If you’ve ever had the pleasure of climbing with a teenager who fires your project as a warmup, you may have also experienced the additional humiliation of earnestly asking that wunderkind, “Did you get pumped at least?”—hoping, in a last ditch effort, to salvage what remains of your ego. To give you something to hang onto. If not hard, at least give me pumpy! C’mon, gimme pumpy!
Instead, that little doe-eyed, waif-like freak delivers the final crushing blow by sweetly asking you, “What’s ‘pumped?’” And that’s when you give up.
I’ve had it in the back of my head to one day write a satirical piece with the above headline, imagining what kind of “useful” tips you might pry from that average imaginary teenager who just did their first 5.14 at the Red River Gorge or in the sweltering heat of July in Ten Sleep, in between mindlessly consuming packages of Pop Tarts and TikTok videos. I was imagining satire in the vain of the Buzzfeed clickbait canon, a completely useless and empty piece of content …
Long time reader and fan, but this post made me a subscriber. I wrestle with this often, having become a coach and engaged in relationship with many climbers who are earnestly trying to get more satisfaction and performance out of climbing. They are real people, with real problems and hopes, and I feel real pressure to help them succeed. The value proposition is there, but some (both climbers and coaches) take it more seriously than others. The intersection of the larger cultural changes brought by social media and the changes to climbing culture as it grows is a topic that I’d like to see explored more. Cheers for the thought provoking article
Thank you Jesse, and great comment. I honestly think this article is just ok, because–as you allude to here–there is a deeper conversation to explore around this issue. It’s something I’m going to keep thinking and writing about, so if you have any more prompts or directions you think this could go, let me know! andrew@eveningsends.com