The King Swing

(Warning!! This post is of a very personal nature and may offend some readers.)
This is a video from a very popular rock climbing route in Yosemite. This technique is called a pendulum traverse. Climbers call it "The King Swing” and it takes place on a route called “The Nose” on the 3000’ feature called El Capitan. About halfway up this particular route the cracks and features kind of peter out once you get to the top of that flake the photographer is standing on. Since the rock doesn’t have any little cracks or bumps there is subsequently nothing to pull up on or stand on. Therefore, no way to climb it. The only solution is to go back down and see if you can find another path. Sometimes you see another path but there really isn’t any way to get to it from underneath. The only feasible solution is to do a pendulum traverse. Just as the name implies you lower down as far as you have to and swing back and forth until you can grab a section of rock that is will allow you to climb it.

I’ve done several pendulum traverses, although not this one. They can be quite intimidating. Sometimes you’re not quite sure if you’re swinging into a section that will be just as unclimbable as where you were. One time it was an emergency situation and this was the safest technique to get off the rock during a thunderstorm. But every time I was more than a little apprehensive. The technique requires much more planning than it appears and things have to be done just right in order to stay safe.

Even though the route ahead seems insurmountable it’s quite a weird feeling to hang your butt on the end of a rope and run back and forth hoping to grasp something better, something that will allow you to keep progressing. It’s not exactly the safest thing to do. The times I’ve done them were only in situations where I was absolutely sure that it was the only way to keep on progressing. The risks can be high, but the rewards can be even greater if this leads you to better climbing or a way out of the current predicament.

I’m at a point in my life where I need to take the King Swing. I’ve been on a path that has provided me with much joy and happiness up to this point. I felt like I was growing, learning and progressing. But for the last several years I’ve been stuck on a ledge looking for ways to keep moving up and not finding anything to hang on to. It has taken me quite a while to even consider looking for another path. I’d been raised to believe that the path I was on was perfect and there was no reason to stray from it. But I just couldn’t see where or how to continue. Consequently, I’ve lowered down a little bit and begun to swing back and forth looking for another path.

I believe I’ve found a path. I’m not quite sure how good the climbing will be over there but I’m sure it is more promising than where I am now. Who knows? This new path may lead me back onto my original path from a different angle. Or I may end up having to lower back down this new route too and look for yet another path. I just don’t know right now.

To those of you who aren’t having any problems negotiating the blank sections of the original route, I have no criticism at all. Congratulations. You are better skilled at finding the route than I am. Simply because I am looking for a different path I have no criticism at all if you are making it work for you.

I’m not suggesting that anybody take the steps that I about to without doing at least as much thorough research, soul-searching and earnestly looking for all of the answers. This decision, to take the swing, has not be reached casually. In my case it has been years and years of agonizing study and prayer that has brought me to when I am now.

It’s time to set the metaphor aside. This post has nothing to do with rock climbing. I’m talking about my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For the past several years I’ve been stuck on a ledge and could find no way to keep moving forward. I’ve discussed some of the specifics on this blog numerous times, but I don’t wish to get into them today. To my friends and family who are members of the church I hope that you will take this with the spirit with which it is intended. I am very grateful that you are in my life and I mean absolutely no disrespect to you at all. I have never felt that absolute agreement on everything was necessary for me to love you and this decision will not stop that. I hope that you can see it in your heart to still love me. The most apprehensive part of this decision has been the considering, reconsidering and re-reconsidering the effects it will have on my family.

I fully expect that many of you will not understand my decision. I’m under no delusion that this will be easy. But I believe it will be better in the long run. I’ve seen other friends and family members struggle with some of the same issues that I have. It’s been very selfish of me to let them struggle alone while I conceal my struggles and go through some of the same things they have been.

I am grateful for everything that I have learned so far on my path. Please don’t think that I am going to consider abandoning all of the progress and the good things that I’ve learned in the process. I have no plans to start stopping by liquor stores or breaking any other of the moral and ethical codes the church has taught me. Quite the opposite; I cherish those values and I look forward to continuing to incorporate them into my life.

The private answers to the questions I have asked in my prayers have led me in an unexpected direction, a spiritual path which, at least for now, has proven incompatible with Mormon doctrine. This search for a new route has brought me some of the most profound surprises and also the deepest sadness of my life. It is very hard for me to leave a path that I love so much.

Prophet's Prey

One of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read. If you think that Big Love and Sister Wives represents a realistic depiction of what it’s like to live in a polygamist sect of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints you could not be more mistaken. If anything these programs are convenient distractions from horrors that are really going on behind the walls of most FLDS communities.

Yes, popular TV programs like to portray modern polygamist groups as just a bunch of quirky little consenting adult Christians who live normal healthy lives, they just all consented to being married to the same guy. However in most FLDS areas, especially those under the control of Warren Jeffs, these shows couldn’t be further from the truth. Most live in squalor because they consecrate everything they earn back to the church. They live on church owned land with no legal lease arrangement so the “prophet” can kick them out for any perceived infraction, the most common of which is just happening to have been born male because that means they will eventually be a competitor for the little girls in the group. Yes I said girls, not women or females. These are little girls that are being married off to much older men to gain political clout within the community. Some of these girls are as young as 12 and most are married off well below the legal age of consent.

