Advice and Nonsense
I mentioned in my recent Into Thin Air story that I was heading to my local REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) store to buy rock climbing gear for my latest rock climbing wall project. I mentioned that I would be seeking their advice, but I had no idea what a tale that would become all by itself.
I have been to REI and survived that experience, coming out with about 75% of what I needed to do this project, but the advisory part of that voyage was far more nonsense than I can recall putting myself through of late.
I had a a plan. I wanted to put up a series of climbing holds on the inclined rock face. There are some half dozen types of holds that apparently achieve different goals of training a climber on how to scale a rock face using only its natural surface features. Despite how popular rock climbing has become, I really don’t get the motivation and the risk taking required to do it. That’s OK since lots of people don’t understand what motivates me to ride motorcycles, so I’m prepared to just accept that people want to do it and therefore want to train with all the best apparatus. Nevertheless, my objective with this rock climbing wall is to give the children in my life some entertainment that makes a visit to Casa Moonstruck special. I did that with the Moonstruck Madness games area and then the Moonstruck Shire Hobbit House, so now I want to do it with Moonstruckpurna rock climbing experience. Therefore, I am less concerned about making sure all the hold types are represented since some of them seem like they are more pain than pleasure. The holds they call “jugs” seem like fun, but the thin ledges, the finger holes and grips and the “pinches” look like they hurt too much to be fun. I have bought a package of 50 holds and I will use whatever comes in the set and put up as many as I can stand the rock drilling to place on the wall. I would like to know how best to do that and I expected REI to be the best place to learn all about that.
As the old joke goes, “not so fast, Abernathy!” When I arrived at REI in Encinitas, an upscale shore community a dozen miles from me, I was greeted by a very friendly outdoorsy staff member who directed me to one entire corner of the store dedicated to climbing. To put it into perspective, climbing is one of seven of the REI core activities, the others being Camp/Hike, Water, Snow, Cycle, Run and Fitness. Kim and I know that we are not campers, that we are past running for anything (I actually did used to run, despite my youngest son’s question of me as to whether I had “ever” been able to do so), that snow sports, while a big part of my past life are also in the past, and that cycling is something Kim especially is happy I no longer do (we can’t pass a sweating cyclist without her commenting, “Thank God!”). My version of water consists of hot tub time and an occasional guest visit in a pool somewhere. As for fitness, a good sturdy walking stick is all you need, right? Hey, what about Paddle Ball? Shouldn’t that be on the REI list these days or is that being ceded to Dick’s? So, my point is that climbing is a pretty big part of the REI specialty.
As I looked around the climbing area, I was approached by a young and healthy Asian/American guy who looked like he wanted to say “Mahalo!” to me and wiggle his hand with thumb and little finger extended, in the classic “hang loose” reference of Hawaiian surfers. But then we got down to business. I showed him a picture of my hillside stone wall and said I wanted to build a rock climbing wall for my grandkids. His “whatever” look changed immediately to a frown. He said, “you can’t drill into rocks, Dude, its against the law!” I reminded him that it was on my own property, not in a National Park and that I owned the rocks. He said, “no one owns a rock, Dude, but the point is that I cannot talk to you about drilling into rocks.” When I inquired why not, he looked around like the REI liability police were eavesdropping on our conversation. “I am not allowed to give you any such advice, Dude.”
It seems that climbing dudes at REI are trained to avoid advising on dangerous activities. This prohibition extends to teaching people about timing knots that might come undone, equipment that might fail and generally anything that might cause an injured customer to come back at the store with a, “but the salesman told me that I would be safe if I did it this way” story. Since REI assists this narrative by not selling rock climbing holds, we shifted to a discussion of ropes. Climbing rope seems to come in two dimensions. The first is fixed or dynamic and the second is length. Length was easy since it was either 60 or 40 meter lengths. My rock wall is less than 20 feet, so doubling it for a belay system would give me at most 50 feet or 15 meters. When I asked if the rope could be cut, Mr. Mahalo once again looked around to see who was listening and said I could do it “theoretically”, but that I would have to burn the end of it to keep it from fraying. These ropes are woven sheath ropes made of nylon that measure about 9.4mm in diameter. They are soft to the touch and have lots of “give” to them. That is where the dynamic versus fixed issue comes in. Since ropes are intended to keep you safe when you fall, it is important that they have that “give” element to them. When I so much at touched the black fixed rope, Mr. Mahalo shook his head in horror and said, “someone could break their back with that rope if they fell, Dude.” I’m thinking about whether a jarring fixed rope fall is worse than a prolonged dynamic rope fall, and I must admit that I don’t want to try either,and I am unconvinced that having give makes too much of difference in an adverse circumstance. Nonetheless, I stayed away from the fixed rope mostly because it didn’t come in the nice colors that the other dynamic rope comes in. Just like buying a car, nothing matters more than color, right?
I will not bore you with the conversation we had about belay safety brakes since I barely understand the concept, but Mr. Mahalo was on such sacred climbing ground when talking about belay tactics and equipment that I just agreed to buy my “Grigri” online…whatever that is. From what I can tell on the specifications available online, none of these gadgets to arrest a fall can help you if you weigh over 300 pounds. Gravity is always a bitch and no climbing equipment is going to help you if you are stupid enough to be my size and try to climb with safety equipment. But kids are a different story, so I asked about harnesses, helmets, gloves and special shoes. After explaining that I could not bring in for a fitting every kid that might want to climb my rock wall, I settled on several generic harnesses and helmets and gloves. The shoes were simply too specific and expensive to waste money. I cannot afford to run a bowling alley shoe rental business, so sneakers will have to do. Mr. Mahalo was back in mega “whatever” territory and was starting to look around in hopes that I might be leaving soon.
My last question was about crash pads for the base of the rock wall. He told me they were for bouldering and not rock wall climbing, since a climbing wall uses belay ropes to avoid needing a crash pad. When the concept of belt and suspenders was lost on Mr. 26-Inch Waist, I finally just picked up a bouldering crash pad and said, I would take it. He said, “they’re very expensive, Dude, but whatever”.
When I went to the counter the two people there thought everything I was buying was “way cool” and that I was a “way cool” grandfather that they wish they had since I was buying all this gear to build a climbing wall for the kids. I asked them if they were concerned about my doing any of this as an amateur since Mr. Mahalo was so suspect. Their reply was that they weren’t climbers and climbers like Mr. Mahalo were a bit uptight, so “don’t worry about it, Dude”. There is a fine line between advise and consent and advice and nonsense, and I seemed to find it at REI.