Climbing as a metaphor for… society?

I am a college student in Durango, CO (I know it's like being on a perm vacation) and for my advanced composition class I am writing an ethnography on the rock climbing culture, "dirt bags" and why people choose to live life to the extreme.

What is an Ethnography?
the study of how people make sense of their lives and larger social themes. Essentially, what makes people tick.

Why climbing?
I believe the rock climbing culture is unlike any other culture in our society and can tell us a lot about human instincts. And I want to know why people feel the need to identify with cultural groups, is it to satisfy a natural instinct? to feel a sense of belonging? and why do people desire to identify with a group of people who are fighting our natural instincts, and defying gravity?

How can you help?
I need INTERVIEWS. If you are interested in sharing your journey through life as a climber, or giving me your two sense on how dumb this is, want to give me life advice, or tell me a crazy story. Basically if this catches your attention and you wanna help a sister out, I can make you famous… in my Comp class.

If your interested: reply to this with your email or something, and I can do an e-mail, phone, or Skype interview.

Thanks, and stay rad.
Hallie

"I believe the rock climbing culture is unlike any other culture in our society...."

You´ve lost me right there, at best climbing is a sub-culture and is no different to cliff diving, surfing, graffitti spraying, dirt biking and thousands of other activities which are fundamentally pointless and allow us to explore areas of our persona that are more sheltered in normal life.
Becoming a priest for example is a far more `extreme´ lifestyle choice than sleeping in a van and working a boulder problem.

Awesome questions to ask. Ive been asking this/these questions for some time now and would love it if you shared your final work. I am no dirtbag climber therefore wont be of any help to you with the interviews.

Im hope youll share your final work and Im excited to know that others are open about inquiring about such subjects.

Note: dont be discouraged if you dont get quality stories/info here, its hard to get others to turn inwards THEN convey what they experienced. this is an age old issue for researchers, masters, etc

I agree with Jim 100%.

"You mean there's a way I don't have to work, and can do ____ all day?" "I just have to live like I'm poor?"

Fill in the blank and there are plenty of people who will participate. It isn't just climbing. Maybe explore why certain people think climbing is 'different' and so much more meaningful.

I still ponder, after taking the hardest way up a piece of rock, then walking down ...

why?!? I'm not sure if climbing or surfing is more pointless. They're both damn fun, though.

Stoned Master - you ever surf? You're riding a flow of pure energy that is temporarily traveling through a medium (water), before it fades/crashes upon the shore and is no more. Put that in your pipe, man ;)

Matt - You raise good points. I have always found it hard to both honor my society and myself. they dont always match up. I am both an individual and a part of a larger (immediate family, friends, neighbors, towns, county, region, state, country, continent, planet, galaxy, universe, etc) whole and I feel the dirt bag mentality is more towards the individual and is not beneficial for the whole, only for the dirt bag (it may not be healthy for the dirt bag either, depends where theyre at internally).

I grew up surfing Ali`i beach as my homebreak in Haleiwa, Hawaii. My family still lives theres and surfs also alot. Ive surfed Hawaiian and California waves many, many times (so cal like carlsbad, etc).

Surfing is equally as rad as climbing or any other experience if youre intune with your present moment. I love it!

You might consider just posting the list of questions so that people who feel like answering them on a whim (and not deal w any additional logistics) can do so.

Let me let you in on a secret someone told me when I was in college. I was taking classes like "Sports Psychology" etc and was a n00b climber and hero in my own mind. I started spouting about optimum arousal, self fulfilling prophecies, and all that other nonsense that somehow end up in books that doesn't matter.

I tried to get deep (cause 21 year olds are super deep) and an older and vastly superior climber shut me up. He said that when climbers start philosophizing (how the tits do you spell that?) about climbing, it makes everyone realize why climbers should climb, and not talk.

He was right. Don't get to deep. There is no grand truth or unifying message. The most you'll ever get out of climbing for humanity will be a feel good news clip, a motivational poster, and a military commercial.

If it's not too late, I would suggest you change your paper to something with real content.

I don't know what I dislike more: climbers pondering how unique they are or overuse of the term "dirtbag"?

Others have pretty much said that climbers are not very unique, I just wanted to add: there are actually very very few true dirtbags out there - not enough to make a meaningful sample for an ethnography study, IMO. Just because someone lives in his/her car part of the year and foregoes few showers, doesn't make them a true dirtbag.

Like nicelegs said, not too late to change your thesis topic. I hear zombie apocalypse prepping is actually a big deal.

Discuss climbing as it relates to the enrichment of life's balance; maybe not so much into the mis-perception of the 'extreme,' lunatic, or social outcast.

Climbing is NOT unlike any other subculture. One of my best friends spent years being homeless and broke so he could chase waves around the pacific. You see people living "dirtbag" (I fucking hate the cliche that term has become) lifestyles as they pursue a huge variety of activities. The subcultures are very similar although they revolve around different activities. I think that the ethnography could be very cool. I just take issue with the "unlike" part. Good luck!

