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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Quickdraws STOLEN from Millenium Caves 5-May-2005 At 10:25:38 AM adamk

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Some people will see this as totally irrelevant but what the heck. Someone in this discusssion talked about ownership. I think the view climbers have of the rock environment sucks. Leaving your draws (or natural gear) on a climb for days, weeks or months implys an attitude of ownership and utilising the rock environment to meet their own needs and who gives a stuff about everyone else's needs or even the needs of the environment for that matter. Something that gave me a great deal of insight a few years ago was spending time in the natural environment with an indigenous artist. It made me relise that my love of the natural environment is totally utilitarian. The value of waves is to surf, rocks to climb, snow to ski. I relised that this attitude totally sux!!!!!! All i was doing was enforcing my western values of self gratification onto an environment where these values had no place. In a sense what took place was a re-education where if the surf wasnt six foot and pumping i took a while to enjoy the colors or the sounds, if it's raining and i cant climb i go for a walk in the little desert instead. My relationship with the outdoors became about appreciating what it is for what it is. Not about what it could do for me. I am not arrogant enough to say that my view is correct or reality, it's just an opinion but i think occasioally we need to check our heads and remind ourselves why is it we climb again? And does leaving the tools of our trade sticking out of crags for lengths of time agree with this?