So if you happen to be born as a girl in a FLDS community the odds are that you will be denied to play with dolls because the prophet has said that girls “should learn to raise real children”. You won’t have any other toys. You’ll be home-schooled but most of that will be only church sanctioned propaganda, like the fact that we never landed on the moon. Then in your early teens you’ll be married off to some man three times your age and brutally raped before you’ve even had the basics of sex education (see comment above about propaganda). You see if girls knew what normal sex was supposed to be like they’d surely resist what the men in the FLDS culture force on them. Now you’d just better hope that your husband overts his eyes from the prophet fast enough ‘cause if he's too slow he might get banished from the cult and you and your sister wives are doled out to the prophet’s political cronies and you just have to submit to him and his abuse and hope the cycle doesn’t repeat itself.

Being born male isn’t exactly an easy life either. You’ll be put to work on church projects when you are so young that the hammer you’ll be given reaches all the way to the ground when you sling it in your work belt. The only way the church elites can maintain their high number of wives is to restrict the number of men in the community. So the odds are pretty good that right about the time you start thinking about starting your own family that you’ll be driven out of town and dropped off on the side of the road adn told never to return. If you get lucky enough to be allowed to stay well hog dog, You will be allowed to follow in your indoctrination and become a serial child abuser. But don't get too comfortable in your role as abuser/rapist. You still could lose all that at the drop of a hat if the prophet decides he doesn't like you anymore.

No matter what your gender your odds are the greatest in the world to develop serious genetic defects due to inbreeding. FLDS geneologies boggle the mind. There are only about four suranmes and they recycle a lot of the same given names and middle names. Wives are sometimes taken from a father and given to his son, or from one brother to another. So you'll have children growing up in the same house whose father is also an uncle or a brother or a cousin. The CDC has estimated that over half of the world’s cases of fumarase deficiency are in Short Creek UT/AZ. So you may be stillborn or only live a few weeks.

The author of this book is LDS. Not FLDS, just LDS. He lived only an hour away from where much of these atrocities were taking place but just didn’t give it much thought. The FLDS were just the red-headed step children of the “true” church. Not until he got involved as a private investigator on a simple eviction did he come to understand the lawlessness and church sanctioned abuse that was taking place in his backyard.

As American’s we are proud of our First Amendment. We like the government to stay out of our worship. People should be able to believe or not to believe what ever they want to and the government is supposed to let that be. But when beliefs turn into actions there is something that the government does care about and does make laws to prevent. You can believe that god will bring destruction on the world, but if you try to fly a plane into a building to start the process then we should expect some intervention, not against the belief, against the action.

Somehow religions that profess a link to Jesus get a little more of a pass than others. If I were to tell you that the Taliban had taken control of a small city in Utah had completely converted to Sharia law all hell would break loose to end the process and establish order. However since the FLDS claims a link to Jesus’ teachings all the same Taliban-like behavior is tolerated now and has been tolerated for almost a century. It’s a serous double standard.

As if he had a chance before, this book more than convinced me to vote against Rick Perry. When close to 500 children were in the custody of the state of Texas Perry went before cameras and read all his talking points about, "safety of the children" etc. etc. Yet the Department of Child Protective Services was pressured from above to release all of these kids back to their abusers for no logical reason except that it was costing too much. Just confirmed my suspicions about him. He'll say whatever he has to to look good, but not offer any real support where it is really needed. I'd like to see how he would have responded if it had been a Taliban group and not an FLDS sect.

Polygamy would not exist to the extent it does in the United States if it were not for one man, Joseph Smith. Joseph took his desire for sexual impropriety and canonized it. Officially the mainstream LDS church has since stopped practicing polygamy a century ago, however the FLDS still claim Joseph as their justification for continuing.

Read this book. It’s not a pleasant read. It will challenge a lot of what you believe and think you know about polygamy in the United States. Bower had unique access to the facts that put Warren Jeffs behind bars. It’s quite an eye-opener. Far from just being a quirky little sub-culture, in every measurable way FLDS communities are the most lawless cities in the United States and generation after generation of children are being taught that this is normal and god’s way.



Priorities

One of the reasons I really enjoy rock climbing is because so much of what you learn on the rock carries over into our daily activities. Maybe this is just me but hear me out for a little bit.
A few weeks ago I guided a small group of boys form our church on a rock climbing trip. We went to a place that I know better than any other climbing area, Mount Yonah near Cleveland Georgia. After spending half the day climbing some relatively easy stuff a few of the guys wanted to do something harder. So I took Aaron and another boy, Alex, up to help me set up a few top ropes on the harder stuff. They had both shown considerable interest in learning how to safely set up the anchors. In order to get to the anchors for these routes we had to rappel off of the top of the rock which was over 200 feet tall and down to a ledge in the middle of the rock. I let Aaron rappel down to the ledge first since he had a little more experience than Alex. Alex would go next and I would come down to the ledge last. That way I could inspect everybody’s set-up before they rappelled.
So Aaron gets his rappel set and heads down to the ledge with no problem. That’s when all the drama started. You see the ledge was home to hundreds of biting ants. They were big red things with black abdomens. No sooner than Aaron got on the ledge and they were attacking his legs. It also seemed that the death of their sisters brought out even more worker ants to join in the attack. As bad as the ants were Aaron really had no choice but to stay on the ledge until Alex and I could get down to him, bring down the ropes and rappel the rest of the way to the ground.
So we did just that. Alex, knowing full well what he was getting into, rappelled down to the ledge, safely clipped into the anchors and proceeded to help Aaron slap off the ants until I could get down. I followed as quickly as I safely could and set up the ropes to get us off the rock. The whole process took about half an hour and we all had quite a few ant bites when the event was over.
I was very proud of Aaron and Alex for keeping their cool. It was a very stressful place to be. My biggest concern was that in spite of the ants they would abandon the relative safety of the ledge, unclip from the anchors and try to go over to another ledge without as many ants. They both realized that the ants were annoying but they weren’t deadly. Yet unclipping from the anchors to get away from them could be deadly. It’s in exactly these types of situations that it is even my important to do things correctly. Both the boys realized this and did everything they could to help me set up the anchors as fast a possible yet also as safely as possible.
As their guide for the trip I regret that they had to learn this lesson in such a stressful way but I’m glad that they learned that some things in life just aren’t worth the gamble. Many times in life what may seem like the quick and easy way to solve a problem may in fact be risking a whole lot more than if you patiently solved it the correct way.

