Nothing
warms my heart like the sight of a packed parking lot at the crag, SUVs
plastered in "Dig Me" stickers and bedecked with Rocketboxes, kayaks,
telemark skis, and mountain bikes, taking up two spaces each while their
fatuous owners pound bongo drums, toot on the didgeridoo, play devil
sticks, crank some drizzle-shit jam-band "tunez," longboard merrily about,
form up a nice hacky -sack circle, and toss the Frisbee for their dogs
"Denali" or "Makalu" or "Nanga Parbat" (all this, of course, while talking
mad smack about the day's climbing itinerary sans leaving the radness that
is the parking lot, braah). Nothing. I have a soft spot for the
multi-sport crew, who "not good at any one thing, but dangerously adequate
at everything hip and outdoorsy," bring their traveling circus to the
cliffs each weekend. I myself suffer from the "semi-competent at one thing
-- namely rock climbing -- but predictably disinterested in everything
else" syndrome, aka "Fading Sport Climberitis" (FSC). An insidious
contagion transmitted via saliva-rich spray and unsanitary stick clips,
FSC generally attacks monomaniacal sport climbers in their 30s, mutating
them into, first, jaded sport climbers, then boulderers, then
fly-fishermen or parents or golfers. (Acute sufferers, who may actually be
victims of the more potent "Fading Sport Climber Desperately Clinging to a
Cruel Mistress that has Ruined their Elbows and a Shot at any Sort of
Normal Life-ititis" [FSDCCMRESSN], will evince such radical symptoms as
alcoholism, technique coaching, surfing, and
bitter-Climbing-Magazine-column writing. Trapped in a purgatory of
arrested emotional development, these poor simpletons should be treated
with pity and, when possible, employed.) Thus, it is with jealousy and awe
that I peer out through the bars of my FSC cage at the blissful
multi-sport hordes, romping and frolicking beneath some of America's
"sickest" cliffs without a thought in their heads. What if I, a victim of
both FSC and FSDCCMRESSN, too were free of these cynical trappings -- free
to pierce the air with a war whoop while 'yakkin through strainers, free
to drop in on Slickrock and crank out some pitches at the Potash in the
same day, free to write haiku on my crash pad while throwing that hemp
frisbee to Nanga Parbat? Well ... it still wouldn't be enough. My Type A,
obsessive/compulsive, sociopathic, neurotic, Quixotic, and single-mindedly
psychotic FSC nature would compel me to invent new, hybrid sports. Which,
in alphabetical order, would be:
Backcountry hangdogging
"Pow-pow," "Dust on crust," "Face shots." No, these aren't the latest
porn flix by Italian stallion Rocco Siffredi -- they're skier slang for
snow, that horrible white stuff which covers the crags in winter, turning
multi-sport unenthusiasts like myself into fat, irritable lumps of whiny,
plastic-pulling flesh praying hard for a nice, fat drought. For others,
however, untracked, backcountry powder is the stuff of dreams -- skinnin'
up, diggin' a pit, glidin' through glades -- to which I say, "Whoopee for
you." Myself, I'd rather stay at home, close the curtains, and huff
model-airplane glue out of a Ziploc bag while trancing out on the
"Teletubbies." Nevertheless, the self-sufficient,
Man-harmonizing-with-nature mentality of backcountry-ski aficionados
meshes well with the proud pursuit of hangdogging, which is also a form of
Man harmonizing with nature, albeit at a rate of five vertical feet per
hour. To safely take hangdogging into the backcountry, you're going to
need lots of bolts -- I recommend power-drilling them every two feet,
preferably next to cracks in wilderness areas. You can best announce your
presence to other backcountry users by using a gas-powered hammer drill
such as a Ryobi, which from a distance (and up close) sounds just like a
chainsaw.
Coffee shop big-going (CSBG)
Derived from the catchphrase "going big," tradspeak for "doing a
multi-pitch rock climb," CSBG is much safer, since you need never leave
the latte-cum-amniotic-fluid-bath of your favorite coffee shop. Best
practiced at espresso dives where other climbers are given to loafing,
CSBG, in no particular order, involves: expounding loudly on your upcoming
bid to climb a route given at least Grade V 5.9 A2, or R/X;
complaining about the "crap in the climbing magazines"; glaring at other
patrons (use wrap-around shades accoutered with an upside-down, backward
sun visor or ventilated ball cap); and decadently nursing your java drink
of choice. Watch and learn: CSBG veterans are masters of the "false
hook-up," wherein vague, half-baked plans to go big ("Yeah, we should do
that route, definitely, for sure ... ") are made with other CSBGers, never
to be realized.
