Stupid Human Tricks

I guess that 'Stupid Human Tricks' could be the title for all my post, or even the blog, but during the last month in the desert of southern California, I had some time to ponder some of the things I do....such as...why do I drive across the emptiness of the Mojave to climb a rock or 2.



Freak Brothers
No matter how many times I turn it over in my head. I can’t figure out why humans are so willing to do dangerous things for a cheap thrill. Are we all really that bored in our day to day life? Take for instance a recent trip to Joshua Tree National Park. This beautiful place in the high desert is home to a great amount of granite domes. I like to call the place ‘mile of piles’ as none of them are very tall. Yet, due to the great weather during a time of year when the rest of the climbing areas in the country are under snow wind and cold, Joshua Tree attracts thousands of climbers every year.

I, myself have been spending several weeks or months there every year for nearly a decade. Having climbed many of the classics and even many of the not so classics, I finally had the right partner and head space to go and do one that’s been in the tick list for years. The Freak Brothers Traverse. Imagine (or look at the photo above) three largish stone walls connected together in folds such that they kind of resemble three freaky heads side by side. The traverse cuts straight across them. Now climbing sideways might sound easy, but its actually a rather difficult thing to do when you are on a thin lip just above a largish overhang. The leader and the follower get much the same experience. If there is one little slip, life becomes a big whip as you hurl through space falling down and over to the next piece of portection that might be 10 feet to your right. So if you fall...you get a fast ride 10 feet to the right and 10 feet down. Yeah, and I can tell you...it is exciting. So yes, climbing sideways can be easier because you are not lifting your body as much, but when your only real contact with the rock is a small group of ledges bulges or nubs for your feet, and the consequences are high in the occurrence of a fall, things stay exciting, and the term hyper-focus takes on a new meaning as one gently dances across the void just above the lip with the heels of your feet hanging into space.

The climb starts off with a bit of a bang, the opening moves are as a result of necessity rather then ease. The ‘holds’ such as they are, would at best be considered imaginary. Its all about sticky rubber, and a lot of trust in ones ability. Perhaps that is a starting place as to why we do such things as well. When driving our autos, we trust that we can make each curve, and that the machine we are driving will perform as expected.
Still, why o we trust all those things enough to risk our life to be able to say we did XYZ activity? Now I know that we all need to get off the couch every once in a while, and do something, but why things that can potentially kill us.

We all have a ‘thing’ that gets us going. Something that trips our trigger. Whether I like it or not, on some levels, I’m totally addicted to adrenalin. I’ve told many of my friends that I hope to grow out if this sillyness and learn to enjoy stamp collection, and have stamp collecting or some other more mundane activity fill the hole that action sports currently hold, but so far it has not happened. I even question whether or not I’ve toned it down a notch or just gotten so used to all the crazy things that I don’t notice how crazy they are. Whether its pulling my body through a little hole in a cave, or dropping an 8 footer on a mountain bike, or pulling through the delicate moves of the Freek Brothers traverse, I’m constantly quizzing my self for meaing in all this, but the only thing I can figure out is that is fun for some stupid reason. And FUN is about as deep as it gets.

If I could figure out how to put that mix of excitement fear, and glee into a bottle and sell it as a soft drink, the world would beat a path to our doors. Then again, perhaps its already been done, and its called Cocaine or whatever the drug of choice would be, and its true, the world cannot seem to get enough...FUN.