Why we climb

  

At 17,300 after returning from a summit attempt on Kangchung.  All the elements did not come together for us to reach the summit.

It is often thought we climb mountains because of an adrenaline rush.  I have had someone that knew very little about me say "your an adrenaline junky."  I cannot speak for all climbers, climbing is a very personal experience.  Yes I am sure there are those that love the rush but I  believe there is a more universal reason as to why we put ourselves in a dangerous situation every time we step into the Alpine Arena.  Yes there is the physical movement of pushing the body to its limits, the journey, the intense beauty that stirs the soul, the purity of adventure which gives flight to the spirit. These are given in such an untamed environment.  There is something else I believe most climbers experience.  There is the elusive "living in the moment" that often escapes us in our daily lives but is an integral all important part of every climb.  The environment in the climbing arena demands that we be "in the moment".

Last year before leading a trip around Mt Kailash I was driving home from a training session on Mt Rainier.  The road from Paradise lodge to the valley floor is winding with sharp hair pin turns.  I remember straitening my vehicle and seeing a little squirrel in the center of my lane.  I thought he was going to move but as I approached he froze 10 feet in front of my bumper.  I continued thinking that if he stays put he will be fine.  I centered him between my wheels and thought I was driving over him.  When I looked in my rearview mirror he was smashed.  At some point he had darted under my tire.  I slowed the car, pulled to the side, and ran back to the dead animal.  I cried and cried and gave him a burial at the side of the road.  It reiterated how life is so tenuous.  I knew life was tenuous because I almost died at the age of 40 with a rare disease (read surviving a bone marrow transplant in this blog).  Running over the squirrel had me thinking about the seconds that  possibly separate us from death.  While I was in the parking lot at Paradise a thousand elements had to happen in just the right order for that little squirrel to be under my tire.   The time it took to Load the car, the seconds it took to roll down the window before starting the car, talking with friends in the back seat, the few extra second I took sipping on my water at Camp Muir, saying hello to someone in the parking lot, dropping my keys before opening the car door, and thousands more.  If one of these actions was 2 seconds later or earlier would the squirrel be alive?  It is a question I ponder and have no answers but I believe if I was 2 seconds earlier or later the squirrel would be alive.  

Climbing for me is being aware of the thousands of elements that culminate for us as climbers to reach a summit and the intense focus needed to move through these elements.   Snow conditions, humidity, cloud patterns, where you pitch your tent, condition of the mind, wind, what you ate before summit day, how you adjusted your pack, where you placed your anchor, and even when you left your car or home, and thousands more.  Also understanding that these elements are the same ones that can culminate in our being at the right or wrong place at the right time.  When your in an arena where you understand that if you had left 2 minutes earlier on a day where a huge avalance sliced across your climbing route, and that you would have been dead if you left 2 minutes earlier, makes me very alive in the moments on climbs.  Depending on the grade of the climb there is also the extreme focus it takes to hang on to a ripple in the rock the thickness of a dime with room for 2 fingers while trying to move to another dime size ripple.  I am definitely not thinking about my bills at home or dinner tonight and those moments from hold to hold are all that exist.  Climbing forces you to be in the moments and it seems in these wonderfully fun, scary, physically demanding, mentally draining, really really scary, exciting moments, a lifetime takes place.  Yes a life in just a moment forced upon us by the alpine arena.