Remembering History

If you don’t count the rain that fell overnight, today was a day without rain. Over the last two to three days we had in excess of 200 mm of rain at the house. Yesterday afternoon, I walked along to the breakwater at the end of Corrigans Beach. The waves and tide had been up onto the breakwater and the Clyde River was running fast out to sea. Brown water everywhere which didn’t stop a surfer from jumping in right by the breakwater and catching a few waves. All the lagoons and creeks had overflowed and Joes Creek was too deep to cross so I had to walk from the beach west to the pathway and cross on the bridge. I got a mere metre from the east bank of Joes Creek and already the fast moving water was mid thigh.

Today I ran around the Dam Loop which gave me a dual workout of running and lifting heavy things as there were a dozen dead trees fallen over the track. I pulled off at least ten, but some were too big to get off without a chain saw and I didn’t even have gloves let alone any tools. The dam was spilling and I had to take shoes off to wade across.

I’ve had this podcast downloaded for a month or so, but only just got around to listening to it today. It’s pretty good and well worth a listen. Barry Blanchard was, for many years, Canada’s leading alpinist, yet remained a humble guy who talked to anyone he met out on the trails or in the mountains. We used to run across him quite a bit in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta as he was always guiding the Wapta Traverse and we used to ski up there frequently. It always felt a bit strange to see a world class climber hanging out at the Bow Hut or teaching beginners how to tie a butterfly knot on a bite of rope.

It’s funny how society purveys an image of us all getting smarter and smarter and more and more evolved when – at least it seems to me – that we are losing knowledge at a greater rate than ever. In the podcast, Blanchard casually mentions people asking him if he’s ever done an “adventure race” as if a curated, catered and heavily monitored adventure race (no matter how many days it spans) where you can tap out at any point is anything like doing the first ascent of Infinite Patience on the Emperor Face of Mount Robson or multiple hard first ascents on Howse Peak in the Canadian Rockes. Today’s youth (maybe more than youth) have no idea the mental and physical skill required to achieve such a goal, especially given the equipment available at the time.

I’m all for everyone pushing their own limits. The old adage that “comparison is the thief of joy” is true, but a little less hubris about how you nailed your boulder project that one time and a little more humility would sure go a long way. If nothing else, we all look a bit silly when we have no knowledge of the history of our sport, or of our world.

Blanchard has always been an amazing story teller. I saw him once on the University of Calgary campus giving a slide talk¹ about his various climbs, and the audience was so mesmerized you could have heard vegan fart. He talked for almost two hours and there was not a person in the audience who was not spell bound. Not bad for a Metis boy who dropped out of university so he could climb in the Alps and proof, if it was ever needed that most experts did not go to university.

1Slide talks were a thing before we all became glued to cat videos on you-tube. Sadly, they are no more.