Lessons Learned: At the End of the Day, You Gained Nothing!

My dad took me climbing for pedagogical reasons. To keep me physical active, to learn to be responsible for yourself and your climbing partner and to learn to appreciate nature. Yeah that John Muir type of sh****. His plan worked out.

Now being 19 years of age, I think I wouldn't be the same person if I wouldn't have started climbing with my dad. I probably wouldn't have been able to take the responsibility of leading all 32 pitches of The Nose on El Capitan when I was eighteen, to move out of comfort zones to push my climbing and mental limits or to be aware of the risks that involve climbing. Yeah, climbing has risks and even though I could do more things to be safer: like wearing a helmet everytime I go climbing, to always do a partner check, or to go climbing on chossy alpine walls without checking the weather. I am fully aware that those things at one point of my life can seriously F**** me up. Still I am doing them. Ammon McNeely once said :

"Rather forty years of action and excitement than eighty years of sitting on the couch, watching TV and have a boring life" 

For quite a while, I agreed with this statement and I still partially do. To be highly philosophical here, life is to short at least on a geological time scale, to hide from it and next thing we know, we get hit by a car. So yeah, pushing yourself to your mental and physical limits is a good thing to do, to learn more about yourself, and to know your strengths and weaknesses.

During the last weeks, multiple tragic events happened in the small world of climbing. First of all, Sean Leary, a climber I never met personal but always looked up to died during a base jump accident. A week before a fellow students from the University of Wyoming had a tragic accident in Eldorado Canyon. Talking with my dad about both accidents and watching multiple climbing videos of legendary climbers like Dan Osman, who all tragically passed away, we both got into a very emotional debate, about how the sport of climbing has developed over the years. How it switched from an art like sport, like Patrick Edlinger or Wolfgang Gullich practiced it, with a focus on the beauty of movement and outstanding rock lines. To a worshipping of adrenaline junkies and the so called "Living on the Edge" Lifestyle. At first, I thought Alex was just over reacting, but then thinking about it while I was sitting alone in my room staring at posters of Wolfgang Gullich, I realized the point he was making and remembered why he took me climbing in the first place.

My dad never wanted me to be a professional rock bum. Neither do I. Climbing for me was never more than an escape from the all troubles of daily life. A way to forget. To be out in the nature with friends and to push myself into a stage of trying as hard as I could. However, my all time goal always was to not get hurt. A successful climbing day, wasn't determined by the fact if I could send a route or not. At the end, all that mattered was that I was still vital and alive. However nowadays, through the constant presentation of media and the constant pressure to perform something outstanding to attract sponsors, we more and more start to forget, what the idea behind climbing is and why we are doing it.

The idea behind climbing is to climb a rock, to stand on top of a summit, to go places people haven't been before. It is not to get F***ing killed, to seek a way to kill yourself, or to  think you are a better climber because you live on the so called "Edge of Life and Death". If you think that, go to the next train track, stand on it, wait that the next train comes and play chicken. But don't go climbing. I am sure, some might think I am exaggerating or overreacting. Probably I am doing both. To be honest though, I am tired of meeting people, that try to have philosophical debates with me, about how beautiful it is to die doing what you love,or to tell me that if I would be are a real climber I have to poop my pants and get scared on a constant basis. Ironically most of those people that call themselves "extreme" climbers, have never climbed a Big Wall or been more than 120 feet of the ground. But that doesn't really matter.

At the end of the day, what did we gain from going climbing? Did we get rich from it? Maybe, but probably not! Did we achieve fame? Most likely not! We didn't cause world peace or anything beneficial for the world. The only thing we do is go and climb rocks to be on top of something, most people don't even care about. It gained nothing to us.

Where is the point of killing yourself, for something that has no value? Think about it...

The Author of this hella legit text can not hold responsible for any possible writing mistakes made during the production of this piece of literature, which will most likely replace Of Mice and Men in High School English Classes.