It’s a clear, dry, peaceful and sunny morning in the Red River Gorge. I woke up before dawn again, as I always seem to do these days. At least this morning, my dog’s ears weren’t covered with frost, as they were yesterday, meaning that temps will probably be more favorable for my hands today than they were yesterday – though yesterday I did manage to stay warm enough to take the plunge from the top of Madness yet again, after four days off. That marks the third time I’ve taken this gigantic whipper. Crikey.
I actually think it’s funny, to climb so far and try so hard and get dumped on such a huge winger multiple days in a row. This experience perfectly illustrates the ludicrous nature of my lifelong passion – I love to climb arbitrary lines of rock features, stopping to clip my safety rope into specially made devices secured to expansion bolts that somebody put in the rock so I could do this. On Madness, I climb all the way up to big resting places, and then I hang out there breathing and visualizing what’s to come, trying to maintain my focus and predict when the resting should stop and the climbing should start. And I don’t put my rope into the final two of the draws because the end of this route pushes me hard enough that even pausing to pull my rope up to clip wastes energy. And so my penalty for failure is a gigantic free fall, sailing downward through the air from more than a hundred feet up, like having a giant trapdoor open up under my feet every time I can’t close my hand around that last hold. Ridiculous.
How utterly inane; it’s why the kind of climbing I do (sport climbing) is so hard to explain to the uninitiated, that great big world of normal people out there who participate in or watch more mainstream sports. People easily grasp the idea of climbing mountains. Who amongst us sport climbers hasn’t had the question put to us on numerous occasions, “You gonna climb Everest?” because that’s what most regular folks envision as being a climber’s top dream. The concept of deliberately climbing up random lines of rock features, features that are sometimes reinforced (Madness has a few of these) so they don’t break off, just because it’s hard to do and feels really cool escapes them, as do all the rules that go along with this practice – such as, you have to lead it for it to count, because you have to be willing to endure the consequence of failing being a small or big fall without a rope above you. Just because we’re human and have a built-in instinct to avoid free falling from high places, this adds to the challenge, even if it doesn’t much increase the danger or risk level in any true way on most sport climbs. And I agree with this rule – leading makes sport climbing more fun and more challenging for me, for sure. The threat of the trapdoor opening up under my feet makes me try harder than I would if it weren’t there. (I also hate the tangle of the top rope, how it interferes with moves and all that.)
Working a climb can be an awesome personal journey every time, even if it’s senseless in so many ways. All sports really are silly and absurd; humans play games for fun, and to forget this is to forget the whole point. Despite all our disagreeable qualities (of which ironically we all certainly couldn’t agree as to which ones actually are disagreeable, if that makes any sense), as a species we do have a solid and sound appreciation for crafting challenging games that engage and push our beings’ potential. Climbing is an exceptionally cool one to all of us who’ve fallen into it through whatever path, because it requires a coming together of the mental, physical and emotional parts of a person for an in-the-moment experience, no matter what kind of climbing a particular individual engages in. There are certainly tons of other sports out there that provide similar whole-being experiences, too, a testament to how much we humans like to have fun and how fun we find it to challenge ourselves.
It’s amusing to me that something so silly and meaningless in and of itself can have so much meaning and dictate so much of what I do and will continue to do for the rest of my life (I hope). I can step back and see how nonsensical it all is and I can laugh at myself for trying so hard and investing so much time and mental, physical and emotional energy into sport climbing and everything that surrounds it. Anyone climbing anything doesn’t mean anything, really, not in the big picture or grand scheme of things. I kind of feel that way about most everything humans do, though. I try to remind myself on a daily basis that 100 years from now, I’ll be long gone, and nobody living then will give the slightest sh#$ about anything I did in my life. It’s the best way to keep it all in perspective.
That being said, to actually have a passion is a wonderful thing for a human being, no matter how preposterous or inconsequential that passion might be or appear. To care about something deeply enough to really invest oneself fully in it is to experience the full range of being human, I believe. Intense emotions, no-holds-barred physical effort, and supreme mental control all come into play in climbing. It’s fun because of this, because it pushes us to experience a heightened sense of our humanity, to live up to our human potential. It’s been likened to a drug because of this, and that likening isn’t entirely inappropriate. Who among us sport climbers hasn’t felt that undeniable rush, that supreme high that comes from clipping the chains on a hard send, and the terrible sense of defeat when our body or our mind fails us in this effort?
To be one of the humans who for whatever reason not of my own doing happened to be lucky enough to have been born into a country that allows its people enough freedom to do as they please with their lives, and to be one of the humans who for whatever reason not of my own doing happened to be lucky enough to be born into a country with citizens who on the whole enjoy access to lavish luxuries when compared to most humans in the world is in my eyes an utterly incredible stroke of luck. We have hot running water, electricity, clothing, astoundingly diverse and abundant foodstuffs to choose from and all sorts of commodities available at our fingertips for our entertainment.
Every one of us who has the privilege and opportunity to go out and climb, to be so selfish in doing exactly what we want when we do go out climbing, should be giving thanks every day we climb for the undeniably incredible circumstances that make it possible for us to play outside on giant natural jungle gyms just for fun. That’s all sport climbing areas are, really – playgrounds for people of all ages. All that should ever happen when people go sport climbing is that every person should have an awesome, fun-filled day, send or fail or flail, just savoring and appreciating the wonderful thing it is to be alive, to be human and to have the freedom and opportunity to participate in such an activity, an activity that’s engaged in for the sole purpose of having fun – which is perhaps one of the qualities of our species that I find the most agreeable, that no matter who we are or what we do or what we think, nearly all of us really do just want to have fun.
~Alli Rainey, prAna Ambassador
UPDATE: The day after writing this blog, Alli Rainey did indeed clip the chains of Madness — without taking the plunge again. Here are some images of the route…
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My personal connection with this climbing area makes me incredibly stoked to teach a climbing clinic, along with prAna ambassador Kevin Wilkinson, at the Rocktoberfest celebration every year, supported by prAna, Petzl, Native Eyewear and Clif Bar. These companies provide support for us and awesome swag for our clinic participants every year, giving back to the community that supports them. As for myself, I know that not only am I helping other climbers improve at rock climbing (which is one of my passions), but that also, I’m helping secure the future of the Red River Gorge climbing. This festival proceeds go to help with land purchases here, making sure that we can continue climbing in this amazing wonderland without having access issues or concerns. It’s an awesome, well-run event put on by climbers who truly care about this area, a showcase of climbing community stewardship and excellence in uniting together to make a difference for the lives of climbers today and yet to come.
