Bouldering and Other Forms of Exfoliation

I've branched out a little bit with my photography lately, and was invited to be a photographer at the Rock Haus in Logan, UT, for one of their bouldering competitions. Fun was had by all. For those of you unfamiliar with bouldering, here is a definition I swiped from Wikipedia:

Bouldering is a style of climbing emphasizing power, strength, and dynamics. Its focus is on individual moves or short sequences of moves, unlike traditional climbing or sport climbing, which generally demand more endurance over longer stretches of rock where the difficulty of individual moves is not as great. Boulder routes are commonly referred to as problems (a British appellation) because the nature of the climb is often short, curious, and much like problem solving. Sometimes these problems are eliminates, meaning certain artificial restrictions are imposed. Bouldering is more focused on the technique of climbing instead of undertaking a full bodied climb.

To reduce the risk of injury from a fall, climbers rarely go higher than 3–5 meters above the ground. Anything over 7 meters is generally considered to be free-soloing (or simply 'soloing'), although such climbs might also be termed high-ball bouldering problems.

This competition had two major high-ball problems, the picture of the girl (Zowe) is part of a high-ball problem, what you can't see from the angle is that Zowe is about 18' off the ground. The other picture is of Ben who was catching his breath and planning his next move. I have a tremendous amount of respect for these athletes for several reasons:

1. Rock Climbing really is more of a way of life than a sport. You can tell a rock climber apart not just by the clothes they choose to wear, or the fact that they are in pretty good shape physically. You can see it in the way that they carry themselves, if they have been climbing for a long time their muscles are very balanced and they get around with very economical movements. It is very uncommon to see a beefed-up, muscle bound, roid-rager do very well at climbing.

2. They tend to gather together and form tight-knit little communities. Not cliques, that is completely frowned upon, but a network of people who support each other and promote rock climbing. They are not hostile to new comers, and they don't "hate" on other ways of doing things. All-in-all, the climbers I have been associated with generate a very positive outlook in general and are pretty open to the world around them.

3. They take care of the environment around them in a responsible way. These guys really do care about the environment, it's not a fad for them. It's not something that they do to get noticed, there were no light green Priuses in the Rock Haus parking lot. There were a lot of hard used Subaru Wagons and Toyota Pickups though. When you see climbers in their natural habitat outdoors, you notice that they don't have a lot of kit. They didn't pack in a bunch of stuff they aren't going to use, and they pack it all out with them when they go. There are usually some really happy well socialized dogs wandering around too, ones that probably came from the animal rescue.

So next time you see someone out climbing, or hiking the trail look past the stereotype of the "Smelly Hippy." Sure there are some smelly hippies out there, but most rock climbers aren't. They aren't granola munching pansies either. These guys are serious, and we could all do better by following their example. Live with sincerity, encourage each other, and do your very best everyday. That is the whole grain, lean protein, locally grown truth for the week.