10 Tips on Better Spray

If you’re reading this chances are that you’re not Alex Honnold, Tommy Caldwell, or Sasha Diguilian.  You’re probably just another slob desperate to be one of those great climbers.  Well there’s two ways to become that good at climbing- 1: Climb 60 hours a week for 20 years with special attention on diet and high intensity training. 2: Learn how to make yourself sound like them.  Here’s a few tips how to improve your spray-

Speak in the present tense.  This will make it sound like you are in the process or even providing beta from the side of the cliff.  "When I climb The Nose, I bring an extra one camalot." Nobody will notice that you did this once, 15 years ago instead they will think you've been climbing The Nose every week for the past decade.

Specialize your ascent.  Being the first to do something is always important. Even though 13,876 other climbers have sent the VFun boulder problem you’ve been projecting for years-highlight the fact that you’re the first Dude Of Undereducated Child Having Enthusiasts to do the problem. Specialize your ascent- Tell everyone you’re the first D.O.U.C.H.E to send it!  Remember that you want to start with the most important parts- that you’re the first person to climb Magic Light (now start mumbling) on a Saturday (now barely audible) with the last name Jordan (now in a total whisper) and first name Daniel. (feel free to change route name, day of the week, and ascentionist's name)

Lack Clarity.  This isn’t technically lying.  “I climb up to 5.14 on El Capitan.”  This is true I climb up to it- than I aid through it.  This makes people believe that I do indeed climb that hard. Also this relates well into the next tip.

Talk Big- Big grades, big routes, big everything. “I was on 5.14 on El Capitan.” When I use a grades like 5.14 and formations like El Capitan people become so awestruck with the grandeur associated with high climbing numbers and large formations that they won’t notice you just said on.  This relates to lacking clarity.  The word on could mean anything.  Dogging, aiding, rappelling, and even barely touching the route could all mean on. But hey, “I was on 5.14 on El Capitan”

Know your Vocabulary. If you intended to climb the route in a day but than epiced, had t shiver bivy on a ledge with no water, you just were on a push.  Same if you dogged the shit out of a route with the intention of redpointing. You just “felt the holds” The glass is always half full.

Emphasize the danger- So you’re ten feet off the ground on an 18-bolt top rope anchor.  Sounds to me like you’re in the death zone with suspect gear.  Hey, geriatrics regularly die from 3 foot falls and ropes and bolts do have a 1 in 100,000,0000 chance of breaking.

Hyphenate your adjectives- Add prefixes like mega, super, and classic with the suffix EST.  The 5.0 route you climbed is now the super-mega-run-outest route on the entire slab.  It is well known that adding the EST to anything makes it sound better.  Just try it. 

Climbing Grades are Subjective.  Uprate uprate uprate.  Soft 5.11d is close enough to 5.12-, which is the same as generally saying 5.12.  Boom! You just inflated your ego.  Great Success. This includes danger ratings, which are also highly subjective. One man’s pillow is another man’s jagged talus field.

Tell Everyone.  Believe it or not everyone wants to hear about your climb.  I do.  Definitely.  Making a solid group of subbies, I mean fans, who will promote your dribble.  Self-spray is weird but subcontracting your spray is good. Plus have you ever played the game Telephone? A ton of information gets lost as more people talk about you.  The details of the ascent become muddled so your 138^th redpoint go but first try of the day becomes an onsight.  Yes!

You just read nine great tips on how to spray.  I doubt you even noticed that I didn’t have a tenth.  That's because I sprayed about having ten tips- you don't actually need to come through with what you say- it's just spray.  Now, you're on your way to become the next Alex Honnold. With my tips, you’ll be the hard man campusing the slab route at the local chossy crag. Get out there and SPRAY.

The Monster's Paw

She hid beneath my box of climbing gear.  I worried that the weight of the cams and dozen shoes would fall on her but she seemed happy in her little hole.  I shouldered a back pack and grabbed the box.

“Good bye Monster,” I told Annie. I thought about taking a picture of Annie to send to Kim but I hurried out the door to go climbing.  Annie didn’t budge from her uncovered nest.  It was the last time I saw her. 

