Leader Follies

I remember the first time I did something stupid and dangerous while climbing.  At the top of a route, I yelled "Take," leaned back, and heard the Velcro rip.  My harness was wide open and completely unbuckled.  I realized I'd only stuck the Velcro together-didn't even put any part of the webbing through the buckle. I'm not sure what load Velcro is rated for, but I'm relatively certain it's less than body weight. I got chills. Now, it's true that I get chills all the time, often several times a day.  I get chills when I watch any-and I mean any-Olympic athlete's back story. I get them when I see my black cat stalking the gray one. I get chills when a David Cook song comes on the radio, and I hate David Cook songs.  Yesterday, inspirational words flashed across the TV screen in an ad for some college: "Believe."  "Succeed."  "Determine."  I was like, "'Determine?!'  Are you kidding me?  That's ridicu-"  And then they hit me with it: "SOAR!"  Big time chills.  Why do I have to feel so much?  Anyway, I get chills all the time, but the kind I got when I heard that Velcro were horrific and morbid, the kind you'd expect to feel in your icy grave.  That I was slightly less than fifteen feet above the rubber gym floor is not relevant, kids-always double-back!  Or at least feed some of the webbing through the buckle. . .

My buddy Dave and I once climbed the 9-pitch Touchstone in Zion.   The first pitch had never been freed before, I had never done a wall, and I was going to free it.  So after boinging my way up Dave's TR for about 100 ft. with a 30 lb. pack in 100 degree heat (I had no aiders, because I was freeing it, you see), I was tired.  Eight more pitches of dogging up a little .12 here, a little .11 there, and especially the final 5.6-the hardest pitch of my life and the only one I actually freed-I was really tired.  Scratch that.  I was dry heaving and delirious, and I could only think about the last of the water that we drank on pitch three.  As we rapped down the thing, I was incoherent, useless.  Dave basically held me like a baby at each station and hooked me into the rappels. He also did that while I was farting uncontrollably.  The weakness and hallucinations were too much for me, and I couldn't contain the steady stream of caustic gas, an unfortunate consequence of the previous night's unchewed broccoli.  The moral?  If you're going to bite off more than you can chew (literally and figuratively), bring along a friend who, though he may not be able to stomach your farts, will not on that account untie you and send you into the void.

I don't want be a total drag.  In spite of these cautions, there's something to be said for occasionally disregarding danger and just going for it.  Once I was belaying my old roommate Paul on a redpoint try of Mercy Seat at the New River Gorge, what would have been his hardest send, when he stuck his hand in bees nest, unleashing their swarming, stinging wrath and his screaming agony.  "AAAAGGGHHH!  WHAT SHOULD I DO??!!"  So I just took him off belay and ran away.  Not really.  Let me tell you something about Paul.  One time he and I decided to swipe a rolly chair from David Lawrence Hall, a building on our university campus.  So I'm pushing Paul in the rolly chair across the street when this cop stops us.   I froze like a deer in headlights because I'm the guy that pees my pants when I think a mall guard is watching me gnaw on my second or third General Tso's sample at the food court.  Paul, however, was incredible.  "Where'd you get that chair?" the cop asked sternly.  "It's my chair," Paul replied cheerily from his seat.  Then the cop turned Paul and the chair around and pointed to the black stenciled lettering on the back-"Then why does it say 'David Lawrence?'"  Paul didn't flinch.  He smiled: "That's me.  I'm David Lawrence!"  With that, Paul took off and like a fugitive Rocky ran up the steps which climbed a nearby hillside lawn, while five cops converged on him from all sides for the inevitable arrest.  The point of the story is that Paul is quick on his feet.  He's steady.  He's wily.  And I knew he could handle the bees.  "Just go for it!" I yelled up.   "Ok, man!" he yelled back.  He sprinted for the anchors, the bees stinging and Paul screaming all the way.  He skipped the last bolt and immediately after tapping the shuts, pitched off for a massive whipper.  By the time I lowered him, his face was a giant, red, swollen mess, but not only had he laughed in the face of danger, he had his redpoint and a story.  For my part, the whole ride home I laughed in Paul's puffy, Kojo-from-ET face, but it didn't mean I appreciated his effort any less.  

Mr. Meister hopes that this piece is coherent-all the chills he got thinking about how good his advice is might have distracted him a little.