Rock Climbing is Stupid

It was a great day of bouldering.  The sun was out with absolutely zero cloud coverage and I pulled down some problems that I had been working on in the past.  After about 2 hours, I headed up the trail from the undisclosed area (because it is not "exactly" legal to climb where I was) and I crossed paths with a couple of high schoolers.

Him: "Hey man what is that on your back?!"

Me: "It's called a crashpad.  It's for bouldering."

Him: "What is bouldering?"

Me:  "It's a type of rock climbing.  Basically, you climb 15-25ft up the boulders down there in the creek and fall onto the crashpad...or this thing that's on my back."

Him: "Huh..."  With a not so deserved look of "that sounds stupid" on his face.


How this 20 second conversation ended got me thinking.  The idea of rock climbing is pretty stupid.

So in rock climbing you:
- Climb big boulders/cliffs to reach the top
- Wear extremely tight shoes
- Wear a belt with leg loops and carry things to put into the rock or attach to bolts on the rock
- Put chalk on your hands

Seems simple enough and pretty dumb really when you have never seen someone climb or boulder before.  Visualizing what climbing a "rock" looks like would seem pretty lame until you saw how acrobatic it can be.  Also, unless you are on rock, it is pretty hard to tell how challenging it can/will be.

Let's be realistic though.  Every sport, when broken down into it's simplest form is extremely stupid:

Basketball - shoot a ball into a circle suspended 10 ft in the air for 2 points
Soccer - kick a ball into a vertical rectangle area for 1 point
Golf - use a long stick with a "head" to hit a little white ball into a hole in the ground, trying to get the lowest score
Tennis/Volleyball/Badminton - Hit a ball over the net making your opponent miss it
Hockey - shoot a black circular object into a net
Baseball - with a stick hit a ball, then run "bases"
Skiing/Snowboarding - go down hill
Any fighting sport - beat the crap out of each other

...and the sport I have played for nearly my entire life, that in my opinion, in simplest form, is the dumbest around.

Football - take an oblong ball across a line for 6 points.

If you never climbed before you would not know about all of the breathtaking locations that can be climbed just in this country, not even speaking of the international.  If you never climbed before you would not know about the community that has sprouted of enthusiastic, hardcore, yet humble participants.  If you never climbed before you would have no idea of the rush you get when you finally pull down a project that you have been working on for days/weeks/months/years.

For me, this experience yesterday was the first time I ever had someone give me this look.  Everyone I ever talk to about climbing that do not do it, think it is the coolest thing ever.  Apparently it is not "in" with a few individuals in the high school crowd.  Everyone has an opinion!

...this might change someone's opinion.

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