Notes from Peaklessburg

Commentary on being a Suburban Mountaineer.

Hangboards, Climbing Indoors, and Books (Lots of Books)

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

For this summer I promised Natalie that I would not complain so much about the typically miserable Mid-Atlantic heat and humidity. I was doing well until the other day thanks largely to the milder summer temperatures and the above-average rainfall. But this week I am back to swimming during my commute in the warm, muggy air.

So it’s time to go back indoors on the weekends rather than play outside with the kids, and time for me to focus on some indoor projects rather than take a long walk by the river. Thanks to these projects, when I’m focused on them, I don’t have to complain:

Training Board
I’m finally putting my oversized paperweight on the wall. Ahem, that is to say my Metolius hangboard is finally going to get some use. It took a while to have it mounted. Here is the length of my procrastination:

  • December 2007 — Received as a Christmas Present. So excited (Natalie is my witness), I uncharacteristically did nothing (which is genuinely kind of weird for me).
  • June 2008 — Started to put it up, but bigger emergency home repair and remodeling project got in the way. Bigger fish to fry.
  • March 2013 — Moved to new townhome with some easy-access exposed beams and studs. Low hanging fruit? Nope; did zilch.
  • June 2013 — In a burst of enthusiasm, bought new mounting board. (The old one got cut up for other projects.) But when do use the circular saw with a toddler and newborn always nearby?
  • July 2013 — Slowing installing (using the drill when the kids aren’t sleeping and I have a free moment — tricky) and hope to put the hangboard up for use any day now. No, really.

Climbing Library
I’ve been adopting a less is more mantra about everything, particularly about what I pack for trips and my possessions at home. The one significant exception has been my library. I sold a huge portion of it (mostly texts on American history and world events), but none of the climbing-related books. Building a solid climbing library that suits my interests and existing expertise is a major mission for me.

For now, the collection that I have is a hodge-podge of topics from the Adirondacks to the Karakorum. I’d like it to be comprehensive in the areas that interest me most. While Alaska and Patagonia are two places that grip my imagination, occasionally so do other places, like Baffin Island and the Garhwal Himalaya, or whatever interests me from time to time. This means before I can start organizing my collection and acquiring new volumes I have to make some tough decisions about where do I focus my interests. Alaska, certainly, but what’s Tier II and what do I dismiss and set-aside? I’m not rushing to make these choices.

What this is really about is a commitment to a certain topic or set of topics. It will also have a direct bearing on where TSM heads in the coming years.

Interestingly, my committment to my library is solidifying concurrently with a new development, and it might have an effect on some of those choices about Tier II topics…

Indoor Rock
So here in hot, humid, Peaklessburg, where the best outdoor rock climbing is top roping and the highest point is only several-hundred feet above sea level, I’ve been slowly embracing the pleasure of pulling plastic. It’s not just training any more.

Although I look forward to climbing outdoors much more, heading to my local indoor crag is now providing a new perspective on this time in my life. Above all, it’s my favorite way to step away from work and family to regroup and go back to my duties with greater enthusiasm.

It is possible that this new enjoyment may bring some new topics here in the coming months. Ninety percent of TSM will still be about mountaineering and the wilderness experience, but I may inject a new facet about rock and plastic climbing now and then.

Besides, climbing in Peaklessburg is all about climbing what you can. It’s better than not climbing at all.

I appreciate you stopping by for a read once again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following The Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook and Twitter.

Climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.

Everest Distractions, Mooses Tooth and K2 at First Sight

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment
The first image of K2 as taken by Jules Jacot-Guillermod in 1902 and recently purchased in auction by Bob Schelfhout-Aubertijn in 2011.

The first photographic image of K2 as taken by Jules Jacot-Guillermod in 1902 (Bob Schelfhout-Aubertijn / Top of the World Books)

So you’ve heard about the fiasco that pulled Wool Stick (ahem, that’s Ueli Steck, actually), Simone Moro and Jon Griffith off of Everest this past weekend. There was a dispute that turned physical around a protocol that was unique to siege-style climbing, which was in conflict with the freedom of climbing unsupported in alpine style. There was even some early speculation that there than me have theorized that the self-centered Western climbers (in general, who are usually guided clients) haven’t treated the Sherpa and other native assistants with the respect they deserve and that the Sherpa and other assistants are now lashing out, but doesn’t seem to be panning out to be the case.

