Will Gadd on Climbing tribes......
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/sport ... ref=slogin
N.Y. Times
Outdoors
A Primer to the Climbs and Falls of Men
By WILL GADD
Published: March 11, 2006
One day in the not-to-distant future, a Ph.D. candidate is going to write a dissertation on the climbing tribes of the early 21st century, how they endured lives of extreme asceticism in a society increasingly based on materialism, where they worshipped (from Nepal to the boulders in New York's Central Park) and the artifacts they left behind. But until that piece is written, I would like to offer the following guide. I have no academic credentials and cannot even pretend that this is objective, but I have been a member of several of these tribes over the course of my climbing career.
For a tribe to be cohesive, there must be a set of shared beliefs, rules for conduct and, of course, the feeling that everyone in the tribe is of the chosen people, either by birth or salvation, and that members of other tribes obviously are not. The outside world often perceives all climbers to be madmen staggering around the Himalayas, but that tribe of climbers, the High Altitude tribe, is relatively small and increasingly irrelevant to the modern tribes.
The Rock Climbing tribe is the largest and most diverse. A rock climber who uses a rope only as a safety net is said to be climbing "free." A rock climber who climbs routes where a fall would be deadly and still does not use a rope is said to be "free soloing." To those outside the tribe, this looks like suicide, where one little slip of the foot or hand would result in a call to 911 — but with no need for the ambulance to hurry. The free-soloing tribe is probably the smallest of the tribes, not because of attrition, as might be expected, but because even climbers occasionally have good sense.
The Bouldering subtribe of rock climbing is easily recognized by the large mattresses they carry around on their backs. The mattresses are used to break the inevitable falls as climbers attempt to reach the top of savagely difficult pieces of rock from about 5 to 20 feet high. Bouldering is all about gymnastic difficulty — no ropes, no gear other than chalk and shoes. Minimal clothing is allowed, although heavy clothing is a hindrance — at least that is what the near-naked boulderer would say. Bouldering is also photogenic, and the climbing magazines are filled with images of well-muscled, tanned women and men hanging from impossibly small holds.
"Sport" rock climbers seek to free-climb short pieces (generally under 100 feet high) of very steep rock. Falling, seen by other climbers as a sign of dedication, is actually safer because of the use of solid construction-style bolts placed at regular intervals in the rock and thin but extremely strong nylon ropes. Sport climbers tend to gather in caves, where they acrobatically swing from hold to hold toward the top, often with encouraging chants from the other sport climbers. "Allez," the French word for "Get to the top of the climb!" is commonly shouted when a climber starts to struggle with a difficult move. The French influence is strong in sport climbing. Smoking is common because it can help keep a climber light, which can be useful when hanging from dime-sized holds, as are fashion statements such as loose capri pants in startling colors on both sexes.
The Trad tribe (short for traditional climber) believes that the bolts common to sport climbing are sacrilegious. A common trad bumper sticker reads, "Sport climbing is NEITHER!" Trad climbers use only removable or "clean" safety equipment. Beards, wool, third-hand clothing and Volkswagen vans are still common among the most holy of the Trads, but these climbers are not to be confused with mere hippies, although the priests of Trad climbing use the term "climbing bum" as an honorific. The Trads are the most evangelical and fundamentalist with their beliefs, which are well-documented in frequent ranting letters to the editors of the climbing magazines.
The tribe of Big Wall climbers is perhaps the least civilized of the tribes. Big Wall climbers spend days or even weeks hanging on their ropes, pounding pitons into the rock and using every mechanical aid they can think of to reach the top of very large pieces of stone such as El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. Occasionally, someone will point out that it would be much easier to just walk to the top, hang a rope down and climb up that, but that is heresy — the Big Wall climber's object is engineering a passage, often at great personal risk.
The High Altitude tribe consists primarily of what the public thinks of when they think of a climber. While not large in numbers, the High Altitude climbers are probably the original tribe.
Within this tribe exist Expedition Style and Alpine Style. The traditional Expedition-Style way to climb Mount Everest involves putting camps at progressively higher altitudes and using any means at all to reach the summit, including ladders, Sherpa guides and bottled oxygen. Those who climb in Alpine Style deride such methods, likening them to the use of a bicycle in a 10K foot race. Expedition-Style tactics, especially being guided up Everest while sucking oxygen, rank at the bottom of their tribal hierarchy.
The Ice Climbing tribe flourishes in winter, although these climbers may blend back in with other tribes during the summer when their natural habitat diminishes. Ice climbers arm themselves with sharp points on their hands and feet. They often proudly sport facial scarring from falling ice chunks. The most populous tribes exist in the Rocky Mountains, although lesser-known tribes flourish in New England and the Alps. Mixed climbers are a subtribe of ice climbers, and have left many strange scratch marks in deep caves from their "mixed" ascents of the steep rock and hanging ice. The meaning of this primitive art is unclear.
Climbers of all tribes often take vows of poverty and assume the ascetic lifestyle of a Buddhist monk. A well-known American climber of the 1980's once lived for an entire month on potatoes and canned tuna fish while attempting to climb one of the hardest routes in France. Climbers in Yosemite Valley can occasionally be seen nabbing food from used trays in the cafeteria, a practice commonly know as "scarfing." Celibacy is also a common vow among the male high priests of all climbing tribes, although there is some debate about whether an involuntary vow still counts.
Will Gadd has won the ice climbing World Cup, is a four-time Canadian national sport climbing champion and is currently researching a newly discovered ice-climbing tribe in Norway.