Annie and Gus hanging tough in the apartment

Kim received Annie for Christmas.  Kim was 19 and Annie was a few months old, she was born on October 18^th.  Before Kim had Annie spayed, she slept in Kim’s room. When Annie was 2 years old and in heat, she purred maniacally.  She didn’t meow, instead she cried out in short barks.  Kim let her out of  the bedroom.  Annie escaped and 9 weeks later gave birth to 4 kittens.  One of the four lives with Kim still.  Gus, the California street lion, meows often. 

Annie never introduced herself but I never introduced myself either.   The grey Persian first noticed the smell of bacon filling Kim’s apartment.  She jumped from her window perch and waddled over to the kitchen. 

“Hello Monster,” I said. She stared at me and then lifted a paw in the air, pointing it first at me and then at the cast iron skillet.  Her flat face and her matted grey fur made me suspicious but I lowered a piece of Applewood bacon to her.  This was how she trained me.
Over time I learned of a thing called Tortitude.  Annie's coloring, a dilute tortoise shell grey with spots of peach, means she's a Tortie.  In an article titled "Tortitude- the Unique Personality of Tortoiseshell Cats", the author of the ConciousCat article says, "In addition to their distinctive coloring, torties also have a reputation for unique personalities, sometimes reffered to as 'tortitude'."

When there was ice cream, bacon wrapped scallops, even wet cat food, the paw came out and pointed in the air.   It was the tortitude and this was her signature move.     

 “Did you notice anything wrong with Annie this morning?” Kim asked me as I walked to the crag on August 13, 2012.

“I grabbed my stuff and headed out the door.  She was hiding on the stairs.  I don’t think she’d been feeling well the past few days,” I said into the phone. 

“I’m at the vet.  I picked her up.  She was foaming at the mouth and wasn’t doing well.”  Kim’s voice sounded strong. “I’m gonna see what the vet has to say.  I’ll call you back in a little bit.”

Annie was born with a fused back.  She walked with a limp.  Her handicaps made her vulnerable they also made her endearing. This year, she turned 12.  Her health detoriated.  Over Thanksgiving, Kim called me and told me that Annie was sick.  She needed someone to watch her. I wasn’t entirely happy about it but Kim needed me.  I drove from Smith rocks in a snow storm to Kim’s apartment.

When I arrived in Berkeley from Smith, I could not find Annie.  She was not on her cushion by the window or on the back of the couch.  I rummaged through the house for an hour, worried that she’d escaped somehow.  I found the little monster hiding under the bed.  She limped down the stairs at a near run when I vacuumed and pawed the air when I fried eggs for breakfast.  I watched Annie for a week while Kim was in New Orleans.  When Kim returned, Annie was better.  When Kim was gone, I would wink at Annie, thanking her for bringing me back to Berkeley.

“It’s easier to watch people die than pets,” Derek Powell told me that August afternoon at Tahoe's Snowshed Wall.  Derek’s father worked as a zookeeper and than later ran a pet shop when Derek was young.  He spent much of his adolescence taking care of animals.  Kim had called me again, telling me that she was going to put Annie down the next day.

“My friend asked me to put his cat down.”  He said at the base of Little Feat.  He did not elaborate. 

“I had to spoon feed a parott before it died.” He added a few minutes later.

Derek works as a paramedic for the San Francisco fire department.  He’s seen hundreds of people die.  He’s never mentioned them but he did talk about the parrot and the cat.

Ernest Hemingway, in a letter to his friend, wrote of his cat Miss Uncle Willie, who was hit by a car.  The accident caused compound fractures and the cat was very hurt.  “It was a multiple compound fracture with much dirt in the wound and fragments protruding.  But he purred and seemed sure that I could fix it.”  Hemingway gave the cat some milk and than shot it in the head.   The stoic Hemingway cried.  “Certainly missed you.  Miss Uncle Willie,” wrote Hemingway.  “Have had to shoot people but never anyone I knew and loved for eleven years.  Nor anyone that purred with two broken legs.”  The death of a pet is a heavy thing.  They are part family.  

While I stayed in Tahoe, Annie slept on the bed with Kim that night.  She’d stared at the ice cream and raw chicken that Kim had placed in front of her. She did not wave her paw when it came by.  She did not purr.  “Annie just died.” Kim texted me at 4 a.m.

I keep looking for Annie. Though she didn’t leave her perch often, Kim’s apartment is a little quieter these days.  I’ll miss The Monster’s paw.