Our '76 VolksWagen Westfalia

I had a couple people ask why I hadn’t posted anything for a while. So I figured a little bit of an explanation was in order.
I have a confession to make. I've been having an affair with a high maintenance 34 year-old. She's really cute but she need a lot of attention. I've had to run errands for her on my lunch hours and she's made me spend most of my evenings with her lately. So she's been getting in hte way of some of typical blogging time.
Here are a few pictures.

Here she is. She's a 1976 Volkswagen Campmobile.

Eve loves to help me work on her. She's helping me change the fuel lines in this picutre.

This Post is So EPIC!!

I'm really getting tired of the word "epic". But only because I rarely hear it used correctly. My kids seem to think it's a synonym for “very” or “really” or just “neato”. Twenty years ago everything was “awesome”. And before that I guess it was ‘cool”. I guess I’m from the “cool” generation, which seems to have come after the “hip” generation.

Hollywood used to call movies that told the life of a historical figure an epic. Lord of the Rings is an epic.
But the kids were really excited that Victoria had bought Reese's Puffs cereal. I'm sorry but there's nothing epic about that.
In 1995 I went on a climbing trip to Yosemite. My partner had exaggerated his abilities and lied to me about having climbed the route we were planning on climbing before. We had to back off of a dangerous climb because he couldn't do a relatively simple technique. I ended up getting a massive sunburn after standing the whole day on the same little ledge 2000' up the rock. Then the next day we had to get rescued off another route because we made a mistake while trying to get back down off a climb. Somebody was at the base of the rock stealing our packs and we got in too much of a hurry. Then on the way home I blew the engine on my car in the middle of the Nevada desert and had to hitch-hike to the nearest city and then get a ride home to Salt Lake in a tow truck. Now that was epic.
As good as Reese’s Puffs cereal is, "epic" just isn’t the right choice of words.

Emotional Distance

(Warning: personal content)

In the spring of 1998 a friend of mine and I went down to Zion National Park and climbed a very pretty sandstone route that was about 1000’ tall. I was recovering from leg surgery and didn’t do much if any of the leading, but I was rather proud of what we’d accomplished. This wasn’t a first ascent but it was a very nice line that took us over a day to finish. We took a fair amount of pictures because our employer, REI, wanted us to do a slide show for the customers. Several times when we could have just moved on and made better time we took extra effort to get the climb on film. The climb was particularly important to me because I would soon be moving away from Utah and back to Georgia. It was unlikely that I would get another chance like this to climb at this grade. Indeed, I haven’t climbed anything nearly that hard ever since.
When we got back to Georgia we put the slides together for the presentation. I wanted some friends and family members to see what we had done. So one day when they stopped by the store I pulled them aside and gave a small private screening. After only a few shots one friend, who has a serious issue with heights, asked to be excused. I showed the rest of the slides, but it was a little bittersweet. It was clear that in order to have a relationship with this friend they had to maintain a certain level of cognitive dissonance about my hobby. Which meant that I would not be able to share this aspect of myself with them.
I understand this friend’s apprehensions and I fully accept them. But at some level it saddened me. Here was something that was important to me, something that I enjoy and I had to hide it away in order to not upset them. Since this event I’ve learn about several other things that I do that upset certain people that I am close to. Don’t get too hung up on the first example. This is about much more that just the fact that I like to go climbing and caving. I have a long mental list of topics that I need to avoid cross-referenced to friends and family members. It seems that as I get older the lists just keep on growing too.
So what are my choices? I can have a relationship where I personally hide nothing and stay completely open about my opinions and activities even though that makes loved ones uncomfortable. Or I can hide a few details about things that are important to me in order to not upset people, but in turn I come across as emotionally distant. Or I can not have any relationship at all with people who don’t accept me as I am. Granted there are shades of grey between each of these. Ideally I’d like to be completely honest with everybody and still not upset people. But so far I haven’t had much luck with that one. Perhaps it’s something about my personality. I don’t know.
This post would not be complete without stating how grateful I am to the one person who I feel really understands and accepts me. Victoria and I disagree on many issues. And that’s great. She doesn’t need to be just an echo of my views, likes and dislikes in order for me love her and have a relationship with her. If I could only figure out how to be just as honest with the rest of the world as I am with her and not drive them away.

