AMGA Rock Certified Guides in the Tucson area

Like your Aussie accent you've got me grinning from ear to ear Gabe!

This thread has gotten quite long, so I thought I'd summarize it to save you all some time:

1) In early November, Tucson1 (aka TUCSON DICK) questioned Jeff's qualifications.

2) Nobody agreed with him.

gabe metzger wrote:Healyje, I'm sure you could equalize your boner with a butthair, but most of the climbing community would rather rely on something more substantial.

The first rule of climbing is keep your boner and butthairs out of the system. I'm convinced many people who mainly free solo do so specifically because of a lack of these deep technical skills. This probably does raise a real opportunity for a significant expansion of the AMGA curriculum, though. Who knows? You could be in line to become the first AMGA Bonafide "Butthair Management" Instructor. Though it would likely have to be a tiered track due to the many technical hurdles associated with really pinning down and grooming the potential composite force vectors of enmeshed or entangled butthairs. Butt, hey, this is advanced stuff - you'll undoubtedly have to bury you nose deep in this material for an extended period to really master the finer points of this challenging new certification track.

gabe metzger wrote:wait, you wouldn't take the test and don't care about it because you don't believe in standards when it comes to an industry where people's lives are on the line...

Exactly, the problem isn't that people's lives are on the line, the problem is it's an "industry".

gabe metzger wrote:We rarely see climbers offering education to those who obviously need it when they see something dangerous. We often here comments like "lets get out of here before we've got to rescue that dude". don't tell me that ain't the truth! I will attest though, to the often selfless attention guides give to non-paying inexperienced climbers who are making bad decisions. It comes with the territory, "don't let people get dead". Not macho, not ego...responsible.

Don't know where you climb, but we deal with folks having a bad or clueless day when we come across them. There would be a lot more dead people around the world every weekend if the clueless had to wait for a guide to stumble upon their sorry predicaments. I'd even hazard to guess that the ratio of assists on any weekend is more like 1000:1 (concerned climbers : guides). Again, climbers have been providing this sad charity long before guides ever appeared on the scene.

gabe metzger wrote:Healyje...since your comments seemed to stem mostly from your own ego, and not in response to my comments directed towards..well..not you....

No, they have nothing to do with ego, but rather an annoyance with the growing [commercial] drumbeat around the idea that guides have somehow cornered the market on any aspect of climbing beyond industrial guild/cult formation, marketing, and self-promotion.

gabe metzger wrote:how about you walk us through the process of escaping a hip belay with nothing but a boner and a butthair....could you include photos with force vectors superimposed? Thanks, amigo!

Sorry, but that's a trade secret of the Brotherhood of Olde Skoole Poseurs. You wouldn't like the initiation rites or the steep fees required to join even if you knew the right people to be invited and could produce the technical Haiku necessary to even be considered in the first place ( which, of course, you obviously couldn't if you have to ask...)

;-) o===8

it's been fun!

lets face it, this horseshit could go on forever...Healje: you are right about the industry thing...i'm not really sure what to think about it since nearly everything thats cool is now part of the industry thing. Its social evolution...its here to stay...so cant we all just get along...i mean...the world does not stop and start at your convenience and will continue to "organize" long after we're gone.

your point about non-guides helping others...kudos to you and the many lives you've saved. everyone appreciates that...but your figure of 1000:1 illustrates a good point (though probably not your intention). That point: there are relatively few guides in comparison to the number of recreational/professional climbers out there. The fact that outdoor industry folks got together to create safer standards for an everygrowing;;;sorry;;;;industry (and yes earn piss for money) should be commended not bashed. I wonder how much of this judgement carries over to other arenas of civilization...like the ones that really count.

Let it go mate, ya aint changing the progression, merely adding bottles to the 'whine shelf' at the supermarket. DIG?

...but seriously, you've got to think that "equalizing your boner with a butt hair" is F-ing hilarious!! Can we at least agree on that? I mean, laughed uncontrollably over that one!

AND FAZIO!!!MY MAN!!! GREAT TO HEAR FROM YOU! ARE YOU STILL MAN HANDLING SNAKES AND WILD GAME? HOW'S THE MRS.?

ok, i must have missed something, Who's FAZIO? have to admit, healyjes' last post was pretty f'n funny too.

Yeah, c'mon..on further examination it's pretty obvious Gabe's got his head in the right place right?...I was put off by his first post cause it certainly seemed like he was calling more than 1% of his clients "poseurs who pretend to be extreme for a weekend.."..

Because it would seem you wouldn't quit guiding over just 1% of clients like that? But he clarified what he meant in his second post and made it pretty clear to me he was cool...Sh*t most of us have gone on buzzed or drunken rants before (remember kiddywinks alcohol and keyboards don't mix lol just ask Gigette haha)..

But I needed to make the point that people shouldn't become arrogant because they're really good at one thing anyway, so that was a good opportunity to do so..I grew up around a bunch of guys who later became pretty famous cage fighters..Some of these guys also surfed, and when the surf was really big, they were nowhere to be found..See what I mean?

Eric FAZIO-Richard? or was that some kind of inside joke?

Everytime I see the words "Shawn Bradley" I think of "THE BLOOD OF SHAWN BRADLEY.." on the ClimbAz site..For those of us who don't climb 5.13, it takes some balls to try to lead solo Space Cowboy..

Hey everyone - check it out - Tucson1 edited his posts! Maybe he'll apologize to Jeff, too.

Wow -- that was some edit

How do you know when people edit their posts..? (if it's not obvious -like that one was)

"In any case, what nonsense it is to try to drive a wedge between guides and guideless climbers; there is no point in fostering a discord where none can exist. The better the guide and the guideless performer are, the better must they understand one another. They can only learn from each other. The enthusiastic guideless climber is a good advertisement for mountaineering. He awakens the interest of many in the mountains, and these newcomers take guides in order themselves to get to know the mountains."

Heinrich Harrer, from The White Spider

I just got done reading all of that, I'm spent. Anyone want to climb instead?

J.Mullins
AMGA.TRSM/RIC trained.
one love

www.climbingguidesarizona.com