Rex Upshaw on his Departure from Climbing, Part 1

tobias bundlewrote:

Knowing he is a character and not a real life salt field makes me like the interview more actually. I like the character a lot. Would be interesting to see what he goes on to do. 

I think he's eventually going to find surfing and that'll be it. He needs the purity, man!

Keith Woodwrote:

I think he's eventually going to find surfing and that'll be it. He needs the purity, man!

Have you been around surfers? My wife is from Oahu. But then again, you do need a F350 to haul your Skidoo and quiver of boards around an island that is 112 miles in circumference.

There is also no money in surfing, none at all. So pure... :-) 

Keith Woodwrote:

Thanks for ALL the feedback. It’s great.

So, Rex is not real. He’s completely fictional and not even based on anyone. I wrote it trying to have some fun with the idea of making hard climbing easier. His views are asinine, but as I followed them out I felt like a few interesting things emerged so I kept going. His descent into beer-soaked pseudo-philosophy was fun to write, as was the lunacy it led to. I had hoped that the reactions of the narrator early in the interview would tip folks off that it was fiction, but I didn’t want to overplay that. I’m glad many of you enjoyed it and found it thought provoking.

To my knowledge there is no such route in the Brooks Range, and there is definitely no 5:14b called Blues for Lillian. I just liked the sound of the name.

Credit to the following:

Reese Stanley for calling out how ridiculous Rex’s views are. You are correct, they are rotten and imbecilic.

Aaron Kolb for calling it on Rex

Weston Sandfort, the first to positively identify it as a creative writing piece and not a true account.

Pete S who noticed half of the wordplay in Rex’s name. It actually means King Washup, or more simply, Royal Loser.

Thanks everyone else for your feedback. Maybe I’ll try another some time.

Had me fooled!  Very nice job on the creative writing and it definitely got me thinking a bit.  I think this "interview" raises a lot of interesting questions/points in all honesty.  Knowing he is fictional, I actually really like Rex because I think it's actually really easy to end up like Rex.  You see constant FA's of V16 or 5.15 or [INSERT HARD GRADE HERE], and it is really easy to get lost in that pursuit.  That's the formulaic article title anyway "This climber climbs X grade" or "First person with X characteristic to send x grade".  Everything is centered around the difficulty of the climb and people only really care if you're putting up big numbers.

To that end, I think your post really demonstrates why you need to reflect on your ambitions and desires, and understand why you do what you do.  Am I climbing hard because I want to?  Or am I climbing hard because that's what I feel like I should do?  Am I just chasing grades, or do I actually care about improving myself as a climber?  Am I climbing hard because I want the recognition of climbing hard?  Is my ego the driving force behind my climbing?

Admittedly, I myself have struggled with my ego, chasing grades, climbing hard, etc.  Which, I think is normal for a lot of people and it's hard to not get your ego involved when you put so much time and effort into something.  When you first start climbing, it's easy to progress through the grades rapidly and it feels wonderful.  Every couple of months you break a grade, and you get that amazing feeling of progress.  As time goes on and you get more involved with the sport, that simply isn't sustainable.  It's easy to feel stagnant and hard to let your friends know that you're stagnant especially if they're all improving.  The climbs get harder and the plateaus get longer and that can be honestly very tough to reconcile sometimes.  I'm currently in the longest plateau of my climbing career.  It's been almost two years since I've broken a grade and admittedly, it's been a really humbling experience for me.  If I'm honest, I've never felt worse or more insecure about my climbing than I have in the last two years.  

But, I also think that's actually led to a lot of positives because it has forced me to grow a lot.  It's forced me to ignore grades, focus on my own performance, and focus on becoming a better climber with only myself as the judge.  It's also dramatically reduced the amount of ego that I allow into my climbing because all that does is cloud your judgement and ability to self-assess.  I realized that my ego was really getting in the way of my performance.  I was basically lying to myself about my weaknesses to convince myself (and honestly others) that I could climb harder instead of actually improving myself.  So more than anything, it has made me to be honest with myself, my abilities, and the amount of work that I need to put in.  Now, I realize that despite my plateau, I've improved more in the last two years than I have in probably all of my time climbing and I still have a LONG way to go to get to where I want to be.  My weaknesses are now what I focus on, instead of downplaying.  I enjoy climbing more than I ever have and honestly, I feel like the idea or notion that I need to progress has been replaced with just a desire to improve myself for the sake of improving myself.  It's quite liberating and it's allowed me to enjoy climbing a lot more.  I've always wanted to climb hard and I love to challenge myself but, man I was really going at it the wrong way.  Now it's just me and my climbing.  Better late than never?  Ha, that's life.

Great job Keith.

Reese,

Thanks for the feedback. So glad it resonates for you now.

I’m in my mid fifties now, so I am having to back down grades these days for the sake of my joints. But the timing is good. I’m teaching my son all I know, and he is into FAs like I have always been, so it is a matter of passing on the craft. I support and belay him on anything hard he wants to try, and he patiently belays me on FAs as he learns the craft. It’s really cool.

I definitely can’t climb the grades I used to. But climbing is so broad it still offers me a ton of options. So I’ve decided to do all the 5.6 to 5.8 routes I can in our new area, knowing those will see most of the ascents, and set them up really well. I’m totally stoked on this, far more than if I was trying to maintain my grades.

Blessings in your development.

I heard Ondra downgraded blues for Lillian