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Short Lessons Said Aloud, Part Two

"Pariah Canyon (Detail)," by Anne Hughes, on the wall at PEMBAbase

Being involved in the outdoors always brings lessons. Sometimes, these lessons are the things that you most need to know in that given moment. (Funny how this works...) This is part two in an as-of-yet unfinished series of the lessons I've learned from a lifetime living outdoors, in no particular order, without a lot of detail:

"Depending on who is reading the menu on a given day, sometimes your name is 'lunch.'" - Humans don't like to be at the bottom of the food chain. We go way out of our way to make sure that it never happens. We put up shark-nets, take out bounties on apex predators, kill black-widows (and even daddy long-legs) on sight. I've seen people cry (tears, literally) for the right to kill a rattlesnake here in Wisconsin that's so rare that it takes biologists three years just to find one. Going into wilderness means accepting that you are going into wildness. I kept saying this to myself as I walked alone down Pariah Canyon, a narrow slot in Southern Utah. Ahead of me somewhere was a small mountain lion. I saw the fresh tracks in the mud, complete with places where it had stopped to look back at me. I was nervous. Every once in awhile, I found pools of bubbling urine, rich with the strong cat-smell. At some point, the canyon widened enough for the cat to hide, and I'm sure she watched me walk right past. (I walked with her for several miles, and for some reason I decided that she was a "she.") It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: It was one of the best trips of my life.

"All the platitudes about summits are true." - There's a million of them, and I haven't found one that isn't true: "There's always a false-summit," "The summit is only half the journey," and "The summit is only the excuse for the journey" are three that seem to me to be the most true. Yep, yep, and yup.

"Accept that you need to go the full distance to make it count." - On the West Buttress route on Denali, there's something so horrible that you have to see it to believe it. Many people doubt it openly as a "guide's tale" until they see it for themselves. Very near the top of the mountain, about an hour or so from the summit, you have to lose over 300' of elevation, and then climb a steep fin for about 500' to reach the true summit. It's called The Football Field. An uncounted number of people have turned back in despair at this point. To them, the summit just seems too far away. The return trip back up that lost 300' is daunting, too. Funny how people give up a goal after having come all of that way, just because it turns out to be a little bit harder than they thought it would be. Don't be like them. If success weren't hard, it would be easy, and everybody would do it.

"If you can see thestrals, nobody else much needs to know." - In Harry Potter’s world, if you can see thestrals it means you’ve seen a death. Yes, I can see them, too. These are the stories I don't tell, although I think about them sometimes. Some people are eager to know all about it, and some people are eager to tell all about it. I’m of the mind that it’s not something that needs to be shared. The bare bones of what happened and why are important, inasmuch as these are the details that teach and protect others. Don't dramatize a death just because you happened to be nearby, or were involved in some capacity. No matter how you tell it, everybody is the hero of their own stories. By definition, the story of somebody's death isn't about you, so just leave it be. And - also - remember the dead by how they were as they were living, not how they were when you saw their bodies, last.

"Watch out for those dang Star People." - While sleeping in a tent in the middle of a glacial moraine in the remotest part of Tibet, did you ever get up to go outside to - well, er - do some business, and then suddenly see a bright light in the sky, only to go right back to your tent to have your tent-mates tell you that you were gone for over three hours? Um, yeah, me neither...

To Be Continued...

Son of the Irish

In May of 2004 I made the decision to move to California to climb. I had good friends in Madison and Menomonee and was overall pretty happy with life in town. I wasn't exactly sure where my life was going or what I wanted to do but I could have seen staying in Madison for a long time.

More and more though I started to think about what it would be like to live near an area like Bishop. I made the choice and decided to go for it. I was going to move to Mammoth Lakes, an hour north of Bishop. Having merely lined up one interview and a possible place to live I loaded up my Mazda MX-3 with everything I could and drove for three days to get there.

As soon as I got to Mammoth I found my pad and made my way down to the Buttermilks. It was beautiful. I couldn't have been happier to have these as my local boulders.

