Conquest of the Absurd

It was mid January, and I was on the Welch/Dickie Loop, a popular 4 mile hike over the twin summits of Welch and Dickie Mountains. I had just crested Welch, and as I began my climb up to Dickie, I came upon two hikers.

“How’s it going?” I asked. I noticed they were decked out in full-on winter mountaineering regalia. Big packs, plastic boots, gaiters—the whole deal. They were understandably laboring under the weight of those big packs as they tried to surmount a short ledge in the trail.

One of the hikers looked at me. “Are you running?” As he said it, the last word dripped with incredulity. “Yeah,” I shot back. Clearly envisioning my inevitable demise, he asked, “Have you filed a flight plan with someone?”

“My wife knows where I am.” I jumped over their troublesome ledge, and picked up my pace up Dickie’s summit slab, trying to put some quick distance between them and me. I think I heard one turn to the other and say, “He’s crazy.”

Following the mountaineers on Welch and Dickie                                              

The run went quite well. Other than the strange encounter, I had the beautiful trail to myself. I did take a sketchy slip while descending a short ice slab. I planted my left foot and found myself on my butt, sliding the 10 feet down the slab. After that, I made it back to the car without incident. I stopped my watch at 1:05.

As I sat down to take my micro-spikes off my Gore-Tex running shoes, I noticed that I had put the left microspike on upside down, with the spikes pointing up into my shoe, instead of down on the trail. That explained my slip on the ice. Shit, maybe I AM crazy.

My time on Welch/Dickie was far off the fastest known time for the loop (somewhere around 40 minutes by either Pat McElaney or Tim Deroehn, depending on whom you ask). But winter running isn’t really about running for time. It can’t be.

It’s really all about the conditions. One day, you might find a packed out sidewalk that allows glorious 9 minute miles, while another day, that trail might be covered in powder that only yields to a 17 minute/mile death march. Just the other day, I ran a standard loop at Smarts Brook. There was a light dusting on the trail. Nothing serious.

It snowed that night, and the next day, I decided to run the loop again. Luckily, someone with snowshoes had broken the trail. The woods sparkled with new powder. Tiny snow particles caught the morning light and looked to dance in the cold air. I quickly ran up the trail, my breathing only slightly disrupting the stillness of the winter morning. This is why I run trails in the winter, I thought, this is… just…perfect…

And then the snowshoer turned around. The nicely broken trail turned into 4 inches of powder covered by an ice crust. A horrendous, terrible, evil ice crust. A painful ice crust. With every stride, by foot crashed through the crust, descend through the powder, and the natural pronation of my ankle rolled my anklebone right into the razor edge of the crust. Over and over and over. During the last two miles back to the car, the crust bruised and cut into my anklebones, so much so, that I limped most of the next day.

Breaking trail

I returned a week later, this time armed with cardboard I had taped over my now-healed anklebones. I found a packed out trail, and had no need for the cardboard. In fact, the cardboard wore a hole into the top of my foot where it rubbed. I might be the only runner I know who has gotten a blister from poorly fitting cardboard.

Winter running is absurd, and this absurdity can be refreshing. After having run for 25 years, when I go out on the road, I know what to expect. I can plan on 8ish minute miles. I can compare my run to runs from last year, and to runs from when I was much younger and much faster. I’m always comparing to some previous, fitter, version of myself.

When I go out on a winter trail run, I have no idea what to expect. Slogging up unstable snow to the summit? Cool! Bounding down stable Styrofoam snow on the way down? Even better! Straining not to walk in places where in the summer, I’d be casually running? Awesome! Running the trails in the winter is the only time when I’ve been proud of 15 minute miles.

I think my body likes that. There’s really no such thing as repetitive motion on the trails, especially when they’re snow covered. Each stride is completely unique—kind of like a snowflake. There’s slipping, skidding, tripping, and sometimes falling. It’s all part of the experience. But after a few runs through the snow, I notice my hips, knees, ankles, and feet getting stronger. And this strength has to help in the summer when the trails dry out and the running gets easier.

Is winter trail and mountain running for everyone? Certainly not. But that’s one of the things I like about it. The trails are relatively empty except for snowshoers (whom you love for breaking trail) and the random mountaineer types whose minds are blown by your supreme awesomeness. Or craziness.

Beautiful New Hampshire mountains

 

Running and Rock Climbing

I love running. I love getting out on the road early in the morning, with nothing but my shorts and my shoes. There are days when the sun’s just coming up over the hills, and the air is brisk, and the unending road stretches out in front of me. I glide across the miles. Effortless motion. Next, I’m back at home, basking in the endorphin rush from my 6-mile morning run. I bust into the house, just as my wife is packing to go climbing. We head out to Rumney, our local crag, and after a warm-up, I hop on my current project. My legs feel dead. My core displays the characteristics of an overcooked noodle. I slip off a relatively easy move. I quietly curse under my breath. What was I thinking, going for a run before a climbing day? I hate running.

Despite my background as a competitive track and cross-country athlete, there was a time when I swore off running. I removed from my life anything that didn’t directly correspond to my climbing.  This included, but was not limited to: running, weight lifting, gainful employment, personal hygiene. If it didn’t directly help me get to the chains on my most recent project, out the window it went. My singular devotion produced some memorable successes, and equally memorable failures. But, eventually, I decided that I needed another pursuit in my life to balance my climbing. That’s it, I told myself, I need balance in my life. Never mind that tendons in my 30+ year old body had begun to panic with increasing frequency every time I grabbed a crimper. Maybe it wasn’t balance that I began to seek. Maybe I needed an outlet.

