“You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.” ~ George Burns

Ken Climbing at his Home Crag in Lakit, BC, Canada

Who inspires you most in rock climbing? This is a question I’ve been asked many times throughout my nearing two decades as a rock climber. For me, the top answer has always tended toward the obscure, the unobvious, and not the famous climber in the magazine. The reason for this is simple—because the most inspiring moments in rock climbing for me, beyond my own personal breakthroughs and accomplishments, come from witnessing the victories and attitudes of other people in person.

Which brings me to Ken.

Ken is almost 70. He didn’t start rock climbing until he was into his 60s. He decided to check it out because of his son’s growing passion for the lifestyle (I still can’t bring myself to write “sport,” how strange…I had to delete it). A lifelong athlete (tennis, golf, running, cross-country skiing, and many others I can’t recall), Ken took to rock climbing relatively easily. Within a few years, he had redpointed 5.12.

Despite not climbing year-round, Ken has continued to maintain an impressive level of fitness for rock climbing, which he demonstrates every time he shows up at a new crag. On Kalymnos two years ago, he redpointed Feta (5.11c), among other sends. At his local crag in BC, Lakit, he runs laps on 5.11s. In Ten Sleep this summer, he climbed 5.11, even though this area is “not his style,” meaning ultra-crimpy and technical (Ken is an endurance machine). In the Red, he impressed a whole crag full of people with his onsight of a 5.11a on his first day of climbing there.

Redpointing Feta (11c) on Kalymnos, Greece

This made it all that much heartbreaking when, four days into his trip to the Red River Gorge, he broke a hold in the process of onsighting another 5.11a. Because he’d been training finger strength, he managed to hang on with the other hand, but, unfortunately, his bicep couldn’t take the strain, and he tore the muscle. At home, he explained to the doctor that yes, he wanted to be able to climb again, so please do the reattachment surgery to make this possible. He’s currently in the process of rehabbing the muscle.

All of the above is impressive in and of itself, but it’s not all or even the main reason why I find Ken such an inspiration. Yes, it’s amazing that a nearly 70-year man, who looks more like he’s 50, and who started rock climbing in his 60s, can regularly show up at pretty much any crag and throw down 5.11. But what’s really cool about Ken is how much he appreciates and engages everyone at any and every crag he shows up at. He’s about the friendliest person you’ll ever meet, but not in a pushy or annoying way. He’ll pop into the conversation with his British accent (retained after more than 40 years living in Canada) to tell you that, “That’s rubbish,” or “Bloody amazing.”

Even better, Ken is always genuinely and sincerely impressed with pretty much anything anybody does or even fails to do at the crag. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to redpoint a 5.15c or flailing on toprope at the bottom of a 5.10b. Ken will recognize your efforts and tell you that you’re doing an amazing job, totally in earnest. He’ll pick out whatever is best about your performance, even if you’re failing miserably, and he’ll let you know that he saw it and thought it was remarkable. He’s just delighted by what other climbers can do, always. And by being this way, he brings a smile to pretty much everyone’s face he encounters at the crag.

It probably won’t surprise you, then, to find out that when Ken struggles on a climb or can’t do it, he’s the first person to laugh at himself and to tell you all about his epic difficulty with a move, and then how some girl came along and sailed right on through it like it was nothing, and how extraordinary she is, and what a great climber she is and how cool it was to see this. He doesn’t begrudge other climbers their superior ability, just as he never flaunts his own accomplishments when he crushes a route that someone half, or even a third, of his age is attempting with less success. He will only offer helpful suggestions, if they want them, in order to help them succeed.

People love being around Ken because of all of this, and he tends to draw folks together at the crags, even if he doesn’t realize it. I’m expecting that his bicep will heal up soon enough and that he’ll be back in action by next season. Hopefully, you’ll get to meet Ken, or someone like him, at some point in your climbing, too. Not only does Ken put the “age excuse” to shame, which is truly inspirational standing alone, but also, his authentic and heartfelt enthusiasm and pleasure for the successes of other climbers make him a role model for everyone. And I’m guessing he doesn’t even realize it.