I spent a couple weeks trying to line up a job and a place to live. With a little bit of luck I was able to secure both. I was set.

On one of my first few trips down to the Buttermilks I was working the Cave Problem on Grandpa Peabody and a man and his wife came around the corner. He started to fondle the start holds for Evilution and muttered something about them being greasy. I was, and still am, enthralled with this line. Jason was one of my climbing hero's and I was in awe of the problem. I couldn't believe that this man could do the moves and I went over to him and scoffed something like "You gonna try it?". I tried to be as sarcastic as I could since I saw the man as inferior to the perfect climb.

I was wrong, obviously, and very naive. I learned more about climbing, trying hard and so much else that afternoon climbing with this mystery man. He took me around the Buttermilks showing me classics, must do's, what not to do's and future projects for me. He insisted that I needed a tour and that he was the man to do it. Off we went.

He first showed me the Birthing Experience which is hands down the craziest problem I've ever done. You start by crawling into the start hole and sitting in a giant hueco. He gave me no beta and told me to just "get in it!". After humiliating myself thoroughly he relented and showed me how it was done. I followed after him.

He took me over to the shrimp boulder and really started to teach. He said I should get on Perfectly Shrimp. It was a V6 and therefore out of my league. After I said that he laughed and told me that if I can fall on a V4 I can fall on a V6! I started to get the painful moves and couldn't believe it! I was climbing on a V6!!!!! It was mind blowing.

After a while I was falling at the crux, just slapping at a sharp crimp. It's funny that I can pinpoint such a major point in my climbing to this period. It's exact. He changed how I climbed with two simple pieces of advice.

"Look at the hold and just grab it!" he said. "Don't slap the hold, you gotta grab it with your fingers! And stare at the thing. Don't let it out of your sight. Ever." I came back a couple days later and did just that. It was almost liberating to climb the problem and realize that there should never ever be ceilings with climbing. I wish he had been there to enjoy it with me.

My mystery mentor, his wife and myself continued on to the Buttermilk Stem and we both climbed this amazingly fun problem. He of course did the sit and I did the stand. It was there that I finally learned their names.


Marci and Michael Reardon.

It was months later that he had his massive soloing day in Joshua Tree and his name would become synonymous with free soloing. I truly enjoyed following his exploits and looked up to him in most everything he did. He had strict ethics and I respected that even if I couldn't abide by them.

Without him knowing it he changed how I climbed and how I looked at so much of life. We exchanged a random e-mail here and there for a while until his untimely death. I've still got the last exchange saved and I look at it every now and then. He ended with the phrase below. I wish I had another chance to climb with him.

"See you out there, just remember to never say, "Take!"

All best,

Michael"

I wish nothing but the best for the families of the Jonny Copp, Micah Dash and Wade Johnson. Climb safe everyone.

An Ode to Friday

There's nothing like Friday...

Some Fridays, when Janice is in a particularly chipper mood, she is known to do the "LEKI dance."




But as they say, "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye." Or in today's case, my birthday plant. You see, we were enjoying the helicopter toys Mr. Canoelover gave us, when I sent one a little too hard, a little to close to my poor Aloe vera, slicing off at least four of its leaves. We keep finding pieces scattered around the office... Lesson learned.

Short Lessons Said Aloud, Part One

Outdoors, you learn things sometimes. Even if you can't put these lessons into words, they stick with you. Here are a few of the lessons I've learned by being outdoors, in no particular order, without a lot of detail:

"If a bear walks into your tent, punch it in the nose." - Okay, I didn't actually punch the bear. I hit it with my shoe. (Yep, on the nose...It's a long story.) The bottom line is that if the thing you fear most comes suddenly and uncomfortably close to you, just do what comes naturally, next. It will probably turn out okay.