Yet, everything is connected. You can’t have a yin without a yang. You can’t have a day without a night, or a Biggie without a Tupac. I have running and climbing, for better or for worse. Could it be, though, that running actually helps my climbing? Despite my failure on my project after my long run, could there be some long-term gain that I’m missing? I contacted Will Gadd, mixed and alpine climber extraordinaire, to ask him if running has helped his climbing. “Running likely hurts my absolute technical performance because it takes time away from climbing,” he said. However, Gadd made clear to me that he still loves to run: “I like running and I enjoy climbing too. I’ll do some of both. I don’t need to justify the utility of one helping the other at all.”

I forged ahead anyway, searching for someone to validate my suspicion that by running, I was becoming a better climber. I don’t need a lot of validation in my life; I just need someone, anyone, to tell me that what I’m doing is correct. OK, maybe I do need validation. If anyone would espouse the benefits of running as training for climbing, I figured it would be Jon Sinclair. Sinclair is a former U.S. National record holder in the 5K and current U.S. record holder in the 12K. He told me “Running and climbing have been a part of my life since the early 1980’s.” When I asked him his thoughts about how running might help climbing, he said, “How running can be used to achieve climbing goals is going to be as varied as the wide array of climbers reading your article.” He has a point. How am I to write an article about how running helps climbing, when climbing is such a diverse and specialized sport? What’s good for the alpine climber might not be good for the boulderer.

Sinclair went on to say, “The better your aerobic system, the better you are as a human machine and the more effective you will be at ANY activity.” That’s right. I am a machine. That’s all the validation I needed. At Rumney the other day, I announced that running makes me a better machine. Eyes rolled. Then, I proceeded to fall off my project. I can’t tell for sure, but I think I heard the faint words, “rusty machine” float up to me from the crowd of onlookers.  But, Sinclair’s mention of aerobic system really made sense to me. Distance running, especially long, slow distance, increases one’s aerobic fitness.

“Within cardio training, it’s important to understand the difference between aerobic and anaerobic,” says Matt McCormick. McCormick is a former high school physical education teacher, climbing coach, and the most bad-ass all around climber I actually know. As long as the intensity of the physical activity is relatively low, the aerobic system fuels the muscles using both carbohydrates and fat. This fuel keeps ahead of whatever lactic acid is produced as waste. When the intensity of activity increases, so does lactic acid output, so much so that the aerobic system cannot keep fueling the muscles. At this point, the anaerobic system takes over, and increased lactic acid output is the most obvious bi-product. According to McCormick, “each athlete has different thresholds at which their muscles become too impaired by lactic acid to perform.”

Most targeted training plans for climbing focus on the anaerobic threshold of the muscles in the forearms. Anyone who has experienced the lactic acid burn in his forearms can attest to the importance of training the anaerobic system. But this isn’t the whole story. According to McCormick, “climbing is unique in that when pushing yourself, you are rarely climbing in only an aerobic state or an anaerobic state.” The start of a climb might hold a difficult boulder problem. As you employ a burst of effort to crush the rad moves and impress your friends, you are engaging your anaerobic system.  Once you get to the midpoint rest, as you begin chanting sweet-nothings to yourself, your body slowly returns to the aerobic state as the lactic acid is flushed from your forearms. The dreadful power-endurance upper section of your project might require you to switch between the anaerobic and aerobic systems several times as you bust sick move after sick move.

Mike Anderson, author of the popular The Making of a Rockprodigy training program, believes that “general aerobic exercise of many forms can be helpful for maintaining an athletic physique, which has tremendous benefits for hard rock climbing.” However, he goes on to say that despite the training benefits of greater cardiovascular endurance, “these systems are almost never pushed anywhere near their limit in rock climbing, so the direct benefits to rock climbing are limited.” He has a good point. Excluding those dirtbags who are living on the road and climbing full time (And to those dirtbags: I don’t really care what you do, because my jealousy overpowers my concern for your climbing), we all have a finite amount of time to train. Why not use our precious time to undertake targeted, specific training for climbing?

McCormick believes that sport-specific training is important, but that there is often too much specialization in sports: “Without proper general conditioning, athletes may not respond as well to sport-specific training and often will get injured due to imbalances.” Strengthening non-climbing muscles in the legs and the core might provide the climber more durability and general well being. McCormick says, “Personally, I’ve come to believe that the stronger overall the athlete is, the better he will perform and the less he will get injured.”

So, where does that leave us? Can running help my climbing? Will Gadd states, “I think you’d be leading people down the wrong path to say that running actually helped compared to doing more climbing.” Maybe “help” can be quantified in a different way.  Stronger legs attained through running certainly help on the approach, though I have to admit, I often use my running as an excuse to get my wife to carry the rope. But Kayte, my legs are too tired from yesterday’s run. When I’ve been running a lot, I feel more in tuned with my breathing, and I can call on my breathing to calm me down on a difficult climb or a heady stretch of rock. Plus, after running, I just feel more active, more fit, more like a machine. Mike Anderson believes that, “an ancillary benefit of running is the mental toughness it fosters.” I can tell you one thing: don’t mess with me after a run.

But these benefits are anecdotal. It’s a hard sell to explain to a climber that a regimented running schedule will help his climbing. It just doesn’t pass the common sense test. Yet, ask around at the crags, and you’re bound to find a running devotee. Tim Deroehn believes that running contributed directly to his increased climbing ability. “Running changed climbing for me. Once I started running, I went from struggling on 5.12 to climbing solidly on 5.13. My weight went down and my ability to recover mid-route went way up.” Years ago, Jim Shimberg sent his first 5.12c after training explicitly for a 15K race. “The very next week, I crushed the route. Did frikin’ laps on it. I think my track workouts and intervals to run a fast 15K did it for me.”