Still, Chad Kellog through Facebook called the event a “show stopper.” Melissa Arnot — who played a leading role in settling the conflict — was disturbed by the events and had to regroup in order to continue guiding. Garrett Madison, a guide that played a role managing the Sherpas for a commercial expedition, has been attempting to explain both sides of the conflict. But Simone Moro claims Madison’s story was “completely false.”

It’s sad that whatever goes on around Everest is more akin these days to the adventures from the History Channel television show Ice Road Truckers than pure climbing. In pure climbing, it’s about the style and the achievement, but the journey alone might be the achievement. In the TV show, the goal is to go from point A to point B on treacherous terrain to deliver machine parts to a remote Canadian diamond mine, return and collect your reward. The promo calls it “the dash for the cash.” When you’re dashing for reward, what’s the journey worth?

I wish all of the mountains were a place where it’s just the climber and the wild. However, on Everest, its less wild (in the natural sense) because it’s the domain of the commercial guiding companies, and you have to play by their rules, whether you’re on their “expedition” or not. At least that’s how Moro, Steck and Griffith felt, I’m sure.

Mooses Tooth

It’s also a shame that the banter about Steck, Moro, Griffith and the Sherpas on Everest have dominated climbing news; this story from the Alaska Range has been more significant in terms of actual climbing: The Mooses Tooth, which rises like broad daggers on the east side of the Ruth Glacier, saw a lot of activity including the first free ascent by Scott Adamson and Pete Tapley. They also pitched a bivy that Alpinist accurately called “Dr. Suesse-esque”.

Be sure to click those links on the Mooses Tooth climb; they’re well worth your time.

Unpacking

On a gentler note, Natalie and I are unpacked and settling into our new place. It’s nice to see my gear in one pile in the basement. It’s been in an attic-like space, mostly out of site, for too long. My mountaineering library is on shelves and has also been reunited with the rest of my modest collection; its a disjointed grouping and is actually overflowing the bookcase.

Next to the bookcase is my desk set against a blank wall. I’ve been thinking about acquiring some special climbing-inspired art for years. While now may not be the right time financially while paying private school tuition, but I do like to browse and the blank space has been tempting me…

Climbing Art on K2

I would like to own my own mixed-media piece by Renan Ozturk or even a sharp, well-composed photograph by Alexander Buisse, but another piece holds a certain fascination, especially after writing that series on K2’s first photograph.

Do you remember when I talked about my acquaintance with Greg Glade? He was one of the references cited in Alpinist 37 about the first photo of K2 along with Jules Jacot-Guillarmod (the photographer) and Bob Schelfhout Aubertijn (the climbing historian and collector). Greg is the merchant.

Greg’s shop, Top of the World Books, is a unique bookstore located not far from Vermont’s Green Mountains in North America. It specializes in arctic and mountaineering books, both new and collectibles (drool), plus artifacts, historical reproductions, DVDs, and even art in the form of prints and posters.

Bob, the current owner of the Jacot-Guillarmod image of K2, has made a general print and a limited edition high-resolution print available for purchase through Greg’s shop, Top of the World Books.

This image, originally captured on delicate glass plates, was taken in haste. As you can see in the picture at the top of this post, there is some remnant equipment in the foreground on the path up the Baltoro Glacier. This was the first time the 1902 expedition probably saw the mountain. They stopped and gasped. Nothing in Europe compared. At that moment, the climbers, including Aleister Crowley, either were inspired or fearful — maybe a little of each — because they had come fully intending to, at minimum, climb higher than anyone else had ever climbed.

When you know that, you can see it in high res print of the first image of K2. Maybe it says something else to you.

It might not hang on the blank wall where I live now, but maybe at my next home. Maybe you’ll appreciate it even more than me; go check it out.

Thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. Climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.

The Climbing Clueless and Elite

/ Andrew Szalay / 2 Comments

I received a really nice gift from a new acquaintance last week. As a thank you for some support I gave at work and because of our mutual interest in climbing, I received in the mail Jennifer Lowe-Anker’s memoir Forget Me Not about her life with her late husband and legendary alpinist Alex Lowe, loss and falling in love with Conrad Anker. It’s a different kind of climbing book and one I hadn’t read yet. I wanted to and now it’s on my shelf.

One of the aspects about climbing my new acquaintance and I talked about was the elitism in climbing, at least in serious climbing. The conversation was spurred on by Duane Raleigh’s piece in Rock and Ice, “The Big Freaking Deal, Ain’t Bouldering.” While anyone can take anything seriously, I’m really talking about commitment in terms of projects and their scale. Alpinism, really. One common trait about the news of an alpine climbing accomplishment, that we both recognized, is that it leaves non-climbers, even novice climbers and strictly-gym and -crag climbers, a little mystified: The story sounds impressive to them, maybe even inspiring, but they can’t relate.

