Seasonal Affective Disorder

DR the "Dry Master" on Secret Sauce

Growing up my parents had a small cottage on a lake. Summers were spent by the water skipping rocks, looking for snapping turtles and watching my dad drink impossible amounts of beer.  The first week of September the cottage would get winterized and all of a sudden weekend trips to the lake would stop cold turkey.  I would withdrawal like a junkie.

I remember this being one of the most emotional times of my life.  I wouldn’t see “lake friends,” for a whole winter. Water skis would be traded for text books. Instead of smiling at friends on their docks while we cruised around the lake in our boat  I would walk around the school halls with my head down waiting to get pushed into a locker by Jeff King. Or worse he would give me a purple nurple so bad my chest would turn black and blue and then brown for two months.

Leaving the lake for the long winter tears would always well up in my eyes and I would feel a deep sadness. Being at home just was not the same. Our lake cottage was sold over 15 years ago and I have not felt this sadness for a long time until the other day. 

Recent winters have been filled with non stop back country skiing. A weak, shallow and terrifying snow pack has left a void this fall in my activities.  I had to look elsewhere for my activity fix.  One cool fall day Jeff Jackson invited me up to the Man Camp for some dry tooling. The name Man Camp should of tipped me off that this was going to be no casual day of cragging and I was going to walk away with a thick mane of hair on my chest.

I had previously only tinkered with dry tooling when necessary on an ice climb here and there. I had actually once owned a pair of Nomic dry tools. Last year I sold them to fund a trip to Denali. My vertical ice climbing tools would have to do.  (Many of you are shaking your heads at me selling my Nomics, I know, I know, it still makes me nauseous. To non climbers selling a pair of Nomics is like having a copy of the original King James Bible and trading it for a back rub.)

Jeff on Jesus Camp minus the ice

 

My first session at the Man Camp was rough.  I floundered up this climb called Jesus Camp. Without warning tools would blow off of holds as I monkeyed bolt to bolt questioning what I was doing with my life. Two prophets below spat out beta as I attempted to climb to the heavens. Like religious devotion, Jesus Camp would become a climb I would repeat a dozen more times. I no longer flail like a bird with it’s wings clipped on Jesus Camp. The climb has become more refreshing to my soul then an artesian water enema. 

My second session at the Man Camp I ventured onto a climb called Secret Sauce. For me and my lack of dry tool skill, Secret Sauce is like taking a 5.8 climber and putting them on the 5^th pitch of a 5.12c crux and lighting the rope on fire.  After hang dogging my way up 35ft my right tool got spit out of a crack like a mouth full of rotten fruit and tagged me just above the right eye. The next day I flew back east to my grandmother’s funeral with an egg sized bloody bruise on my face.

DR on Secret Sauce

 

As addictive as the climbing at the Man Camp is, I think the two guys I get to climb with make it such a sacred place.  I have never had a true sport idols or hero until this winter. I’ve always had a hard time with idolizing an athlete whom I had never met and gotten to know.  The passion, excitement and drive Jeff and DR climb with is like a continuous IV infusion of Red Bull. I climb several grades lower then these two guys. Time an again they patiently belay me offering kind advice and never do I feel judged for climbing so poorly.  Yesterday after a colossal top rope session, that probably gave Jeff an inguinal hernia from belaying me, on his new climb, Thumb Sucker, Jeff said, “Thank you, I really appreciate you going up there and pulling on those holds.”  If a hold in the Man Camp’s soft red sandstone can tolerate “VanNostrand Forces” then it is probably going to stick around until the next time I pull on it. As I was lowered off Thumb Sucker my head hung in disappointment with my performance but Jeff was right there with a lighthearted comment that brought my chin up smiling. These men are the real deal that young athletes should look up to.

 

Sometimes I get home from the Man Camp and my wife says, “What did you guys talk about.”  I’ve learned after 3 plus years of marriage to always answer her questions sincerely, accurately and completely. My mind swirls in blankness. How do we teach women the ways of man talk? I think about making some grunting noises because that will pretty much say everything but I know this is inappropriate. I laboriously draw up conversations from the Man Camp man talk dialogue box and find myself looking into a black hole.  I realize overall we have not said anything that translates into women terms.  But what I know is the three of us liked being there climbing and puzzle solving. And we all enjoyed each others company. Particularly we enjoyed getting to share such a special place with another person.

When DR asked me to strip the draws off of Jesus Camp yesterday a lump welled up in the back of my throat.  Unclipping each draw from the bolt felt sacrilegious. I thought of the lake growing up and the sorrow I felt every time I had to leave the lake for the final time in late summer.  But I know this is just the beginning of many winters.