Webster Art

My son and his family all went climbing with Sue and I at Quartz. It was his first outing with me in 12 years. He surprised me by asking to lead a steep 5.8 sport route. The kid cruised up it like nothing. He had recently led a short rock pitch on Mt. Olympus and wanted to brush up. Both of his kids also tied in and were very enthusiastic. Rose insisted she could climb in cowboy boots and got up 40 feet which is much farther than I was expecting. In looking at the photos later I was startled by all my wrinkles. I don’t feel that old.

I was lifting my grandkid by the rope tied to her rockclimbing harness. I knew it was all buckled up and tied securely, but I wanted to feel it working. The mind is one thing and you can convince yourself of almost anything (see brainwashing) but your body runs on a different system. We see this climbing all the time. I can look at the bolt or cam and know logically that there will be no failures: I’m safe. But until I fall or hang, my body is not convinced. That was the fool part. I look really old, and definitely not the sharpest stick in the woodpile.

The hero

Yesterday Sue and I hiked up the Skyline trail. I staggered, limped and rested my way up the two miles of steep stone stairs to my customary viewpoint just below Panorama Point. As I was fumbling to assemble my DIY hiking pole easel for the first time, a group 4 young tattooed 20 year olds stopped to watch. It was two girls and two guys.

“Dude, that is so cool! You’re awesome!”

“But I haven’t done anything yet!”

“Doesn’t matter, the vibe that you have going on, the whole package, it’s just perfect.”

An hour later, after 8 people asked for permission to take my photo:

“Sir, can I take a picture of you and your painting?”

“Oh, absolutely you can take a photo. I need to make sign that says: ‘Yes, you can take my photo.’

“I know, here’s a paintbrush, can you paint those words on my back?”

“Excuse me, but how long have you been painting?”

“Um, do you mean in my lifetime, or today?”

They gave a non specific nod…

“Well I started painting when I was 15, but I started painting today 3 hours ago.”

“Really? That is super fast! I thought you started yesterday or something. How do you work so fast?

“Gosh, I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of practice up here, I sort of have all the tricky parts memorized?”

“How many times have you painted here?”

” Well, if you figure 4 times a year for the last 40 years, that works out to maybe 150 times?”

I usually don’t go up on weekends so I’d lost touch with how over loved Rainier has become. The parking lot was packed to overflowing by 7 AM. There were long streams of people on the trail ahead of me. It looked like those photos you see of traffic jams on the summit of Everest. I had to step off the trail repeatedly to let the eager beaver young hiker groups stream past.

It didn’t help that I was the only one carrying a 30 pound full size pack, or that I was the only white haired fool on the trail. Tourists were not only streaming uphill, they were also flowing downhill from points North, like Panorama Point and or Camp Muir. I saw 6 people carrying Dynafit skis. Later one told me that he found a little snow up near Muir, but that on the next trip he was going to try the Paradise Glacier.

I wondered if some of the overly effusive young ladies were frustrated artists. Normally, especially in the climbing world, beautiful young ladies in running shorts and sports bras pay zero attention to an old fool. But there they were, walking off the trail to stand beside my easel taking pictures of a bad painting. Part of the excessive attention was my being there on a weekend. We avoid the park like the plague on Saturday and Sunday. But Sue had nanny duties Friday near the mountain, so it was natural to stay over and chance it. It’s also one of the last sunny weekends of the year. The rains have already drenched us twice, winter is on it’s way.

My best visitor was one of the volunteer rangers. She hiked down from Pan with several of her fellow rangers. As they approach, they can’t see my painting. They look at the back of my canvas as they are walking down the mountain and I’m looking up. But as they pass they all look back to see if I’m a real artist. The ranger stopped in her tracks and immediately walked right up to me.

“Oh my god, that is so beautiful!! The colors, the drawing, the proportions, everything!! How did you pick such perfect colors?”

Later another group of spandex clad tattoo and piercing fans stopped and complimented the painting.

“That looks so good! You have a lot of gear, did you carry all that up here by yourself?”

“Why yes….are you offering to help me carry it back down?”

“Oh no, sorry.”

“Ahhh, shoot, I thought maybe I made a new friend!”

Resoling rock shoes

My climbing friend Tony runs a resole business now with drop boxes at our gym. I recommended him to the staff and his work has been great on both my shoes and my friends. Because my feet are so freakishly wide he can’t use his standard shoe forms when resoling my shoes. He offered to make molds of my feet to get better fitting resoles. If this seems like a lot of extra work, it’s true. But Tony is running a business where customer satisfaction and word of mouth means everything. I feel fortunate to have him as a climbing friend. He, Pam and Kena and I used to climb together a lot, meeting at the city and even Red Rocks.