What kind of climber is nonkel V?
For the occasional people who would like to know about my climbing, but in the first place to refresh and backup my own memory, I started to write down a "climbing resume". This turns out to be quite hard sometimes, since I never really kept a log or similar.
Now I do keep a log, at least of my climbing outside Belgium. The Climbers Log Book I got as a welcome present from the MCofS last winter is the katalysator that made me think about it and finaly made me start writing down my climbing journeys.
You might wonder why only "outside Belgium"?
To be honest, I'm not sure about this myself yet. I usualy indicate my routes in the guidebook myself, and if I'm not to lazy, put them in the BCN route database. Going climbing outdoors here is mostly a one day out trip, like other people go biking or walking on a sunday afternoon. I'm definitely not the type to patiently "work" on one route for ages.
In fact I mainly subscribe to the climbing philosophy I heard in South Africa: "If you don't succeed a route, try another one! There's more than plenty of them!"
Or as another climber once put it: "Either you can climb a route, either you can't.
I'm not sure about his exact words (therefor I don't put his name) but this philosophy is definitively not a modern sports climbing one.
Sometimes I put some quite radical and perhaps slightly shocking statements, I realise. One of them may be the one that there's only two kinds of climbing: the one where you're allowed to fall, and the one where you shouldn't. More and more climbers climb harder and harder routes, but stick to the first category, where good protection, like bomber bolts and thick crashpads, is omnipresent.
Once you go beyond that, whether it be in alpine mountaineering, harder trad climbing, exposed bouldering or... iceclimbing, you get into category 2: here falling is not a part of the climbing anymore, and might result in some harm.
I believe in our over secured day to day world today, the remains of our human instinct miss the excitement of the "struggle for life", and that's one of the possible reasons why people go climbing, motorracing, skydiving,... to get back some thrill in their lives.
Now I do keep a log, at least of my climbing outside Belgium. The Climbers Log Book I got as a welcome present from the MCofS last winter is the katalysator that made me think about it and finaly made me start writing down my climbing journeys.
You might wonder why only "outside Belgium"?
To be honest, I'm not sure about this myself yet. I usualy indicate my routes in the guidebook myself, and if I'm not to lazy, put them in the BCN route database. Going climbing outdoors here is mostly a one day out trip, like other people go biking or walking on a sunday afternoon. I'm definitely not the type to patiently "work" on one route for ages.
In fact I mainly subscribe to the climbing philosophy I heard in South Africa: "If you don't succeed a route, try another one! There's more than plenty of them!"
Or as another climber once put it: "Either you can climb a route, either you can't.
I'm not sure about his exact words (therefor I don't put his name) but this philosophy is definitively not a modern sports climbing one.
Sometimes I put some quite radical and perhaps slightly shocking statements, I realise. One of them may be the one that there's only two kinds of climbing: the one where you're allowed to fall, and the one where you shouldn't. More and more climbers climb harder and harder routes, but stick to the first category, where good protection, like bomber bolts and thick crashpads, is omnipresent.
Once you go beyond that, whether it be in alpine mountaineering, harder trad climbing, exposed bouldering or... iceclimbing, you get into category 2: here falling is not a part of the climbing anymore, and might result in some harm.
I believe in our over secured day to day world today, the remains of our human instinct miss the excitement of the "struggle for life", and that's one of the possible reasons why people go climbing, motorracing, skydiving,... to get back some thrill in their lives.
posted by Nonkel V at
10:17 AM
