Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
International	(General)	(General)	(General)

Topic Date User

Advice for preparation to Everest B.C... 15-Jan-2010 At 6:31:53 AM MattyB

Message

Mate, that is exactly the sort of comment that I was expecting from some of the narrow-minded people that seem to criticise any post on the forum that doesn't meet their misguided and naive ideas of what is 'valid' to post in the 'General' section on a climbing forum.

Do you have any idea of the amount of people in the climbing community with excellent and positive contributions to make, that I know who totally avoid Chockstone because of people who behave like you??? Sheesh. Get out of the sandbox, pack up your toys, and grow the f*%k up. I have lurked on this forum for a while now, and every time I go to post something, I hesitate. Because I know some imbecile has to pull out his little kiddy magnifying glass, and flame up everything that's said - outside of some vague and subjective parameters set, by who....? By you???

I didn't say I was going for a trip to Paris, and what cosmetic shops I should visit when I am there.... I didn't ask for advice about a trip to the frikking Maldives and what colour budgie smugglers should I take as I sit on the beach, and work on my tan. I didn't spam the forum trying to sell my Goretex ShamWOW!... I was (humbly) asking my climbing peers for some advice about altitude and extreme cold weather preparation, something I have not personally ever experienced before. But if my peers all behaved like you, well I'd rather not bother climbing at all. A death by HAPE would be infinitely more preferable then drowning in your 3 paragraphs of useless, vitriolic crap.

FYI, I have already had a personal email from someone in the medical profession who took his valuable time to provide me with the accurate information I was after to hopefully have a safe and enjoyable trip to the highest region on the planet. If your head is even higher up than my plans, up in the bloody clouds, that's your problem - but don't anonymously hide behind a keyboard and inflict it on the rest of the people that are sensible, mature, and don't have some bitter axe to grind in the public domain.

I've dreamt since I was a little bloke to see Everest, to understand the feeling of sitting at base camp, and knowing you have yet another monumental challenge ahead of you. Regardless of it's validity (by your words) as a 'Climbing Trip'... The whole reason I started climbing in the first place was after reading Lincoln Hall's inspirational 'White Limbo' about Aussies on Everest North Face in 1984.

The journey through China, being in Tibet, the photos of the Potala Palace, the Base Camp maladies... It stirred my lifelong interest also in Tibetan Buddhism. I've gratefully shaken the hands of Lincoln, and Tim Macartney Snape, both heroes of mine since I was 14. Why gratefully?? Because they contributed positively to the myriad paths my life has taken. And I thanked them personally for being totally inspirational to me - a virtual stranger, in ways they could never imagine.... I didn't criticise their personal choices, I didn't lambaste their technical abilities or potential logistic failings. I politely thanked them for their innocent and unknowing contributions to my life.

You know what makes me climb? It's not the rock, it's not the ego, it's the community and the people that I get to meet when I do it. Art does not exist in a vacuum, and neither does the feeling of conquering a millenium-old piece of cold and emotionless rock. It is a feeling to be shared amongst your peers and your friends. Behaviour like yours is antithetical to the climber's ethos, I don't care what grade you have climbed or if you've free soloed Mons Olympus with a broken arm, and in your undies.

Personally, I don't actually want to climb the world's highest piece of rock and ice, I'm not interested in alpine slogging and becoming a statistic just to achieve another statistic. I'm much happier tooling around Mt Piddo on some nice, challenging 18. But I've spent a whole life following my dreams, following my own Mount Everest, through thick and thin. I get paid to play guitar for a living, I get to travel the world as a result, and I climb and live life the way I want to when I I'm not doing that.