I've been trying to decide what to write about this week, and coming up short. There are several topics I plan to blog about, but not for a few more months (at least) so as to avoid being/sounding ignorant. So, because apparently my running post was popular, it's time for Stuff Amy Loves: Episode 2: Hanous Climbs and How All my Friends are Crazy. Because who doesn't want to hear me wax philosophical about fun things.
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The relationship between climbing partners is fairly unique. Every time you rope up with someone you are literally putting your life in their hands. You have to trust their belaying technique, their attentiveness to you during the climb, and be able to communicate. You establish routines that become habits: safety checks (hold out the rope to show the knot, squeeze the carabiner on the belay device to show it's locked, eye contact, nod to confirm you're on belay, and climb), awareness of each person's technique (especially clipping) and the speed they're comfortable being lowered off a route at (Nick and Jesse will lower you super-freaking-fast if you let them, and it may scare the pants off you).
You have to know that your partner will catch you on a lead fall. Because the alternative can be quite unpleasant.
This deep trust is why finding new climbing partners absolutely sucks. At some point, you have to take the plunge and let someone new belay you. There are ways of taking some of the worry out of the equation; Ev will keep a close eye on the new belayer until we've decided they're not going to drop me (this goes both ways). But at the end of the day, you have to put your trust and your life in somebody else's hands and hope to hell it all works out.
I am incredibly lucky to have not just one, but 6 people I trust with my life and consider some of my closest friends. There are many inside jokes (there's a reason we call Nick's place The Nunnery), creative language (apparently I'm good at that), movie nights, bang bangs, and too many Janssen's to count. And, because they're each a bit, uh, special, I'm going to introduce them. Because they told me I could and I have nothing better to do with my Sunday then talk about the people who have heard me say things that should never, NEVER be repeated.
Like all groups of people who are probably too close, there are roles that must be filled. So, without further ado, I give you... The Guys. In alphabetical order, because I don't know how else to rank them. Deal with it.
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| The legendary day when Nick took up aid climbing and we clipped every piece of gear we brought to him. Literally, every piece. He didn't notice until we started clipping backpacks to him. Actually, I'm pretty sure he's still pissed about that. |
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Adam (The Wild Card)
Every group has a wild card. Adam is ours. And dear lord, he deserves that title. Adam is a special, special man-child who, I shit you not, is basically a walking Snickers commercial. He'll get cranky and not want to climb, but you give him a Snickers and he'll pep right up and go back to his normal bubbly self. I've experimented. It has to be a Snickers. Cookies, granola bars, or other candy bars don't have the same effect. I have no idea why, but Ev and I now carry an extra 'Adam Snickers Bar' when going out with him.
Famous for forgetting his helmet, he catches a lot of crap for not being attached to his brain cells. You never know what he's going to say next, which keeps you on your toes. I have an established policy of never clicking a link Adam sends me until someone else has confirmed that it is not, in fact, something that will scar you for life.
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Angela (Grown-Up Amy)
When I grow up, I want to be Angie. As the other girl in our group, Angie is about as mature as I am, which is to say, she might be a 15 year old boy. She's also a fierce ice climber and a bit of a badass on rock. While she doesn't come out to the crags with us that much, she joins the early morning gym climbs.
Angie is famous for bailing on our grand adventures, but when she does join a grand time is had by all. It's also possible she has a drinking problem to go along with her excellent life advice (no, seriously, she gives really solid advice). She's not as much of a wild card as Adam, but she definitely has her moments, complete with the eternal optimism.
It should be noted that Angie does not take a bad picture. I'm not sure how she does it, but it's a bit ridiculous.
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Dakota (The Muscle)
Dakoty is a baby. Although you would never know by looking at him. We were all surprised a few years ago when we realized he wasn't old enough to order a beer (he can now, but that was as of this spring). Everyone kind of assumed he was our age, although that's deceptive since we range from mid-20's to mid-30's. When I was going through his Facebook pictures to find something appropriate for this blog, I stumbled across his prom pictures. From 2012. Holy crap that makes me feel old. He also has the dubious honor of being the only non-engineer in the group (Angie doesn't count, she basically does engineer stuff). He's a geologist. Psh.
Anyway, Dakota is a man of many faces. Most of them silly. He catches a lot of crap for being the token sport climber in the group. Although to be fair, Ev and I have turned into sport climbers since moving to Europe.
Dakota is credited with creation of the word 'hanous', a hilarious misspelling of heinous that now has its own definition, t-shirts, and has been incorporated into every-day jargon:
hanous (noun):
1. Difficult or strenuous but not that bad.
2. Something that was a no-good, very-bad time but wasn't actually as much of a sufferfest as Dakota claims it was. Think the crappy end of Type 2 fun.