"If you are struck at by a rattlesnake, be sure to check whether or not you were bitten." - This seems self-evident, but it warrants emphasis. I was struck at by a rattler, and - somehow convinced that my non-existent, cat-like reflexes had saved me - I didn't check for a bite. (Weird, huh?) Fortunately, that snakebite was dry. It could've been bad.

"Just suck it up and do the dirty work." - I've mucked out flooded corrals, climbed into pit latrines with waders on, and been up to my elbows (and deeper) in offal of all sorts. Sometimes you've just got to do it. It never stinks as badly as you thought it would, and - anyway - you get used to it. You'll clean up okay, even if you have to wait awhile.

"Don't be afraid to ask for a cuddle, and a foot massage." - Hypothermic and nearing frostbite, I finally admitted to my climbing partner that I might be in trouble. He dug us in, threw me into the hole, and climbed in next to me. He then warmed my bare feet against his belly. Okay, it was a little awkward, but this might be the only reason why today I still have ten toes like everybody else. Ask for help when you need it.

"Sometimes horrible things happen, so live through them, thankfully." - There's such a sudden shift between a great day climbing, and the worst (or last) day you've ever had. Gravity, water, momentum, and weather are intrinsically violent forces of nature. I've fallen into crevasses, been caught in avalanches, and was somehow leaning one way when leaning another way might've ended badly. (Read: "Cut in half by a giant rock.") Frankly, I'm here now because I have been lucky. I'm thankful for this. Every day, count the blessing of being alive. It could be different.

"Don't sleep in your car in a vacant lot in the red-light district, you might get mugged by prostitutes." Oh, dang, would you look at that we're out of time! Sorry, but this story will have to wait for another day...

This Made Our Day

We get letters, and some are better than others.  This one made our day.  It comes to us from Lindy Speizer-Smith, who recently left LEKI to spend more time with her family.  

We're gonna miss her.

Ecocities: Cities Can Save the Earth

(originally posted at the Urban Wilderness Institute)

Could it be that the root causes of our environmental crises are linked to the biggest things we build - cities?

So argues Richard Register, founder of SF Bay Area's Urban Ecology, author of Ecocities: Building Cities in Balance with Nature, and activist urban planner, writing in a recent Foreign Policy in Focus brief. Our automobile dependence has many direct ecological and social costs, but the most insidious consequence is how cars have reshaped our cities over the last 100 years. Register writes: "Many of us caught in this infrastructure find it extremely difficult to get around in anything but the car. The distances are just too great for bicycles, the densities just too low to allow efficient, affordable transit."

The challenges are significant, but Register has reason for optimism:

We can change our cities. In fact, our cities have already changed. Portland has frequent transit that’s free in the downtown area, and has designated a “urban growth boundary” to limit the expansion of the city’s urban area and preserve nearby farmland and other open spaces and a thriving and very dense new residential and “mixed-use” center in the Pearl District. The rooftops in Tel Aviv, Israel and dozens of Chinese cities sparkle with solar hot-water panels. Copenhagen’s pedestrian street, the Støget, has been growing steadily since 1962 and now stretches more than two miles.

But we can do more, much more, to redesign our cities for pedestrians and bicyclists, taking up very small areas of land in more compact development. Taller buildings with rooftop gardens and solar greenhouses can be linked by pedestrian connections between rooftops and terraces above ground level, making city centers intimately accessible to people on foot. As we add population and ecological architecture in pedestrian/transit centers, we can gradually eliminate the unsustainable suburbs.

We'll need to start rebuilding our cities to incorporate Register's ecocity concepts - pedestrian/transit-oriented infrastructure, replacing sprawl development with nature/agriculture, and integrating renewable energy systems - if we are to meet the triple threat of climate change, biodiversity loss, and dwindling (cheap) fossil fuels. Rethinking our cities as places that both humans and non-human nature can call home is a place to start; cities that are friendly for pedestrians and cyclists are likely to welcome trees, restored streams, and urban wildlife as well.

Read the whole article at Foreign Policy in Focus, and learn more about the ecocity at Ecocity Builders.