip. Nothing good for feet. I chose to fall, one second before I would have no control. But of course, the pin at my feet rips out, and because I ran it out on easy ground above the belay (something I had entirely forgotten about, actually), and because my nut was gone, I was set up for a deadly fall. It was both quick and took a long time. During the fall I saw the piton fly wildly out above me, then I somehow flipped over and saw lower parts of the mountain coming towards me, now strongly feeling the regret I mentioned above because I'll surely be killed, I just have to wait a little while.

 

But my friend caught me. It was a 60 foot factor 2 fall, and it tore a thick strip of flesh from both sides of his belay hand. The rope somehow tore another strip from his neck, and wrapping around his leg, stretched a ligament in his knee painfully. I was upside down with the rope wrapped around my calves. I hit the wall on my back, but I had a pack on, so it didn't seem to hurt. In fact, I was almost completely ok, while my friend was groaning in real pain. I am hobbling around today, with purple, bruised calves, abrasions on my hands and every single muscle feels brutalized, but my belayer might have a serious knee injury, and the wound on his hand would make you wince.

 

We made 6-7 double rope rappels and walked back to the car. It is still sinking in somehow. Just writing this now I started shivering uncontrollably(?). I have cast a critical eye on what steps and illusions of my own led to the fall (there were plenty). I also see through my friend hobbling down the mountain that my mistake in the mountains has caused pain for someone else (not just physical too, he has dreams of things he wants to accomplish, and a big knee injury could kill them).

 

You can't imagine how thankful I am when I think of my little boys, and when I think of my friend stopping my fall at a high cost. I think a very clear lesson is there for me - that I have to change concrete things about myself. If I fail to do this I will surely die climbing. If I succeed, then I could still die at any moment sure. But I believe I have individual traits/behaviors that would make a moment like what just happened come again. And I can't expect such a forgiving world or dare I say angels next time.

 

Of course, it is embarassing to post about an accident just one week after cheerfully moving to europe, "bon voyage!", feeling really excited, on top of the world. But that is part of it.

 

I don't want this post to further entrench anyone's viewpoint. It is just a letter from someone who feels like he came back from a country of sadness.

[archenemy]

Thank God you and your partner are more or less okay.

Welcome to the land of the living. I am convinced you arrive only after a near death experience.

Glad you lived to share your experience!!

[knelson]

Thank God you and your partner are more or less okay.

Welcome to the land of the living. I am convinced you arrive only after a near death experience.

Glad you lived to share your experience!!

 

I think you nailed it there - you never really savor life until you've thought it was gone.

 

I know two people that have been buried in avalanches. At least one of them, I know, had pretty much packed it in when they were buried. He was conscious and aware that he had about 20 minutes to live. He was skiing alone and didn't realize another group saw the incident, and luckily had transceivers and gear to get him out. He now lives life very differently than the rest of us.

 

I envy him for that, but at the same time do not want to go through what he did to attain that state.

 

Welcome to a very special club mvs.

 

-kurt

[ken4ord]

If you knew you would die climbing, would you continue to climb? Would living your passion be worth the cost of dying prematurely?

 

As much as I love climbing and obsessed with it, I would have to give it up. Though I know the process would take years to get over and I would probably be one grumpy mofo that nobody would want to be around. At some point though I know that I would be able to redirect my focus. The sad part would be, I would probably end up killing myself with some other sport that I love (namely free-riding).

 

I am so happy that I will most likely never have to make this decision and I can go about accepting the risk that is involved in my actions.

[skykilo]

I can't even begin to express how sick I get of the 'climbing is selfish' rap. Yeah, so is eating. I mean, somebody else could have eaten that food... what about that poor, hungry bum on the street who never had a chance?

 

I thought these selections from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged would provide a nice alternative perspective. The first is the oath taken to enter the 'Utopia of Greed' Galt's Gulch:

 

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

 

I climb because I enjoy it.

 

The second pertains more to the question of death. Dagny wants to ask the pirate how his wife can stand him being gone and putting himself in harm's way 11 months of the year, to which he replies:

She can live through it, Miss Taggart, because we do not hold the belief that this earth is a realm of misery where man is doomed to destruction. We do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and we do not live in chronic dread of disaster. We do not expect disaster until we have specific reason to expect it--and when we encounter it, we are free to fight it. It is not happiness, but suffering that we consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity that we regard as the abnormal exception in human life.

I like the attitude of this statement a lot better than the question, "If you knew you would die climbing, would you continue to climb?" The question presupposes catastrophe. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to die of a heart attack while getting gripped on the sharp end after 76 years of fun. Who knows?

[wfinley]

You're quoting Ann Rand to help prove a point? I didn't think anyone took her seriously anymore. Apparently you've put a bit of thought into her works though if you can quickly dredge up the selection where Dagny meets the pirate. Objectivity can be used to justifify anything that requires one to ignore the inner voice that most refer to as a conscience.