For Sinclair, running is central to his life. He feels that “Running wakes me up and I always feel better during the day if I do something aerobic.” However, he stresses that he’s careful to balance his climbing needs and running needs. “If I’m going to try to send a hard gym problem, I go out for a short jog in the morning. If I’m not climbing for a day or two, I can get away with doing a longer run, but I’m always careful to manage my energy needs around my climbing.” Good advice. I learned firsthand the perils of doing a long run and then hoping for a sendathon in the afternoon.

Can running make you a better climber? Not directly, no. Yet running can add something else to your life. Call it balance. Call it perspective. Or, don’t call it anything, and run just because you want to, just because you love it. Maybe I don’t need others to tell me that running helps my climbing. I climb better when I’m happy, and running makes me happy. Could that be enough reason? While he was getting ready to belay me at Rumney, I asked Tom Armstrong why he runs. His response? “Because it justifies the beer.”

Pause for a Whisper

It’s funny how memories come back. One minute you’re strolling out to the compost bin with a full bucket in your hand, and the next minute, you’re somewhere else entirely. As I walked across the lawn, with my poodle Topher following dutifully behind me, I looked up at our house. The light in the office window was on, because my wife was working at her computer. Otherwise, the house was dark, and the fading light outside made the house look somehow small, insignificant, against the darkening sky.

I was walking to the compost bin, and in my head, I heard the words “Pause for a Whisper.” Pause for a Whisper. I hadn’t thought about those words in at least ten years. The story of those four words, like the reality of those four words, had long since receded in the distance, like train cars following the engine past the vanishing point of the two parallel tracks. That train had long left, and the stories following the train had left as well. As I walked across the lawn in fading twilight, though, those words came back. Pause for a Whisper.

What was I, eighteen? I must have been. I was young enough to be filled with a strange cocktail of angst and optimism, of recklessness and hopefulness. James and I were ice climbing in Orient Bay. We had done the classic, fat, safe climb called Tempest, and we were lingering at the base. James was smoking a cigarette. We had climbed Tempest easily, and we were looking for more challenge. I spotted a line to the left, and after paging through the guidebook, we determined that the line was called Pause for a Whisper. The ice looked thick at the bottom, but it got thinner at the top. Or did it? There was enough snow on the ledges that the whole face looked white and nondescript. James suggested we climb it and he started racking up. “Why don’t we leave the ropes here?” I asked. From James’s wry smile, I could see that he agreed.

James and I had driven up to Orient Bay while we were on break from college. It must have been winter break. James had just broken up with his long-term girlfriend, and she had given the ring back. I enjoyed reminding him that he had gotten disengaged. James laughed halfheartedly at the first few times I worked it into the conversation. By the time we crossed into Canada, he wasn’t laughing anymore. He seemed only to stare at the photo of his ex-girlfriend that he had taped to the dashboard.

I didn’t happen to be experiencing any relationship upheaval, at least not any that I remember. I do remember that I was just starting to get good at climbing. I had spent a lot of time toiling on the lesser climbs, but I sensed a renewed power in my climbing. I began to see new horizons, and those vistas led to the realm of 5.13 and 5.14. But I wasn’t there yet, and looking back now, my belief in myself vastly outweighed my actual ability. I climbed on credit, realizing that if I didn’t have the strength at the base, I would eventually repay myself by the time I reached the top. I was filled with bravado, which I took to be confidence, but which I now see as youthful, naïve, insufferable hubris.

James and I approached the climb, leaving the ropes behind. I set up first, and my swings were just a bit harder, my kicks a bit more pronounced. I moved with rhythm up the ice, but the music started playing faster and faster, like a blue grass band reaching a crescendo. But, the ice was thick, the sky was blue, and I was young. So, so young, and I had no compost, or poodle, or wife. I had Pause for a Whisper, and James following below.

My pick hit rock. Doink. I swung again. The pick sliced through the snow like it was air. It hit rock again. Doink. I tried a different spot. Doink. Doink. Doink. Shit.

“It’s really thin up here,” I yelled back to James. James said nothing, but stared at me with a look of concern.

“I’m going to brush as much snow off as possible.” Still no reply from below. With my crampons at the top of the thick ice, and my gloved hand resting on a ledge, with the ice tool dangling impotently from my wrist, I searched with my other tool for a ledge or something, anything to support my weight. I looked down, and saw the 200 feet of the climb below me, and I saw James, moving a bit to the left, away from me.

I don’t remember the rest of it. I really don’t. I remember hooking my right arm around a spruce tree at the top of the climb, so that I could lean over and look at James. I don’t remember the solution to the problem into which my hubris had led me. But is it hubris if you don’t fail?

It was James’s turn now. I leaned over to try to encourage him. To cheer him on. He could do it. I was sure he could do it. He had to do it. There was no option. His tools searched the rock just as mine had done. He found the edges that I must have found, and he got to a stance just below the safety of my cedar tree. Just out of my reach. He just had a few more swings left and he was at the top.

His tool shook. I do remember that. His right tool was securely into the ice now, but I saw his tool shaking. Then his wrist began shaking, and the shaking moved up his arm. Next his whole arm was shaking. He looked at me. He said nothing. I said nothing. I just looked at his right ice tool, shaking, and wedged a half inch into the ice. He looked up, and said “I can’t swing Jay.”

I remember what James said as clear as I remember the name of the climb. I said nothing in response. I just looked at him. What could I say? You have to? Your whole being depends on your swinging your left tool into the ice? You can never experience heartbreak again, or sadness, or happiness, or anything if you don’t swing that damn tool into the ice. You have to my friend. I can’t be 18, and dumb, and bold, and full of shit if you don’t. Please swing James. Please.

