the climber's death

[mvs]

Thanks for words of wisdom about the accident I had a few weeks ago. Just an update that I'm fine and Mat's knee is recovering pretty well (torn acl), it's not for sure yet, but we are hoping for a full recovery of that.

 

This thread is great, I wish I had some unique perspective to add. I can say that in the weeks since then that I feel like I've enjoyed the best parts of climbing as people refer to it (living in the present, "self-overcoming"), but I've also over the years gotten addicted to some kind of praise from other humans for what I did and that motivation subtly changed my judgement and what I valued from the experience. Like, by definition a south face could never be as good as a north face? It reveals a lack of imagination on my part - I felt the sting of recognition when Lowell used that phrase in another context a few pages back. I feel a little wiser, and suspicious of my motives when they involve stuff like "people back home will think that's cool!" To put myself on the psychologist couch, I grew up as the proverbial 98-lb weakling, still can't throw a ball worth a damn, and I got a real ego boost from playing a game with such connotations of strength and adventure. I think of that now as a bad habit I picked up as I gained experience. Live and learn...

 

As for the question, which I never answered: if I knew I would die climbing, and by stopping right now I could avoid that, I would stop. I don't think I would have said that before, I would have said "yeah, but life isn't meant to be lived forever and...to have truly lived is to..." kind of statements. Before, in my inner dream world of climbing, I just saw these amazing vistas, "k2-like" guitar solos and guys crunching up ice slopes in great weather - really cinematic! But now, though I still enjoy that kind of thinking, there is a kernel of black and white thought, where sober-faced people discuss what happened, remnants of families gather in rooms, and brief newspaper articles state both the question and the answer. That part demands the answer "no" - despite the fear of killing a precious part of the self, I would be proud to do it.

[Dru]

As a general policy Descent will attempt to achieve realism in recording the fun and games known as mountaineering. Especially in the manner of obituaries. Have you ever noticed in Ascent that there has never been such a thing as 'bad guy climber wiped out'? Always saccharine tone in commemorating some poor slob who got done in. We will tell it like it is.

 

-Batso Harding

[ivan]

regarding the question:

 

i wanna climb till i'm 90 and can't get out of bed, so to know i would die climbing someday wouldn't much matter, as it's too non-specific. if i new i was gonna die this year b/c of climbing, yeah, i probably wouldn't do too much climbing this year. tell me it's definitely gonna happen sometime over the next 60 years and it's not going to do anything more than make me be anal about safety, so that i don't get whacked while my kids are young.

 

seems to me, it a patton-esque sense, the most honorable way for any alpinist to die is at an advanced age, obligation-less, on a route that was damned sporting

[Cairns]

regarding the question:

 

i wanna climb till i'm 90 and can't get out of bed, so to know i would die climbing someday wouldn't much matter, as it's too non-specific. if i new i was gonna die this year b/c of climbing, yeah, i probably wouldn't do too much climbing this year. tell me it's definitely gonna happen sometime over the next 60 years and it's not going to do anything more than make me be anal about safety, so that i don't get whacked while my kids are young.

 

seems to me, it a patton-esque sense, the most honorable way for any alpinist to die is at an advanced age, obligation-less, on a route that was damned sporting

 

I think I will only worry about honor and embarrassment as long as I'm alive and if I die dishonorably, please have a laugh at my expense.

 

Would I climb if I knew I was going to die doing it? Ivan has an important point: if I could know I was going to die, could I also know when? And could I stop just before the, uh, bad part?

 

I disagree with anyone who compares climbing sastisfactions with stamp-collecting satisfactions. I find that if I get scared on a climb, or, more phlegmatically, experience an apparent risk, I feel good afterwards, sometimes for days. Not just a fuzzy good, either, but acuter thinking and sharper senses.

 

I go with Voytek Kurtyka on this one. Climbing allows you to experience states of mind in which even tragic events seem a necessary and acceptable part of existence. I go with Voytek only partly to impress the Polish co-worker I like. She also read about Jerzy Kukucjka and asked me if I was inspired by him, too, and I told her I was up to the moment he died.

 

I think a short life can be just as good as a long one, though I admire some of the oldies, especially a 103-and-a-half year old at our nursing home. My life is not accomplishment-driven or I might feel differently about longevity. I got all the key things done by age 40. Now I am a parasitic blot on the landscape with no remorse for my selfish and self-destructive behavior.