The Peltzman Effect

Yesterday I listened to a podcast that talked a little bit about the Peltzman Effect. In simplest terms the Peltzman Effect is a theory that claims that the safer people believe they are the more likely they are to engage in risky behavior. I need to do more reading on this but the topic seemed to confirm my own observations. From what little I’ve read this is primarily an economic theory. If you believe that your investments are insured to a certain amount you’ll take more risks than if they were not. I’ve also seen many manifestations of this in other areas. Do high-wire walkers take more chances if they have a net? Increase the safety of cars by adding anti-lock brakes and massive crumple zones and some people take this as permission to bump draft on the highway like it’s a Nascar race. In my own experience I can think of several examples from the years when I used to do much more rock climbing. I did much more dangerous things on top-rope that I ever would have done on lead. And I took much more risks on lead that I ever would consider without a rope.
It seems that the appearance of removing the risk, even if it’s only marginally safer makes people behave disproportionately to the added benefit of the safety net. The net effect seems to be that people feel even more detached from the consequences of their decisions. The safety nets, the ropes, and the ABS brakes may actually encourage more risk taking and be less safe.
I’ve given this issue a lot of thought lately for many reasons. I’ve been considering getting my VW bus on the road again and it has no ABS brakes and the crumple zone is pretty much the driver’s and passenger’s legs. I’ve been trying to get in shape to do more rock climbing than I have in years past. But the biggest reason I’ve chosen to blog about this today comes from just being a father.
It’s natural to want to pad the sharp edges that you bumped into as a kid so your kids won’t have to learn the hard way. I also try hard to provide a decent financial safety net for my children. But I fear that in a small way I may be experiencing a little bit of the Peltzman Effect. By making things a little nicer for my kids than I had it I seem to be encouraging them to take risks that I would not have taken. I made a lot of stupid mistakes as a child. I wasn’t shielded from the consequences and in most cases felt the full brunt of those mistakes. As a parent it’s much easier said than done.
There’s a British sci-fi comedy that I really love, Red Dwarf. I think sci-fi allows you to explore ideas and themes that you really couldn’t explore in other formats. In one episode one of the main characters met his alter ego from a parallel dimension. In one dimension this character, Rimmer, was a sniveling middle management suck up with no loyalty and was inept and virtually friendless. In another dimension the same person had become, Ace, the dashing space pilot that everybody wanted to be around and was the hero of everything that he attempted. The two tried to figure out at what point in their life their paths took such drastically different paths, one becoming Rimmer and the other becoming Ace. They concluded that many years ago one of them cheated on a test and got caught, the other did not. The ironic thing is that Ace was the one that got caught and Rimmer had gotten away with it. Having that wake up call early in his life had caused Ace to sit up and re-evaluate what his life would become while Rimmer never had such a wake up call.
My fear is that I’m doing too much to interfere with the natural consequences and not letting my kids get the wake up call they need. As a parent who wants only the best for them that’s much easier said than done.

Climbing

Several years ago I had a realization. As much as I enjoyed rock climbing I was never going to be a world class climber. I also found that even though I really enjoyed the sport what I loved more was exposing others to it for the first time. So with that goal in mind I really had a good time this weekend.
Friday after work five of our best scouts got together with me and another leader and we headed up to Mount Yonah. Our goal was to hike up to the base of the main face and camp for the night. Then on Saturday we'd climb as much as we could until the heat took over.
We got up to the boulder and camped there. The weather was clear so we just pulled out our sleeping bags and slept under the stars.
Saturday morning after a light breakfast we finished our trip up to the main face. I went up and set top ropes on a few of the easier routes. They were probably 5.6 or 5.7 but no harder than that. We got lucky and all of the guys were able to fit into some of my hand me down shoes. That made a big difference. All five of our guys were able to make it to the top of each of the routes that we set up on.
Once the sun started coming around onto the face we decided to go work on something else in the shade. In retrospect we should have just stayed there and toughed out the heat.
As we started walking back to the boulder and the lowers area we passed a huge group of kids who were part of an "at risk" youth group. They were pretty much infesting the lower half of the rock. They had as much right to be there as we did. I just wish they'd have split the group into smaller more manageable numbers, so they could have shared the rock with others.
So we bailed out a little earlier than I'd planned but the guys all got a great chance to look at the world from a new perspective.

A nice rest from our labors.

The kids spent the night at various friends and Grandparents' houses so Victoria and I had a rare chance to sleep in for a couple extra hours. After we woke up and read a couple chapters in our books we gathered up Rachel and headed to Granny and Grandpa's house.
We spent a couple hours just relaxing in front of a "Dirty Jobs" marathon before we found a great program on the History Channel based on the textbooks that I used for my college astronomy classes. If you get a chance to see it The Universe is a great program. It is about as up to date as you can get, including dark matter, dark energy and even a detailed section on the demotion of Pluto from a planet to a trans-Neptunian object. I highly recommend it.
After an hour of so of this Aaron, Noah and I ran over to Boat Rock for a couple of hours. In 1988 Shortly after I'd purchased my first pair of rock climbing shoes I drove over to Boat Rock with a friend and Easy Crack (5.8) was one of the first true crack climbs that I ever climbed. Granted the route is only about 20' tall but it'll always hold special memories for me. So I was particularly thrilled that Aaron was able to move through the route today, without a rope and in amazingly good form. He actually climbed the route 4 times. The first two times I was a very overly protective father/spotter. The last two times I was able to relax a little bit more and got a few pictures and even a nice little video of the event.

