I don’t usually play these blog games but Jim Hughes is a volunteer Lay Chaplain at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and he wants to know “5 Surprising Things About Mountain Climbing” so I’m going to take a shot at it.
First, I should state the obvious – I’m just getting started at this whole mountain climbing thing. You’re going to get a newbie’s perspective but after months of research and work I’m at least a somewhat educated newbie. Take all this with a grain of salt – or feel free to offer your own suggestions in the comments. Here are my five observations:
Style Matters
Climbing is often portrayed as an epic struggle where the only goal is reaching the summit. It’s easy enough to understand why a script writer would take this approach, it’s dramatic and universally understood, but it often obscures an incredibly complex sport and community.
Alpine, ice, and rock climbing (there are others such as bouldering) have their own unique approaches to gaining altitude. A technique appropriate for one style might be the worst possible approach in another. And like any constantly evolving sport there will also be disagreement, often amongst equally competent climbers, about which approach work best and when it is best used.
Style extends beyond technique and also applies to community established rules of etiquette. Again, these rules may vary from niche to niche or, like the Leave No Trace movement, be widely accepted across multiple climbing styles. Since the sport is extensively self-policed, and because the community is relatively small and tight-knit, gross errors in style and etiquette can have a lasting impact on a climber’s reputation.
A lot of the feedback that I receive from experienced climbers has been positive and tends to revolve around style. They appreciate the fact that I want to be a self-reliant climber, that I want to master the skills needed to move safely in an alpine environment, that I’m training to the limit of my ability, and that I want climb for what they perceive as the right reasons. This is obviously a complex and highly subjective evaluation but this is what climbers subject themselves and their fellow climbers to almost constantly. Ultimately style matters most because it gives us partial but valuable insight into a climber’s personality, competency, and ethical standards. The stakes are high and these factors are weighed heavily.
It’s Harder Than it Looks
First, climbing is physically demanding. It doesn’t matter if you’re attempting a steep 2,000 foot walk-up, a challenging 30 foot boulder, or an 8,000m peak. There are obviously many degrees of difficulty but climbing demands moderate to the most extreme levels of physical fitness. If you choose to seriously pursue climbing then typically you are also choosing to commit yourself to months or years of intense physical training.
“It’s always further than it looks. It’s always taller than it looks. And it’s always harder than it looks.” – The 3 rules of mountaineering.
Climbing will also challenge you intellectually. Becoming a successful climber requires a significant amount of knowledge, skill, and judgment. There are climbing techniques to master, weather conditions to monitor, and many different types of equipment to evaluate and use effectively. Don’t forget survival skills and physiology too!
“The pleasure of risk is in the control needed to ride it with assurance so that what appears dangerous to the outsider is, to the participant, simply a matter of intelligence, skill, intuition, coordination… in a word, experience. Climbing in particular, is a paradoxically intellectual pastime, but with this difference: you have to think with your body. Every move has to be worked out in terms of playing chess with your body. If I make a mistake the consequences are immediate, obvious, embarrassing, and possibly painful. For a brief period I am directly responsible for my actions. In that beautiful, silent, world of mountains, it seems to me worth a little risk.” – A. Alvarez.
Perhaps most significantly, climbing will also challenge you psychologically. Climber’s routinely push themselves to achieve the difficult and seemingly impossible. There is a very delicate balance, one that many climber’s have failed to achieve, between maximum performance and a suicidal commitment to gaining altitude at all costs. Climbers pushing the limit must remain aware and self-critical in the most demanding circumstances imaginable. If they do cross the line, especially in places like the death zone, then only the judgment and intervention of their climbing partners may save them. On top of the personal challenge you’ll may also be tested with difficult group dynamics or leadership challenges if you climb in a team environment.
“Technique and ability alone do not get you to the top; it is the willpower that is the most important. This willpower you cannot buy with money or be given by others..it rises from your heart” – Junko Tabei, first woman to climb Everest.
The ultimate goal of climbing is the navigation of immense physical, intellectual, and psychological challenges under extreme pressure in a manner that ensures success. Success, at least in my book, is chiefly defined by safety. There may be many goals and factors that contribute to your individual evaluation of a climb, and definitions of success, but I think that most of us agree that it only matters if you are still around at the end of the day.
“Getting to the summit is optional, getting down is mandatory” – Ed Viesturs
It Is More Dangerous Than You Think
This might not be surprising considering what you’ve read so far, and recent events, but I’ve only hinted at the possible dangers. Seemingly bottomless, and often hidden, crevasses, tumbling seracs, crumbly rock, huge variations in weather, altitude sickness, avalanches, bad decision making, and countless other factors conspire to make climbing a demanding and unforgiving sport. Climbing risks in popular culture are typically limited to falling and freezing to death. While those are certainly legitimate risks, the full picture is significantly more complicated and it can take years for a climber to master it fully.
“Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous.” – Reinhold Messner
It should also be noted that although additional risk does come with increased altitude the most dangerous climbs are not always the highest. Weather, remoteness, geology, a climber’s ability, and other factors come together in a complex and ever-changing web of risk that may result in your local 4,000m peak being far more dangerous than Mount Everest on any given day. In fact, while Everest may seem to embody all that is dangerous about mountaineering, and is quite dangerous, it is also statistically safer than other mountains such as K2.
It’s Safer Than You Think
I know that it sounds like I’m contradicting myself here but stay with me. It is true that highly skilled and cautious climbers can face injury or death due to factors beyond their control. Freak accidents can and do happen. However, a careful study of mountaineering accidents will reveal some very telling trends. Many accidents can be traced to climbers using poor judgment, using faulty gear (or using it incorrectly), climbing well beyond their abilities, and entering extreme environments unprepared. These mistakes are preventable and within the climber’s control. It may be a bit unrealistic to call climbing “safe” given it’s inherent risks but it can be as safe as you choose to make it.
You Can Do It
Admittedly, I’ve probably made climbing sound like an incredibly difficult undertaking. It is. However, you don’t have to be born at the base of the Rockies or have a perfect set of lungs to have a go at climbing. Mountains are no less demanding but challenges that were once thought to be insurmountable obstacles are being overcome with increasing frequency as the sport advances. There are now climbers with prosthetic limbs – even wheelchair bound climbers. Climbers are reaching the highest peaks in their seventies. Respect for those who love mountains, and who are willing to work hard to overcome apparent obstacles to get there, is shared throughout the climbing community. Commit yourself, connect to the community, and you’ll be surprised how they come together to help you reach your goals. You can climb mountains.
“The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, ‘What is the use of climbing Mount Everest ?’ and my answer must at once be, ‘It is no use’. There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It’s no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for.” – Edward Whymper, Scrambles Amongst the Alps
(Thanks to JockontheRocks, Alan Arnette, and Climbnarc for their feedback as I was preparing this post. The opinions and errors are mine alone.)
