Born From The Climbing Life

Reflections on the Classic Climbing Road Trip

— Nat Bailey

Mazama, Washington. Maybe that means something to you, maybe it doesn't—call me basic but it makes me think of chai, baguettes, and my friends Drew and Anthony. At this moment in Mazama, however, my friend Adrian and I were locked in a heated foosball match with a wily tween boy. Adrian and I were a little buzzed off a post-climb patio beer, and the kid took full advantage, nearly beating us; he was thrilled: I just about beat two teenagers! We corrected him that we were in our twenties, which was music to his ears. He giddily ran back to his family. Our friends back at our table, one -eye on our game, the other on thirst-trap reels of the Australian national rugby team, were also rather amused.

We were wrapping up a ten-day road trip, on assignment (I feel like Jimmy Chin whenever I say on assignment) for Black Diamond, tasked to shoot a classic climbing road trip. It made all of us think, how do you quantify this? This, being the “classic climbing road trip”—what even is that? Our whole lives? The orbital force that hurtles us through random jobs, relationships, vehicles, and mailing addresses? Losing a game of foosball to a kid and doom scrolling? It can't be!

Black Diamond Presents: Born From The Climbing Life

My reflections have landed me at the notion that something becomes a part of culture when it is something that a community just does. It’s not a terribly bright thought, I appreciate that, but in my experience the climbing road trip is simply a stage with a rotating cast of characters and a diverse array of sets. Like, at first, going on a road trip was incredibly novel and just totally fucking crazy: living in a tent with five of my friends, getting obliterated drunk at the Smith Rock bivy, and ripping objectively good gear because I was an idiot. I guess that kind of sounds like the classic road trip trope? A sort of rite of passage, the holy shit I can’t believe this is actually my life, adrenaline vacation was definitely a set piece on the road trip stage.

I grew out of that phase (maybe you dodged it all together, alas, I was not so lucky), but I haven’t yet grown out of road trips, nor can I really extract the notion of a “road trip” from who I am and how I’ve gotten here. I think that’s what I mean by the sense that a road trip is just what we do and therefore becomes this remarkably vast backdrop on which life unfolds. That, I suppose, is the essence of any culture. Culture is at its worst when it is a box that defines who fits in and who doesn’t—and there’s plenty of that in the climbing community. Culture is at its best when it is this sort of backdrop that invites you in to experience for yourself, to make your own. So, like I said, I’ve been fortunate enough to live this life where I can’t really tease apart road trips from the fabric of my life, and I don’t have the authority to tell the story of climbing culture. I can only speak to how my life has unfolded on that backdrop; with any luck, it’s a laugh, and it makes you think about your friends. I hope it doesn’t come across like some bullshit script about what a climber ought to be, and what a road trip is. That’s up to you, should you have the privilege.

I don’t really rip gear that much anymore and I get hammered drunk in the Smith Rock bivy even less, but some things hold on a little tighter. Climbing is still about 95 percent getting my ass kicked. This summer on the Black Diamond trip, I had the nerve (read: arrogance) to think I had a chance of flashing a classic Index route: Numbah Ten—it was only 12b, a.k.a. piss for a one-arm pull-upping bro like me. My friend Victoria, one of the photographers, really wanted to shoot Numbah Ten. Victoria is a bit of a well-intentioned sandbagger herself: I’ve seen her sweetly say “I know you, and you’re a really good rock climber” to multiple people before a prompt and utter smackdown. Long story short, I couldn’t even do this one crux move! Don’t let her amazing photos fool you, I got fucking smoked. That’s what climbing mostly looks like for me, and I have a feeling that I’ll be driving from place to place (mostly) happily getting smoked by this rock climb or that one. In fact, I drove to the Skaha Bluffs this weekend to do just that. I guess engineered for the send rolls off the tongue a lot smoother than engineered to mostly sit in your harness for an hour and say “okay I’m on. No, wait, take. Sorry.” But that’s climbing culture to me and lord help me, I love it.

But for myself and a lot of other people, since the road (on assignment: the road, a Jimmy Chin film) is inextricable from life, that means it also sucks sometimes. It’s human, which means that people get hurt and hurt others, and sometimes your life of higher passion feels rather aimless. That’s climbing culture too.

But for real, is there anything better than driving somewhere on a hunch that you’ll know people there, only to be welcomed at the campground with open, surprised arms? The only thing, MAYBE, would be going absolutely bonkers to Darude’s Sandstorm at Creek Pasture with your homies. Or does life ever feel more perfect than when you’re belaying your friend, and they’re just floating up a pitch, and the world is impossibly quiet, and you somehow feel they’re exactly where they’re meant to be? And come on, what is more hilarious than the shenanigans of these trips, like almost suffocating playing sleeping bag wars and screaming a safe-word for your life, barreling down an interstate at 3 a.m. listening to a song called Cyberdemon, learning karate moves in Washington Pass, or botching dying your hair and having to go to Walmart looking like the Blue Man Group? Don’t even get me started on cigarettes. Us Canadians have a rule: they don’t count in America.