Climbing Rocks and Jesus Rocks

Rachel and I headed over to Boat Rock this morning. She's been talking about walking and doing her best to stay in shape and lately she's really enjoyed it when we've gone climbing. Boat Rock isn't very forgiving with tennis shoes so we ran by REI and bought her a pair of adjustable kids climbing shoes and a small chalk bag in her favorite color blue. We climbed for just a little over an hour. We went to the Easy Crack area and played on the cracks and the slabs there. She couldn't quite get the hang of crack climbing, but she loved the slabs. Like most girls she has much better balance than strength and at Boat Rock balance is crucial.

We had to head back a little early because Noah had an eye doctor's appointment. Turns out his eyes are pretty good. he has a slight astigmatism but nothing serious. The doctor noticed that Victoria was having problems with her eye so she made her sit down in the chair. Turns out that she has a scratched cornea. She's wearing a protective contact over the scratch and she is taking eye drops to avoid infection.

After we got everybody's eyes checked out we headed to downtown Tucker for a little bit of live entertainment. A friend of mine plays bass guitar for, what I affectionately refer to as, a "Jesus Rock" band. The concert was an outreach for three local Methodist churches in the area. When I asked if they'd mind if a Mormon came to crash their party Dave just said, "We're Methodists. It's all good." The kids were too glued to the TV to come so Victoria and I were going to head out together and Sue said it sounded like fun. So I invited her and we all had a good time. Had to cut out after Dave's band 'cuz Victoria had to run to a wedding reception but it was really fun.

Climbing adventure

Our monthly scout campout was last Friday and Saturday. We were supposed to head up to Mount Yonah to work on our climbing merit badge. The weather was looking a little bit unpredictable so I changed our destination so the guys wouldn't have to schlep all the gear up the access trail just to get rained out. There is this cool little rock climbing area just over the state line in Alabama. I used to go there at least twice a month but lately it's been more like twice a year. The rock is nice, especially for beginners, but the "local flavor" leaves a lot to be desired. At about 3:00am Saturday morning I sent the following email to my wife from my Blackberry:

Good morning.
Well we've had an exciting night so far. We pulled into Sandrock at about 8:00 and set up camp. Not too many people up here . Just a couple of climbers and one group of rednecks off in the woods.
At about 1:30 I get woken up to the sound of the scouts yelling "forest fire!"
So I got dressed and grabbed the water jug and started over towards the flames that were going 40 feet into the air. Somebody had set fire to the jiffy johny that the Climbers Coalition had paid for and it was spreading to the trees around it. I quickly realized that this was much bigger than I could take care of so I called 911.
I did my best to control the perimeter with the little water I had. My biggest concern was the trees that were burning 30' above me. As I continued to do my best to keep the perimeter, which was now about 50' across, under control I noticed that several places got worse when I put water on them. This was a gas fire. Somebody had put gas in the john and set it on fire. The whole time I was doing this I had one shirtless, missing a few teeth, redneck shadowing me insisting that I not call the police. When I told him that they were already on there way he got defensive and even accused me of starting the fire. To which I told him, "You might want to go back to camp and lay low for a little bit. When the firemen show up they'll see me, sober and trying to contain this and you, drunk, just standing around and they'll draw their own conclusions." He threatened to kick my @$$ a couple time but his slightly less drunk buddies convinced him it wasn't a good idea. I had 8 scouts standing around who were pretty sure that there was gonna be a "tussle". I think one had actually placed a bet on it. Nothing came of it. I just kept assuring then that I hadn't accused anybody of anything. I just wanted to get the fire out before it got any worse.
After about 20 minutes of my futile efforts the local volunteer fire department began to show up. First on the scene was a good old boy with his two young daughters who showed up in his Camaro. I was a little concerned until I saw that he was wearing his turn-out gear. In a matter of minutes there were three firetrucks on the scene and about twenty of Sand Rock's finest quickly got it under control. I told them what little I knew about how it could have started and they said they'd send up a deputy to make a report. I shook all their hands and thanked them for getting here before it got any worse. So far I haven't seen a deputy yet.
Conspicuously absent from the last half hour was my inebriated friend and his buddies. Perhaps picking a fight with the one guy who was trying to put the fire out wasn't such a good idea now that there were so many firemen on the scene.
Oh well. That's the excitement so far. I'll call you in he morning and give you a full report. Hopefully our day of climbing will not be marred by the event.

The day did get better. We never saw a deputy but we had a full day of climbing and the guys had a great time. We set up a few top ropes on the begineer wall and then went down to work on a taller route. I think the hardest they did was maybe 5.6 but they all got he chance to get up in the air and see what this "climbing" thing is all about.
We didn't finish the merit badge but I had a few scout come up to me and ask to go again. I since got on a discussion board and pledge the troop's support in helping to clean up Sand Rock at the next Climber's Coalition trail day. Now that they've seen first hand the effects of people abusing the land it'll be good to expose them to another group that cares for and actually takes stewardship of this world that we have to enjoy.
Here are a few picures from the weekend.

