“I will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a whale.”
- Moby-Dick
Ontario Noon, the phone-in show on CBC did a segment on risk and rethinking it with Will Gadd yesterday. The main thrust of it is that he’s an ice climbing champion, paraglider, you name it, who started to rethink his relationship to risk when a friend of his was paralyzed in a paragliding accident. (Admittedly, he’s already lost dozens of friends to accidents – but maybe it’s a combination of getting older, and the difference between being killed and being rendered quadriplegic.)
So people called in with stories. And I got the willies. But I kept listening, fascinated. Even reading books on climbing can get me freaked out: John Long’s books on anchors cause me to picture the falls or the possibility of failing. I’m maybe far too good at thinking about the possibility of things going wrong. I can be hanging off the rope in the gym and I’ll suddenly picture my harness splitting and giving way. Walking on wet clifftops on our last day out at the escarpment this season, I could vividly picture that awful moment of freefall if I fell. Every time I have to get on rappel, I get butterflies. A couple of weeks ago I had a nightmare where I was ridge walking with my sister and saw her suddenly slip and vanish. Two days ago I dreamed I was climbing a mountain (which kept changing under me, in that way dream landscapes do) with those narrow ledges to inch along and steep chunks of climbing that we were having to do unroped. I even, sometimes, run through in my head every gear anchor I’ve ever built or climbed on, trying to picture it, trying to figure out where its weaknesses might have been, and what would have happened had it failed.
Lately – in the last part of the season – I suddenly realized I had issues with fear that hadn’t really been there before. Some fears – I think the unjustifiable ones – have faded away. I no longer get nervous on top rope (and yes, I used to, when I started out.) But other things have taken their place. I’m more cautious on cliff tops than I ever was before. And I know that I have got to get over my fear of falling on lead if I’m ever going to get anywhere. The last time I led in the gym was downright humbling: inexplicable fear and reluctance. Pissed me off.
Will, however, is saying that fear is part of what you have to do. It means you’re never ignoring the danger or the risk. He said “when someone rolls into the parking lot with a No Fear sticker on their car, I get scared.” A nice quote – and it echoes the one I started this post with (there’s never been an uncool Starbuck.) And I feel a little better. I need to be reminded of that every so often – it’s not just okay to have fear, it can be useful. People don’t always get that unless they climb, or do something else like it. Climbing is scary, and I love doing it.
But it’s weird. I don’t watch horror movies because I don’t like to be scared. I even avoid some social situations because I don’t like to be scared. But I like to climb. And I ride my bike down the main roads, in the winter. It’s not because I ‘like adrenaline.’ It’s not really got anything to do with ‘thrills’ as people seem to generally see them. Maybe it has to do with levels and types and qualities of fear. There is the useful fear that acknowledges risk, and then there’s this quite un-useful fear that gets in the way of climbing. And that fear has been something that I lately need to deal with. Face, figure out, get around.