And he did. He swung his tool, it landed into the thick ice above the rock section, and he topped out at my cedar. We met up with friends who had just climbed Tempest, and we rappelled together. “What the hell happened to you guys?” Hearing this, we embarked on the story we would tell with decreasing frequency to friends. “I can’t swing Jay” always provided a pleasing climax to the story.

Walking out to the compost bin, I can’t recall the details. Only the high points, the trite slogans we remember not from the event, but from the retelling of the event. As I walk back from the compost bin, I pause, and take in my life, now almost twenty years later. How much things change. How I’ve changed. I pause, for a whisper, and I walk into my house, and turn on the lights.

April is the cruelest month.

T.S. Eliot began The Waste Land with the line, "April is the cruelest month..." I'm sure he used the line to create the feeling of dread and bleakness that permeates his entire 434 line poem. I am choosing to use the line because, well, my back hurts.

It hurts right between my shoulder blades. But more on that later. Right now, it is snowing outside. Yesterday was beautiful, but today, it's snowing. Why is it snowing? It is snowing because it is New Hampshire and I have the day off. The climate knows when I have the day off. Don't ask me how it knows, but it knows.

I spent a beautiful day at Waimea yesterday, climbing with Kayte. It wasn't crowded, the humidity was low, and the bugs weren't out yet. Basically, the day was perfect. I kept thinking to myself that this would be a perfect day to send my project. I wasn't putting the pressure on, but a voice in the back of my mind kept saying, "You had better send today Jay, because this will be the last nice day in a long time. This is your last chance. For the love of God, don't blow it." Alright, maybe I did have the pressure a bit cranked-up.

And then I blew it on the project, falling at the very top. And then my back started to hurt again. And then I climbed a different route to "loosen up," and then I fell weird off that route and hit my hand really hard on the rock. And then I ended up in the Plymouth Hospital getting x-rays.

My hand is not broken, thank God. Just severely bruised. But my back still hurts his morning while I sit at my computer, drink coffee, and look out the window to a dreary April day. The snow has now turned to rain. The weather outlook predicts rain for the next ten days. Great.

Though we have had an amazingly good spring, I feel as though I have been ready for this rain for a while. While it feels so good to spend time in the sun, I can't seem to ignore that the rain is just around the corner, just the next day out on the Intellicast chart. (I have learned that a 20% "chance" of rain means that, in New Hampshire, it will rain for approximately 20% of the day). I have come to see this attitude as detrimental to my happiness.

Why can't I simply enjoy the present? Where has my focus gone? Perhaps it is bombarded my those little aches and pains that have begun springing up. Why does my back hurt? I have no idea. It just started one day and it has persisted ever since. There was no trauma, that is, unless you consider the combined trauma of living on this earth for 32 years. Sure, April may be the cruelest month according to Eliot, but May brings bugs and humidity. And it is supposed to rain for the next ten days.

Apples of Blood

In this life, danger lurks at every turn. You think you are safe, swinging that nine-iron, trying to get a few rounds in before the thunderstorm, and wham, catastrophe strikes. You can't let up, because that's when life will beat you down.

Sadly, I had forgotten that little truism. It was a lazy day last Thursday, a day when I decided to celebrate the end of my semester by spending the day on the couch, relaxing and getting ready for the weekend's climbing plans. I walked into the kitchen to cut an apple up for a snack. I love apples and peanut butter. I love scooping huge mounds of peanut butter onto my pre-cut apple pieces. Anyway, I went in to cut up an apple, and wham, lightning struck.

There, sitting next to my my tidy apple slices, was the end of my thumb. It took a while to register what had happened, that that lifeless piece of flesh had actually come from me and had not in some way been attached to the apple. The mind does funny things in that moment before the pain starts. It's like the mind knows that a cascade of searing pain is on the way, but it wants to amuse itself with a funny, irrational thought before all thought ceases. My thought, at that moment, was that I could have protein with my carb-heavy meal, which would thereby make the snack more "Zone." Then the wave hit.

The blood was astounding. You know how the doctor will prick your finger to get a little drop of blood for a test? Well, this was like my finger was pricked with a 12 gauge straw. The blood gushed. I held my hand over the sink as the blood poured out of the end of my thumb. It began to look as if the Manson Family had previously rented our apartment and had set up shop in the kitchen. Kayte came out of the office and began to tend the finger.

Her first concern, understandably, was to stanch the flow. She put a band-aid on the end and that just made the blood shoot out the sides of the fabric. She determined that despite my histrionics, I had not, in fact, "cut off my thumb." Yes, I did have a sizable flesh wound, but people have survived far worse. She made clear that you cannot, in fact, "bleed out from the tip of your thumb." She then wrapped a bit of gauze around it and went back to work.

It began to become clear to me that my weekend climbing plans were slowly dripping away, like blood from a...okay, I'll spare you the pun. Basically, my chances of climbing were shot. I still went out, though, with my thumb wrapped in a bee-hive of bandaging. I learned that doing a few easy routes was a bad idea, as blood began to seep through the bee hive making it look like the bees were experiencing some sort of horrendous genocide. I spent a lot of time belaying and telling the above story over and over and over.

So, you can never be too safe. Remember that when you think you are making yourself a nice, semi-healthy snack. Those apples could really be blood apples. Really.

Tornado

I woke up sweating. Tornado. The covers were disheveled, wrapped around my right leg. My mouth was dry. Had I been gasping? I’m not quite sure, but I did hear that word, clear as day: Tornado.