Two quotes for you: "There's no better metaphor for life than climbing mountains." ~Gil Weiss

&

"There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games." ~Ernest Hemingway

The questions you're asking are valuable ones. I would concur than the concept of living life on the sharp end is not unique to climbing. What is unique is that getting to our objectives is likely harder than any other sport out there with a sizable user group.

I went and saw the movie Rush last night and it totally got me psyched to go climb ice in the high and lonesome. I think the question you're asking is about what attracts people to a lifestyle of calculated risk. Feel free to pm me with follow-up.

We are so anti-conformist and so unique.

Did you know that some high school have a varsity climbing team? Not club sports, not a club, not a bunch of outcasts smoking by the dumpster but a varsity climbing team with paid coaches and lead climbing and bouldering ability requirements to make the team.

Chew on that.

^ and many So Cal schools have surfing teams.

and if your child is talented enough to make a run at a life of surfing - you pull your kid out of school, homeschool them and try as hard as possible to take a 'lifestyle' activity and make an income out of it.
But, that usually involves driving them to the beach and competitions in luxury SUVs and not living in a van.

nicelegs wrote:We are so anti-conformist and so unique. Did you know that some high school have a varsity climbing team? Not club sports, not a club, not a bunch of outcasts smoking by the dumpster but a varsity climbing team with paid coaches and lead climbing and bouldering ability requirements to make the team. Chew on that.

Can you give me contact information for one (or more) of those schools. I would like to contact them and see how it is set up and being run - I am interested in perhaps trying something along these lines where I live. Thanks in advance.

Hallie , since your asking for feedback...

I think it would be interesting to interview climbers on the opposite end of the spectrum as dirtbaggers. Interview moms or dads that hold down full time jobs and raise kids , pay mortgages and taxes .

Hans Florine comes to mind . He owns a climbing gym , trains like a madman , and still tries to set speed records on El Cap . Plenty of hardworking people balance their passions with their responsibilities , and find the time to climb really hard.

It's not important , or noble , to be a dirtbag IMO . It's a selfish pursuit , and I'm always leary of people who romaticize that lifestyle as something to aspire to .

Chris Rice wrote: Can you give me contact information for one (or more) of those schools. I would like to contact them and see how it is set up and being run - I am interested in perhaps trying something along these lines where I live. Thanks in advance.

That would be moving in the wrong direction and I will not be a part of it.

Will Butler wrote: "There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games." ~Ernest Hemingway

urban legend

What is Ernest Hemingway's "there are only three sports" quotation?

"There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games."

This is one in a long list of quotations mysteriously attributed to Ernest Hemingway. While the general public seem to agree that this is in fact a Hemingway quotation, scholars have some reservations and for good reason. The early Hemingway did not believe that bullfighting was a sport. For him, it was a tragedy. See his October 20, 1923 article titled "Bullfighting A Tragedy" reprinted in By-Line: Ernest Hemingway Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades edited by William White. Hemingway reiterates his beliefs regarding the tragedy of bullfighting in his 1932 book, Death in the Afternoon.

In July of 2006, Gerald Roush, a visitor to Timeless Hemingway, provided a possible source for the "three sports" quotation. He cited a story titled "Blood Sport" by Ken Purdy, which originally appeared in the July 27, 1957 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. The story is reprinted in Ken Purdy's Book of Automobiles (1972). Gerald provided a scan of where the quotation appeared and it reads as follows: " 'There are three sports,' she remembered Helmut Ovden saying. 'Bullfighting, motor racing, mountain climbing. All the rest are recreations.' " Gerald noted that the character of Helmut Ovden is modelled after Ernest Hemingway. This could explain why the quotation has been so widely attributed to Hemingway over the years.

In May of 2007, Rocky Entriken wrote to Timeless Hemingway with another possible author for the quotation:

"As I am told, the quote belongs to Barnaby Conrad, a writer of the same era as Hemingway and a San Francisco raconteur of some note. Mostly he did magazine articles but his books include The Death of Manolete. My source is Dan Gerber, yet another writer of the era."

Plus a true "dirtbag" (and I'll hop on the band wagon that that is a hipster/trendy word that has no actual meaning) will not be using the Internet (to answer you). Any data you manage to get will be skewed.

lol , have you ever seen the Yosemite dirtbags in the Cafeteria on a rainy day ? They are as tech savvy and plugged in as the rest of us . Chongo on his laptop was permanently planted in the back corner monopolizing the plugs .

vincent L. wrote:Hallie , since your asking for feedback... I think it would be interesting to interview climbers on the opposite end of the spectrum as dirtbaggers. Interview moms or dads that hold down full time jobs and raise kids , pay mortgages and taxes . Hans Florine comes to mind . He owns a climbing gym , trains like a madman , and still tries to set speed records on El Cap . Plenty of hardworking people balance their passions with their responsibilities , and find the time to climb really hard. It's not important , or noble , to be a dirtbag IMO . It's a selfish pursuit , and I'm always leary of people who romaticize that lifestyle as something to aspire to .

Heartily agree, Vincent! Though, I may use someone else as an example - someone like George Lowe, who has an accomplished career in something other than climbing.

Y'all sure are harsh to this poor kid. Next you'll be telling her the sad truth about the Easter Bunny.

What was George Lowe's career?