The Monster rules the apartment

From Harpers Vol. 325 No. 1946

From a February 22, 1953, letter from Ernest Hemingway to his close friend Gianfranco Ivancich.  The letter was purchased last year by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library for its Hemingway Collection and made available to scholars this March. The first volume of  The letters of Ernest Hemingway, a joint project of Cambridge University Press and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, was published last year.

Dear Gianfranco,

            Just after I finished writing you and was putting the letter in the envelope Mary came down from the Torre and said, “Something terrible has happened to Willie.”  I went out and found Willie with both his right legs broken: one at the hip, the other below the knee.  A car must have run over him or somebody hit him with a club.  He had come all the way home on the two feet of one side.  It was a multiple compound fracture with much dirt in the wound and fragments protruding.  But he purred and seemed sure that I could fix it. 

            I had Rene get a bowl of Milk for him and Rene held him and caressed him and Willie was drinking the milk while I shot him through the head.  I don’t think he could have suffered and the nerves had been crushed so his legs had not begun to really hurt.  Monstruo wished to shoot him for me, but I could not delegate the responsibility or leave a chance of Will knowing anybody was killing him.

            Afyerwards I was crying when a Cadillac came to the door with a worse psyche than that big one I had to hit.  With him was his keeper.  I still had the rifle and I explained to them they had come at a bad time and to please understand and go away.  But the rich Cadillac pyscho said, “We have come at a most interesting time.  Just in time to see the great Hemingway cry because he has to kill a cat.”

            They were inside the house and so I locked both the doors and sent their chauffeur away.  The one said, “You have a gun.  There is always someone with a gun.”

            So I gave him the gun (cocked) and then he started to make compliments. So I took his horned-rim spectacles off and took the gun away from him and put it away in Mary’s room.  Then I humiliated him as he should be humiliated, omit details, and then the awful thing happened.  He thanked me and his keeper thanked me and said that was what he needed and what he came for. What sort of people are these?

            He was a rich boy, officer in 11^th Airborne Div., which never jumped in combat (not their fault0; they would have made the assault in Japan if we had not used the atomic bomb and I suppose they never got over it.

            Certainly missed you.  Miss Uncle Willie.  Have had to shoot people but never anyone I knew and loved for eleven years.  Nor anyone that purred with two broken legs.

Giving Up Excuses

I reached for the edge, a full pad crimp. The pumpy, overhanging basalt of the Fugitive Extension weighed down my crooked left arm.  The anchors taunted me.   I failed in slow motion.  20 seconds later and 20 feet below, I hung dejected at the end of the rope.  I wanted to scream at Jailhouse, the steep sport crag in the Sierra foothills. The move was impossible.  I immediately made excuses for myself.  I settled on one quickly. I was handicapped.

Jailhouse

Seven years ago, I fell from the top of Intersection Rock in Joshua Tree.  I was onsight free soloing the North Overhang (5.9) when I made a grievous error.  I passed the crux of the climbed.  I stared at the summit, a few meters away.  I felt secure knowing I’d sent the crux, 100 feet of space swimming below me. Then I repositioned my feet, moving them underneath my body, a slight miscalculation. I started to barndoor, my balance suddenly gone. I fell. After 70 feet I hit a ledge.  I was ecstatic.  I had stuck it.  I was still alive.  Then I fell off the ledge and went another 30 feet to the ground.  

A few minutes before I fell in Joshua Tree

Other climbers, out for a mid December weekend at the National Park, saw my fall and helped facilitate a rescue. I had a stroke shortly after I hit.  My brain swelled inside my cracked skull, threatening to kill me.  A helicopter flew me to the ICU in Palm Springs. I barely made it to the hospital.    Spinal and ankle fusion, pin and rods in my elbow, a vana cavity filter to stop a blood clot from entering my heart, brain damage from hitting my head, a broken clavicle, nerve damage.  I spent 3 weeks in the ICU and 81 days in the hospital that year.  I laid prone in a hospital bed for over 2 months before I fought to sit up.  There’s nothing inspirational about learning how to walk again.  It’s a painful process.  To facilitate my recovery, I fixated on climbing.  I took the steps to get back to the crag.

In the hospital trying to figure it out

After the ICU, I went to a spine and physical rehabilitation center in Los Gatos, California, near where I was attending school at UC Santa Cruz.  I learned to stand, then to stumble, and finally to walk.  I focused on recovering, and returning to climbing.  Every step brought me closer to the crag.  I wanted to climb more than ever.