 

Just kidding, Mom.

[Dechristo]

I think I will only worry about honor and embarrassment as long as I'm alive and if I die dishonorably, please have a laugh at my expense.

Now I am a parasitic blot on the landscape with no remorse for my selfish and self-destructive behavior.

I'm good wit dat... but, if you use "phlegmatic" in that manner again, I'm gonna have to help you with that dishonorable death.

[Dru]

Not just a fuzzy good? ?

[Lowell_Skoog]

I go with Voytek Kurtyka on this one. Climbing allows you to experience states of mind in which even tragic events seem a necessary and acceptable part of existence.

I doubt that I have ever experienced the sort of on-the-edge mental state that Voytek Kurtyka describes. I've read about extreme high-altitude experiences, and the nearest I've come to it was when I was sick with a high fever. I was border-line delirious, but with very sharp senses. It was an interesting mental state, but not something I would deliberately seek out.

 

On the other hand, I think most climbers have experienced "flow." One of the earliest descriptions of this sensation was in the book Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Amazon.com description).

 

Flow is possible whenever you pursue a task in which the challenges are well matched to your skills. If the challenge is too high, you will feel anxiety. If the challenge is too low, you will feel boredom. When challenge matches skill, you may experience "flow," a mental state in which distractions fall away, time may be compressed or expanded, and you feel focus and enjoyment. This experience leads to greater personal complexity and higher skill. (Czikszentmihalyi suggests that this may be evolution's way of making us learning creatures.) So the next time you seek a flow experience, you will typically seek a higher or different challenge. Flow provides positive feedback that leads to personal growth.

 

As Czikszentmihalyi explains, there are an infinite number of ways to experience flow. Climbing is one of them. But there are many, many others. If you choose to keep climbing, you don't have to push your technical level to maintain challenge. Mountain photography, guiding friends, studying nature, and so on, can all enrich the climbing experience--without increasing risk.

 

I read Czikszentmihalyi's book about ten years ago and I still consider it one of the most important books I've ever read. Its message is that there are many ways to be happy and to grow, and climbing is just one of them.

 

"After all, mountaineering is a means to personal growth." --John Roskelley

[JayB]

I've often felt something like "flow" when engaged in something as riskless as fly fishing, particularly when doing so with a dry-fly during a good hatch.

 

I decided to synchronize my outdoor pursuits with my age a few years ago, after concluding that if all went well I'd still be able to fly fish as well as I could in my 20's when I was in my 80's - which is something that I wasn't as confident about when it came to climbing, skiing, etc. Anyhow - the joy I get from fly-fishing alone makes answering the question a no-brainer. If I knew I'd die climbing I'd quit with no regrets, and plenty of gratitude for the time I'd already managed to spend on the rope.

[Cairns]

I think most climbers have experienced "flow." One of the earliest descriptions of this sensation was in the book Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Amazon.com description).

 

"flow," a mental state in which distractions fall away, time may be compressed or expanded, and you feel focus and enjoyment.

 

 

I haven't seen this book, but back in the early 70s Mike Warburton sent me a copy of an essay in the University of Chicago Alumni Magazine called "The Americanization of Rock Climbing" by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly. The article began by saying that getting to a summit was no longer the primary goal for many climbers, and they weren't out to smell the flowers, either. Some climbers were said to be obsessively interested in just the act of climbing.

 

As it turns out, Csikszentmihalyi's main example of climbing obsession was Richard Goldstone, then U of C student and climber at Devil's Lake, Wisconsin. I've asked Goldstone about the article and he had some feeling that it didn't portray the facts particularly well. If you want to ask him about it, you might get hold of him on gunks.com.

 

I remember that in the essay the climber, identified as RG, said he would study a rock face intently for half an hour or so and then ooze up it. How many of you have experienced oozing? And did RG really say ooze?

 

Another example of people who experience 'flow' was surgeons. I've worked in an OR and I would say that more often they experience boredom rather than flow, but adapt to it by exercising their sense of humor.

 

In the essay flow was described as a state in which you are no longer separate from the world around you. You are "in the moment" and the moment is all there is and you don't need to think in the conscious sense because things just happen. Sort of like waking up some mornings, until you remember who you are.

