Mini-Episode 11: Climbing Doesn’t Change You
Welcome back to the podcast. I’ve always been a huge advocate of change, but not always the good kind. Usually the “shake the snow globe, throw caution to the wind” chaotic kind. Lorca from episode sixteen, season three, sporadically sends a newsletter which, as a person who hates all newsletters because they melt me down into an unproductive diatribe about marketers who clearly have no regard for CAN-SPAM laws—I love receiving this one. This week’s newsletter subject line was “Resilience Loves…Change”:
“People who want clearly are dangerous to the status quo. They are natural catalysts. Things will change around them.”
Up next is our eleventh mini-episode which is comprised of audio you sent in, answering the question: “How did climbing change your life?”
We’re always taking audio submissions and pitches. Contact us through our submission form on fortheloveofclimbing.com, and tune in next Monday, April first, for the first episode of season six.
For the Love of Climbing is presented by Patagonia. Additional support is from deuter USA, Allez Outdoor, and Ocún.
Music is by Chad Crouch. Additional music is licensed by Music Bed.
Catch up on podcast (pod-Kath?) updates and general life things: @inheadlights
This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Because therapy is for everyone.
FLC is public media which means we’re supported by listeners like you. Donate or become a patron.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
(KATHY KARLO): This podcast is presented by Patagonia. Not bound by convention, Patagonia’s in business to save our home planet.
- Every year, I’m amazed at how impactful storytelling can be, and we recognize that it’s a vital step towards cultivating change, growth mindset, and belonging.
I think that humans are instinctively drawn to storytelling too, which makes it a natural medium for making connections. As social beings, we evolved to share knowledge with community in order to increase chances of survival, and inevitably, with the need for communication, we developed language. Today, we utilize this language to share experiences, build engagement, and actively shape more inclusive spaces.
If any of you are a Schitt’s Creek fan, Dan Levy said in an after-series interview: “When someone with opposing beliefs sits down and watches, we’re showing them what life could be like. People feel safe enough to question, ‘Are my beliefs outdated? Am I being told to believe something that isn’t true? Because I love this character and I want him to succeed, so why am I feeling like he shouldn’t politically or religiously?’ And I think we all just need a safe space to learn because I never learn when I’m being taught a lesson.”
These words have been so profound and life-changing for me personally, and moving forward in 2023, it’s less about “teaching the lesson” and more about expanding our knowledge of the world and showing people—from all different sides—how things are, and how they can be.
It’s an open invitation for every person, every gender and background, in our community to rise to the occasion. Because we all have a role to play in racial and gender equity, and in creating a world where everyone, including men, feels safe to use their physical and emotional strength in advocating for more women, Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ communities as much as we do for athletic sport.
The lesson’s already embedded in the story. And sharing it with the world is a labor of love. There’s always someone, right now, who can benefit from where you’ve been, and the more of us who are transparent about our journey—the more open the world can be. And that’s the change.
This podcast is proudly presented by Patagonia, and gets support from Ocun and Deuter USA. If you’re a listener, consider supporting the show on Patreon for as a little as one dollar a month. Next Monday kicks off season six with ten new episodes, bonus episodes, and more. Tune in every first of the month for brand new stories from climbers like you.
- Hey, listeners. We’ve been on hiatus wrapping up No Man’s Land Film Festival’s 8th Annual Flagship in Denver. What a time! And now, spring is upon us and we’re putting on our podcast hat in order to bring you season six of For the Love of Climbing.
There’ve been some big changes in the works, one of which is me officially moving to the southeast which still feels a little scary but more often than not these days, I’m feeling less like I waded in over my depth and more at home.
Like the pieces are finally coming together and I’m closing five long, smelly, complicated but also joyful years on the road that basically tested everything and one I believed in. So, goodbye claustrophobic van-life, and hello cozy office with a cat, six baby chickens, boyfriend with a heart of gold, and reliable wi-fi?
