Tuesday morning gear rant

I'll echo others and thank John for the great post; it's unfortunate that there aren't more like this, at least in my opinion.

But what's up with that? Why is it difficult to post honest thoughts, sober assessments, tangents that paint us as less than superheros and more like humans; members of yet another rat race? Just another type of consumer?

After all, everyone knows that the people wearing those fine shiny down coats are somehow better than those wearing dull off-brand synthetics - just like the guy projecting 5.13+ is somehow better than the guy climbing, ugh, 5.7.

Achievement, to an extent, is as consumable as goods. Of course climbing is not immune: slap a high enough number on a route and it MEANS something. Especially if you're trying to sell shoes. But what good is complaining or acting like you don't care? We can argue with one another and proclaim our own innocence until death but that system works to the extent that it's safe to assume we've all embraced it.

Who knows... Maybe we don't like seeming weak. Maybe, as Mark put it, we don't want to be 'classified' (for everything must have some classification, right Muttonface? ;) ) as poseurs.

After all, everyone knows that the people wearing those fine shiny down coats get more respect than those wearing dull off-brand synthetics - just like the guy projecting 5.13+ gets more respect than the guy climbing, ugh, 5.7.

Beware, all ye who post here: judgement, like unshaved legs, hides in the hideous follicles of the collective mind; waiting for yet another scapegoat to prove that this is the right way.

We're all posting this from computers/ipads/cell phones etc. Until you put a hex through your screen, you're just fogging it up with the hot air.

;)

from the guy with the newest shiniest rack.

Mark Cushman wrote:I'm a poser. We all are. The only climber who isn't is Fred Beckey.

I can get behind that statement.

Mark Cushman wrote: The only climber who isn't is Fred Beckey.

Yeah, no one could ever accuse Fred of being a poser.

You've obviously never met him have you? Thanks for the laugh, I needed that today.

Yarp wrote: Yeah, no one could ever accuse Fred of being a poser. You've obviously never met him have you? Thanks for the laugh, I needed that today.

I have. It sure seems like the industry wants its last pound of flesh before Fred dies. Fred embodies the dirtbag lifestyle.

Ray Pinpillage wrote: I have. It sure seems like the industry wants its last pound of flesh before Fred dies. Fred embodies the dirtbag lifestyle.

I'll drink to that. I've only met him briefly but it was long enough to realize he is a rare human being.

Ray Pinpillage wrote: I have. It sure seems like the industry wants its last pound of flesh before Fred dies. Fred embodies the dirtbag lifestyle.

Ironic that both Patagonia and Five Ten have co-opted the myth of the dirtbag to sell gear.

If you've graduated from college, paid for your own car, or otherwise have reached the point where you are a contributing member of society and you still admire people who live out of their vans, poach campsites, and generally flaunt how "not tied down I am, brah", please wash your mouth out with buckshot.

I agree, we don't have to be (and indeed, should aspire not to be) slaves to consumer culture, but lets be honest here: tricking yourself into believing you've escaped the consumerist trap by not paying for stuff you're consuming doesn't mean you're not consuming.

Good OP. Back in the spring I noticed that I had been buying more climbing gear than 'normal' over the past couple of years (student loans....). Then I graduated, was unemployed, needed money so I sold all of my best cams-the C4s, mastercams, etc.

So what I've been left with the past 6 months are a set and a half of rigid friends (most left over from my first used rack in the 90s and some that I bought over the years for the Creek) and a handful of older tcus. What I've found is that (aside from rigids in horizontals), these units work 95% as well as the fanciest, latest stuff-there's hardly any difference. I even think replacing the camalots with the rigids has made me a better climber. Too often the seeming ease of placing C4s actually led me to waste energy: stopping and desperately jamming in a unit mid-crux. With the rigids, I was immediately aware of their supposed limitations, and I found myself climbing more intelligently: more keenly attuned to good stances and the best placements, rather than operating under something of an assumption that I could place whatever, whenever because my gear was so good.

Plus those rigids are cool, they look really old-skool hanging from my gear-sling.

