A new entry for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Climbing Mental Disorders
I'm not a psychologist, although at times in my life I've been a middle class American so I've had some exposure to shrinks. I broke up with my last shrink awhile back. Don't get me wrong, Therapist was a very nice woman, but it's the familiar refrain... she just didn't understand rock climbing. Since then, I've been on my own, seeking psychological solace from folks who "Get It", and who live their lives of adventure more like my own. Unlike Therapist, who worried that my climbing partnerships might be keeping me from forming more conventional interpersonal bonds, fellow adventurers are able to counsel on issues in climbing partnerships from a been-there, done-that point of view.
For the most part, it works out well. We have a shared language and culture; there's less to explain than when I'm talking to "normal people." But sometimes, talk therapy with my climbing friends just isn't enough to trigger the big epiphanies that make life interesting. At those times, I tend to find myself several pitches up a long traditional route, and the light bulb goes on.
I've had my best and biggest life epiphanies on long, multipitch traditional routes. While my life might be easier and smoother — more normal — without some of those epiphanies, I wouldn't trade them for the world.
Since I'm transitioning from follower into leader myself, I climb with a variety of different partners; some mentors, some peers, some newbies. There's a head game with each type of partner... the least, when I climb with peers. When I climb with newbies, I feel the pressure of needing to keep us both safe, making the best possible choices, and ensuring that the newbie partner has fun so that they'll want to rock climb again. But no type of partner triggers more psychological angst for me than climbing with mentor partners.
It sounds backwards, I know. It seems like climbing with a mentor partner would be a walk in the park. If you get in over your head, you've got someone there to help get you out. You've got someone to take the sharp end when your brain or body quits. Mentor partners have all sorts of problem solving skills that I have yet to learn. But climbing with mentor partners is easily the hardest headgame in climbing, as far as I'm concerned.
The epiphany came on the second pitch of Arrow Place, at Black Velvet Canyon, during my last Red Rocks trip. It was the last day of another fantastic trip. Shawn and I had dropped our friends off at the airport the night before, gotten a fitful night's sleep, then geared up for our last day of climbing. We picked a short objective, a casual and pretty approach for a 3-pitch 5.9, so that we'd be sure to get in and out before our own flight that afternoon. We figured he'd lead the first crux pitch, then I'd take the second easier pitch and we'd duke it out for the last.
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