Ω When I started rock climbing, it seemed that being tall(ish) with a positive 6cm ape index was a distinct advantage. On the slabs at Baring Head, and later in Quantum Field, the ability to reach that extra centimeter (or extra metre) further than some was the difference between being O for Orsome and being too short to be awesome. To be honest, I felt kinda smug about it too. I used to titter away as, on any given day at the bottom of some below-average reach-dependent slab or other, the assembled midgets would thrash with their T-Rex arms, like dolphins in a drift net. I knew I was weaker than them all, but it didn’t matter. I loved rock climbing then.
Sadly, something has changed in the last decade (ie. since Zac Orme was born). I call it ‘The Global Conspiracy By Midget Climbers To Spoil It For The Ectomorphs’ or TGCBMCTSIFTE (which is Czech for ‘9/11 was a hoax’). It is no longer fashionable to be tall and skinny. Indeed, the World Health Organisation (‘WHO’ or should that be ‘Dr WHO’?) reports that in 2005 approximately 1.6 billion adults (age 15+) were overweight, and at least 400 million adults were obese. Dr WHO predicts that by 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese. All other things being equal, that means lots more short, fat climbers. And they’re gonna need something to climb, and it’s gonna need to have BIG holds.
That brings me to the point of this apparently pointless discourse: all the hard problems these days have big holds; not necessarily positive holds, but BIG ones. Gone are the mono-stacks and those graton cruxes that invert the first joint of your fingers so that they make little ‘S’ shapes. Now you don’t need to be tall to climb hard, you just need to be strong.
I doubt any of today’s muscle-bound midgets have any idea what it feels like to split a tip or to crimp so hard that the edge of your fingernail slices through your cuticle. They won’t be able to distinguish between the ‘snap’ of a severed flexor tendon and the ‘pop’ of a ruptured pulley. Most certainly won’t have the slightest inkling how miserable climbing can (and should) be. To quote American climbing filmmaker Mike Call (circa 1993), “climbing is pain”.
Some more statistics: 99.6% of all climbing walls build since the iPod was invented are overhanging. Excessive pride, ego and avarice are the composite cause of 92.3% of all knee pain (excluding knee pain caused by something else, like damage to the knee). 3 out of 4 of the best boulderers in New Zealand are less than 5ft tall (Stuart Kurth being the notable exception). Last but not least, the hardest ‘completely less than vertical’ problem in New Zealand is V8, the grade that Charlie Creese climbed in 1962.
All of which leads me to the conclusion that climbing is no longer the sport for me. Regrettably, there is little else that I can do now – my tips are bleeding, my fingers have turned inside out and my knees are completely shot.
Coming next: Palmasutra 003 - Dating Tips For The Fulltime Climber Ω