Ends v Means

“The only reason to go on vacation is to see all that stuff in the middle”
-Overheard on an NPR interview with the author of the Lonely Planet travel guides-

About every other year we take a two week long road trip as a family. In 2003 we drove out to Oregon for a family reunion. Along the way we went to several great sites in the middle of the country. On the way out went to Nauvoo IL, Badlands SD, Devils Tower WY, Yellowstone and several other neat places. Then on the way back we visited some family in Utah and then went by Bryce Canyon and The Grand Canyon. In 2005 we took the southern route and went to Carlsbad Caverns NM, The National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Painted Desert, Grand Canyon, Arches NP, Canyonlands NP, and Mesa Verde. This year our plan is to hit an area that we haven’t been and head up to New
York and Canada, again with several neat places along the way.
Our original goal in breaking up the trip and doing so many things en route is was to make sure that the kids would be okay for the extended traveling. It turns out that they are all very good on road trips.
It seems that in both of these trips the final destination is somewhat overwhelmed by the stuff we did along the way. I could not help but to wax philosophical on this point. Never have I been the type to justify the means by the ends. In fact I believe that the two are just different parts of the same thing. Without the path that leads you there the destination has no meaning. It’s what we learn along the way that adds meaning to the destination. If we had chosen to simply fly to Oregon for our 2003 vacation what would we have learned? Well we potentially could have learned a little bit more about Oregon but at what cost? By doing it the way we did I believe that my children have a much better love and appreciation for this wonderful land.
I recently read in a climbing magazine about a new remote controlled helicopter that can safely hover at altitudes well above 30’000 feet. Technologically speaking a rescue is now plausible from the very summit of Mount Everest. Some are concerned that the helicopter will be used not as a rescuer but as a mountain tourist attraction. Those with the cash to pay for it could just have this chopper drop them on the summit for a few snapshots and them pick them back up. Theoretically they could even spend more time at the summit that true climbers since they had such a faster return to a safe altitude. I doubt that anyone would feel that these tourists would have the same type of experience on the summit as one who had climber under her own power. In comparison I sure don’t feel any sense of accomplishment after driving 26 miles. But ask a marathon runner about his experience along the same stretch of road.
When I see people hoping to win the lottery or in some other way try to cheat their way to success the first thought that comes to my mind is pity. What they didn’t have to work for very hard to earn the esteem even less. In a very real sense they have cheapened the final goal. It will mean less to them because of their means of achieving it. For me the final goal typically turns out to be rather immaterial in comparison to what it took to get there.
I have many personal, spiritual, and professional goals. Sure it would be nice to accomplish them all. But does it really matter? Not if it means that I have to take shortcuts along the way. If I can learn more and become a better person along the way them what is the real goal anyway? I have attempted to climb far more mountains and rock faces than I have actually succeeded in summiting. However I would not trade the lessons that I learned on those failed attempts for any collection of summit photographs cheapened by shortcutting the path to the top.

A Day With the Kids

Woke up early this morning and loaded the kids in the truck and headed off to Sand Rock in Alabama. Victoria needed a day off so she stayed home and just chilled. I never set my hopes too high when I take the kids out. My goals are typically stay safe, keep the kids happy and try to get some climbing in. Today I was able to get all three as well as another accomplished. Aaron and Rachel did very well and Noah did pretty respectable for only his second time on rope too. One thing I was really proud of is that Aaron completed most of the requirements for his Climbing Merit Badge.
After we’d climbed a couple routes we met a very nice couple who were riding the trails around Sand Rock on horseback. In response to my girls saying, look at the pretty horses, Daddy, they stepped down and graciously gave the kids a quick ride around on horseback.
Later on we met up with a couple Georgia firemen who were climbing. They put up with the kids and actually seemed to enjoy the company and I even got to top-rope a 5.10a.

Zero Sum

Competitive sports were never quite my thing. For starters I was a little bit of a late bloomer physically so I was never the fastest, tallest or biggest in my age group. In fact I was usually on the small side. Did I mention that I also wore glasses since about 4th grade? These things all conspired against me to solidify my ranking as last kind to get picked for dodgeball, softball, kickball and every other game with the suffix ball.
As I look back on my life I can see that what I didn’t like about competitive sports was the fact that somebody always had to be on the loosing side. Every point for one team is a point against the other. Even on the rare times when the team that I was on would win I felt like our joy in winning was only at the cost of the pain of the others loosing. I went looking for something else, something that did not require what I saw as a false dichotomy.
I always enjoyed riding my bike. In high school I rode my bike a lot with my friends. I enjoyed the fact that we could spend all day riding around the area and get great exercise and neither of us had to loose. In fact we seemed to ride faster, longer and have more fun doing it when we rode together. While in Japan this came in really handy. Even though my primary reason for riding my bike everywhere was transportation and not exercise I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
After returning from Japan I took up rock climbing. Climbing provided me with the sport that I had been missing and took what I enjoyed in cycling and took it up another notch. Even more than cycling climbing is a sport where nobody has to loose. There are no teams and no competitions. You just go out with some friends and the group tries to do their personal best. There is no trash talking or put downs. In fact it’s quite the opposite. Climbers encourage and even share strategies on how to climb better and better. I’ve witnessed one climber climb a route that had never been climbed before and was also a personal best for himself only to coach a perfect stranger who had just walked by through the part he had found the toughest. I will concede that this type of camaraderie may exist at some level in other sports. I was just never quite good enough to let into that privileged circle. For the most part I did not feel that climbing even had this inner circle. I’ve have seen sponsored professionals enjoy helping and watching rank novices out for their first day on the rocks.
On a personal level I also found that I enjoy the success of others even more than my personal successes on the rocks. When I go out with a friend of equal or superior skill I really enjoy what we can accomplish. However, I find that when I take friends, family members, clients or scout troops out climbing I have a much better time. Last April I guided about 30 young men and young women from my Ward for a beginner trip at Mount Yonah. Besides a few short boulder problems and one short rappel to show them how to do it, I didn’t get to climb at all. I spent the entire day belaying, teaching, putting on harnesses and setting up top rope anchors. I had a blast.
The concept of a zero sum game seems to me to be fatally flawed. The pleasure of what you are gaining only comes at the risk of loosing. I recognize that some folks may have been able to escape this type of thinking in sports with a scoreboard. I applaud their accomplishments. For me at least, I will continue to focus on what I believe to be cooperative sports rather than confrontational sports.
I've included the above photo because I believe it illustrates exactly my point. I have another photo from this series taken a few seconds afterwards when my partner's hands were not on my back. First of all, the other photo makes me feel intellectually dishonest. I didn't actually climb this little rock without help as that photo seems to display. Secondly, this photo is a much better example of how climbers, assist and support each other.

