There is no time more fertile for the beginnings of self-doubt than when the time for departure finally draws near. Questions about the wisdom of the plan swirl around my head; so many unknowns, and much that was known is forgotten. I ask myself questions that I know I once had the answers to: Should I try and get a seasonal job sooner than later to bolster my finances? Would I be happy taking another job so soon after leaving the old one? The purpose of this trip can be obscured by a fear that leaving my student debt unpaid and not participating in mainstream societal norms could lead me to a catastrophic end, destitute and isolated. I need to remind myself why this trip is happening, what it means to me in the immediate now and not the distant future.
With doubt present, I experience a feeling of paralysis; this must be the proverbial rut that many people describe being stuck in; if allowed, this rut could stretch on for seemingly forever. I have experienced the rut several times, but I have always had just enough wherewithal to recognize my situation and address the problem.
Shortly after I graduated college, I took work as an intern with a federal agency in Arizona, and after spending fifteen months working there, my boss told me that if I stayed (in a place I greatly disliked) for another five years I could be making six figures. The money was tempting, but the reward was not a foregone conclusion, nor was it something I really felt I needed. I declined, moved back to Portland, OR, and took the first job I could find: working in a warehouse performing manual labor for $10/hr. Only several weeks went by before I initiated the next phase of my life.
It was winter time which meant snowboarding. I had always wanted to live on Mt. Hood and work at one of the resorts, so I attended a training session for potential snowboard instructors. Before I had secured any paid position, I left my warehouse job and moved to the mountain. This may sound crazy but I felt something in the air, a certainty that I would become an instructor, as if it were fate. And it was fate!, because I was hired for the season, allowing me to fulfill a life long dream; an experience I would not trade for any six figure job.
I feel this same ethereal certainty floating in the air around me now. I am not religious, nor spiritual, but I do feel as if something from another world is calling me, beckoning me to pursue my foolish dreams. I know that if I keep training, remain passionate and ambitious, my climbing dreams will be realized too. This “something” feels like the gentle touch of a friend, as they hug you and whisper calmly and sweetly into your ears, “Have courage. You can do it. Your efforts and passion will be rewarded. I believe in you.”
And it is with those parting words that I wish to say to everyone who may feel paralyzed with doubts, fearful to leave the normal and plunge into the unknown, take heart and be strong. I believe in you. Whatever your goals are, go out and achieve them, no matter how small, large or seemingly trivial; dreams are possible, as long as you still believe.
Have a great start to your week.
Your dirtbag climbing friend,
Bo John
P.S.
One more week until I begin climbing at Wild Iris! 🙂
A song that spoke to me as I made up my mind to leave. “Now” by Mates of State
Time. Time is something we are told we own vast quantities of; I was told a year is nothing, will go by quickly and that one year is not a lot of time to spend working an unsatisfying job. I disagree. The average lifespan is between seventy and eighty years, for those of us lucky enough, meaning one year is between 1.25 and 1.42 percent of life. 1.25% may sound insignificant, but this is life we are talking about!, where every single moment is important. We can not recover lost time. My time is finite; every moment of my life is precious, I do not have the luxury of starting over. It is for this reason that I quit my job six months early. It is for this reason that I am dedicating myself to rock climbing and the pursuit of living my life according to myself.
Why have I chosen now, at the age of 27 (soon to be 28) to pursue climbing full time? Why did I not start sooner? Here’s my story… I was fifteen years old (2004), on a two week long Outward Bound trip in the Pacific Northwest. My first experience with climbing was rappelling. I shook with fear and trepidation as a I stepped into my harness and walked my way to the cliff edge. As I bent my knees and lowered my butt over the edge of the cliff, I was keenly aware of gravity’s pull as I began to assume the sitting position. My mind raced with images of my own death as I slowly inched my way down the rock face, staring with wide eyes at the slowly passing wall, not daring to look up or down, over gripping my brake hand. As soon as my feet touched the ground I was simultaneously thrilled, exhausted and mentally drained. I thought nothing of it then, but years later I found my journal entry for that trip and it read, “…I hope I get into rock climbing later in life.” My! Fifteen year old me knew what was up! You, the reader, may think that that started my passion, but you would be wrong. I did not try climbing again until my sophomore year of college (2008). (Go Zags!).
I was twenty, and I was discovering my joy for weight lifting, spending a few days a week bench pressing, shoulder pressing, etc. One day my friends invited me to climb at the local gym. I stood in amazement as they top roped 5.10; I silently watched in wonder whenever an dyno was unnecessarily employed; I had no clue about any of the ratings, but I knew I wanted to try it. It wasn’t until Junior year that I bought a pair of basic Mad Rock climbing shoes and harness and began going once or twice a month. There is no getting around the fact that I was terrible. I was very strong from lifting weights but my technique was atrocious. A friend told me laughing, “You’re a thug. All strength and no technique.”