[gosolo]

Objectivity can be used to justifify anything that requires one to ignore the inner voice that most refer to as a conscience.

 

I think you proved your own point...Replace objectivity with any of the following, money, politics, religion, sex, drugs and rock and roll....

[Lowell_Skoog]

Earlier in this thread somebody said that living a long life is overrated. Over the past few years, I've had conversations with many older skiers and mountaineers. These conversations have made me keenly aware of the loss of my father from a heart attack nearly 30 years ago, when he was only 56.

 

Last week an interviewer asked me what I would miss most about my brother Carl, following his recent accidental death. I said I would miss growing old with him.

 

Some young people think that a long life is overrated. I feel that old age is tremendously underrated, especially by the young. My life has been enriched by the older people I've gotten to know over the past few years.

 

-----

 

Edited to add: It's interesting that some posters seem unwilling to answer the question posed in this tread. Sure, nobody knows what the future holds, but the question is useful to explore your values. As Socrates said: "The unreflected life is not worth living."

Edited November 23, 2005 by Lowell_Skoog

[olyclimber]

If you think that existance is just suffering, then I suppose the it is glamorous to burn out rather than fade away. But if you figure out how to enjoy your time here, then it isn't so bad and you want to stay awhile. I've spent a little time on either side of the fence, but I totally agree with you Lowell. I'm hoping to be here for a while.

[archenemy]

Well said.

 

I don't know what other people are experiencing as they are aging, but I certainly feel like my life is changing for the better as I get older.

I find that much of what is inconsequential is falling away; that which I value is becoming more concentrated; the rough edges are getting softened a bit, and life overall is more enjoyable.

I wouldn't go back to my youth for all the money in the world.

And I enjoy watching my friends and loved ones (and even myself) grow into the people we are meant to become. It is a true pleasure.

 

Lowell, I am sorry for your losses; and I am happy for what you are gaining.

[TeleRoss]

quality not quantity

and the wonderful thing about life is that for each of us the measure of quality is different. For some of us living a life of quality involves risks that come with the potential to have a limited quantity of life.

However, for me anyway, to deny myself the things that give my life its quality would be unacceptable.

[Ireneo_Funes]

mvs, I know you posted it a while ago, but thanks for sharing that story.

[Dechristo]

If you knew you would die climbing, would you continue to climb? Would living your passion be worth the cost of dying prematurely?

This question is worthy if only to prompt debate, but, the fact of the matter is no one will be confronted by this prophetic voice. For although climbing will be involved in the deaths of some who read this thread, none of us can have certainty.

 

Would living your passion be worth the cost...

It seems it boils down to acceptable death based on personal bounds of "Good" and "Bad" categorization. For some, it is more acceptable if a climber dies while involved in an activity that supports his family directly than while climbing. For me, there is no distinction. All activities (Good or Bad) of the climber with family is a facet of who they are. It is a personal choice to be made by that person only whether to climb. Congratulations or condemnations of others' activities are extraneous impingements to another's life.

 

The maintenance of ethical bounds of unacceptability is self-imposed acceptable bondage. For me, the enjoyment of life requires the acceptance of all that comes my way without getting stuck (for long) in the quagmires of judgment of acceptability.

 

While you can, take deep breaths, enjoy life.

[Stonehead]

Here's a couple of--what are they called?--uh, platitudes:

 

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,

but by the moments that take our breath away."

 

"The risk takers might not live long, but the cautious never live at all."

 

They sound totally great but they're kinda like political slogans. You just can't condense someone's life or someone's ambition into a compact statement. It does put the heroic spin on life but, really, we're complex individuals with various, often competing, motives and drives.

 

I suppose the question is whether you see the totality of your being as 'climber' or whether your life consists of many facets with 'climber' being a compartment of your being.

 

It is about the sensual, I mean, the feeling and emotional part of life and we often want to elevate the experience into something spiritual or sublime. See Abraham Maslow's work on 'peak experiences'.

 

This may sound wacky but are you familiar with the writings of Joseph Campbell? He talks of the seven chakras in the body that are positioned from the base of the spine proceeding up to the crown of the head. The first three chakras in the lower body are mirrored by their higher counterparts, chakras 5-7 that are psychologically present in the upper body. Anyway, I see climbing as a very physical, often suffering, type of activity but ultimately satisfying in a way because the suffering is sublimated into a higher experience. And yeah, this is sorta 19th century but in Nietzsche's words--self-overcoming. Because really, it's all about getting out of your little world of ego indulgence and bursting out into a sense of a greater identity, a dissolving of the boundaries, as it were...

 

And damn, if climbing doesn't do it! The mystics of old knew this. Isn't it paradoxical how something as base as physical exhaustion can lead to the sublime experience of 'opening up' to the world? The task it seems is to hold onto this experience so that (as Zarathustra did) you bring it back to the everyday world of the lowlands. In other words, to transform your life and transform the 'world' in the process.

 

"If you want to change the world, change the world inside yourself."