The Bridge to Paradise photo Nick Sopczak

The early fall was amazing here in Squamish! Bone dry and cool temps aided by light winds. Conditions like this made it easy to find the psych, taken from me by the summer heat, and put it to good use up in Paradise Valley. The setting can be described as magical. Large, tight grained granite boulders strewn along the banks of a crystal clear stream surrounded by huge broad-leafed maple trees in all their fall glory. Perfection! This fall I establish over 50 new lines up there as well as showing some love to a few quality problems that were starting go green. Although we’ve been climbing up there since 2002, Paradise isn’t in a guidebook yet so it doesn’t see that much traffic. Sure people climb there regularly but not in the hoards you see at the Grand Wall boulders. I’m of two minds about it because it’s nice to climb in solitude yet without others climbing there and giving the problems the odd brushing, it will be reclaimed by the ever encroaching moss. I was heading up there everyday after teaching and on the weekends all fall. It was bliss. I was coming home tired but excited about new lines I’d found or problems I’d sent. Oddly enough, right before the rainy weather set in for what seems like forever, I was running a lap on one of my favourite problems up there called Phantom Menace and when I threw to the finishing edge I felt my finger tweak. I’m now nursing an injured lateral collateral ligament in my left ring finger.  It feels so lame to go from climbing everyday to nothing at all. I’m praying for this injury to heal up quickly so I can feel ready for our trip to Bishop in February. I’m also praying for some dry weather because even if I can’t climb I wouldn’t mind getting some more new lines ready to go for when I can.

Jack Fieldhouse

Simply Paradise photo Nick Sopczak

Paradise Rail photo Nick Sopczak

Crossing Tenderfoot Creek photo Nick Sopczak

Tongue and Lips photo Nick Sopczak

Phantom Menace photo Nick Sopczak

Setting up on Phantom Menace photo Nick Sopczak

Tweaking on Phantom Menace... photo Nick Sopczak

The other Friday night at Rocktoberfest here in the Red River Gorge, I started trying to relearn how to walk a slackline. I first learned how to do this in Mexico probably seven or eight years ago, prompted by the efforts of the camp host. At twice my age and a tad overweight, he started trying to learn to slack wearing cowboy boots. Blast! I had no excuse if he was going to learn, and we began a friendly sort of cooperative competition to see who would make it across the line first. This fun competition also encouraged me to learn some Spanish, as he would inquire every day (in Spanish) as to how many steps I’d managed to take on the line. By the time I left, both of us could walk the arbitrary distance of his slackline—and I don’t think I’ve ever done it since.

Fast forward to Friday, when this incredible slackliner (is that even a word?) named Andy ended up in my cabin at Red River Outdoors on the first night of Rocktoberfest. I felt somewhat obligated to go over and try his setup after hanging out with him. After I put in probably an hour’s worth of thwarted efforts in walking the line, I watched in amazement as he performed back flips and landed them on the line, and also jumped from slackline to slackline, among other tricks. Wow. After Timmy O’Neill, the event emcee, pointed out his antics to everyone and got everybody watching, I felt sort of silly stepping on the line afterward, like, “Om, and now, Alli Rainey will demonstrate how she can walk about four steps on the line before losing her balance and plopping her barefeet back into the mucky grass. Oooh.”

Still, though, I was determined. I soaked in everything everyone around me who was better at slacklining than I was told me to do. Andy said, “Wave your arms in the air like a monkey,” and I did. Kevin said, “Try bending your knees more,” so I did. Andy told me, “Try softening your vision and looking straight ahead toward the end of the line, keeping your feet in your peripheral vision,” so I did. “Breathe and relax,” another person said, and I did (and isn’t that one of the keys to climbing hard, too? Hmmm. Sounds familiar). I persisted and persisted and persisted, probably for about three hours total, focused and determined.

I never did make it all the way across the line that night, but I did improve dramatically, probably making it about three-quarters of the way across before I started getting really tired and ended up heading up for a good night of sleep. As I walked up the hill to my cabin, I started thinking about what it means to have a beginner’s mind, and how much that was helping me in relearning the fine points of how to walk across a slackline…and then, I started thinking about how much this is really the optimal state of mind for any rock climber to maintain, no matter how long he or she has been climbing.