It was Suzanne’s voice, just her voice. Do they have tornadoes down in Atlanta? I got out of bed and turned on the Weather Channel. No, it was going to be a clear, warm day down there. Maybe it was metaphorical. Maybe it meant something bad, perhaps a “windstorm of danger” or something like that.

I never really thought about Suzanne’s voice. It’s pretty. But then again, could it possibly be otherwise? I have a beautiful younger sister. I grew accustomed to my high school friends’ seemingly innocuous questions: “Yeah, we could drive around town for a while . . . hey, do you think Suzanne wants to come with?”

I noticed that. I noticed the lingering stares from my friends. I noticed the slight lowering of decibel level in the cafeteria when Suzanne walked from the lunch line, tray in hand, (she and I always joked that the trays looked like barf, with the colored splotches mixed in with the grayish plastic), and took her place at the table. While in college she dated a Green Bay Packer football player. He had a million dollar signing bonus, but she ended up moving on because “he just wasn’t very smart.”

To this I would respond in that most brotherly of terms, that term that says so much with so few syllables: Duh.

We would fight. Not as older, ostensibly mature high school kids, but as awkward, gangly, uncomfortable in our own skin, middle schoolers. I would chase her around the house. Once she ran for the basement, and suddenly my foot kicked out and she was falling, down the stairs, knocking bottles of cleaning supplies off the shelf along the edge of the stairs. She landed on the concrete with a bloody nose. I remember a faint twinge of remorse, of sadness. I also remember looking at a stool she had turned into a kind of mock-stove, to be used in her mock-kitchen, with stuffed animals filling in for her mock-family. On this bench cum stove she labeled the shut off switch “oof.” That was during the divorce.

She was not beautiful then. At eight years old, she had red glasses, and these glasses were her trademark. She did not make her own decisions, as her glasses were bought for her, her trademark given to her by parents who wanted to insert a specific identity into that existential blank. Looking back now, her hair was a disaster. I enjoy reminding her of her hair back then, the short front and the long back. She had a boyish, hamster-like face. Her hair seemed to accentuate the confusion and represent a sort of mullet-by-default.

Tornado. But it was just her voice. Not her image. I haven’t seen her since Christmas. We talk though, on the phone. We talk about our parents, both divorced now, a second time for each. That’s three divorces between us, we say.

I would drive her to school. She wrecked her car on the first weekend of having her license. “I was only going fifteen.”

“But, you flipped the car.”

“Still, I was only going fifteen.”

So, every morning, we would take my rusty white Escort to school. On this day, the country road we lived on was covered with a dubious layer of either snow or ice, depending on subtle atmospheric conditions that I do not really understand. I took a corner too fast. Or, more accurately, I intended to take the corner too fast. I intended to let the rear end swing out just a little, to release my pent up seventeen year old’s energy or aggression or whatever in the momentary feeling of freedom, of gliding, of careening. I meant also to scare my sister.

I heard a thump.

Suzanne had slammed her right hand against the door, probably in an effort to hold on to something. She sat rigid, her legs held an inch off the seat. She looked at me, crying. There was no happiness at all in her face, just tears. Her face was all sad. I realized at that moment that there would be no more sliding. I would drive to school slowly, deliberately. I put my old Bob Marley tape in the tape deck. We would be safe on the way to school.

There are no tornadoes in Atlanta. There are other things, though. And there is just a voice, disembodied, identified by caller ID with a strange area code, and with a voice that is absolutely not strange. Not strange at all. We talk about our dog Margalo, about the time when we put pants on her, and about the time when Margalo ran into the screen door. She was embarrassed. You could tell.

In the winter, we would go outside and Margalo would sneak up and snatch the mittens right off our hands. We would run after her, laughing, tripping, sliding in the snow, Margalo’s stumpy tail wagging. Sometimes, Margalo would even take the hat off my head.

One time, Margalo clamped onto Suzanne’s scarf. The scarf cinched and Margalo dragged Suzanne across the field. I remember looking out our big picture window, seeing Suzanne on the ground, hands waving, Margalo making jerking, backward pulling motions. The scarf cinched so hard that it broke the blood vessels in Suzanne’s neck. It was black and blue for days.

I sat next to Suzanne on the couch. “You can have the remote Suzanne. You can watch whatever you want.” She smiled an awkward, six year old’s smile. It looked strange because she had been crying. Mom clanked pots and pans in the kitchen. Dad was not home. When I thought about it, interspersed with thoughts of school and of burning things and climbing trees, I thought that something didn’t seem right. Mom and Dad didn’t talk to each other much. Neither Suzanne nor I had ever heard the word divorce, but it was looming, tracking our direction. It can send a toothpick through a telephone pole. I looked at Suzanne’s swollen, bruised neck. She almost died.

These days, Suzanne and I talk on the phone about once a week. We talk about her job at Bloomingdales, though I call it Bloomingtons. We talk about memories, some remembered, some half forgotten, some patently made-up. They swirl around in our conversation, pick up others, gain speed, and soon I am not in New Hampshire and Suzanne is not in Atlanta, but we are somewhere else entirely. Somewhere that doesn’t now, and never did, exist.

Snow banks

I have been taking stock of my life lately. I don't know if it this New Hampshire winter, the six-foot-tall snow banks in front of the cottage, and the my general state of inactivity, but things just seem a bit daunting. Whereas my existential funk had a certain cache when I was in college, today it seem less interesting and more sad.

In the movie The Weatherman, Nicholas Cage's character says, "All of the people I could be, they got fewer and fewer until finally they got reduced to only one -- and that's who I am. The weather man." I wish I would have said those words, aside from the weatherman part. I could say that the idea of being an astronaut slowly faded away, as did the ideas of being a lawyer, a race car driver, a marathon runner, and a member of a think tank. All that's left is me, right now, at this moment, here at my computer, looking out at the snow banks and hoping for the spring.

