Friday, October 19, 2007

climbing culture

i miss my humble, boisterous, raucous, uproarious GRG. i could add in all kinds of other adjectives, but you get the point. it was to me what cheers was to norm. my lovingly degenerate college/climbing bum people. always welcoming of new blood, as long as they're there for a good time and a good climb. well, at least the boulder rats!

this new place couldn't be more different. i cowboyed up yesterday and joined the gym. being winter, i seriously doubt i'm going to get to the crag on my way home anytime soon (keep your mouth shut, lee!). for those of you who don't know, up here in the arctic, the sun goes down earlier in the winter. moreso than barely-not-tropical gainesville. i'm not rushing to judgment by any means, there seems to be a familiar friendliness to the place, but i reckon i'm going to have to introduce a few interactive games to make it more GRG-like. portuguese make-up, take away and add-on might well be foreign languages. these folks climbing walk in tottering on high heels or rocking business suits. on their way home from work i presume. i guess i am too, but i don't have to dress that nice for my jobby-job. too many boogers and dirty hands to wear good clothes.

anyhow, today was a good day climbing. i sent a pretty V4 on my second go. i was climbing with a guy that spent 4 months at hueco last year. pretty chill, my kind of climber. i need to get serious and train if i'm going to keep up with eme jota in december. a card full of V5s, including my first repeat of genghis khan and a first send of fat cat, is sure going to be hard to come by.

for those of you that read this in spite of having no earthly clue what i'm talking about, you rock (pun intended)...

2 comments:

The engineer, the fabricator, the soccer player, and the berr said...

nobody could understand the point of the games megan and I would play when we would go to the gym. The routes would never suit us, would be totally unrealistic, or we would be unable to reach things....so we began our own games of WHORE...or add-on. ahhh good times, good times...with dirty looks from other climbers, you would think they would want to join in with all the laughter and fun climbs we made...oh well to many sticks up their asses. seemed to be a common theme...hence no membership for me anymore, have fun!

rachel said...

I read it all the way through, hoping that at some point there would be something I could understand at least slightly, but to no avail. oh well.