“Maybe you should take up something safer, like cycling,” Paul Dossick, a South Bay area orthopedist, told me in his office. Dossick tore through the scar tissue that had healed from my last surgery. “Or take up bowling.”

The geriatrics waiting outside for their knee and hip replacements heard my yell through the small office.  I nearly fainted from the pain.  

More painful than Dossick’s wrenching through the tender scars of my elbow was his bowling suggestion.  It was a recurring theme in my recovery.  Doctors and physical therapists told me that climbing led to injury.  I pretended not to notice.  I just wanted to climb again, it was crucial to my recovery.

Dossick removed two screws and a plate from my elbow during a second surgery on my elbow.  The orthopedist increased the range of motion in my arm.  He could do nothing about the metal in my ankle or the rods in my back. The bottom of my tricep would never return and I lost an inch of my reach. I went to physical therapy and worked the muscle out.   I push harder with my triceps when I mantle,  I stand harder on my feet, I open my hip to crack climb on my fused ankle, I smear my knee to make up for the rods in my back,  I learned to compensate for my various injuries.

“Super Pete” Chasse reached for the edge on the Fugitive extension. He grabbed the crimp, wavered a little hitting the undercling, and then clipped the anchors. Solid. The 40 year old sport climber lowered 30 meters down the overhanging 5.13b sport climb.  He hobbled to the base of the route on the right side of Jailhouse.  He unscrewed his urethane foam foot, replacing his custom fabricated climbing shoe with the foot he used to walk in.

Pete on Father's Day. John Vallejo Photo

Pete worked as a steel fabricator for a pier building company in Lake Tahoe and he often moved large dirt-sifting equipment. A week after sending a 5.14b at Jailhouse, Pete was lowering an enormous piece of machinery.  One of the hooks attached to the chains holding the equipment fell off. 6000 pounds of metal fell onto Pete and pinned his leg. The doctors gave Pete two choices: a dozen surgeries and maybe partial function of his leg or cut off the limb.  Pete didn’t give the options much thought, he let go of the dead limb. Pete bought two prosthetic feet to attach to his new “leg.”  The first foot he walked in.  The second he ground down into a little shoe, he made a stiff edge on it, pointed the toe a little, glued sticky rubber onto it, and created a climbing shoe.  Pete’s returned to the rocks four months after his accident.   

“I never see the use in making excuses,” Pete told me over the phone as he drove back from Bishop this spring.  Over the weekend he climbed High Plains Drifter, a high V7 at the Buttermilks that he had broken his heel on earlier that season.  “There are certain things you can’t do but there’s other things you can do to make up it for it.”  Because of the prosthetic, Pete is unable to kneebar but he can stand on his prosthetic forever; his artificial foot never gets pumped on slabby terrain.  For Pete the loss of his leg didn’t handicap his climbing, it just changed it.

Pete and his wife Lidija in the Red.

“Grab the sidepull and reach straight for that crimp.” Pete told me at the crag.  He had just hiked the route and I desperately wanted to do it too. I started to show Pete my arm, to give an excuse of why I couldn’t reach straight with a crooked arm.  I wanted to tell him about my handicap.  I looked at his prosthetic leg, and remembered how he didn’t use any of the dozen of kneebar rests that I used on the route. I could only nod in response.

This spring at Jailhouse, I pantomimed the beta to Jake Whittaker, a tall bespectacled Yosemite friend, as we sat at the pillar start of the Fugitive Extension. 

Jake, a master slab climber, once forgot his blown out shoes on his way to the Camp 4 boulders.  He climbed anyway, trying the notoriously difficult V5 slab Blue Suede Shoes.  Jake crimped his way up the problem barefoot, ignoring the extra difficulty. 

Jake Whittaker

I jumped in the air showing the dyno after the crux. I wobbled slightly showing the delicate traverse move.  I flapped my arms wildly pretending to fall going to the anchor.  I pointed to my elbow, indicating my six-year-old injury.

Jake smiled. “So, if you’d sent that 5.9, you could have sent this 13b?”

                                                                         

For a year, I thought the move was impossible.  I tried and I fell. I had a good excuse for not being able to do the route but Pete had a better excuse.  There are thousands of hard climbers who, like Pete, fight through adversity.  American aphorist Mason Cooley, wrote “Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.”   As Jake suggested, if I had sent the North Overhang of Intersection Rock, it wouldn’t change whether or not I could climb my current sport project.  I decided to crimp harder on the side pull to compensate for my crooked elbow.  I fell.  But I was closer. 

