Phenomenal

by

Ray Purcell

Say what you want, argue back and forth until your blue in the face about the relative worthiness of this kind of climbing or that. Bicker and expound about style, bottom up, top down, top off. It makes no difference to me, if it's climbing I like it.

Don't get me wrong, or proclaim me boorish, I embrace diversity, really I do; I fall in and out of love with other sports on a regular basis. It's just that climbing is a steadfast relationship with enough intrinsic variety. The length and breadth of climbing is filled to capacity with diversity not to mention the opportunity for rugged individualism; distinctiveness is practically the climbers creed, the unique and untried it's grail. And, that's exactly why I like all kinds of climbing.

I liken myself to a painter who dabs the brush into this color and that to capture the tones and hues that capture the soul of earth and sky. Or, if you will, imagine walking into a restaurant, with a flourish the maitre'd seats you with formality and flourish, then with elegance and ceremony the waiter offers a menu of delights. The waiter says, "Tonight the chef offers you the singular isolation and exhilaration of the mixed alpine ascent", his mouth moistening with the toothsome offering. "Or,", he continues, "we offer a traditional route with a particularly cunning off width challenge. Then he catches your eye and with a glint that belies an insiders tip, and with a secretive whisper he continues "...but, I personally recommend the rack of quick draws and a acrobatic little sport climb, garnished with dime edges, and sautéed in monodoit vinaigrette on a wall of overhanging volcanic tuff.

Who can resist! On the other hand, it's the comfort food that we come home to. As climbers we can: tie in or tie one on; diversify and commercialize; we can even vilify; but it all comes down to the point behind which we unify, climbing satisfies some void, it feels good, makes us feel more whole, and that my friends is the pot roast, gravy, and potatoes of it. Best yet, no one can explain it, and we just take it on faith.

Besides isn't better that way, wasn't Mallory's "...because it's there." explanation enough. Do we really want -why climbers climb- postulated, explicated, and pontificated. Let sleeping dogs lie, I say. Which is exactly what I did... until the dog raised his head, let out something between a groan and a belch, kicked off of the passengers door and ended up in my lap, with not much space between me and the steering wheel.

I was driving South on Highway 395 and had just past evening and was heading into night. The Sierra began to taper and soften, and then finally disappear into darkness all together as night extinguished the desert about me. I was piloting my economy pickup, 28 miles to the gallon, and with all the comforts of an efficiency Tokyo motel room under the camper shell. My wife calls it the "twuphk", the way a four-year-old might announce a toy that Builder Bob might drive. But add one, or better yet two dogs, and, aside from the smell, no really you get used to it- even if your climbing partners won't, it's quite cozy on a cold night.

I caught myself humming. "Row, row, row you boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream." Which is really odd since I've always detested this mindless repetitive tune. Just then Angus, still wedged between me and the steering wheel, started to jerk as he drifted through what I assume is doggy REM sleep.

Sleep is purely experiential, perceptual, and like climbing it's usually a positive experience. So, if there's any truth to the adage that perception is reality, then climbing and dreaming share some common ground.

Angus and I were returning from a trip where we had met up with my friend Geoff, his fiancee Kim, and their friends Julie and Scott. We had spent two days sport climbing in the Alabama Hills just west of Lone Pine. The beauty of sport climbing, at least one, is that it has the social qualities and physical gymnastics of bouldering combined with the stamina of a roped climb. I also like sport climbing for the mental focus, and the delicate balancy moves that are like disassembling a Jinga Tower- with out the distraction of placing gear (Hey, I was honest about it!).

As it would happen Julie is a Ph.D. type, an honest-to-god neuroscientist, who, just so happened to be doing research in brain wave activity- on a cellular level no less. I tormented her with questions about how single brain cells add to the chorus of all the other brain cells to produce the rhythm section of our day-to-day perception, what about anesthesia during surgery. After a days climbing we retreated to the Pizza Factory where over a pitcher of Sierra Nevada Lager, I asked. "So, where do we go when we sleep?" Julie replied. "Well we're going back to the motel room, I don't know about you." I nearly spit out a mouth full of my slice of Double Eagle pizza. She continued that sleep is "phenomenal". We were getting into some serious long haired shit!