I’ve always been a huge advocate of change, but not always the good kind. Usually the “shake the snow globe, throw caution to the wind” chaotic kind. Lorca from episode sixteen, season three, sporadically sends a newsletter which, as a person who hates all newsletters—because they melt me down into an unproductive diatribe about marketers who clearly have no regard for CAN-SPAM laws—I love receiving this one.
This week’s newsletter subject line was “Resilience Loves…Change”:
“People who want clearly are dangerous to the status quo. They are natural catalysts. Things will change around them.”
Anyway, some things that aren’t changing is the show’s commitment to showing a more honest representation of the community. We’re also working on a few bonus episodes and we keep access to those free—which means that you don’t have to pay a subscription or become a patron.
We believe in continuing to keep content free and accessible, but we can always use funding. You know—cheddar, cold hard cash, bling, or bens (and I promise not to spend it all on doughnuts and whiskey, but just to be completely honest, at least some of it will probably go towards doughnuts and whiskey.)
If you’re a brand and you believe in what we’re doing, slide into my DMs because our once-distant dream of quitting our full-time job and getting equitable pay for podcasting is so close, which means that our low-key plan of convincing the BBC to hire us is slightly less faraway. Gotta dream big, y’all.
Up next is our eleventh mini-episode which is comprised of audio you sent in, answering the question: “How did climbing change your life?” Tune in next Monday, April first. Welcome back to season six of For the Love of Climbing, proudly presented by Patagonia.
(FEMALE VOICE): Hi, my name is Caroline and I’m a rock climber. How has rock climbing shaped my life?
(MALE VOICE): Alright, I’m gonna give this a go.
(clears throat)
I didn’t wanna write anything or think of anything too much. I just wanted to kind of start talking and see the way I feel about climbing. So, here we go.
Climbing to me—
(FEMALE VOICE): So, I was asked recently what it is that has made climbing so special for me or how it’s changed my life.
Well, first and foremost, I met my husband who is truly the love of my life and have traveled to so many places I never would have gone had I not begun to climb—seen things that I can’t even imagine seeing the topography, the climbing, the camping, et cetera, et cetera!
So many wonderful friends that I’d not met had I not been climbing, as well as touching rock just gives me my center. Climbing has my heart and it will always have my heart.
(FEMALE VOICE): Alright. So, before I started climbing, I used to shower every day. Now I’m just like, “Eh, fuck it. I’m getting dirty again tomorrow, anyway. So, what’s the point?”
By the way, today’s the first day I’ve showered in six days.
(MALE VOICE): I used to plan large blocks of time off from work. When that wasn’t enough, I retired from the fire service after twenty-one years so that I could climb more—climb full-time.
(FEMALE VOICE): When I’m faced with a challenge, I think: “If I can climb a rock wall, I can surely do this.”
(FEMALE VOICE): I went to the Western Wall in Jerusalem and everybody was leaving notes. But I’m just staring at the wall, trying to figure out the grade. It definitely won’t take gear.
(MALE VOICE): I hand jam things like banisters.
(FEMALE VOICE): I stopped wearing real pants.
Also, my sister’s listening to country music in the back and I’m dying inside.
(FEMALE VOICE): I use climbing knots and retired carabiners to hang my plants.
(MALE VOICE): I look at everything over twenty feet tall and wonder if it goes.
(FEMALE VOICE): Climbing changed how I approach my artwork. I understood that if I got stumped while working on a painting, it was because I was inadvertently working on some V6 project when I was still just a V3 painter. And then, I would slowly build the skills to do the V6 version in the future.
(MALE VOICE): You know, I was an alcoholic. I was depressed. You know, I was just full of fear. I was searching for who I truly was and what I stood for.
Learning to climb in the Pinnacles gave me that runout, ballsy feeling of climbing. It really changed my life—it gave me some purpose. It allowed me to mend with the world for the first time in a way that I’d never mended with anything in my entire life.