Climbing on the Fugitive

This spring, my raw hands grated across the basalt for the third time of the day. As I approached the crux of the Fugitive Extension, I didn’t fixate on my broken elbow and I didn’t think about the moves ahead.    I breathed.  I stepped into the move, reached for the crimp, and latched it.  I fought a few more feet and clipped the anchors.

Love in the Border Country

In October of 2009, Katie Lambert, Ben Ditto,  a Slovenian climber named Luka, and I climbed on the north western face of Yosemite’s Middle Cathedral.  The route, Border Country, was named after a poem written by a well known climber. The night before the climber’s death in an avalanche in China, he wrote a poem about the climbing life, of living in the Border Country.

When we reached the base, I realized I had left my chalkbag in the car.  I ran down to get it.  Katie was waiting when she heard a voice cry.

“Heeey Katie.” Ben offered to tag our water up the first 200 feet.

This was the first time Ben saw his future wife

I’d told Katie that Ben was a Utah sport climber. She was sure he’d suck.  But the way he’d said hey, the way he’d said her name, she thought “whoa who is this person?”  

We climbed all day but hardly saw Luka and Ben.  They were too far ahead.  Every once in awhile, Katie caught glimpses of a flashing smile, weird long hair, and a bandanna.  Ben was climbing smoothly up the wall.  On the crux pitch, he broke a horn but caught himself on a hold below.  It was one of those days when Ben couldn’t fall.

At the top of the headwall, Katie led to the stance where Ben was taking pictures.  He first saw her through a camera lens. She arrived at the belay and went to lower down. She clipped a single biner and a mess of old webbing left by the first ascentionist.  Ben thought either she really knows what she’s doing or she’s kind of sketchy

When the shadow of the Nose hit the Zodiac, we rappelled.  We cramped into tiny belay stations. Katie and I were at the bottom. Luka and Ben, who had helmets, were on top.  We held out backpacks over our heads so we wouldn’t get pummeled by the rocks when we pulled our ropes.

At one ledge, while we waited for Luka to rappel, there was a conversation about relationships. “Well, what’s up? Any prospects?” Ben asked Katie.

“No.”   Katie replied

 “I’m sure they’re lined ten deep.”  Ben said, shaking his head.

I snapped this photo of Ben. He was charming even with long eccentric hair.

We continued down the route.  Ben talked about Keep the River on Your Right, the story of an artist and anthropologist who travels into the jungles of Peru.  Ben was being characteristically smooth, living up to his nick name The Coffee Shop Killer.

It was an adventure. Pretty exciting. Not like Katie Lambert getting lost inside her sleeping bag but exciting anyway. 

I read this story at Katie and Ben's wedding Summer Solstice 2012

When we got down, we parted ways.  Katie looked for Ben in Camp 4 a few days later but Ben was climbing on El Cap.  They stayed in touch while he went to Patagonia.  In the spring, Ben met Katie in Ridgecrest, when her car broke down. They climbed in Bishop and became partners.  These days, they live climbing together, defining intrepid, and living a life in the Border Country.

Congratulations Katie and Ben

The Professional and the Lifestyle Climbers

Imagine casually climbing splitter cracks, overhanging sport routes, and perfect boulder problems.  Picture hiking enormous granite formations without a rope.  This is who I want to be.
Alex Honnold fell on the hike up to the crag.  He stumbled on the walk to the base.  Alex Honnold climbs splitter cracks, steep sport routes, hard boulder problems, and free solos with ease.  He’s the type of climber I wanted to be.  

Alex on the Southwest Arete- this picture and a number of the other good ones are courtesy of Michael Pang

 “My skin,” he moaned as he taped every finger tip. Alex had climbed the past 22 consecutive days, wanting to send everything in Squamish in one summer.  He’d cut himself off from his love of sweets to eek more performance from his body. No candy. No cookies. No way. “My skin is weeping.”

Alex clipped the first bolt on Eurasian Eyes, a 5.13b arête above the Squamish Chief Campground.  Alex has climbed over 500 different 5.13 routes.  He’s mathematical about his climbing, keeping fastidious notes of his ascents, and constantly improving.  This arête climb, though a difficult warm-up, should have been easy for him.  It wasn’t. 