This is not to say that my life is in a bad position. It certainly isn't. I have a whole lot to be thankful for. Yet, I feel that there is a whole lot behind me now, a whole lot that has faded in the rearview mirror. And I feel like some of those images that slowly fade away are very important images: the tree on top of El Cap, dimly lit from my headlamp, the knobs on Lotus Flower Tower, the way my mom and my sister look when they are laughing in the kitchen of our house in Wisconsin, my walk from Siurana, through the Spanish countryside, to pick up groceries four miles away. These are the big moments.

I often think that I am defined by the big moments--those moments of exaltation and success. It is more likely, however, that I'm defined my those innumerable times that offer no big moment for remembering. Like yesterday. What did I do yesterday? Nothing really; I just went through my normal routine. Who is to say that the thousands of yesterdays don't equal a significant sum that is applied to my current existential bank account? Who is to say that the day I topped out El Cap represents more capitol than those thousands of forgettable days? The yesterdays of my life. Maybe the yesterdays define me more, make me who I am now. Maybe I have no choice but to be me, at this moment, sitting at my computer and looking at, though not really seeing, the snow banks in front of the cottage.

After the Wedding

Again, it has been a long time since I have written. I've been quite busy. I got married last week.

For a long time, I thought of marriage to be this vague, theoretic concept. Sort of like algebra. I thought, sure, it will affect my life someday, but don't ask me to explain what it looks like or how it works. It was just smoke and mirrors to me.

Well, all of that changed in the months leading up to the wedding. This concept, which previously was so ephemeral, became very very real. Marriage took the form of Kayte saying, "Honey, please remember to get your haircut tomorrow." Or, "What do you think of this dress for the rehearsal dinner?" Evidently, my reflexive shrug (what, she thinks I could have an opinion on a dress?) precipitated a flurry of stress (on her part) and confusion (on my part) as she instantly packed the dress up and shipped it off to be returned for a model that didn't bring about the reflexive shrug. When she showed me the new one, I went to my happy place and smiled. All was right with the dress.

It was months of this. As I dozed happily in the bed on weekend mornings, Kayte would be up at her computer, with her mom on the phone, saying things like "We can't put the place cards on the table until AFTER the plates arrive." I became very comfortable in my happy place, which was much simpler than the world of charger plates (?), guest lists, first dances (don't even get me started), and the dreaded vows. We wrote our own, mine on hotel stationary the night before the big day and Kayte's on nicely-printed paper that matched the programs.

My last-minute, cobbled-together vows are not to suggest that I wasn't invested in the process. I loved the idea of joining with the most wonderful woman I have ever met, who is smart, beautiful, and also happens to be a fantastic climber. I also loved the idea of friends from all aspects of my life in the same room with my family. And honestly, the wedding went off perfectly, at least in my eyes, though there could have been some unforeseen snafu with the charger plates clashing with the place cards. Maybe the program had a misprint. If so, I was blissfully unaware of such things.

I remember wanting to get another plate of food at the reception. It was good food, and as is always the case with good food, I wanted more. Somehow, though I got distracted. I remember doing the heralded "leg-dance" on the dance floor. To my knowledge, this dance had not been seen by the general public since one night at a bar in Oshkosh, WI, in 2001. I remember looking across the room at Kayte in all of her radiant bride-glow, the stress subsided, replaced by enjoyment, and from the looks of it, a slight twinge of satisfaction. It was a great wedding. It really was.

Now I have time to do all of those things that were so easily placed in the "after the wedding" column of my life. I can get out to Rumney and climb more. I'm able to write this blog. I can focus a bit more on my health, and less on things such as tuxes for my guys. That, by the way, was my only responsibility and I nailed it. So, this begins the after-the-wedding segment of my life, and it's a wonderful place to be. It's a quiet, calm, simple place, and it's next to my beautiful bride.

Independence Pass

The summer is drawing to a close. I haven't written in a while because I have been living in a tent, climbing during the days and generally living the simple life of life on the road. Climb all day, eat dinner, go to bed at 9pm and wake up the next morning at 7am and repeat, that is until it's time to go into town and get groceries, do laundry and, for the love of God, take a shower.

This summer has been different from previous summers, however. Whereas last summer I was super excited to go to Rifle, to test myself in the arena, to climb hard, talk about climbing hard, and climb hard a little more. Last summer I did exactly that and I came back completely tired, but with a few memorable hard climbs under my belt. It was exactly what I wanted.

This summer, I thought I wanted the same thing. I got to Rifle, ready to throw myself at a hard route and I thought I was willing to climb on for the whole summer. Maybe sending, maybe not, I told myself I didn't care. I just wanted to climb. At least that's what I told myself.

I got to the cliffs and found myself unmotivated. It is a very strange feeling to desire something completely and then when on the cusp of attaining it, to feel nothing. No, that's not correct; I didn't feel nothing. I felt indifferent. I just didn't care. When I tried a route, I didn't care if I sent or not. When I listened to the people talk about climbing, as they invariably do at Rifle, I didn't care about what they were saying. Okay, Simply Read may be the hardest 13d in the canyon, nay, the world, but you know I just don't really care.

Let me embark on a brief interlude here: We camped at a the same campsite at Rifle this year as we had last year. Every morning, both this year and last, I would sip my coffee and sit at the picnic table. My bleary-eyed scan of the campground would always stop at the hill across the way. The hill had a faint trail heading, where? I don't know. I would always wonder where that trail headed. What did it look like at the top of the hill, at the end of the trail. Yet, for some reason (pre-coffee laziness?), I never took that trail. I sat, morning after morning, at the table and wondered where the trail went. I did this for going on two years. I always wondered, but never looked.