The beginner’s mind is open and nonjudgmental, with no expectations or limitations, but with a strong desire to learn and absorb and retain as much knowledge in a given subject area as possible. The beginner’s mind is willing to try anything at least once, if not more than once, just to see if it will work. The beginner’s mind has no qualms about failing or falling or looking silly or stupid. The beginner’s mind assumes that anyone and everyone has something to teach and that something worthwhile can be gleaned from every experience, whether on the surface it looks like a failure or a success.

Isn’t this the perfect mindset to cultivate in rock climbing, always? Whether a rock climber has been climbing for two days and two decades, they can always learn something new and improve their skills and ability level. That’s the beauty of rock climbing (or any lifelong learning endeavor). It’s only when a person starts to think they have nothing left to learn or no room to grow, or that they’re an “expert” who need not listen to the advice and wisdom that others or the rock has to teach them, that they stop growing and improving at their game.

At a crossroads in my climbing right now, then, after climbing for nearly 18 years, the slackline mindset lesson came at a perfect time for me, as a perfect reminder of all that I strive to achieve with my mental state of being both on and off the rocks, and what I mentally encourage in every climber I work with in a coaching setting. The next days out climbing, I found myself in a genuinely relaxed and open-minded state, ready and willing to just get on the steep routes that have intimidated me for so much of my climbing life. I didn’t know what would happen or how I would feel or how I would do—I just knew I felt totally willing to try and to just open my mind to the possibility that this could actually be fun for me.

With nothing invested and no outcome expected, I quickly found myself reveling in this relatively new discipline as I let my being just experience the steepness and move over the stone with a less fearful and more excited and open perspective than I’ve honestly ever had before. With no tightness or sense of being scared of the results, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I actually LIKE this kind of climbing—I’d even go so far as to say I love it!

I have so much to learn and so much more to gain from climbing on this relatively unfamiliar terrain here in the Red River Gorge, and it’s absolutely exciting, like having a whole new world of rock climbing opened up to me, one that I’m just starting to understand. It’s different from what I’ve focused most of my years of climbing on, and so I have much more to gain here than I do from climbing on the more familiar angles (vert to gently overhanging), holds (little pockets and crimps), and rock (dolomite) that I’m so accustomed to and trained to climb on.

All I want to do now is just seek out the steep classics here at the Red and do as many of them as I possibly can on this trip, learning anything and everything I can from the experience, absorbing as much information as possible, and being always willing to try something new and to learn from those around me. I feel like I’m on the edge of leaping off into a whole new chapter in my climbing world, as though I’ve just read the introduction and am about to discover something fantastic and magical, another dimension of climbing that I didn’t even realize existed. With a beginner’s mind, I embrace the possibility and the potential for my growing love of steep climbing, while enjoying the process in the present, every step of the way.

Worst Case Scenario

 Noah on They Call Him Jordan

Pat on Jitterbug Perfume

I visited Joe’s Valley last weekend with Pat and Noah. On the way we were stopped on I-70 for 2.5 hours around 1 AM in the morning, Utah time. A double-semi trailer had collided with a single-semi trailer leaving carnage along the highway, meanwhile leaving us to wait, less than 2 hours from our destination. We met a guy that we ended up calling Homeboy. Homeboy was a sketchy character, our determination based on the fact that he was helping to clear the wreck with a shovel as an excuse to not look suspicious. On the first day we climbed on Team Effort, a steep compression prow on a hillside up the right fork. I did Team Effort 2nd try with Noah finishing the climb shortly thereafter. We met this guy James from SLC who was really chill. After that Pat and Noah climbed on the heinously sharp crimps of Jitterbug Perfume. I chose to stand aside and watch this time. We finished out the day climbing on Worst Case Scenario and They Call Him Jordan, both classics in the Left Fork. The next day we got on The Wind Below, a classic highball, which is  one of the better boulder problems I have ever tried. A Ronin, Shogun, and 4 other pads under this climb still didn’t seem like enough. The last day Noah and I flailed on the giant tufa that forms The Worm Turns. I’m psyched to get back to Joe’s to finish some projects, explore new boulders, and build landings for new and existing problems. I got to see some good friends that I haven’t seen in months or years this last weekend, and hopefully I’ll get back to Joe’s in March.