He was wobbling.  I tried to console him. Alex tries harder than anyone else I know.  “Stop bitching. You can do it.” 

Andrew Burr, a Salt Lake city climbing photographer, dangled nearby taking pictures on the aesthetic line for one of Alex’s many sponsors.  Alex climbed up to the arete’s crux and promptly punted. 

“Lower me,” he yelled.  I’d never heard Honnold so angry before.  He never gives up on a route.  His tenacity is one of his more admirable traits.  I dropped him to the ground where he untied and immediately began moping.

This time, I tried to be nice.

“It’s ok man.  You’re just tired from climbing so much.  Everyone sucks sometimes.” I grinned, and thought about showing solidarity. ‘Even I suck sometimes.”

“But I never suck,” he said. “You suck all the time.  You’re used to it.”

This guy is awesome at everything

I should have drop kicked him in the head but instead I focused on not looking hurt.  Point Alex Honnold.  Obviously the pain crossed my face because a moment later he added, “What? I’m just being honest.”   

We dropped Burr off, and drove to the grocery store.  Alex bought 2 pounds of smarties, 8 enormous cookies, and a fistful of chocolate.  He caved into his desire and abandoned his no sugar diet.  We’re all human and we all wobble.  

Alex on 5.13R at Owens

“Here, you can have the rest of my Canadian cash.” Honnold filled my pockets with a wad of beaver bucks and toonies. “And here’s a cookie.  I’m going to California.”  By the time he arrived in Yosemite, 36 hours later, his skin would be healed. 

Me belaying Alex on his 5.13R at Owens

 Alex climbed 22 consecutive days with every finger taped and bleeding. He wanted to succeed so much that he tried a no sugar diet.  I bit into a chocolate chip cookie and I suddenly thought of spitting it out. If I wanted to stop sucking all the time, I needed to try harder.  I swallowed the cookie anyway.
 

Most Bishop two bedroom rentals are either a meth lab or part of the barrio. While the former would provide a solid income with the clientele living next door, I have always lived by the adage- “Life Is Good. Don’t Meth it up.”  Two weeks before Christmas, Stacey Pearson, Alex Honnold, and I moved into the upstairs apartment of a four plex.  A couple of crash pads, four of Peter Croft’s half broken deck chairs, and an odd collection of Yosemite cafeteria silverware barely filled our sparse cell of a home in the Bishop barrio.

The life of a Lifestyle Climber

Across the street a chihuahua yapped relentlessly. On Wednesday nights, the downstairs neighbors held their weekly Mexican Pentecostal Bible study. Their chants of hallelujah and bloogitybloogityblah, their speaking in tongues or maybe their bad Spanish, vibrated through the floor.  At night they would exorcize the demons out of the town.  Most days after climbing, we would exercise our demons.  

Arm wrestling is not my forte. Seven years ago, I fell rock climbing. Two surgeries fixed the compound fracture in my elbow but it didn’t repair all the muscle. The lower part of my left tricep doesn’t exist.  It’s hard to mantle with my left arm.  It’s also hard to arm wrestle with that arm. Alex had already done his daily regimen of pushups, situps, and mirror flexing so we arm wrestled for exercise. We went left handed first. I promptly lost.  

 “That was pitiful dude,” Alex said. “Let’s try right handed.  My wrist is a little tweaked but I think I can beat you right handed.”

As we grabbed arms, I thought of Lincoln Hawk, played by Sylvester Stallonne in the amazing 1987 action drama Over The Top.  Hawk took on the bald headed, Bull Hurley in the finals of the World Arm Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas. Before the match, Hawk swiveled his hat backwards to prepare for battle.  I channeled Hawk, imagined myself putting my entire life’s worth, my big rig truck and the love of my son, on the line.  Things were about to be Over The Top.

Stacey put her hand over our clenched fists.  
“Go!” her yell echoed across the empty apartment.  The veins in Honnold’s ripped arm bulged.  My oversized bicep pushed against his.  I lost ground. I lost more. Then I pushed back. Trickles of blood filled my nostrils.  I could almost taste the iron on my lips as I pushed against him.  I wanted this.  I wanted to win.    His arm weakened. Then I slammed it against the table. I won.

“Dude, my right wrist hurts” Honnold said.   “Let’s go left arm again.”    Alex refused to lose.