So back to my Rifle funk. And it was a funk. I slept later and later every morning. I began to avoid people and make excuses for yet another rest day. After some serious deliberation with Kayte, we left. We went to Independence Pass, outside of Aspen, ostensibly for just a few days to get away from the arena. We still haven't left. The climbing and the ambiance at the Pass was so fantastic, that it is going on a month and we are just now thinking of leaving.

Before writing this blog, Rifle was the farthest thing from my mind. Talk of this 13c being harder than that 13d was eclipsed with the low rustle of the deer that come right into our campsite. Screams on redpoint burns were replaced by my wheezing lungs while hiking up the trail. It's at 11,000 feet, you know. And the Aspens, the trees of Ansel Adams' famous photos surround us up there. And the climbing is stellar, steep, technical, amazing, and with no one to tell me the right beta for the move or that so and so did the route is six tries before he decided to leave for the trade show. For me, up in the mountains, the incessant chatter of those canyon-voices have been replaced by a still mind and a renewed sense if inspiration. And what's at the top of the trail across the way? I don't know. I'm never going back.

You Can't Go Home Again

I have been told that if there is one book you read in your 20s, it should be "You Can't Go Home Again," by Thomas Wolfe. Nevermind that you should read more than one book in ten years. Anyway, the protagonist in Wolfe's novel, George Webber, has just written a successful novel in which his hometown gossip is used for fodder. Webber expects a hero's welcome, but as more and more people read the book, he experiences the opposite from his townspeople: anger, guilt, shame. He becomes an outcast in his own home town because, in effect, he left and became successful.

Maybe some of you know where I'm going with this. I'm not going to claim success, however, and I wouldn't go so far as to label myself an outcast now that I have returned home for the summer. There a lot of differences between Webber and me, yet I admit that I empathise with him. Having moved to New Hampshire, started on a burgeoning career (I'll try to overlook the distinct lack of monetary success for purposes of this comparison), and become a slightly more accomplished climber, I thought that returning home would be a sort of triumphant homecoming, with a parade, and floats, and parents who have to hoist their kids to shoulder height in order for them to see. At the very least, I thought things would be different, because, well, I'm so different.

I have come home to realize that things are exactly the same. The climbs that were difficult before are still difficult. The climbers at Devil's Lake who didn't know me before still don't know me. My life and my accomplishments still have had little influence on the aging in-crowd of Devil's Lake locals. They still sit in the parkinglot and talk about the same stories. I still have to pay for chalk at the local climbing shop. Things are pretty much the same. Though as far as Webber's concerned I have it pretty well. I have not yet been shunned. Misunderstood, yes; shunned, no. I don't have that pesky Great Depression looming over my head so I've got that going for me.

At any rate, I still have a core group of friends, a wonderful family, and the same climbs on which I have tested myself for going on fifteen years now. I should count myself lucky for that. There's always the chance that we can schedule the parade for next year.

Summer

It is a beautiful morning and I am sitting outside on the deck while typing into my computer. Behind me is my mom’s house, situated in the Baraboo Hills. About ten miles directly in front of me, Devil’s Lake sits nestled among large bluffs. I can close my eyes and picture the bluffs, the subtle features of the talus, the cliffs above, the trail underfoot.

This, by my current estimation, is home. I built this house. Mom, Grandpa, and I did over the course of about three years. We did everything. I began my life path at Devil’s Lake, first by running around it while on the cross country team, and later by climbing on the cliffs. This area is as much me as my middle name, perhaps more so.

I’ll climb this afternoon. I’ll drive to the cliff on roads I have driven countless times, with the music loud. I’ll drive past Steinke Basin, the site of so many quick 5 mile runs, the pace steadily quickening in order to stay abreast of the swarm of mosquitoes and black flies. Then there was the time when I tried to ski it. I am about as graceful on cross country skis as a moose is in a shopping mall. That little escapade ended with stitches in my left knee.

It’s pretty hot right now for 11 in the morning, though my tan is progressing nicely. I used to say that my mental state is in direct correlation to my tan—the more tan, the happier. Despite initial appearances, this isn’t a vain self-image thing. This is about what the tan represents. It means that I have been spending ample time outside on nice sunny days.

It feels like summer, the slightly acrid smell of burning flesh. The sweat beginning to form on my forehead. The promise of climbing this afternoon, that is, after the cliffs go into the shade. The thought of climbing in Rifle next month, of loading the car and heading farther west, past the humidity. This is summer to me, and my most happy time to be alive.

Time to leave

Every year at about this time, Kayte and I pack up our stuff and leave New Hampshire. I work in education, so the summer is a time for mindless outside work and for climbing trips. Every year, we get out the bins and start cramming our possessions into our 10 by 5 storage unit. We throw things away, give things away, and generally compress so as to fit all of our material things into this tiny metal box with a sliding garage door.

I have mixed feelings about this. We usually leave June first and this is the time when the hills around Rumney tend to get shrouded in humidity. The days of perfect conditions on the rock are long in the past as the moisture descends on the state. Plus, I usually go home and I am blessed with a wonderful and supportive family that welcomes my return to Wisconsin. Our off-season rental cottage helps ease the financial load in the summer as rent money is transformed into gas money.

Yet, as the summer begins and as I pack the same things into the same bins, I have come to realize that I have built something closely resembling a life in New Hampshire. I climbed with Jay for most of the weekend at Cathedral Ledge, at crag that is feeling a bit more like home. Today, Kayte and I spent the morning at Rumney with Jay, Leesa, and Nick, all of whom are becoming close and important friends.