[Lowell_Skoog]

In his book, Czikszentmihalyi cites the writings of Doug Robinson quite a bit. I think he broadened his climbing sources between the early essay and the book.

 

Regarding surgeons and humor, that seems like a good example of modifying the challenge to maintain one's interest. For an expert surgeon, the game is no longer just a mechanical task, but it also includes the interactions of the operating room staff. The activity has grown more complex. Czikszentmihalyi's book describes all sorts of variants on flow:

 

The joys of movement

Yoga and the martial arts

The flow of music

The play of words

Work as flow

The joys of seeing

Sex as flow

Enjoying solitude and other people

Flow and the family

 

The book challenges you to use your imagination to find enjoyment and create meaning in your life. It was published in 1990. If the author were to revise it today, maybe he would include a section on "flow and posting to the Internet."

[archenemy]

Ok, so it turns out I happened to have picked that book up somewhere along the way and had it in my library. I have been reading it since I read your post this morning and it is insightful in many ways. Interestingly, the author discusses risk taking behavior using the framework of a climber (as I think you mentioned in a previous reference). He posits that a climber is not so much addicted to risk; but rather, that he enjoys the sense of excercising control in difficult situations. This is different than enjoying the feeling of being in control. It is not possible to experience a feeling of control unless one is willing to give up the safety of protective routines. By having a doubtful outcome at stake, one is able to influence that outcome.

 

 

 

I agree that an additional section on flow posting would be helpful.

[Dechristo]

The book challenges you to use your imagination to find enjoyment and create meaning in your life.

 

Yep, find flow and find enjoyment. For many, the activities that most often provide the experience of flow are the activities most sought and provide a measure of identity. Hence, the advice, "find something you love and do it for the rest of your life". The enjoyment known when in the flow is akin to the joy and wonder we knew as "fun" when children; it is the nectar of life. It is this experience I cherish most in climbing (and other activities) and makes one (me) feel most alive.

 

Perhaps the question posted by this thread, for some, boils down to: do you fear death more than you love life?

 

As we can't know how or when we will die, are we to cull those activities of flow that carry the highest objective hazard? Should our aim be to die of medical malady rather than physical trauma?

[Cairns]

Should our aim be to die of medical malady rather than physical trauma?

 

For a typical North American the aim should be to not outlast your financial resources. I have a business plan for providing this service but getting permits is proving difficult. Anyway, you could have your choice of medical malady, physical trauma, or phlegmatically.

[Dechristo]

ARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!

[skykilo]

Sorry for the resurrection, but I had to post this. This is from Nabokov's Ada.

 

Here a heckler asked, with the arrogant air of one wanting to see a gentleman's driving license, how did the "Prof" reconcile his refusal to grant the future the status of Time with the fact that it, the future, could hardly be considered nonexistent, since "it possessed at least one future, I mean, feature, involving such an important idea as that of absolute necessity."

 

Throw him out. Who said I shall die?

 

(vengeful, vain Van Veen)

[olyclimber]

There might be prior data that suggests something, or even screams it into you ear....but your life is yours, and yours alone.

[jordop]

Sorry for the resurrection, but I had to post this. This is from Nabokov's Ada.

 

Here a heckler asked, with the arrogant air of one wanting to see a gentleman's driving license, how did the "Prof" reconcile his refusal to grant the future the status of Time with the fact that it, the future, could hardly be considered nonexistent, since "it possessed at least one future, I mean, feature, involving such an important idea as that of absolute necessity."

 

Throw him out. Who said I shall die?

 

(vengeful, vain Van Veen)

 

I see that the cops finally caught up with Humbert Humbert

[dan_forester]

This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favorite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'

[Norman_Clyde]

Here a heckler asked, with the arrogant air of one wanting to see a gentleman's driving license, how did the "Prof" reconcile his refusal to grant the future the status of Time with the fact that it, the future, could hardly be considered nonexistent, since "it possessed at least one future, I mean, feature, involving such an important idea as that of absolute necessity."

 

Throw him out. Who said I shall die?

 

According to modern theoretical physics, the phenomenon of the passage of time is a purely human construct. We are largely trapped by our own perceptions of three spatial dimensions and one time dimension. Two observers moving through space at radically different velocities will actually experience events in a different order from one another. Physics has proven that not only do past, present and future coexist, they differ according to your point of view.

