Simply Mountain People

I recently complete my AMGA (American Mountain Guides Association) rock guides exam in Red Rock National Conservation Area outside of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Day 1 of my Rock Guide Exam I am assigned the first half of Community Pillar. I have never climbed this route before but it only seems fitting that my first assignment has a well known reputation for wide cracks. Fitting because I was awarded the Craig Lubben Memorial Fund Scholarship for this exam, which is open to “candidates with offwidth experience”. 

If you have been climbing trad outdoors for any significant amount of time you have likely encountered an offwidth (perhaps by accident). These strange flares that are too small to enter like a chimney and too big for normal one handed/one footed jams are the bane of most climbers existence. There are a few who are drawn to them and these specialists are generally regarded as weirdos, masochists, and looneys. I would not call myself an offwidth specialist, but I will usually seek one or two out everytime I go to Indian Creek.

Rock Climbing is a great metaphor for meeting our challenges head on. The casual and non-climber population uses climbing all the time for inspirations and advertisements. However, once we have been climbing for some time this metaphor no longer speaks to a climber the way it does to a non-climber. We already do the hard thing of fighting gravity and we have learned to enjoy it and be comfortable in it. I believe the offwidth is a good example of meeting challenges head on for climbers. 

You could climb your whole life and avoid offwidth climbing. This would exclude you from some amazing classic trad climbs that happen to have an offwidth pitch. You would live a safe comfortable climbing career never knowing what it’s like to be twisted up and physically stuck in a crack. Or what it feels like to exert maximum effort to the point of puking only to make four inches of vertical progress.  

I did not have the greatest experience in my Advanced Rock Guides Course. Mentally and physically I was not prepared to climb the number of days in a row and the grades we were put on. As a result I received a “not pass” in the climbing movement category and was given a make-up day. I procrastinated and put it off, I got mad at climbing, I pretty much stopped climbing (the pandemic didn’t help). And all the while I had this nagging make-up day in the back of my head.

I slowly started to come back to climbing. I had still been guiding during this personal climbing hiatus but most of it was very simple single pitch or laps on the Grand Teton. Last summer I completed my make-up day and applied to the Rock Guides Exam. I was intimidated and scared to fail and receive another make-up day or a re-exam. This spring as I started training after a long winter in ski boots something clicked. Something that had been growing inside me since I slacked off my personal climbing back in 2019 after my advanced course. 

That thing was the unconditional love of climbing. Right or wrong, good or bad, bomber or choss, climbing is one of the greatest things in my life. It’s given me so many friends, it’s how I met my wife, and it’s been a big part of the best job I have ever had. If we attach too much value to an outcome we lose the unconditional love. I had focused too much on my perceived failures and not enough on the process. 

I walked into my exam the same way I walked up to my first hard offwidth years ago in Indian Creek, with excitement and curiosity. It wasn’t always pretty but I got through both and came out the other side a better climber and a better guide.

I have so much gratitude to the people in my life who have supported me through this process. My wife for letting me mock guide her all time so I can practice and giving me real feedback about what it’s like to be my client. All of my friends and co-guides who have done the same and been there with advice and tips. The countless AMGA I.T. members who have taught me so much over the years, and the staff at the AMGA for keeping the wheels on the bus.

Finally a huge thanks to Craig Lubben, his family and friends and anyone who has donated in his memory so that I could have this scholarship. I never knew Craig, but I can assume 2 things about him: If he was an offwidth aficionado he was likely a bit of a kook and loved climbing unconditionally. And that since he has a memorial fund, he must have been a damn fine human with a legion of friends that I’m sure he had an incredible impact on. Offwidths will forever represent an unconditional love of climbing for me, and I have Craig to thank for that.