This leads me to question where, exactly, I should consider home. Is it Baraboo, WI, where I went to high school, built a house, and where I can count on parents to share their spare rooms and the food in the fridge? Or is home in this new place, where Kayte and I have been steadily laying down roots and cultivating friendships? Can it be both?

It's been slow, but I am beginning to understand the way things work out here in New Hampshire. People are stand-offish at first. Then, as they get to know you, they can be the warmest most generous people you've ever met. The dump-guy continually talks to me about the weather. The guy at the post office is one of the happiest guys I've ever seen. I have had some of my best days hanging out at Rumney, braving inclement weather, yet still climbing. That's another New England thing--hardiness. Oh, it's raining, snowing, and thundering at the same time? Oh well, that won't hamper our day of being outside. At least the bugs aren't out.

Well, the bugs are out now and that means it's time to leave. So, it's off to Wisconsin for some Devil's Lake climbing and some chatting with parents. But, I have to say, I'll be happy to be back in New Hampshire. It will be fall by the time I get back. And the leaves should look wicked beautiful.

It's the bubbles.

I love seltzer. There is depth and sacrifice to my love. A few nights ago, I was thirsty and left the house, drove to the store in the next town, and bought some seltzer. Not once during this whole situation did it occur to me to drink water out of the tap. Not once. It has become seltzer or nothing.

It's the bubbles. This goes way back. Back in college, I fell in with a bad crowd and I began drinking Mountain Dew. I'm not talking about casual drinking; rather I'm talking about six cans a day. I was in the grip of the sweet carbonated drink. If cut, I would bleed yellow.

Each can of Mountain Dew has about 200 calories. Multiply that by six and I was drinking over a thousand empty calories a day. I told myself that this has got to stop, and in the spirit of a heroin user switching to methadone, I switched to Diet Coke. After doing so, I promptly lost fifteen pounds and my climbing went up a number grade.

Then, I started thinking about aspertame and how it causes lab animals to both grow a third eye and begin talking in spanish. I never really cut down my consumption, I only switched drinks. It was still at about six cans a day. When people questioned my habit, I feigned humor and said, "Sure Diet Coke is bad for me, but everythings bad for me. I could get cancer from standing under flourescent lights." But secretly, I knew. Secretly I knew my habit was out of control and harmful.

This is where seltzer comes in. Again, I say it's the bubbles. I have scrutinized the labels of multiple brands of seltzer and I have come to the conclusion that seltzer is infact just water and bubbles. Often "natural flavors" are thrown in, but inasmuch as they don't seem to add calories, sodium, or sugar, I don't think they count.

So seltzer it is, for now.

It may really be a problem, though. I may be forced to admit it. When driving to the Gunks with my friend Jay, we drove past the Polar Seltzer factory in Worcester, MA. All talk of climbing ceased as he turned to me and said, "You want to stop, don't you."

That old cliche

I have been thinking about that tired phrase: "It's not the destination but the journey." I have to admit that I hate that saying. I hate this pseudo-hippy sense that everything is just right with the world, that we all should be happy now. Well, to tell the truth, I'm not always happy, and your telling me that I should be just plunges me deeper into my pit of despair.

I hate to admit it, but I think we all need validation sometimes. I just got off the phone with James and he just sent his first 11d. It was clear in talking to him that he is full of hope and excited for the next challenge. This is a real, true, valid feeling. And, I would guess that this feeling came from his success. James mentioned that all of his hard work, training, etc., somehow made the send sweeter, more important.

I think that the key is that BOTH the journey and the destination hold equal importance. As climbers, we don't climb forever. The climbs stop at bolt anchors or at the top of the cliff. I have known climbers to be the most slothful individuals while on a rest day. Sure, the toiling has to end. It ends and begins again, when the rest day gives way to the climbing day or one project gives way to the next. I think that these peaks and valleys make this whole pursuit great and interesting. If we were on this perpetual journey that those "warriors" would have you believe , we wouldn't get this rise and fall that parallels the cyclical action of life--the heaving of a chest, the changing of the seasons, the planetary motions.

How's that for a hippy concept?

It won't beat me.

It was a rainy weekend here in New Hampshire. I've learned to make peace with the weather; however, this has been a long and difficult process. The weather in New Hampshire is not just bad, it's cruel. It knows, showehow, what days I have off and what days I work. It is deliberately bad on my free days and deliberately nice on my work days. It likes to see me suffer.

I have decided not to let the weather beat me. I have begun to disregard the weather. I climbed this week on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It rained on each of those days, but I ended up getting four goes on the new project on Thursday, three routes in Friday afternoon, and four routes in throughout the day on Saturday. The conditions slowly deteriorated from one day to the next. Thursday was great; the rain was light and did not seem to affect the air. We in New Hampshire know all about different kinds of rain. It's sort of like the Inuits having different words for snow because it is such a huge part of their life. So, the conditions were great for goes on the proj.

On Friday, I was sore and unmotivated so I did a few pitches to keep my body loose. The air was a bit humid, but not too bad, as my muscle soreness hampered me much more than the humidity. On Saturday, however, everything changed. It rained all day. Usually this isn't a problem on the overhanging routes at Rumney, but on this day, the air seemed to have more moisture in it and the water began condensing on the lower half of the wall. The rock had a strange molecule-thick coating of water that made the climbing a bit more interesting. We still climbed. The weather didn't beat me. I triumphed over the rainy days. Though today, Monday, I am in my office trying to work and the sun is shining. This New Hampshire weather is a formidable opponent.