Usually the mystery is from a lack of background knowledge. There is a lot of information that goes into understanding a climb — particularly why some climbs are more bigger deals than a trade route (think Denali’s West Buttress compared to Hunter’s Moonflower.) That’s unfortunate because so many business anecdotes are about climbing a mountain; most audiences usually don’t have a clue.

Knowledge–The first piece of background knowledge is mainly a matter of geography. If you don’t know where the mountain is (did you really know where the Garhwal Himalaya before reading Rock and Ice?) it’s difficult to trigger thoughts relative to its size and conditions.

Mechanics–Another matter is mechanics: One has to understanding how a climb works, especially multi-pitch climbs. And when climbers say they brought minimum gear and no sleeping bag versus a tent and a haul bag, that indicates many possibilities about the climber’s approach and likely experience. If they went light, they were taking risks by going faster and may have been doomed if hostile weather moved in before the descent was completed. If the team went heavy, they might have been able to wait out bad weather, but they likely moved much slower — possibly as long as a month, and may have returned to basecamp after completing a day’s work of setting the route.

Unknown–Respecting the challenge of heading up a wall without beta that has never been successfully completed, let alone attempted, well, it’s not easily compared to anything in this day and age. Sailing without a map and only using a sextant and a compass might be the best analogy, though sailing is rather specialized too, and I never sailed more than a large lake, so even I don’t know firsthand.

Reward–The most difficult aspect that sets the knowledgeable climber apart from the clueless is the willingness to embrace personal suffering and varying degrees loneliness. I find that with non-climbers, and non-hikers too, the notion of sacrificing comforts is an outrageous idea. Why put yourself through all that? They’ll argue it’s not worth it, though they’ll look at you with a bit of wonder and think you’ve got a screw that’s not loose, but fell out before you started your quest. It’s all about Dukkha, really; the Buddhist idea that suffering is among the first steps to enlightenment. It’s only through the journey, sans comforts, that we can embrace the world around us, let go of convention and see the world differently. It’s a type of religious experience. No wonder it has it’s own word: Alpinism.

Thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. Climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.

What Do You Seek?

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

Maybe the question is not the tiresome why [do we climb],” Kelly Cordes says, “but what do we seek?” –Katie Ives, The Sharp End, Alpinist 41

My favorite commercial from the SuperBowl hit the mark on the climbing experience I want. Oddly, it was a car commercial.

It went like this: A high school kid is dressed in a tux and about to go to the prom solo. He gets a boost of confidence from his dad who lends him his Audi. He barges into the party and passionately kisses the girl, then the football-playing boyfriend decks him. The commercial cuts to the kid driving away with a smirk of satisfaction and a blackeye.

The part I savored wasn’t about what a car can do for me or the rush of adrenaline and excitement of taking a risk and becoming memorable (legendary, no doubt, in this case), but rather the combination of bravery and living in the moment. The high awareness of the moment and the perspective that comes with euphoria and sense of wholeness. It’s when all your bodily effort and your soul touches someplace that feels outside time. Happiness is involved too.

Kelly Cordes’ point about asking what we seek when we climb, rather than more broadly why do we climb is clever means to drill into our ice-core souls. Why has always been a dull bit when I’ve tried to clearly explain things to my family. I’ve felt the need to justify my love for climbing as an activity and an intellectual interest by addressing their values. I thought it was a persuasive approach. I realize now that I was being partly untruthful. I’d say that it helped me serve clients and customers better because I took the time to separate myself from the routine of suburban and urban life. I said it was about therapy. It worked but the answer didn’t really explain it entirely.

My family and friends found the pictures and stories from my trips the most compelling but they still questioned the safety and comfort of the endeavor. I usually just shrugged. I understand more clearly now that to do anything worthwhile, there is always a little bit of effort and it sometimes involves a degree or misery. I’m okay with that and I even apply the principle to a lot of activities in life.

What’s compelling for me — as in the real goal of an wilderness adventure — is to reach that moment of touching someplace metaphysically higher — call it heaven. After a long slog, the satisfaction of the top that opens to an expanse — particularly a wide open space such as the top of a route or a bald summit — is euphoric. I’m not worried or even thinking about due dates, my next errand or the emails or even bills accumulating at home or at work. It’s strictly thoughts of wonder at the place I’m in. Concentration on my balance. Conscious of the weather conditions and the angle of the sun. Blissfully happy.

