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KlimbIn
climber
Sandstonia
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Apr 19, 2018 - 06:50pm PT
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I am super happy that I can still climb 5.fun!
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Apr 19, 2018 - 06:58pm PT
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Ezra! Re your comment:
Kevin P,
I have always really appreciated your routes,
If people want they can skip the darn bolts, right?
Thank you!
You will be pleased to know that Kevin's Theatre of Shadows route at COR is one of the last 5.7 multipitch routes I climbed, 3 years back.
You will be proud to learn, that while I really enjoyed the route, even I skipped clipping some bolts.
That won't happen again, most likely!
Heidi & Fritz towards the top of Theatre of Shadows.
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kpinwalla2
Social climber
WA
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Apr 19, 2018 - 07:11pm PT
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Last time I climbed Theater of Shadows I also skipped some of the bolts... and thanks Ezra!
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Apr 19, 2018 - 07:33pm PT
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As you age there is attrition. There are fewer people whose physical well being allows them to still climb and fewer yet who can still climb and actually do climb. Possibly one of the reasons is numbers. People attached, as most are, to the number attached to a climb may lose motivation when that number diminishes.
I've been an ambitious climber. Early on I measured my progress in the number attached to the climbs I did....the higher the number, the better climber I was becoming. Later on, I measured my progress by the alpine climbs I did in Alaska, Patagonia, the Himalaya and elsewear. Climbs where other factors were often more important then nebulous numbers to describe their difficulty.
Lately, as I have reached three quarters of a century in age I still find myself motivated to seek out remote areas in the vertical world and puzzel out the secrets guarding remote summits from human access. I have been fortunate to be able to still find these hidden gems and fulfill my lifelong desire to be someplace no one has been before. These climbs are often remote, unseen and far under the radar. The technical difficulty is far removed from what I sought out in my prime but the intent is still the same.
Seek out what truly motivates you and your will to take your somewhat reluctant body into the beautiful and mysterious vertical world will be there. It’s a beautiful world where few live and it is even difficult to visit. Visit with the attitude that your visit is special to you even if it won't be nearly up to the standard to get you on to the pages of a climbing magazine.
Numbers (ratings) are a way to measure yourself against your peers. Climbing for me, and many others, is truly personal...you measure yourself against what YOU are getting for your efforts not for what others think.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Apr 19, 2018 - 09:14pm PT
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but the intent is still the same.
precisely.
The game has always been mine to play. The reason for being of climbing isn't in competition, that is for 'sports'. Sports are things like soccer, baseball, basketball where the reason for being is score keeping against another team.
The intended game you play against yourself, for yourself, but amongst your friends to share it, that is a way of life. The intent hasn't changed in the 30+ years I've been scratching away at it.
Amor fati!
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Apr 20, 2018 - 07:17am PT
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Join the club. 5.6 is scary too...
I was very happy when I graduated from leading Josh 5.4 to Josh 5.7. If you fall on 5.7 it's fairly clean.
I can still third class in the Sierra, though, so I'm a happy camper. It's not about numbers, it's about getting out and about. 20 years from now even if all I can do is get to a lake to fish, I'll be stoked.
I have been fortunate to be able to still find these hidden gems and fulfill my lifelong desire to be someplace no one has been before.
Right on. I don't think I've ever been somewhere no one has ever been before (except maybe in this one cave in SoIll), but certainly been places very few people have been. That's the stoke right there.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 20, 2018 - 09:29am PT
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I define myself, through and through, as a climber.
Sure, I've got other interests: sports car racing, jazz, wine, reading on a diverse array of topics and etc.
But at any given moment, and no doubt, it'll be this way until my last breath, if you ask me what my next step would be, if I could do it, it would be climbing!
Now, just walking carefully up a gentle slope covered with fresh pine needles is climbing to me.
5.7, 5.11, 4th class, it's all the same f*#king day under the sun, know what I mean?
Even though I'm suffering from some sort of disease state which has peeled back my physical activity level to what I would call the bare minimum, I still use diet combined with a steady routine of light strengthening and stretching to keep me at my 145/150 pound fighting weight that I have maintained since my 20s.