 

Recognizing this "reality" hasn't changed my day to day existence. From a human vantage point, the future remains unknown, which is a good thing.

[archenemy]

Forgetting the past is another good thing.

 

 

 

 

what were we talking about?

[Carp]

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.

 

^This is an interesting idea! Maybe the just has who and when, but not how. Whatever you are doing at the time becomes the method of death. Could that be the root of the Darwin Awards? (ex. Old lady feeding in the park - her time's up - rodents eat lady. Or, you could be climbing at the time.)

 

I don't believe any of that, but it's entertaining. I am aware of the possibility of death while climbing. I accept that, but don't want to die, so I take steps to maximize safety. Life is more important to me than climbing, but climbing also makes life worth living. An interesting paradox. So here's my answer: if "death by climbing" was caused by rope failure and falling to my doom on Bruce's Boulder, I'd give up climbing; however, if it meant something more glorious (say, unexplainable spontaneous body explosion after free soloing the Trango tower)I would continue.

 

Erg. Time for

[markwebster]

This is a fascinating subect. I stumbled across it yesterday and spent my lunch break reading climbers reasons for climbing. I had no idea we had that many well spoken philosophers in our ranks.

I climb because nothing has ever made me feel as good as climbing does. If I understand evolution right, our bodies haven’t changed much since the days when we ran through the jungles chasing tigers.

 

For most of us, there is no real danger in our lives. We are built for dangerous situations (adrenaline gland) and if we don’t get it, we need to find it somewhere. Well, maybe not danger, but at least balls to the walls excitement.

Some people get their thrills on the couch watching sports…not too much danger but I guess it can be exciting. Others get their danger on the freeway dodging through traffic and driving like maniacs.

 

I get my danger on the cliffs. I am as safe as I can be, but I know there is always the possibility I can let my guard down at a rap station or something, and be dead instantly. Perhaps that’s why I love the sport so much. It requires total concentration to stay safe. I can’t think about my crappy job and my so called career. My focus is totally on staying safe, getting in the zone, and feeling the warm glow afterward from conquering my fears…or if we were still in the jungle, a “successful hunt”.

 

As I’ve grown older, most of my friends have quit climbing and I wonder how they can live without the sport. My kids are climbing now, after ignoring it for many years. While I can accept the danger for myself, watching my 21 year old son lead up a dangerous 10a face climb filled me with misgivings.

 

When I told him at the belay that I felt like I had committed child abuse permitting him to lead the climb, he just laughed. Guess he’s got the same adrenaline gland as his dad.

 

If I could see into the future, and knew climbing would kill me, of course I’d quit. But that’s all speculation and I try to deal in reality. I’m trusting that my cautious nature will keep me climbing safely well into my seventies.

 

I have had a handful of friends and acquaintances die in the mountains. Most of them were mountaineering when they died, something I gave up shortly before we had our first kid. There are far fewer variables in rock climbing.

 

I’ve also seen a horrific accident up close and personal (at Smith) and have been near several others. Nothing like a helicopter overhead to dampen your day. They usually seem to be pilot error, and all climbers should regularly read “accidents in north American mountaineering” published by the AAC.

 

I guess I’m sort of rambling here. My wife is home, and I need to pack up for another trip to Smith. It’ll be me, my 18 year old daughter and my wife, heading down to escape from our mundane existence for a while and chase the tiger.

 

Yes, there are dangers, both on the highway and on the cliffs, but I’m not willing to lead a totally safe life. It’s too damn boring. If you see me out climbing, introduce yourself, maybe we can share a rope. I’ll be the old gray haired guy with the 6 foot stick clip and the antique gear.

[Lowell_Skoog]

I'm beginning to sort through my late brother's photo collection, which required me to first clean up my own mess to accommodate his stuff. I came across one of my favorite climbing essays, by Lito Tejada-Flores in the Fall 1990 issue of Summit magazine. On a whim, I looked up Lito on the web and sent him an e-mail asking for permission to reprint the essay on my website. He said yes!

 

So here it is:

 

"Alpinism As Humanism, Second Thoughts on Climbing Games" by Lito Tejada-Flores

 

It's not exactly about the topic of this thread, but it's definitely related. Enjoy...

[catbirdseat]

"Woody Alien"?

[Lowell_Skoog]

Good eye! I already fixed it. (One of the hazards of using an OCR scanner...)