New Years Eve excitement with Stacey, Kim, and Michael Pang

On New Year’s eve, Honnold stared at me from across the chess board.  The half dozen dirtbags cramming out apartment watched intently.  Honnold moved carefully.  I play a lot of chess, which doesn’t translate into skill it simply means that I play a lot.  Honnold barely plays chess, but he had a natural tack for the game. He he played the two knight’s defense, a style that isn’t a defense but more of an opening counter attack.  Cautious and aggressive.  We traded pieces. I sought to win by attrition.  The other climbers stared at the board.  I knew that didn’t want me to win.  They just wanted Alex to lose.  The end game was a slow battle of pushing pawns across the board. Alex stared intently at the locked pieces. I focused on the wall, apathetic.  We eventually declared it a draw.   

Everybody wants to be Bobby Fischer

I grabbed the strawberry Poptarts from above the fridge and than an IPA from inside of the fridge.  Nothing beats high fructose corn syrup, beer, after a near chess win.  I opened the package, offered one to Alex, and placed the other on the counter for a moment.  I sipped on my IPA and sprayed about countering the two knight’s defense to the nearest dirtbag climber. When I turned to grab my Poptart, I saw crumbs.  The crust, the top and the bottom, were broken off of my Poptart. The dejected ends sat on the counter. Nearby, Alex happily mashed on the red 40 food coloring and artificial strawberry flavoring of the middle of my poptart.  The middle of the poptart.  That's the best part.  He couldn’t take a draw.  Was this why he was such a good climber?  He refused to settle for less than success.

Every day, he asked me what I’d climbed.  He wanted me to say I had “sent everything.”  Alex wanted me to succeed like he did.  When we first arrived in Bishop, Alex provided a tick list of routes and boulder problems to prepare me for my spring Yosemite goals.  I climbed harder that winter because I didn’t want to come to a draw with the rock. 

working Excelsior in cold weather in Owens River Gorge

Living together means seeing your housemate stumble to the bathroom in the morning, hide under their sleeping bag watching True Blood all day, and sometimes brushing their teeth.   

“What time are you and Kim heading down to Owens tomorrow morning?” Alex asked in between sets of vigorous tooth brushing. Stacey, Kim, and I used electric sonic care toothbrushes.  Alex preferred a plastic Colgate. By striving for the same level of well scrubbed cleanliness as a sonic care, he could also get a serious forearm work out through vigorous scrubbing.  Translation- Dirtbag toothbrush = trying harder = bigger forearms = easier rock climbing.

Climbing on Flux Capicator in Owens River Gorge

“We’re gonna make breakfast, hang out, and then head down.” I responded through the whir of my mouth vibrator. I thought about sleeping in with my girlfriend, waiting for pleasant warm temperatures, and a relaxing day.

“We’ll be there around 10.”  Alex stared down at me with sudden disapproval. I thought of the tick list he had given me and my Yosemite goals.
“I mean 9,” I added quickly. "What are you gonna do?

“Well, I’m gonna get up at 7, run for an hour, make my egg scramble breakfast, and get down there early.” Alex spit into the sink

 “Wow, that’s motivated,” I walked towards my bedroom.

“That’s cause I’m a "professional climber,” he waved his fingers at me, “unlike you lifestyle climbers.”

I slammed my bedroom door in his face.  For five minutes I stared at the door knob trying to think of a witty retort.  Nothing came to mind, which made me almost madder. 

 I wanted to be a professional climber and get paid to be a climber.  My mind wandered away from snappy comebacks and towards Alex’s motivation behind the comment.  Alex never slept in. He never relaxed.  He couldn’t.  One day out of 30, he hid beneath his sleeping bag and watched 30 episodes of True Blood. It was his one respite from training, from climbing, from traveling, from answering hordes of emails from random fans, from interviews, from people wanting something for him.  Maybe he wanted to be a lifestyle climber and he said it out of jealousy.  Maybe he was just saying if I wanted to be a professional climber, I had to act like one.

Yosemite rematch this spring

To a large degree, I want to be the man who stumbles to the cliff, the man who climbs 22 days in a row with taped fingers, the one who mathematically improves on climbing.  I don’t want to be Alex Honnold though.  Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself…everyone else is already taken.”  It’s taken a few months for that thought to settle in.  I don't have to be Alex Honnold, I should just follow some of his training advice.  I’ve  started waking up earlier, wanting it more, and not eating Poptarts.  But more than anything, I've embraced being a lifestyle climber.