If I could not hold onto a type of hold, I would simply dyno past it. After hang dogging my way up 5.11-‘s on top rope, I thought I was tough shit. Yeah, I was that guy. The meathead that came into the gym in a tank top, flailed his way up TWO whole routes in 90 minutes and then was too tired to try any more.
My senior year was pretty much much of the same, except I took the rock climbing course and I learned lead climbing. My first fall went against every single instinct my brain was sending my body. My friend had me on belay, our instructor told me to let go, I looked with wide eyes at my savior below, almost found my religious side, I held my breath, closed my eyes and fell. I was caught, no surprise endings here, lowered, but my hands were shaking so bad from all the adrenaline that I could not undo my own figure eight knot.
“Is this the moment when climbing clicked?” Nope! Several more years of lifting, with the occassional blunder outside, went by and I was nowhere near to anything resembling a climber. I had the gear but I never used it since I did not live near a gym or near any outdoor climbing destinations. But it was during this period I was inspired by a video of a climber doing one finger pull ups. I purchased a hangboard and promptly injured my left ring and middle fingers (if you are a beginner climber, do not hangboard!). This injury haunts me to this day. It would be during my time in graduate school at Oregon State University that I discovered, and committed myself to, my passion for climbing.
A day spent goofing off with friends at Smith Rock, OR, and preparing for our multipitch, Voyage of the Cowdog (2014)
My first year of graduate school saw me top roping 5.11-, poorly, with the occasional day or two at Smith Rock. The trips to Smith I loved. I had a nice group of friends, all of us were outside to have fun and climb 5.7 to maybe 5.10a/b. The grades can really mess with a climber’s mental state, but, remember, a grade is only a subjective rating of a route and is not a reason to be scared. I would consider this period the period where I began to appreciate time spent on real rock, and, unfortunately, the beginning of a very long injury phase. My hangboard injuries flared up and I was forced to take a year off from climbing, which was fine, because my future with climbing was in doubt. Coincidentally, I began dating a non climber, but she was into hiking and backpacking which became our thing.
A year went by, the girlfriend and I broke up, and my second year of graduate school thesis research was amping up. I was stressed. Luckily, I had just moved into a house that was home to one of the strongest climbers I have met to date.
There she is!!!
And this energetic, quirky, incredibly intelligent, badass climber decided that for whatever reason she was going to make me her training partner (she probably just needed a belay). She put me on a training regiment consisting of four by fours, she taught me technique and injury prevention, she showed me proper hangboarding, took me on my first climbing trip to Bishop and Owen’s River Gorge, and she introduced me to her group of fellow climbers of badassery. She is a reason for why I am so passionate about climbing; her drive is contagious. And even though I earned a Master’s of Science, my climbing/training partner and best friend taught me my most valued lesson. She taught me how to believe in myself. She taught me how to send.
Over a year has passed since we trained together, and since then I have spent three months dirt bagging in Wild Iris, Ten Sleep, Maple Canyon, Clear Creek Canyon and Boulder Creek Canyon. I went from not sending anything harder than 5.10a in May of 2015 to onsighting a 5.12a at the OK Corral in July 2015 to sending a 5.12c at Clear Creek and a “V7” in Joe’s Valley, August 2015.
Shilo and I relaxing during the mid-day summer heat at Wild Iris, 2015.
My trip ended in November, 2015, when I accepted a job with the federal government in a small coastal town of Oregon, where no rock can be safely sport climbed, and where I worked for seven months or until September, 2016. My saving grace has been a small 24 ft wall in a community center, thirty miles up the coast, where I climbed for free in exchange for setting routes as a volunteer. The wall was short, but it was perfect for training ARC. If you find yourself in Lincoln City, check it out. It is a fun wall and the staff are welcoming and very friendly (and the routes are SUPER fun! 😉 )
Standing in front of the finished product at Lincoln City Community Center.
The reason I write this as my first entry is because I want you to understand my relationship with climbing, to see that it has been a very long journey, over a decade, before I finally realized my passion in life. And I want you to know these facts about me, because I have big ambitions. I am dedicating myself for the next year to only climbing, to push my limits in an effort to feel alive and experience life in an unconventional manner. My goal is to send a 5.13a by the end of 2016, to boulder V10 by the middle of 2017, to use climbing to raise awareness of the socio-economic problems of the world, and to build confidence in children and show them that dreams are attainable if you work hard. Climbing has given me so much, and I would like to give climbing to others.
Thank you for reading, I hope to write inspiring and enlightening updates to this blog once or twice a week. Feel free to ask any questions, I will do my best to answer.
Climb on up 