--Jello Biafra

[knotzen]

If you knew you would die climbing, would you continue to climb? Would living your passion be worth the cost of dying prematurely?

This question is worthy if only to prompt debate, but, the fact of the matter is no one will be confronted by this prophetic voice. For although climbing will be involved in the deaths of some who read this thread, none of us can have certainty.

 

Would living your passion be worth the cost...

It seems it boils down to acceptable death based on personal bounds of "Good" and "Bad" categorization. For some, it is more acceptable if a climber dies while involved in an activity that supports his family directly than while climbing. For me, there is no distinction. All activities (Good or Bad) of the climber with family is a facet of who they are. It is a personal choice to be made by that person only whether to climb. Congratulations or condemnations of others' activities are extraneous impingements to another's life.

Obviously the question is hypothetical. It was my small brain's way of conceptualizing potential risk in a way to talk about it. I was not condemning or "congratulating" anyone's choice. Didn't I specifically state that?

[sk]

This may sound wacky but are you familiar with the writings of Joseph Campbell? He talks of the seven chakras in the body that are positioned from the base of the spine proceeding up to the crown of the head. The first three chakras in the lower body are mirrored by their higher counterparts, chakras 5-7 that are psychologically present in the upper body. Anyway, I see climbing as a very physical, often suffering, type of activity but ultimately satisfying in a way because the suffering is sublimated into a higher experience. And yeah, this is sorta 19th century but in Nietzsche's words--self-overcoming. Because really, it's all about getting out of your little world of ego indulgence and bursting out into a sense of a greater identity, a dissolving of the boundaries, as it were...

 

And damn, if climbing doesn't do it! The mystics of old knew this. Isn't it paradoxical how something as base as physical exhaustion can lead to the sublime experience of 'opening up' to the world? The task it seems is to hold onto this experience so that (as Zarathustra did) you bring it back to the everyday world of the lowlands. In other words, to transform your life and transform the 'world' in the process.

 

"If you want to change the world, change the world inside yourself."

--Jello Biafra

 

one of the reasons i love to climb is that it takes away all the cluttery thoughts in my head. it is like a meditation in that if you are climbing as hard as you can you don't have brain space for anything other than what you are doing. learning how to climb and striving to get better changed my life in so many ways and helped me become more the person i want to be. okay i have more. I am better at being in the now. not all the time, but some times it is akin to some kind of spiritual journy. you learn unexpected things when you are out in nature. not about nature but about yourself. about what you are capable of. learning the level of risk i am willing to take has made me over all a more confident person. at home, at work with friends. climbing is not this to everyone. but i am affected.

Edited November 26, 2005 by Muffy_The_Wanker_Sprayer

[Norman_Clyde]

Congratulations or condemnations of others' activities are extraneous impingements to another's life.

With all due respect, I call BS on this statement. If the words of congratulation or condemnation are from someone connected to you, then you should not casually dismiss them. No person is an island. If one of us dies climbing, we are all the less for it.

If a stranger calls you a fool, or selfish, no matter. You don't owe that person anything, and your death won't really affect him. But if someone close to you tells you they are afraid, you ought to at least hear them out. They are telling you that they appreciate your presence on Earth. Then climb, by all means, keep climbing. It's a special way to honor the transient fire of life. But I hope no one on this forum thinks that if they died climbing, no one would mourn their loss; I hope no one would dismiss that loss as not worthy of their attention.

[archenemy]

Congratulations or condemnations of others' activities are extraneous impingements to another's life.

With all due respect, I call BS on this statement. If the words of congratulation or condemnation are from someone connected to you, then you should not casually dismiss them. No person is an island. If one of us dies climbing, we are all the less for it.

With all due respect, I disagree with this statement. I do not feel less as a result of a climber's death. Even in the hypothetical, that death produces thought, discourse, and introspection that makes us all that much more. It might even be considered one more gift that the dead share with us.

[hubris]

MVS-Thanks for sharing your story. Made me think. Hope your partner (and You) heal quick.

[Stonehead]

Congratulations or condemnations of others' activities are extraneous impingements to another's life.

With all due respect, I call BS on this statement. If the words of congratulation or condemnation are from someone connected to you, then you should not casually dismiss them. No person is an island. If one of us dies climbing, we are all the less for it.

With all due respect, I disagree with this statement. I do not feel less as a result of a climber's death. Even in the hypothetical, that death produces thought, discourse, and introspection that makes us all that much more. It might even be considered one more gift that the dead share with us.

 

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

--Hermann Hesse

 

And yesterday I saw you standing by the river,

And weren't those tears that filled your eyes?

And all the fish that lay in dirty water dying,

Had they got you hypnotized?

 

 

And yesterday I saw you kissing tiny flowers,

But all that lives is born to die.

And so I say to you that nothing really matters,

And all you do is stand and cry.

--That's the Way, Page/Plant

 

I don't believe I read anyone who expressed the sentiment of a nihilist. Differences of opinion, yes, concerning the meaning of death upon the living.