The perspective is an important one. Because for me, I’ve found wide open space — even a hillside meadow — and the feeling of separation from the daily grind and elevation to a peaceful place nearly outside of time are somehow linked with me. There I have these fleeting moments of wholeness and bliss where the world seems to hold still both physically and in my modern multi-tasking mind. It’s still long enough that what really matters is crystal clear. I can think of numerous examples from coming to a clearing in Shenandoah, to the hillside unkempt lawn at my favorite resort in Vermont.

Unfortunately, wherever or however I come to those pinnacles, I can never hold onto them. A religious leader once told me that this was the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is a temporal state. Alternatively, you can be going through a rough time and still be joyful. Joy has to do with keeping the bigger picture in mind, even if the memory of what’s important gets muddled in the confusion of life.

Interestingly, I just recently realized that I don’t have to climb to achieve that heavenly awareness. It came to me in a meadow at Trapp Family Lodge last September when I was playing with my wife and daughter. The state of mind was the same place I had visited during my most memorable climbs and hikes. Really. Yet, getting to that point took a lot of work: Building relationships, saving for the expense of time off, arranging for work to operate in my absence. The work of getting to that state was akin to sackcloth and ashes or a narrow bivy, low on rations and you dropped your fuel canister.

The temporal state of a happy place is hard to reach consistently. But the quest of boiling everything down to life’s essence is what I work on doing (mostly unsuccessfully) every day. It’s a quest, and I believe that there is no better means of reaching that objective than mountain climbing. I also think alpinism is the ultimate method to stretching one’s abilities and getting what I’m talking about. This may not be the case for everyone, but I suspect most would agree and where we disagree it’s a matter of semantics.

One final thing I want to mention: If you are only reading Climbing or Rock & Ice — which are good publications that I read too — you might not be getting all that you need if you’re into the essence and sharing the actual experience of climbing. You have to read Alpinist too. It helps identify and maybe even look into those soulful moments of being whole almost anytime.

Thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. Climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.

Ten Expeditions and Climbing Full Time

/ Andrew Szalay / 6 Comments

I just got through what seems to be a very dark, long month. There wasn’t any climbing. There wasn’t even hockey until what seemed like too little too late. Natalie and I de-cluttered our home for a pending move, work has been roaring along in high gear for an unusually long time, and I am just getting over a lingering cold and flu. Goodbye, January.

However, January did bring a few good things. As I reported on Facebook and Twitter, some exciting details about climbs planned for later this year were announced, which is nice since most climbers keep their plans to themselves, lest a competing climbing try to bag the route first. Since I mainly enjoy “real” climbing vicariously, this is very important information to have.

Two sets of grants have been announced in the last couple of weeks. First, the American Alpine Club announced the winners of the Lyman Spitzer Cutting Edge grant and on Monday Alpinist, Patagonia, Black Diamond, Mountain Gear and W.L. Gore Associates announced the 2013 Mugs Stump grants earlier.

Together they are helping fund 10 expeditions from Alaska to the Karakorum. Some teams received both grants. Regardless that there are several more grant awards to be disbursed, these 10 alone will be worth checking-in on this spring and summer.

While these grant recipients are likely to add entries into the American Alpine Journal for the permanent record, they aren’t the only climbers living the ideal life in the mountains. Recipients like John Frieh and others work day jobs to support their climbing habit. Others work seasonal jobs to climb the rest of the year. But it seems that there are more climbers today that are making a living around climbing — mainly by guiding.

THE GUIDE LIFE

Outside — who’s website’s stories have recently been getting as compelling as those in the print edition, by the way — published an
Interview with Nat Partridge of Exum Mountain Guides on the guiding life. He lives to rock climb in the summer and ski in the winter and he’s been doing that for years.

Nat says that the ability for people to make a living solely off guiding year-round has taken off in the last 15-20 years. He attributes this to the ability to for guides to obtain credentials, such as those from the American Mountain Guide Association (AMGA), and that there are more people with excess money and leisure time for climbing and skiing while hiring a guide.

I think he’s spot on. I’d just add that the Internet, social media and the accessibility of beta has made the ability to guide in regions on routes they haven’t climbed themselves within reach. Previously, if you didn’t know a region well, it might be foolish to guide as guides were like harbor pilots; they were brought onto a climbing team because of their knowledge of local terrain as much as their trade skills. If they ventured beyond their local hills, they had to have introductions in the region to obtain local knowledge.

