Climbing Culture
“Just come with us,” they said. “It will be fun,” they said. Somehow every time a friend says this to you, whatever it is that you go to do ends up being terrible. Rock climbing looks like it could be a grand-ole time. I honestly wanted to enjoy it, just because it looked like something I could potentially grow to end up loving. However, my friends and I approached the wall to go climb it and I immediately wanted to leave. It was crowded and difficult to attempt to climb on these walls. But all-in-all, the entire time you are climbing, you just feel eyes and fingers pointing and laughing at you until you dismount from the wall. They know you don’t belong there, you know that you don’t belong there, so who are you fooling by being there in the first place? It is hard to engage in such an activity whenever all you feel is judgmental glances the entire time you are there.
Let’s talk shoes. The shoes you have to wear while climbing this wall are awful. They are tight and smell awful. It’s like bringing bowling shoes into your worst nightmare and adding more funk to them. The reason they are worse than bowling shoes is because you can’t even where socks with them! I am not trying to be shallow about shoes, nor am I acting like the reason I hate the idea of climbing is because the shoes you have to wear are the epitome of disgusting. I am simply saying the shoes alone add to the despair of climbing in general. No one will ever make me where a pair of those shoes ever again, I promise.
Climbing is to Durango as a country club is to the white-picket fence neighborhoods of society. These tight-niched cultures do not take too kindly to outsiders who do not look like them. If you are different or out of line in any sort of way, they will automatically right you off like you don’t belong. With climbing culture, this includes both personal physical appearances and gear. If you come around looking different than everyone else there, you will be judged for it. All they think with these judgmental glances is that you don’t belong. They don’t want to give you a chance, they don’t want to help and try to teach you how to master the art of climbing. They just don’t want you there, plain and simple.
Climbing culture could be different in different places, I don’t want to make a quick judgment about the few without considering the masses. However, I don’t think I will ever be attempting to experience climbing in Durango again. They can keep their stuck-up expressions to themselves. They don’t have to worry, I won’t ever be coming back again, thanks to them. Therefore, to climbing culture in general, I hope you have fun in your secret society of snobbery attitudes.
