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Significant events that have changed your climbing 8-Apr-2010 At 1:51:16 PM cruze

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Buoyed by the response on the Stoked thread, I have started a thread to help us share experiences that have changed the way we view climbing. Some of these events will have been positive, other negative. Perhaps your climbing experiences have been changed for the better, others for the worse.

I thought that I would start with a personal one, in the hope that it might encourage others to share a story or two.

I started climbing outdoors before I started indoors, at the age of about 16. In the years that followed, whilst at Uni I tended to climb indoors infrequently and it wasn't until about 8 years ago when I moved back to Canberra that I took up climbing, largely to pursue a certain girl, who recently became my wife. So happy story, right?!

Anyway during the last 8 years I have lost both of my parents. When my Dad died 7 years ago, my outlook on life changed somewhat. A few years previously I had come off a MTB in the Blueys and croken T2-T5 (back) which led to 3 months of bed rest, so I had some idea of how seriously injured you could get from risky activities. That changed my view on risk taking in climbing, but more so after my Dad died. After that point I didn't take unnecessary risks if I could help it and I really only considered that significant risk taking must involve significant reward for success. That theme populated my climbing, which at times involved scary climbing on granite around the ACT and in Tarana, but also pushed me closer into alignment with the leader must not fall mentality (with trad) which meant that my trad grades remained in the teens.

Years went by and I climbed quite a lot until I received a call from my brother that my mother was being admitted to hospital after scans had revealed a tumour in her brain. As it turned out I received that phone call from Sydney on the same day that I had planned a half day trip to You Yangs. Without giving it any more thought than you would for such a serious event I thought that I would just get on with what I doing, having already booked a flight to Sydney for the next morning, and set off to climb on the Flinders slabs. There was one climb in particular that looked like an easy starting point - Tewkesbury. About half way up this grade 16 granite slab with a few bolts over 30 m, I pretty much broke down. I couldn't resolve in my head why I was taking any risk whatsoever climbing between spaced pieces when my mother was about to go through brain surgery with an unknown but serious prognosis. I got to the top eventually, but it was the only climb that I led that day and we didn't stay for long. I felt guilty for trying to enjoy myself, guilty for risking perfect health and guilty for not being with my mum immediately.

Fast forwarding through the next three years to the present day, I have spent more time in Sydney caring for my mother who was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme (WHO grade IV cancer - a particularly nasty one) than I have on the rock - by a long way. Her second craniotomy left her with left sided paralysis which required 24/7 supervision because of fall risk, etc etc. for the last 2 years. My sister cared for her for the majority of the time while living with her in Sydney.

My mother died a month ago which was tragic but not unexpected. She was not old, and had lived a particularly healthy lifestyle keeping fit and eating everything good.

There are still a lot of thoughts pinging around in my brain about life and death, andI can easily say that my mind has been seriously affected when it comes to risk management. I once heard a phrase "If you are careful enough nothing good or bad will ever happen to you" and I agree with this to some extent. My assessment of risk usually results in quite consevrative decision making including choice of routes, choices of conditions, choice of gear, lacing up climbs, backing off if I don't feel comfortable, thinking about my partner's comfort level, etc etc. I don't agree that climbing has to be as dangerous as a lot of people make it out to be, or make it. I don't feel comfortable seeing new climbers climbing with the overconfidence and bravado that I had 10 years or more ago, although I understand that that is their journey to take (hopefully with a few pointers from me).

At the age of 32 I am an old man.

Anyway, this isn't meant to be a sob story. I just thought that I would start a thread hoping to hear what people had to say about life and death experiences, or relationships, etc that have changed the way they view climbing.