Just a Little Bit Cranky: Life is a wall

Mike, Jon, Chris

To contribute to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, click here: JON'S MDA DRIVE

Saturday was a full and multifarious day that began with a reunion of three of us who started the long bike ride together way back in May. Chris and I met up with Mike Lynam for lunch and found that everybody still liked everybody else. Mike's a doctor and he was able to consult with Chris on the topic of statins, and I looked for opportunities for humor. A fine meal.

Then later was the event I came for -- the MDA Wall Crush. We had about 50 climbers of all kinds, and we raised $5000 for MDA, thanks largely to the efforts of Kristi Sogn and the generosity of Cirque Climbing.

Climbing is a whole subculture that I never knew existed. It draws fitness buffs and a lot of people who climb outdoors looking for a way to stay in shape when the season ends. Like, say, running, or swimming, how good you are is less important than that you do it. We had kids, lean tattooed women, craggy well-built men, little girls, high school teams and a tennis pro from Belgium.

Everybody climbed, climbed and climbed. Some would reach the top, come back down down and start right back up again. This was a competition, and points were accumulated by the marked difficulty of the route. Some chose to do easier routes many times -- say, 50 points or less (as little as 10) -- and others went after higher-point routes -- as much as 500, for example -- that were much more challenging.

Routes constituted of a series of "holds" of a specific color -- so that if you're doing red, you can't use a black or yellow hold, which are parts of different routes. And safety was built in to every route. No one went up without a rope that would stop a fall (though pulling on them to ascend is a rule violation). In most cases the rope was a "top rope" hung from a bracket at the top of the climb and affixed to the climber's belt, with the slack taken up by a belayer on the ground.

Working at a more difficult, higher-point route, the climber would go up with the rope not fixed at the top, but just tied to his or her belt. As the climber ascends, he or she would put rope manually through a series of clips hanging at intervals, so that a fall would be arrested by the belayer when the climber fell to the most recent clip attached -- maybe as much as five feet? Seven feet? Something like that. Using the clips, which requires extra time, more closely approximates outdoor climbing conditions, climbers said. This kind of climbing, if what I've said makes any sense, is called "lead climbing."

I watched two little girls -- maybe 10? -- run from route to route, climbing every one. They raced reach other and squabbled over who won. They were completely absorbed, growing stronger with every climb. It was like a playground to them -- a joy to see.

Satchel Sogn, Kristi's son, won the fastest-climber title, going up the assigned route -- practically running up it -- in just 8.8 seconds. And his team won the team title.

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