Changes

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."
Nelson Mandela, 'A Long Walk to Freedom'

Last weekend I took the scouts up to a place that I've been going to for literally decades. My first trip to Mount Yonah was when I was myself a 12 year old Boy Scout. Now I was up here with my son, a 12 year old Boy Scout. The quote above is not quite appropriate but the spirit remains the same.
Actually a lot has changed since my first trip here as a young scout. The mountain then had a road to the top and was a common place for anyone with a 4x4 to drive up and "camp". It was not at all uncommon to see over a hundred cars and trucks in the parking lot. The rock climbing areas used to be choked with all sorts of people of all shapes and sizes and every level of expertise. In the early 90s, when I worked at REI and on the side would guide small rock climbing trips I avoided coming here all together. "Hey, It's the REI guy!" I'd hear and then a few second later I was showing them the correct way to use the gear that they had purchased from me just days ago. On weekends when the local yahoos weren't throwing beer bottles off of the top the Army
Rangers would subdue the cliff with helicopters, miles of ropes and thousands of Rangers. In those days the mountain had been completely tamed and you had to really search for any kind of solitude and reverence.
Today is much different. Development has encroached on the mountain and cabins have been built along much of the old road. The Army has dramatically scaled down how frequently they train here and the road has been restricted to local homeowners only. This last change means that in order to access the mountain you have to hike in about two miles on a moderately steep trail. It's not too bad if you're dedicated. Personally, I think it is just hard enough to keep the yahoos out. And I like it that way.
We hadn't planned on climbing this weekend. I brought a rope just in case, but our focus was just to get out of Dodge for a night. It worked. All who attended were inspired by the view and all had a deep desire to return. We had the place to ourselves. There were a few other cars at the trailhead but we never bumped into anybody else.
Pondering the changes that have happened to Yonah in the almost 3 decades since I first started coming up here forced me to think about the many ways that I had changed. In many way my life is much more cluttered and chaotic now, much like Yonah was years ago. However, for the most part I think that in the areas that really matter I've gotten rid of much of the trash and distraction that gets in the way of who I really am. Like Yonah I still have some scars, some literal, some figurative, of my past but they are fading away and the real spirit is starting to show itself again.
In 30 years I wonder how Aaron's perspective will differ from mine when he returns...

