Rock Climbing

Why We Climb

By Vivian Underhill, 7-28-11

	Climbing Shoes. Photo by Flickr user Jason Rogers.

It’s common knowledge that in Boulder, everyone and their golden retriever is a rock climber. So, since I live in Boulder, it could be correctly assumed I am one as well.

I’ve been climbing since I was a scared little kid following my dad, and I come from a long climbing lineage: My grandmother, Miriam Underhill, was the first woman to climb the Matterhorn without men and, along with my grandfather Robert, put up what seems like an endless list of first ascents in the Tetons. To tell truth, though, after all these years I remain an unabashedly mediocre climber. Perhaps I don’t have the competitive drive; perhaps it’s because I’m fairly scared of heights; perhaps it’s because of a morbid tendency to vividly imagine every situation’s possible death scenarios – of which there are many when you’re climbing.

However, I keep climbing in spite of my undistinguished skills because there are myriad things to love about climbing other than the clichés of challenge or competition. I think we tend to undervalue them, because they don’t get pro deals or sponsorships but, to me, they’re the backbone of the mountains’ inexorable pull.

Things I love about climbing:

I love the smell. It’s the smell of Colorado ponderosa pine forests, spicy and dry, mixed with a distinctive scent I can only describe as hot rock: a subtle mineral tang in the back of your throat that stays on your hands the rest of the day, and on your rope for the rest of its life. There’s also sweat, of course, and well-worn climbing shoes that add to the potpourri but, as a whole, it’s a smell that’s exciting and clarifying. As we climb, and our senses sharpen with the adrenaline, we begin to remark upon the sharpness of this smell, until it’s simply taken for granted.

I love the social aspect that comes along with climbing. Up on the rock, I feel very alone: No matter how much I yell at my belayer, he or she is still totally, unarguably, unchangeably on the ground, while I seem to have gotten myself much higher. But down below, as the belayer or just waiting to climb, there’s an easy-flowing sense of camaraderie – perhaps forged by our collective thankfulness that we’re not up there.

Laughter bubbles easily out of mellow exchanges, fueled by post-climbing endorphins more than anything else, and some of my best friendships date from afternoons of climbing just like this.

I love the places you can get to, and their accompanying views, that climbing makes possible. On multi-pitch routes up Boulder’s Flatirons, I spend my climbing time completely engrossed in finding holds and clipping various carabiners and breathing deeply. But then I turn around at an anchor, and the entire vista overwhelms me. Hawks fly by at eye level, and I always promise myself that I really will invest in a camera someday soon. On top-rope routes, though, the same thing can happen. I’ll turn around to see a morning mist slowly rising from Boulder Creek, or watch the last rays of sun, brilliantly refracted by all the layers of atmosphere they’ve had to pass, strike the trees on the other side of the canyon. I suppose in theory I’ve always intellectually known that such things happen, but I would never have experienced them if it hadn’t been for climbing as the original impetus.

This one is slightly less noble-sounding, but I admit it: I love feeling hardcore when I wear my helmet and harness – especially when it’s jingling with an entire skirt of shiny gear. Posing in my climber getup gives me a feeling of brash confidence, something that my introspective right-brained self rarely experiences. Other climbers try to reduce the gear they wear up the rock; if anything, I increase it, just for its merry tinkling accompaniment.

None of these are particularly impressive; none is associated with incredible climbing prowess. In fact, a non-climber could experience all these things with ease as well. But that’s the point: For me, climbing is simply an excuse to be outside for an afternoon, and all the joy in it comes from appreciating those fleeting moments of perfection that the sun, and the mountains, and good friends produce.

Vivian Underhill writes the ”Boulder Frugalista” column, which runs every Tuesday in the Colorado Daily. She grew up in Boulder, in a family of mountain climbers, and enjoys trail-running, rock climbing and all manner of winter adventures. She’s studying environmental sciences at CU Boulder.

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