Death, Rocks, Risk, and Rambling
An autumn evening scramble up the Third Flatiron
“Why are you smiling while you are telling us that?” My coworker asked me incredulously. I had just finished telling my coworkers over lunch about my latest dating escapade - in which I had decided not to go on a date with a boy who talked about free soloing in Eldorado Canyon frequently, sensing dangerous behavior, and the boy died doing just that less than a week after our interaction. While it felt like the situation exemplified my dating life, there was nothing funny and everything sobering about it.
I paused. I wave a shame and guilt washed over me. I must be a terrible person to be cracking jokes about the situation. She must think I am a psychopath to be laughing at someone’s death. In my soul, I felt deep grief about the event - I didn’t want anyone to think I got satisfaction out of it or found it remotely funny - how embarrassing. I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind. “I - I have to make jokes about it because it’s like, too terrible and real for me to actually comprehend.”
My face flushed, but I knew it was also true. It was the same when I talked about my accident. I didn’t know how to tell other people about it without making it into a big joke. There was nothing funny about it, but it was the only way I could make sense of it to all but my closest friends. The only way I could create comfort in a situation of the uncomfortable and painful. I’m not ready to share the realness and hurt of life with everyone, I guess.
“You know, I - I just don’t want to be like the girl character in Free Solo. You know, I don’t want to date someone who does that. I don’t want to be that girl, in that situation.” “You’re more like the girl in The Alpinist.” Direct and to the point, she was clever and I couldn’t argue. Well aware of my own flaws, I knew she wasn’t wrong. I had my own complicated relationship with free soloing, although I justified it by calling it scrambling and through the fact that I never ventured on the kind of terrain Eldorado Canyon had to offer, instead sticking to slab climbs mostly 5.5 and under. “Yeah, maybe, but I don’t want to be….it’s something I struggle with a lot and I don’t want to…I fear being with someone that brings out that side of me.”
Earlier that morning I had been talking to a reporter about scrambling in the Flatirons. “Well - is it risky?” He asked. “I mean yeah,” I said at first. And then added. “Well, actually, I think it’s low risk. The chance of falling if you’re experienced and moving within your ability level - it’s very low. Low risk but very high consequence.” I didn’t add - but not everyone, in my perception, does that, and it really bothers me.
I thought of my own feet on the rock that morning. I had been solid. But I wasn’t moving fast. It felt dangerous and flippant to test my ego against the power of the rock this week. Sometimes I felt mad that other people couldn’t see it that way. That they could just go up the rock, jovially, with heart rates far in the red zone, dissociated from the low risk, high consequence nature of their path. As if what they were doing carried no risk at all, as if it were just a footrace, perfectly safe. I felt mad, and perhaps sad, that I couldn’t be like them. That I carried the weight of grief and responsibility and respect for the rock, and I knew I had to listen.
But the thing about today, that was different perhaps, is that I was listening. At least as much as I could. On top of all the push and pull in my head and soul about my relationship with scrambling, there had been another push and pull happening in relationship with a climbing partner. For weeks, I had been trying to convince myself that nothing was off, everything was fine, that I was imagining the strange vibes or that they were a reflection of my own. Denying myself these feelings eventually caused caused me a bout of deep depression that lasted several days. Maybe even another small ego death. And because this person was involved with scrambling as well, all the things had been building for weeks and felt very intertwined. But finally, today, I felt grounded. I felt clarity. I felt I could release all the feelings of failure as a friend - they weren’t mine to hold. For there was a deep knowing that perhaps I wasn’t perfect in the friendship, but what I was feeling was valid and real and was worthy of bringing to light for myself. With it came clarity on how to be with the rock. How to respect it. How to be one with it. Things seemed uncertain, yet somehow better. Uncertainty with purpose. My trust in the universe was back again because I was once again on the path to trusting myself.
The scrambler above me reached down his hand. “Here - take my hand, he said.” I looked at him skeptically - was I really going to skip the crux 5.6 move because I was ‘scared’? I breathed out - fuck yeah I was. My ego is still trying to protect me in a lot of ways, but not here and not today. I grabbed his hand and pulled up.
The things that keep me scrambling might be the same vices that belonged to the boy that died this week, or they might not. But at least I knew they were mine. That I had the clarity to let go of my ego’s need to have a reputation in the group, and it’s need to be seen as a valuable friend to the climbing partner. I had the clarity to see that these ideas weren’t me or mine, and it was safe to let them go in order to move closer to my true essence. The reporter asked me “So why do you keep doing it?” I gave the same answer I so often do. “For me - it’s about Joy. It’s about choosing Joy and not living in fear - but that doesn’t mean disregarding all risk at all. It’s something I think about a lot and take very seriously. It’s about moving through terrain, appreciating the jungle gym nature gave me. Experiencing the flow state on my own, or having deep connection with my good friends on the rock. It’s meaningful to be able to share the experience with them.” But for me, it’s not about ego. It’s not about being tougher than my fear. And it’s a special experience that I’m not sure is meant to be shared with just anyone - because on the rocks, just like I’m finding in life, partnership - with oneself or with others - partnership and trust mean everything.