Priorities

I love rock climbing and I used to take every spare moment to head out and look for something to climb. This typically involved a lot of driving on the weekend considering Georgia is not exactly known for it’s plethora of tall cliffs. Just 3 days after Aaron, my older child, born I accepted a promotion with REI and transferred my family to Salt Lake City. My motivations for this were multiple. I had family back in Utah and I looked forward to getting to know them better. It was a promotion in and industry that I enjoyed and hoped to be able to sustain a family while working in. And finally it was closer to the rocks. Knowing that I now had a kid and would not be able to get out as much as I did before he was born, I looked forward to having the rocks much closer.
Working in the industry allowed me to buy gear at reduced rates and also gave me access to a large network of other climbers. With all of these things going in my favor I was able to greatly improve my rock climbing skill. I was getting stronger and my technique was getting better than it ever could have just climbing the stuff in Georgia. I set my goals high and had a great time in the process. With my new connections I was able to climb successfully not just in the Salt Lake area but in Moab, Zion NP, Joshua Tree NP in California and even in Yosemite NP. I was really enjoying the life I had created for myself.
My trip to Yosemite was enjoyable for a few days but partner problems and having to get rescued off of Middle Cathedral Spire due to a rope jammed in a crack left me feeling like I had to go back to the valley and redeem myself. Having pledged myself to return and improve on my performance I resolved to train as often as I could.
Shortly after I’d turned 30 I went out rock climbing with a friend. I had planned on doing a few short warm up climbs and then attempting a rather long hand crack called Mexican crack. The warm up route that I’d picked was called “Lunge or Plunge”. Although it was rated a 5.11+ it was relatively short so it made sense to use it as a warm up for the technically easier 5.10 “Mexican Crack”.
I’d climbed the route successfully less than a month earlier when there was still snow on the ground underneath me. I felt confident that I could do it again. I’d even considered doing the route “free-solo”, meaning without a rope. Having not climbed too much with Davis before, I didn’t want him to think that I was unsafe so I decided to rope-up for the warm up. I started up the climb and just like before I place the appropriate cams and nuts in the rock to protect me in case of a fall. About 15 feet up the small crack that I’d been using to petered out and at that point you find out why the climb is called “Lunge or Plunge”. Up to this point the crack has provided not only the safety protection but also all of the hand holds. The next handhold was at eleven-o-clock but about 6 feet away from the current hand hold. The only way to reach the hold was to get my feet as high as possible and crunch up my body while still holding this last handhold in the crack. Then I would simply straighten my legs as fast as possible and kind of jump, or lunge, for the big hold with my left hand.
Well that was the plan anyway. And that’s exactly how things went the month before so I didn’t see any reason why it shouldn’t go that way that time. I walked my feet up and got into my little crunch preparing for the lunge. As I did so I noticed that the cam that I’d placed was not as secure as I’d have liked it. I had two options. Move on and hope for the best or climb back down a few feet and try to set it correctly. Thinking at the time that discretion was the better part of valor I opted for the latter.
All I can assume is that as I was stepping down I lost my grip with the shoes and began to fall. I was looking straight forward and it was as if I became hyper-aware of every single detail in my surroundings. I saw the rope slide through the top piece of gear and then I saw that piece of gear pop out of the rock and back toward me. Then my eyes dropped down about four feet to the next piece of gear and I focused on it hoping that it would hold. Still focusing on that piece I was twisted back and my gaze was pulled straight up. This wasn’t right. The piece should have pulled me into the rock and I shouldn’t be looking this way. I paused for a second and looked around. I was sitting on the ground at the base of the climb. With the top piece gone there was too much slack for the second piece to do me any good and I’d crashed to the ground in a heap a few feet before the rope would have caught me. Ironically, had this been a taller climb I would have been saved by the rope. Although it would have been a longer fall, there would not have been that sudden stop at the end.
When I’m in a crisis I turn into Spock. I became strictly logical. There just doesn’t seem to be any place for emotion in those times. I looked down at my leg and I was looking directly at the bottom of my left foot. It took me just a second to say, “Okay then. My leg is broken. You go call for help.” I then picked up my leg which was bent at a 90 degree angle above my knee and straightened it out. Davis ran down the approach trail to get help.
He didn’t leave me alone though. My two-year old son Aaron was with me to keep me company. As I lay there I could only think of how foolish I had been. My family, Aaron, Victoria and Rachel on the way were not even in my thoughts at all so far that day. And they should have been.
The search and rescue folks arrived about an hour later. Ironically, I had been on an ice climb with many of them just a few weeks earlier in the same canyon. They did their best to stabilize my broken leg and lashed me into the litter for evacuation. Every few minutes my thigh would start to contract and push the broken chunks together. When this happened I let one of the EMTs know and he pulled on my leg and I did my best to relax and stop the leg from contracting. The trail to the climb gains about 600’ in about a quarter of a mile. Going up I had to use my hands and feet to climb it. Now these guys had to haul my butt down this same trail. If they’d have dropped me I’d have had a nice sled ride to the base of the trail. They had to rope up the litter and belay it down every section of the trail.
A short ambulance ride to the hospital and I was waiting in the emergency room. This was the first time I’d had access to a phone. Victoria was at work and I had to let her know what had happened. I don’t remember how I started the conversation went but I will always remember her saying, “You broke your leg.” before I’d even told her about the fall. Up until this moment I had had no pain killers whatsoever. I didn’t know what paperwork I’d have to sign and I wanted to stay completely lucid just in case.
Victoria showed up Just as they were bringing back the x-rays. My hip had been shattered. I counted at least 10 pieces of varying sizes, all of which used to be my left femur. I was in for a long hospital stay, surgery and a bunch of recovery.
The hospital stay was absolutely miserable and the doctor’s son broke his neck in a climbing fall. So, he was not the least bit sympathetic of my situation. Surgery went well and I managed to recover much faster than the doctor expected. I was even back on the rocks three months after the fall.
It took the fall, the surgery and the recovery for me to realize that Utah was not where I was supposed to raise my family. My job was only a vehicle for me to continue climbing and it was time I grew up and figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to do but I knew that my dead end job at REI would not get me there. I packed up my family and we moved back to Georgia.
I’m sharing this because my fall was 10 years ago today. Since then I’ve found a great job at AT&T, had two more kids and I’m really enjoying the changes in my life. As I said on yesterday’s post I think the real challenges in life come when we have to sacrifice one good thing for something else good. In retrospect, it is obvious to me now that I was failing the test. My priorities were out of whack and I was allowing more important details to fall by the wayside. It was drastic and I have an 18 inch long scar and a slight limp to remind me that I need to focus on what’s really important.
Now days I don’t get out climbing as much as I used to. I still enjoy it even though I only get out two or three times a year rather than two or three times a week. I’m not nearly as good as I was in 1997 but I’m much better in every other area of my life. I still reach down with my left hand and feel the scar on occasion when I feel like I might be letting my personal wants and desires get in the way of what I know is really important.

Boat Rock Clean-up

A Saturday well spent.
First thing this morning I drove four of my more dedicated Boy Scouts to work on a service project. There is a cute little park on the other side of town that has been purchased by small group of local rock climbers. For decades the area has been used by climbers but unfortunately it has also been used as a dumping area. The Southeastern Climbing Coalition organized the clean-up and we just showed up to provide the labor.
All of the guys expressing intrest in coming back later to give their hand at rock climbing.
At the end of the day I was very proud of my dedicated few. We made a major impact on removing some of the trash from the park.
Here are a few photos from the day.