This way, if medical science and its collusion with the drug company cartels ever get off of their greedy addiction to increasing corporate profits and hammering people with nasty drugs in the process, and starts actually looking at causal elements in disease states and bringing forth worthwhile treatments, I'll be ready!
It's the people that appeal to the comparative aspects of activity: ratings, scores, completion times, and all those competitive metrics, that most often give up and get fat as they age.
F*#k that!
I do this sh#t, now just the maintenance, which is just a vestige, even the ghost of a climbing life, because I love it, and it's who I am.
.................................
No offense intended to those of us who naturally accrued a few extra pounds.
Clearly, all kinds of life demands intervene in one's fitness regime: kids, family, jobs, and just plain genetics and aging.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Apr 20, 2018 - 11:33am PT
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Possibly one of the reasons is numbers. People attached, as most are, to the number attached to a climb may lose motivation when that number diminishes.
I've been an ambitious climber. Early on I measured my progress in the number attached to the climbs I did.
Sure, I think it is human nature to do that. But once you have done all the reasonably protectable 5.7~5.9s in Yosemite, you either stand in line to do the same handful of routes over and over again, or you push yourself to get on harder routes.
Tuolumne is even worse. There is so much great slab climbing that is under 5.10 but it is super run out and the bolt police would never tolerate more bolts.
Sure, there are places to climb beside Yosemite but the point stands.
And I always found it a little ironic that it is much easier to find 5.11's where a 20' fall is no big deal then it is to find a 5.7 that you can say the same thing about.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Apr 20, 2018 - 12:29pm PT
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But now with a gap of several years I find I hardly think about climbing anymore. It's as if it was something somebody else who did it told me about
Welcome to the club, podner. I ceased about ten years ago and rarely think about it now (81+). Surprising how an activity that holds such powerful meaning for a person can lose its purchase. Largo with his Zen training talks about one's "I" being transient and something of a fabrication; so too is one's climbing "I" apparently.
But for those who cling to it, more power to you!
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Apr 20, 2018 - 12:44pm PT
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Enjoy the moment. Every day climbing is a good day.
Don’t let your brain take your joy away.
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Alexey
climber
San Jose, CA
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Apr 20, 2018 - 03:43pm PT
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keep gear for a while. it is very possible that you be back to climbing
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 20, 2018 - 04:05pm PT
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While I appreciate the dedication and rigor of a long-term singular pursuit in some ways it seems like the wrong way to go about it.
There are many shades of dedication and rigour between making climbing your singular pursuit, or not climbing at all.
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Rudder
Trad climber
Costa Mesa, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 22, 2018 - 02:20pm PT
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I went from 173 pounds to 136.
Can't quit aging but you can diet.
Toker, that is at least half of the problem, at least. haha
If I could go from 195 down to 150 I could probably drop the "iffy" designation. haha
Next is to start repaying the sleep debt I have built up. :O
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Apr 24, 2018 - 09:55am PT
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According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest person to rapell (she mostly does buildings) is a lady from the U.K., who did a building at age 101. She didn't start until she was 85, so maybe you can just rapell off the routes you can't go up any longer.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Apr 24, 2018 - 10:40am PT
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Sure, but who is going to carry me to the top of the route so that I can rap off?
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Apr 24, 2018 - 11:35am PT
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But at any given moment, and no doubt, it'll be this way until my last breath, if you ask me what my next step would be, if I could do it, it would be climbing! Just read that from Tarbuster. All I can say is, right on, brother (and I'm a parent)!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 24, 2018 - 12:35pm PT
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John Gill said:
But for those who cling to it, more power to you! Good one!
For those wanna be, Junior Buddhists out there, hey:
Attachment helps sharpen the edge of my suffering! WTF?
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 24, 2018 - 06:59pm PT
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And just up thread, you wrote:
so maybe you can just rapell off the routes you can't go up any longer
Hey, I think it's in the literature that Fritz Wiessner, in his dotage, realized the best way for him to continue climbing was simply to start at the top and down climb things with a TR!
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Rudder
Trad climber
Costa Mesa, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2019 - 05:26pm PT
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Even 5.6 can provide plenty of excitement... from last Saturday:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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