Climbing: what was good and what is bad

I've been climbing since March 17 1990. This means 24 non-stop years of crimping and sweating with the only purpose off arriving on the top of a rock.

It sounds stupid, but is not.

I've never considered (and I will never do it) climbing just a sport. For the way I'm seeing it, there is a lot of poetry and philosophy and romance in climbing. Climbing teach me how to behave and how to react and respond to several situations. Climbing kept me high during low phases and helped me a lot. And it's still doing all of these things to me.

I love climbing, and I will love it forever. This is statement.

Unfortunately, in these 24 years, I saw a lot of changes in the climbing world, and most of them were bad changes.

When I've started, we were going bouldering with nothing but our climbing shoes and the chalk bag. But we were climbing anyway.

When I've started, most of the bolts were manually made by the setter, and most of them were rusty after two months. But we were climbing anyway.

When I started, only few guidebooks were available. But we were climbing anyway.

When I've started there were no climbing gym (only a couple of them in France), and there were no differences between climbing and training: it was just climbing.

When I've started, Patrick Edlinger (rip) and Patrick Berhault (rip) were setting the rules for what is climbing today, and nowadays nobody (in the climbing circle) remembers or knows them.

I still remember how sad I was last year when Patrick Edlinger (Salut!) died. The same day, I went to the climbing gym and I was explaining why I was sad. The reaction of the others climbers was "Patrick, who??". Meh...

Patrick Edlinger (left) and Patrick Berhault (right): so 70's, so pure.

When I've started, there has always been the feeling that maybe, that day, was the last of my days, because, you know, shit happens. And this was part of the thrill, part of what was making climbing so big and important (at least to me).

Today everything is different.

Ten years old kids are crushing grades and pushing the bar every day a little bit higher. Today is (almost) safe. Today we can train harder and harder everyday. Today there are thousands of different spots where we can go to have fun. Today we have crash pad, ultra-light material, cool clothes to match with our "ultra-cool" climbing-lifestyle...

...and I could go on and on, but long story short, I think today is worst.

The magic of climbing is gone.

Every time a new hamster (this is my definition of totally-psyched-megadude-indoor climbers: hamsters, like hamsters in their wheel) born, a little piece of magic of climbing is fading away.

"Hi, I'm flashing V10 on plastic, but I've never seen a real rock in my life..."

Today, all of these hamsters don't know the history of what they are doing... And I'm also convinced that they are doing it just because they need something to keep their mind busy.

Most of them are just a bunch of douchebags strong enough to climb and evolved enough to know how to belay (by the way, it does not require to much brain-effort).

I'm a scientist, and my nature is to observe and describe the world. Therefore, I'm observing those hamsters: they yell, the scream, they pump up each other's ego, but I don't see anything that belongs to climbing.

Maybe I'm a little shellfish here, but I think climbing is not for everyone and it should be restricted to a specific group of people. Don't you think?

...and what about all these meetings and aggregation of hamsters? Is that climbing or a lemmings migration?

One of the several good aspects of climbing is that you can do it basically all alone: you just need a rock, the nature all around you and yourself. Beautiful.

But no, not anymore! Just like the hamsters love to stay close to each other, also the doucheclimber do the same: they organize meeting with hundreds (or thousands) of other hamsters, behaving exactly like they behave in the gym. Absolutely awful.

Melloblocco: look at all those damn hamsters (please enjoy the statistic here: 2 dudes climbing, 36 dudes doing nothing).

Ok, I will end here.

I know that all these complains could sound just a general complaining of a hold fart too attached to the past. And maybe it's like that.

All I hope is that these words have pissed off some of those hamsters out there...

...and please, note that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Here the soundtrack:

I choose this song for a specific reason. Several years ago I was doing multipitch at Pianarella (see picture): while I was climbing, there was absolute silence, I was surrounded by wonderful rock and nothing else, and this song was in my mind. Suddenly, I realized how wonderful was the situation and I thought "I don't need anything else.".

Pianarella: 300 meters of perfect limestone.