It gave me a glimpse of what I could be—from those dark, dark years to here in this moment, where my sole experience of deepest appreciation and love for myself—that’s when I knew it wasn’t about climbing, but it was about who I’d become.
(FEMALE VOICE): In climbing, I have learned and cultivated this power to take that sense of doubt, acknowledge it and then, move forward. I will constantly still have this internal dialogue on and off the wall: Am I capable of this? Am I smart enough?
And I think the training that I’ve had through rock climbing, it really does transfer over into how I interact with my internal dialogue and actually stand up and say to myself, “Yes. I am capable.”
I do feel more empowered and with the courage that I have gained and with the experience of overcoming that doubt in rock climbing, I move forward in my life with a more positive and more headstrong approach. And that’s how rock climbing shaped my life.
(MALE VOICE): Forty-five years ago, I tied in and touched rock for the first time. It was my first trip to Yosemite, and the early season snowmelt had all the waterfalls thundering in their full majesty. The place was magic.
I’d just returned to the Valley floor from a nine-day solo backpack trip in the high country and was repulsed by the hoards of tourists, slurping their ice cream cones and barely looking up at what was towering over at them. But I looked.
In fact, I spent most of the day, gawking up open-mouthed at the stupefyingly huge rock faces, and what I saw took my breath away. There, barely visible on El Cap, were three, tiny, orange dots—who suddenly moved! Holy, shit! They’re people! Climbing El Cap. I was instantly seized with a desire to join them up there, far above the din of the crowds around me.
The next morning found me huddled at Degnan’s in the chill of dawn, waiting with several other climbers for our instructor, Roger Breedlove, to show up. When he did, I was underwhelmed. The guy could barely walk! One leg was shriveled with post-polio, and I wondered what the hell he might possibly be able to show me about climbing.
We ambled over to the practice slabs and dutifully tied the gold line into our one-inch tubular webbing swami belts. Remember, this was 1973! And without knowing it, I’d stumbled into the last part of Yosemite’s golden age, and Roger was part of that.
He hobbled over to the bottom of the slab, stepped onto the rock, and was transformed into Rudolph Nureyev. He danced effortlessly up the rock, set free from gravity and disability as if transformed by magic. It was a spectacle so powerful, it made my eyes water.
In that moment, I knew three things were certain: I’d found my Holy Grail, I was hooked for life, and that there are only two kinds of people in the world—climbers, and everyone else. Fast forward forty-five years. Climbing continues to touch literally every aspect of my life—where I live, whom I’m married to, the wonderful friends and community I enjoy, and the countless wonderful experiences that have flowed from that first day.
We’re all dancers, called to the dance by the music we hear in the rock. That music may be more muted for me now, but I still hear it clearly. It calls me with a sweet insistence, impossible to ignore.
I once saw a great quote on a t-shirt in Jackson, Wyoming: “They who dance are thought mad by those who hear not the music.”
Thank you, all my wonderful friends who’ve shared a rope with me, and by so doing, have so enriched my life.
(FEMALE VOICE): Hi, I’m Ally Foy and this is my submission. I don’t climb like most climbers. Honestly, I don’t really project.
(laughs)
It’s not why I climb. Yes, I do want to get better. But I climb mostly for the calm that it waves over my mind. I climb for the meditation of moving up into my own little bubble, high above the rest of the world.
I don’t really care if I push a grade up or do a fancy move. My favorite day at the climbing gym is just traversing around and around our little toproping room, just on a quiet day. When I’m on the wall, I’m calm and I’m graceful and I’m strong. I’m definitely not the best climber in the room, but that doesn’t matter.
Honestly? I do it for the love of climbing.
(WOMAN SINGING):
Come on , show me how we do now, baby
Tell me, what we got to loose do now, honey
You, you, got it
I want it
(fades)
Everybody wants to be the best in town
I’m just tryna be the best me around
I’m just gonna love myself
Cause there’s nobody like me