Inspired by this experience I am now trying to break myself of my slavish addiction to chalk. Two chalk-less days so far, but on the hardest leads I still take it....

Brian Scoggins wrote: Ironic that both Patagonia and Five Ten have co-opted the myth of the dirtbag to sell gear. If you've graduated from college, paid for your own car, or otherwise have reached the point where you are a contributing member of society and you still admire people who live out of their vans, poach campsites, and generally flaunt how "not tied down I am, brah", please wash your mouth out with buckshot. I agree, we don't have to be (and indeed, should aspire not to be) slaves to consumer culture, but lets be honest here: tricking yourself into believing you've escaped the consumerist trap by not paying for stuff you're consuming doesn't mean you're not consuming.

Its the entire industry really. I'm not broke and I don't want to live in my car. The upside is that I spend more time focusing on self improvement than I ever did before. And since we're being all honest and having a moment, I like new shit.

By the way, I ran into Fred Becky climbing and guess what? He had all new gear.

Ray Pinpillage wrote: By the way, I ran into Fred Becky climbing and guess what? He had all new gear.

dya think he paid for em himself?

if you do i suggest reading this ;)

online.wsj.com/article/SB10…

"I chose not to get involved with a marriage or getting a house or being encumbered by debt," Mr. Beckey says. "I didn't have to stick with a job. I'm sure I've sacrificed stuff—finances, romance, friendships. Everybody sacrifices something."

That lack of steady employment for so long impressed Climbing magazine enough to award him a lifetime achievement award. "His unsurpassed first-ascent record, extensive contributions to the history and literature of the sport, and his zealous, lifelong sacrifice of economic comfort in pursuit of maximum climbing time leaves him without peer," the magazine noted. "But Beckey's crowning achievement is his enduring climbing-bum lifestyle."

To be sure, Mr. Beckey has honed the art of living on next to nothing to an art form. A friend in Alaska once saw an elderly man copying information from a climbing book in a store onto a scrap of paper. It was Mr. Beckey. A famous photo shows him holding up a hand-lettered cardboard sign by the side of a road. "Will belay for food," it reads.

"Fred's the ultimate dirtbag," says Patagonia Inc. founder Yvon Chouinard, who during the first ascent of the Beckey-Chouinard route on South Howser in Canada watched Mr. Beckey settle in for a cold night on a ledge by stuffing the pockets of his jacket with pages torn from a Louis L'Amour novel—an old hobo trick.

"I love Fred," adds climber-author Dick Dorworth, noting Mr. Beckey's renown for extended bouts of couch surfing, "but I'll never let him know where I live."

If you like lots of new gear buy it. If you can afford it and want it buy it. I have seen the changes in equipment and gear has improved. When I started climbing I bought a pair of Chouinard Shorts because that is what all the good climbers wore. That purchase came after I had a rope, carabiners, slings, a rack of stoppers and hexes. I loved walking around Taylors Falls with that thing clanking around my shoulder. I am still trying to look like a good climber.

If people are buying it more people will make the stuff. More manufacturers = more gear and lower prices. I love it.

Since I am not that nice to look at you should be glad my clothes are.

Ha ha!

Mark Cushman wrote: I'm a poser. We all are. The only climber who isn't is Fred Beckey.

mentalfloss.com/store/Hyper…
I remember my friend Charlie introducing Beckey to his radically cute girlfriend.Fred's body language said it all-his eyes kinda glazed over,the rest of us stopped existing in his reality as he reached for Stacy like a grizzly for a salmon...

bearbreeder wrote: dya think he paid for em himself? if you do i suggest reading this ;)

Of course not. The point is that even Fred likes new gear.

Ray Pinpillage wrote: Of course not. The point is that even Fred likes new gear.

everyone loves free new gear ...

everyone wants new gear at no cost ...

however when it comes to a call between spending money on new gear vs getting ... some of us prefer to spend it on gas or other such to reach the crag

i sure there are plenty of people out there to whom new gear and transportation is a minimal cost ... but theres tons of people to whom its a real decision in this economic environment

all the gear is there for is to help you to go out and have fun ... if it takes away from that its useless