Climb Disconnected

It feels strange to forward this article through social media.

alpinist.com/doc/ALP39/39-wired

When travelling through snowy mountains, a part of me collects and collates information for a conditions report. Perhaps it's worth giving it a few weeks off.

That's a very well-written short article; thanks for posting Charlie!

Like the author, I had similar experiences with HS football and escaped to the wild.  Our Brave New E-World may soon offer almost unlimited outlets for the age-old primate pursuit of status/mates/resources through exhibitionism.

The Park Service has a pilot program to WiFi-enable five National Parks as an experiment.  I don't think they have been chosen yet, but Paradise might well be picked by some DC genius, since that's where electronics seem to go to die.   

This article hits it on the head; social media has no place in the mountain culture beyond telemetry, forecasts and conditions reports.  You can substitute the word skiing for climbing in his story and it all still holds true…goal oriented yahoos making reckless decisions so they can post the close call before they even get back to the car.   Where is the spirit cleansing solitude and the shared camaraderie from a day alone in the wilderness with one or two close friends?

OK, I'll step down off my soap box now...

Love the sentiment of this piece. I used to make simple ski movies when small digital cameras first came out. They were about the snow, the terrain, the majesty of the mountains. The skiers were called my friends, not "athletes". I made no attempt to have my friends be stupid for the glory of the movie.

Others followed. The focus was on the skiers, not the snow. Skiers became "athletes". Avi footage became mandatory. I was obsolete. While pouting about this, I realized that I was carrying that camera like an albatross. I wanted to get attention and adulation for my movies, even though the movies themselves were not about getting adulation for anyone.

So I retired the camera, stopped counting consecutive months skied, and stopped bleating about my trips on the internet. All very much because of lines of thought explained by others in the article and in this thread. My need for social validation cannot trump my need for the humbling peace of the mountains.

My need for social validation cannot trump my need for the humbling peace of the mountains.

This about sums up how I feel.

I wish someone would have taken a vid of Croft free-soloing Astroman.