is it me? Or do climbers suck?

Tradiban wrote:

Hmmm...maybe you should quit and find an activity with better people in it.

Have you ever kayaked before? How are those people?

michelle w wrote:

So I should start looking up. It has to get better from here. I must have just met the 10% of the most narcissistic climbers in my first 2 years of climbing. The other 90% are still out there somewhere. There is a new hope to finding a climbing partner 

There aren't many climbers anymore. There are a lot of "people who climb" unfortunately. That's what you're saying in your OP when you talk about self absorbed people who don't know how to have fun. Don't lose heart, you'll find them...... ;)

Jaren Watson wrote:

I don't know what other people's experience is, nor what yours will be. I only know it's been rare that I've met a climber I didn't like.

I wonder if one can affect this by considering what one hopes to get out of a climbing outing.

Most of the time, I really only care if we get some climbing done. Friendly and engaging conversation is a plus but is somewhat incidental.

I agree, how do you feel when your partner runs the show every time you go out? I just want to climb, pick some of the route once in awhile and have a good time enjoying the outdoors.

John Barritt wrote:

There aren't many climbers anymore. There are a lot of "people who climb" unfortunately. That's what you're saying in your OP when you talk about self absorbed people who don't know how to have fun. Don't lose heart, you'll find them...... ;)

So would you say there are people who climb just to say they climb?

Great thing about climbing innit, you only have to find 1 person who doesn't suck.

Or if that's too hard, you can deal with the fuckaround of solo roped antics, the risk of soloing or vertical mediocrity of bouldering.

r m wrote:

Great thing about climbing innit, you only have to find 1 person who doesn't suck.

Or if that's too hard, you can deal with the fuckaround of solo roped antics, the risk of soloing or vertical mediocrity of bouldering.

Yeah I should start bouldering. Darn I just finished buying a trad rack :(

michelle w wrote:

Have you ever kayaked before? How are those people?

They suck.

On the subject of climbers sucking, here's something I wrote in a thread entitled What's the most important thing climbing has taught your? over at Supertopo.  It was written three years ago and so I've changed some of the numbers to make the statements current.  The original is at http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=2551294&msg=2552748#msg2552748.

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Here's something I learned from climbing, not in the general way suggested by the thread title on on a very specific situation on a very specific day.

Sometime in the mid-sixties my friends Peter Gardiner and Steve Derenzo and I spent a week doing climbs from Garnet Canyon.  One day we hiked up to the Lower Saddle to do the complete Exum Ridge the next day.  

That never happened.  Late in the afternoon, a rescue party of GTNP personnel arrived at the Lower Saddle.  There had been a bad accident at the Upper Saddle.  A grapefruit-sized rock had fallen from the top of the standard rappel and hit someone at the base of the rappel.  He had a depressed skull fracture and there was apparently a lot of blood lost.  The victim was still alive, and needed to be carried from the Upper Saddle to the Lower Saddle where a helicopter could get him off the mountain.

The rescue party was short-handed and clearly already tired from pounding up to the Lower Saddle.  We offered to help and the offer was accepted.  The rescue took all night.  If anyone knows the terrain between the Upper and Lower Saddles, you know it is a tough place to carry down a litter, especially in the dark.  It's basically a boulder field broken by short cliff bands.  We had six people carrying the stretcher plus an absolutely essential belayer.  Going over the cliff bands, two or four of the carriers were just hanging onto the belayed litter.  It was exhausting and scary work.

But now we get to the part about learning something.  With a lot of people now strung out in the dark between the two saddles, it was inevitable that a certain amount of rock fall would happen.  Every time the cry of rock was heard from above, the six carriers, reflexively (certainly no one discussed this) leaned over the litter and shielded the victim with their bodies.  This was a very severely injured patient who probably was not going to survive, and the carriers were all healthy young people in the prime of life, but sensible or not, no one protected themselves, everyone protected the victim.

More than fifty years have passed since that night on the mountain, and I still find myself thinking about it regularly.  We see terrible things happening in the world.  Our nation is increasing polarized.  Disagreements without rancor seems like a quaint memory.  It is easy to think human nature is, at heart, fundamentally and fatally flawed.  But I spent a night long ago with healthy people trying to save a stranger who probably was not going to make it, people who reflexively used their bodies to intercept further harm to the victim.

What I learned that night was that there are some very powerful human instincts that are fundamentally both good and heroic, and these instincts are alive in us, ready to be awakened when someone is truly in need. Honestly, the totality of other insights of 60 years of climbing pale before this one, which continues to suggest to me, over the years, that we have something to live up to, something to aspire to, and we don't have to look around for it; it is in ourselves if only we can find it.

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Maybe I spent that long and dangerous night a half-century ago with your 10% Michelle, but I doubt it.  If you aren't meeting climbers who are good people, you need to revise your search..

Rgold for the win - again! The best people I've met in my life happen to be climbers. 

michelle w wrote:

I agree, how do you feel when your partner runs the show every time you go out? I just want to climb, pick some of the route once in awhile and have a good time enjoying the outdoors.

That's unfortunate. When I climb with people, I usually defer to their preferences, or at least take turns picking routes. I don't want a stronger climber being too bored or someone not as strong being intimidated. If your partners aren't having fun, they stop climbing with you.

Almost all climbers I've met have been really cool. Yeah, I've met a few jerks, but they have been the rare exception.

Every climber i've met has been down to earth and chill AF. A random climber struck up a conversation with me in REI one day and turned into my "trad mentor" several years ago and one of my best friends. Just follow Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk and you'll be fine. No one's perfect. And neither are you. 

In person, I've met only a handful of awful people who call themselves climbers. On the Internet, the whole lot of us are assholes.

Jack Servedio wrote:

In person, I've met only a handful of awful people who call themselves climbers. On the Internet, the whole lot of us are assholes.

Drunkposting. I suppose it's better than drunk driving, though.

 No way! Most of my friends are through climbing. Wait, Do they suck? No!!

Can you really trust that any of us are actually being objective?  You did come to a climbing site to ask US if we are the problem? If we are all in fact narcissistic, douche-nozzles, then we are certainly going to do nothing but put into words whatever is required to gain your trust about how awesome, accepting and socially cool we are.  Only to let you down again in person.  or maybe that makes up sociopaths... whichever.

I hear you tho, It is mo' betta going out with friends of the same heart and mind, who enjoy the experience, which is certainly better when you are on the same page.  They exist.

I wouldnt dump your current partners too harshly.  If they are safe and you trust them, you always want the option to get back out when no one else is answering the phone.  Who cares what they are saying when they are on the other end of the rope.  Unless its, "take", "slack", "rock" or "off belay".

goingUp wrote:

Can you really trust that any of us are actually being objective?  You did come to a climbing site to ask US if we are the problem? If we are all in fact narcissistic, douche-nozzles, then we are certainly going to do nothing but put into words whatever is required to gain your trust about how awesome, accepting and socially cool we are.  Only to let you down again in person.  or maybe that makes up sociopaths... whichever.

I hear you tho, It is mo' betta going out with friends of the same heart and mind, who enjoy the experience, which is certainly better when you are on the same page.  They exist.

I wouldnt dump your current partners too harshly.  If they are safe and you trust them, you always want the option to get back out when no one else is answering the phone.  Who cares what they are saying when they are on the other end of the rope.  Unless its, "take", "slack", "rock" or "off belay".

Lol! Good point.