This journey ends in failure
But follow your stoke, and you'll find others with the same stoke
Time to revisit one of my all-time favorites:
Everything works out in the end; and if it hasn’t worked out, it’s not the end.
We can always rationalize our way into believing we are in the part of the story that we want to be. We can rationalize that we’re in a story to begin with, and not, say, wandering through the wilderness, no paths, beginnings, middle, or end.
But yesterday did seem like a definitive end, in the way stories go. Such as we have in climbing: its routes, projects, and seasons. You either “send”1 or you don’t. And if the season ends before you get it, it’s over—at least until next year.
Yesterday I failed again on my 13a (7c+) project, the tricky, steep ramp up at Orange Crush known as Tin Man. Sometimes you just don’t have it.
And today, this morning, as the forecast stated, the weather has turned: snow, frozen sleet, sub-temps, overcast, and nothing but wet, rain, snow, and cold for the foreseeable future.
The season endeth.
I.
And yet.
I found myself climbing with two of the most joyful, supportive, stoked climbers I could have hoped for. It began as all climbing belay-tionships do, with chance run-ins at the cliff and small talk, with trading “beta” on how to get through the various sections of the route.
We traded numbers, Lauren and me, because after all, not everyone wants to keep coming back to the same route over and over, especially as the season fades. But that’s exactly what both of us wanted to do. Then later, the same with Ally. She says she got “suckered” into the climb, but what she means is it seduced her into its web, the same way it had seduced Lauren and me.
Eventually, it was the three of us all meeting together. All of us after the same goal, all of us questing after our first 13a. All a little obsessed.
Was it obsession in a good way? Immaterial.
When you follow your stoke and your passion, you find others with the same stoke and passion, I said one night as the three of us made fajitas in my kitchen after a hard day of climbing, and more failure.
We became friends. Giving each other belays, discussing in minute detail how to get through the crux sequence from the ground. All of us on a shared quest, but with slightly different styles and body types, and thus slightly different strategies—and different barriers to sending.
For Ally, an injury, difficulty with the cold, fingers and toes numbing out on the rock. Lauren, something of a mental block that kept spitting her off the bottom, even though she was by far in the best position to finish the climb. And me, a little bit of everything: fitness, technique, and my longer limbs making it difficult to tuck into the squeezed spaces.
Between attempts and in the evenings, we got to other topics: movies, travel, politics, love, relationships. And then, the next available weather window, it was back to the climb.
In such ways are friendships formed: time spent, pursuing passion, braving the cold and disappointment of failed attempt after failed attempt: shared suffering, one might say.
II.
And it wasn’t just us.
Up on the ledge at Orange Crush were a handful of other climbers questing after nearby routes. Matti on Tin Monkeys, James and Jason on Dynosoar. Orangahang, Flying Monkeys, and just down the hill, the grandaddy king line of them all, Predator.
If the weather was good, we could nearly always count on seeing each other on the ledge. And we almost always knew where the others were in our respective quests. Matti, with his new method of moving through the crux, powerful but suited to his huge wingspan. James inching higher and higher on each attempt.
On such climbs, progress can be measured not on whether you fell from a new, higher hold, but often whether you fell while moving up from the same hold as before. It can be measured in the certainty with which you were able to grip, whether all three pads of your finger were on or just two. Measured in a slight adjustment to your foot placement to make clipping the rope through the next carabiner just a hint easier.
Thus it was that climbing this one route took over much of our lives, even off the rock.
Back at the house, I hesitated to continue with a landscaping project because the risk of tweaking my back shoveling was just too great. Saunas were strategically timed for maximum muscle recovery. Our diets and drinking, our rest routines, our yoga stretches, our sleep: all were oriented toward recovery and preparation for the rock.
Our bodies were literally molding around the exact movements needed for this one, specific climb. Everything else was extraneous.
III.
So it was that on a cold, dreary day last week, after falling and failing for weeks, that Lauren finally pulled it out, seemingly out of nowhere.
Her stoke was high that day, even despite the gray weather. She had been saving a brownie for when she sent—a small pleasure, a victory snack for when it happened. But so certain it wasn’t going to happen, she ate the brownie just before the last attempt of the day.
And then: a release. A mental breakthrough. It’s hard not to see the connection: once she truly let go of the outcome, she did it. All of a sudden, she got through the bottom crux that had been defeating her for weeks. She moved onto the ramp, to the kneebar rest where the rest of the business starts, and called down to Ally, who was belaying: Oh shit, now I have to try hard.
And then she caught her breath, moved from the pancake-shaped hold, and slowly but deliberately moved her way through the ramp, to the final, steep jugs, and the anchor chains at the top.
Ally and I never got it. We came out one more day, just the two of us, the forecast bequeathing us one last window of warmth and sun before a snowstorm rolled in. Both of us were so close. We could taste it.
We had the send brownies in our bag, and toward the end of the day, we ate them, hoping to capture a bit of Lauren’s mystical send energy. Hoping for the same release that would unlock the final send for us as well.
But it was not to be.
IV.
They say everything is in the journey, not the destination. And I have to remember my beloved passage from Hunter S. Thompson: But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life.
But it stings to not finish when I’m so close. I could blame the weather, the shortness of the season here in New England. It was too hot, then there were about three weeks of decent weather, and then it was too cold and wet. In truth, I only chose Tin Man because I had no other choice—the holds on other climbs were all soaked, whereas Tin Man’s sheltered ramp stayed dry even after days of rain.
I could blame the style, not at all suited to me, or the odd, low-probability nature of the crux sequence. I could blame myself, my headspace, the mistakes I made falling from certain sections even when I’d gotten through harder parts below.
I could tell myself anything I want, really, I’m the author of my own story.
But the beauty of projecting in climbing is that it defies your own narrative: you don’t have it until you have it. It’s not a subjective thing. It’s not in the mind of the beholder. You either send or you don’t send.
When it happens, we all know that it’s happened. And if not, not. If you think about it, the very black and white nature of sending is the reason it’s a shared experience. The shared reality is the reason we can celebrate each other’s wins so unequivocally.
But of course, the process itself is also the thing. I now know I can climb that hard. Given the time, the conditions, the focus, I can climb harder than I ever imagined just a few years ago. I am strong in my body, confident, psyched, and I will soon head back to Spain where it is warm and dry another winter season awaits.
But the real thing is always the relationships formed, the time shared. Happiness only real when shared, as Chris McCandless famously scribbled just before dying alone in the Alaskan wilderness.
Lauren and Ally, my ledge partners, my friends: it was a beautiful journey with both of you. Lauren, you absolutely deserved the send; and Ally and I will just need to come back one day.
Everything works out in the end, and if it hasn’t worked out, it’s not the end.
Climbing a route in one go from the ground, with no falls or ‘takes’ (i.e., no using the rope to rest).