Even then, the fact that guides in Washington state are able to guide clients in Alaska and the Andes indicates that guides are hired for things more significant than local knowledge, but also their mountain sense. They have soft-skills that don’t operate from a hard checklist. Their instincts, navigation and climbing problem-solving talents are what makes them valuable. Clearly those that are making a living, like Nat, have the attributes worthy of supporting a career.

THE DIRTBAG LIFE

The traditional way to climb year-round is climbing like a dirtbag. It’s unsustainable. Eventually you grow too poor, too homeless or a combination or too old keep going. The climbing isn’t necessarily the part that wanes. Still, it’s part of the tradition of wandering, whether you’re a hiker or an alpinist.

Take my friend Ryan. Until recently, he worked a Washington, DC job that, like many jobs here, had an end-date. When the his appointment ended, Ryan would have to find a new position at the end of the term. But Ryan doesn’t approach things conventionally; he did something most of us only fantasize about doing.

By the time his commitment was completed, Ryan had downsized his belongings, packed them all up into his backpack boarded a plane for home in where he would start a year-long journey, living in the back of his covered pick-up truck and climbing — starting at the Ouray Ice Festival earlier this month. His only worries are where is the next route, how solid is that anchor, and when does he meet his friends for a drink. That’s a better arrangement than the boys in Yosemite’s Camp 4 had in the 60s and 70s.

Ryan will be doing this through the year. He was still in Ouray, last I checked. He’ll spend a lot of nights in the back of his customized covered-pickup truck and along routes. He’ll be a better climber and have a year to tell stories for years to come.

SUBURBAN LIFE

For me, I wear a necktie and a sport coat to work most of the week. I plan meetings, review budgets, and talk about strategic plans, industry developments and regulatory challenges. I really enjoy it, yet there is part of me that wishes my family would support leaving the city life behind and fully embracing a living that is supported by the climbing life. But I know that I missed that window of opportunity a long time ago and it’s too late to get in my 10-thousand hours to guide for a living. For now, I’ll live vicariously, read vivaciously about climbing history, and I’ll keep sharing what I find.

Well, thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter, because I believe climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.

Looking Ahead: 2013

/ Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

Happy New Year!

I enjoyed getting to know several of you during 2012 and thank you for the great post ideas — some of which I am still working on. Keep the emails and “Likes” on WordPress and Facebook coming, as well as the re-tweets. I’ll keep sharing new stuff that’s worth sharing as often as possible.

The twelve months ahead always hold some exciting potential, no matter when you choose to do a forecast. For 2013, there are a handful of key events and follow and dates to mark. Here is a sampling:

DENALI WINTER ASCENT — The most immediate news will be about whether Lonnie Dupres can become the first solo climber to summit Denali in Calendar winter — during January or at least the first week or so of February. He’s currently waiting for a weather window so he can fly into his base camp and begin his third attempt.

GRANT RECIPIENTS — Tracking the grant announcements from the American Alpine Club. The beneficiaries will be announced in the coming weeks and those climbs will be worth checking in on later in the year. Another grant I am going to check-in on is the SHARE Grant, which is the Seth Holden memorial grant that goes to an explorer setting out for remote Alaska. The SHARE Grant is not limited to mountaineering endeavors.

8,000ers in Winter — Only three 8,000-meter peaks remain unsummitted in winter:

2. K2 (28,250 ft./8,611 m.)

9. Nanga Parbat (26,660 ft./8,125 m.)

12. Broad Peak (26,401 ft./8,047 m.)

Pay attention for word from these peaks for attempts next winter.

NEW BOOKS — Two interesting books are due out this year: 1) Training for Alpine Climbing by co-authors Steve House (a Piolet d’Or winner) and Scott Johnston, which is being published by Falcon Guides, will be out by the end of the year — or said the announcement last summer; and 2) Kelly Cordes — the Patagonia ambassador, AAC Member and margarita master extraordinaire — is working on a book on the Compressor Route on Cerro Torre in Patagonia aout its recent de-bolting controversy. I can’t wait.

MOVING DAY — On a personal note, and one that will have several positive effects including benefitting The Suburban Mountaineer, my family and I will be moving into a larger home in the next couple of months because the condo is too small for the three of us. I just packed up a very heavy box of climbing books that I am not referring to now and put them in storage — a little sad. But in the new place there will be a better library/work space for me and a decent place to finally mount my hangboard.

Have a good year and have a good adventure, or at least support someone else in theirs!

Thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. Climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.