I replied that when I was going to UCLA, that I'd spend a lot of time in their Fowler Museum of Anthropology. On one visit I discovered an exhibit on the various cultures around the world who sleep on headrests and who also have very spiritual explanations about dreaming. Many of these headrests are ornately crafted and the designs reflect the bridge between the sleeping and waking world, and to some are actual channels between the two. In fact one African Tribe believes that a person has spouses in both worlds whom must be satisfied. At the end of the exhibit there was an interactive exhibit, a grass mat and a plain hand carved headrest. Enthusiastic about the spouses thing I shucked off my book bag and got horizontal. Half an hour latter I was startled awake by a rotund security guard with a five-O'clock shadow who officiously reported "Your not supposed to sleep here."

Scott, Julie's partner seemed to be getting antsy, either out of the social neglect, or that I found his girlfriend's research adequately fascinating for the evenings conversation. It's just not like a guy, even in this more liberated age, to hang out and become invisible while his girlfriend, especially when she's not really trying to, dominates another guys attention. So in an attempt to be inclusive I asked, "Scott, what do you do when your not climbing?"

His response clarified his growing discomfort. "Well right now I'm unemployed, and live with her." But with a little more encouragement he continued that he primarily wrote software for optical scanners, ones used for medical applications. He explained that his programs established the parameters, the rules, by which a processor determines which blood components are red cells, white cells, platelets, etc. from the data referred to it by an optical sensor. Then, oddly, he volunteered "I love it." with unexpected passion.

Scott's statement had the effect of grabbing me by the back of the collar. Out of a brief pause I bluntly asked "why?". He explained, in the kind of lively way that a politician does when a reporter asks a question that they're prepared for. Scott told me that writing software is like an engineer who builds a bridge, but without the constraints of logistics like construction time, labor, building materials, etc. So, essentially Scott tells a little brain how to perceive what it's little sensors send to it, and then how to report it to the big brains in the laboratory technologists via their sensors, who then report the data to a physician, who, by a leap of faith in the whole system, makes a clinical decision. I became fascinated by the juxtaposition of Julie, who studies the contents of the box from the outside by turning the box and shaking it, and Scott, who, in his way, designs the inside of the box based on a representation, a model of "reality".

Adding more sauce to this evolving philosophical goose, were my climbing partners who joined us for a day, Calvin Landres and Mark Allen. I don't even remember how Calvin and I started to E-mail each other, but he let me know that he would be staying with his wife's family in Bishop over the Thanksgiving Holiday, so I suggested that he meet me in the Alabama Hills to climb. Calvin is an ordained minister who until two years ago was the pastor of a church in Bend Oregon, and is now the full-time director of Solid Rock Climbers for Christ . Mark is from San Juan Capistrano and is a member of Solid Rock's national community. According to the groups mission statement: "Our desire is to communicate the lasting adventure that comes through having a relationship with Jesus Christ."

I had followed the evolution of Solid Rock over the years via the internet. I admitted to Calvin that I found a Christian Ministry to such a focused and notoriously heathen group as climbers odd. Certainly there are sports figures who offer testimony about their faith, but none who send missionaries. I mean as far as I know there is no evangelism in professional bowling, or the now trendy and equally seamy world of televised poker. Calvin explained the original ministry of this sort began with surfers in the early eighties, and that climbers were the next group to spread The Word. In fact since it's inception Solid Rock has passed from one shepherd to another over the years. One most notable was the Eastern Sierra climbing guide Doug Nidiver, but it's last minister resided in Colorado.

Calvin told me that two years ago he felt called, that's Christian for being obedient to what one feels is the will of God, to serve Solid Rock and left a real paying, albeit real low paying job as the pastor of a conventional church. Now their family relies primarily on the income of his wife, a neonatal intensive care nurse, and people who Calvin asks to sponsor him in his ministry.

Many of us are aware of the climbing shaped hole, that knawing cloying need to climb, but fewer of us are in touch with the God-shaped hole; regardless of the intensity of our need. Many of my friends are reluctant to engage themselves with a God who is nonquantifiable, but are nevertheless hungry for God's peace and unconditional love. They ask for the tangible proof of God's presence, yet commonly make leaps of faith predicated on unquestioned assumptions based on their perception "reality". They will sooner trust their life on an untried belayer based on a feeling, or for that matter, their physicians clinical opinion based on a test than surrender their spiritual life to God.

Inevitably, out of this dissonance comes an inconsolable yet subtle restlessness. A restlessness that is as silent and deep as an alpine night and will not be stilled. All the more reason, I suspect, for the ministry that Calvin has been called to. Regardless, climbing, dreams, faith, they're all phenomenal, they defy subjugation to the proofs of the world, they are happily still the purview of poets, prophets, and philosophers. With the coming of a new year may you dream beyond your grasp, climb above your grade, and above all be grace-full.

December 2003