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Everet (The Looks)
Ok, fine. Talking about Ev is kind of unnecessary. Ev is my partner in life. It's because of him I climb, run marathons, do triathlons, and remain sane. I talk about him all the time. We have adventures, Janssen or otherwise, and challenge each other to keep improving. We are damn efficient when we start climbing, moving between routes on a wall in a matter of minutes. Splitting up gear is a well established routine, as are the safety checks (primarily non-verbal at this point, but always present) and the established history of not letting each other die. The dying bit is from first-hand experience - he got my broken ass off Fox Creek when I unscrewed my ankle attempting to take up ice climbing.
Ev is the person who gave me the most amazing catch when I came off a route in Mallorca. I slipped off while mantling on the crux of a 6b, which just so happened to be right off the bloody ground. I had the first bolt clipped, but was far enough above it that when I came off I just knew I was going to deck and prepared myself for impact. Which never came. Instead, Ev jumped back and sat down, and I swung into the cave, my butt inches above the ground (luckily I'd pulled my feet up when I came off).
In other words, Ev is awesome. But you already knew that.
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Jesse (The Captain)
Jesse is hard to describe. For starters, he is freaking immune to mosquitos. More times than I can count I've looked over at him and seen his legs covered with those evil little bloodsuckers, which seems to bother me more than it bothers him. Sometimes I brush them off. Or spray them with bug repellent. Jesse laughs at me when I do that.
Then there are the man-thighs.
Jesse wears pants for climbing so rarely that it's actually weird to see him in them. He has many pairs of brightly colored shorts, that may or may not be a wee bit too, well, short. You cannot go climbing with him and not be subjected to slightly more leg than is comfortable. It's a thing. In fact, Angie was recently subjected to the, uh, whole package when belaying Jesse and looking up at exactly the wrong moment. Apparently it was memorable. And completely unsurprising.
But Jesse is always down for anything. Climbing, hiking, river trips... if you need a friend or a partner, 99.5% of the time, the Captain is in. Although you will be subject to the deadpan stating of the obvious. A few memorable (and recent) quotes include:
Me: Wow, it's so beautiful up here!
Jesse: Well did you expect it not to be beautiful?
Me: Dakota, how are you so young?
Jesse: Amy, everyone isn't exactly your age.
Me: So how do we feel about proper sleep schedules?
Jesse: How do we feel about the sky being blue?
Totally deadpan. Hence, Captain Obvious, aka the Captain.
Nick (The Brains)
Nickles is kind of a badass. Insane, but a badass. He is the original purveyor of the term 'Janssen,' which by now should be in the vocabulary of everyone ever. This is the guy who climbed Denali, ran a couple ultra marathons, does more mountaineering than is probably healthy, and scares the living crap out of me on a semi-regular basis. There was this spring's ground fall, which he told me about by starting with the oh-so-soothing words 'So I had a trip to the ER yesterday and I just want everyone to know I'm going to be ok.' Which is, obviously, an excellent way to make your friends across the pond go 'WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!' There was also the incident on Mount Mathers where he and his partner managed to dodge rock fall, a small avalanche, dropping an ice tool, and running out of water. Oh, and a bear (go Alaska). Despite the mega-Janssens, Nick is the guy who is cautious, who goes to great lengths to make sure things are as safe as possible, who isn't afraid to turn around, and who knows when it's time to call it quits.
Nick is also our photoshop guru. And we love him for that. A man of many talents, he is annoyingly good at pretty much everything he does. He plays way too many instruments, sings (our road trips turn in to sing-alongs of early 2000's rock), climbs some sick ice (and rock, obviously), runs way too freaking fast, and is apparently smart enough to be finishing up a PhD. It kind of makes you want to punch him, doesn't it?
He has also summarized one of my fundamental problems with bouldering: sit-starts. You don't start climbing a mountain sitting on your ass. Why the hell would you start a regular climb by sitting down? It's stupid.
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For me, climbing is the opposite end of the spectrum from running. It's technical. It requires complete focus, because a small mistake can have dire consequences.
It's a high stakes sport, with a delicate balance between the mental and physical components. You can't push yourself and improve if you don't have your head in the right place, and there's a mental state where you can problem solve under pressure to keep things from going south. But you also have to be physically able to finish the climb, which means you have to know your limits. Sometimes you call it a day because you're mentally drained. And sometimes it's because you can't hold on to the rock anymore.
Climbing takes you places you would never otherwise go. You get views that you earn, and stories that make you sound like a badass to the uninformed (cuz honestly, what non-climber knows the difference between a 5.7 and a 5.13? People hear 'climbing' and think Alex Honnold). And the satisfaction of finishing a long multi-pitch, of putting up a project or thrashing your way up something you really weren't sure you could do is impossible to describe.
Like running, climbing makes you work for it. But in climbing, those feats are not for you alone. They are shared with your people: your climbing buddies.
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