Are You Living It?

The miles rolled by more easily than expected (no doubt encouraged by a double mocha and an uncontrollable urge to just get the hell OUT of Durango) and early evening saw the silver Tacoma pulling in to the parking lot of the American Alpine Club Museum in Golden. Ed Webster was presenting a slide show that primarily centered on his epic desert sandstone first ascents.  Though I only caught the tail end of the show, it was enough to steal a laugh or two from a seemingly wonderful man and marvel at the courage that some of his early climbs must have required. I felt like a well-versed tourist; having spent a solid decade knocking off many of the classic climbs that litter Colorado and Utah, I knew of the people and places that the prolific Mr. Webster ticked off. That climbing has not been a significant part of my life for the better part of 6 years contributed to the dissonance, but it also sent strange pulses of inspiration running up my spine and into the tiny 1-bedroom rental in my frontal lobe that dictates nostalgia. There was a certain luxury that identifying myself as a climber, a true adventurer, a hardman if you will, had once afforded. It used to flip a switch that relegated all of life’s other trivialities to a recycling bin conveniently located next to the afore-mentioned cerebral flophouse. Contrasted with the epic beauty of sandstone and granite walls, the impending doom and excitement of lightning storms and rockfall, the smell of carbon and dust that permeates sunburnt skin and strangely cleanses the soul, the minutiae of “real” life lose there significance.

Steve and I woke up early this morning, packed the truck with climbing gear and headed towards Boulder’s Flatirons. When I lived here in 2001 I was a different man, climbing hard routes with the honed technical skills of someone that loved and studied the sport. This time around, I was a bit nervous. My notoriously inconsistent sense of direction (think “beached whale,” as in “Honey, how’d that large, elegant, and highly intelligent cetacean get ALL the way up on that sand dune?”) managed to get us to the base of the climb with no hiccups. Steve led the first pitch, along with all of the others, placing minimal gear as the climb dictated. Climbing here several years ago, I had simul-climbed and soloed this exact route, but the awkward guy (me) following the fearless mountain guide (Steve) up the route this time was having none of that. In the end, the climbing was easy but fun, and we reached the top of the fluorescent-green-lichen-speckled red granite monument a couple of hours later and rappelled down in howling winds. As a side note, the rappel was a bit of a joke, and my usually calm demeanor went south (with no one to witness, thank god) as I forgot how to use the particularly unique belay device that Steve had bestowed upon me. I could have asked for directions, but screaming at Steve in 40 mile an hour gusts while he wondered what the hell was taking me so long 99 feet above him yielded no results. I finally pieced together the functional components of the ATC from Reverso-land, reassured myself that the fall wouldn’t hurt, that it in fact would kill me upon impact, and swung over the edge. Next stop, salsa dancing and Margaritas!