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Klayaking
Inspired by the gnarly pursuit of kayaking, or "floating down the river in
a silly little boat," klayaking, due to its high fatality rate, is open
only to the craziest few, those who, so burned out by their increasing
sport-climbing failure rate, no longer feel the need to live. In
klayaking, practitioners 'yak off progressively higher cliffs, beginning
with lowball lumps at their local bouldering areas then, should they
survive, ramping up to big drops like El Capitan or Colorado's Painted
Wall. While solo klayaking is the purest, a team effort, wherein your
klayaking submen toss you into the abyss, is also considered
legitimate. (Note: To capture the authentic "buzz of boating," real
klayakers should always wear their spray skirts.)
Lawn-chair
mountaineering
Lawn-chair mountaineering (LCM) is actually an old tradition that has heretofore gone unnamed, with a storied past dating back to the days when bored alpinists would plunk their lawn chairs in
the snows of Alaska's Ruth Glacier to watch other parties' epics play out
on the surrounding peaks. LCM took on a new life during the Dark Ages of
sport climbing (i.e. the 1990s, when bumblers were friendly and elite climbers weren't), when practitioners would Crazy-Creek-lounge at the base of testpiece routes in anticipation of "sports action,"
otherwise known as "someone falling off." These, however, were passive, primitive forms of LCM, requiring only that you sit in your chair and motor your mealy gob. New-school LCM acolytes have perfected the art of
active LCM, incorporating belaying into their repertoires -- especially at roadside crags (e.g. Rifle's Project Wall), where little to no precious "redpoint energy" need be expended lugging a two-pound chair to the
cliff base. While seemingly selfish and unsafe, active LCM, in reality, helps forge the kind of bonds between partners unknown since the days of Lachenal and Terray, Messner and Habeler, or Piana and Skinner. To me,
at least, nothing says "I've got you, bro" like the sight of my belayer splayed out in his favorite chair, his guide hand rooting for nose gold while his brake hand, nowhere near the rope or belay device, pantomimes
the crux of Rumpy Pumpy (5.14c) to a goggle-eyed throng.
Slackwhining
We all know how hep it is to slackline your rest
days away, building up to crossings of greater and greater gaps over deeper
and deeper voids. Yet few of us know about slackwhining, which involves slacking hard on your climbing goals while whining about all the mitigating factors (temps, humidity, job stress, "tweaked" fingers, kneepad slippage) that prevent you from realizing these goals. Extreme slackwhiners will take it to the next level -- sitting around, smoking
pot, and playing video games -- eventually reaching the seventh level of Nirvana (or is that
Quake II?) in their quest for Zen bliss.
V-alpinism
Love the sexy double-digits grades of dry tooling but hate the cold? Or do you love the supportive culture (read: vile herd mentality) of V-bouldering yet crave the "adventure" of mixed climbing? Well ... there's a new sport for you: V-alpinism, which combines the
worst ... er, I mean, best ... of bouldering and mountaineering. Involving
more than just exploiting snowy conditions to hack, scrape, and chop your
way up boulder problems you wouldn't stand a chance of free climbing, V-alpinism is a credo, a way of life open only to the core elite. (You
can tell a true V-alpinist by his crashpad -- a relic of battle torn, punctured, and shredded by countless three-foot groundfalls -- and his 12-to-15-foot stare.) V-alpinists are also tough: Be aware of V-alpinismus interruptus, or the act of stopping a V-alpinist mid-send to ask, "Hey, what the hell are you doing to that boulder?" as you're likely to take a whammy-bar arse-wise for your trouble.
Cool as these hybrid sports might be, they're merely suggestions. If they're not providing the sort of Extreme Adventure you crave, add in
the "speed" component: speed klayaking, V-speedy-alpinism, backcountry speed-hangdogging, etc. And if you're still feeling under-stimulated,
mix and match for even greater adrenaline yield: V-klayaking, coffee-shop hangdogging, lawn-chair big-going, or backcountry mountaineering (oh,
wait, that actually is a sport), etc. The possibilities are
endless, just like the existential pain caused by FSC. Now, did someone say
those "Teletubbies" were on?
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