Earning The Shirt

 At its best, climbing is a framework for us to challenge the strength of our bodies, the creativity of our minds, and the tenacity of our spirits.  At its worst, it can lead to arguments and fights over ownership of routes, climbers chasing numbers with little regard for beauty, and condescension towards those new to the sport.  Gnarbarian climbing began in 2012 as a way for climbers across Northern Arizona (and beyond!) to get to know each other and encourage one another, regardless of discipline.  Some climbers find satisfaction on a quiet afternoon beneath the pines with just a bouldering pad.  Others seek the fulfillment of perfecting a long sequence of difficult moves on a sport-climbing project.  A few crave that knot in their stomach when looking 15 feet down at a lonely brass nut or microcam.  Many feel freedom when spending all day in the vertical world on a sandstone tower or granite face.  And some of us are just here for the pizza and beer.

                However, nearly all of us seek to push ourselves in the vertical realm and grow as a result of our climbing experiences.  On a trip to Yosemite this past summer, my partner Eric and I came up with the concept of “Earning your Shirt”.  At this point, only a few GNAR shirts were gracing the backs of climbers in Flagstaff, but now you can see the unmistakable bright blue and orange at crags and canyons all over the southwest.  The process of Earning your Shirt is not a prerequisite to obtaining a shirt and is not intended to be an exclusive rite or hazing ritual.  It was envisioned as a personal process of growth and challenge highlighted by a specific breakthrough event.  Not clear yet?  Let me give you an example.

                August 2012, hot off  the my best season of sport climbing and gear climbing yet, Eric Deschamps and I find ourselves in Yosemite Valley, for me the first time.  We met up with Darren and Angela Mabe for a week of exploring the granite cracks and faces so iconic and historic in our sport.  The first objective for Eric and I was the Northwest Face of Half Dome, a plan he envisioned and I eagerly ascribed to.  The route promised to be challenging logistically and technically for me, as I had little experience with wall climbing.  Climbing hard sport routes and single pitch gear routes had built great strength and technique in me, and the free climbing planned on the route was much easier than what I had been doing all summer.  But as we stood beneath the face, the numbers attached to all the climbs I had sent didn’t sum up to any measure of confidence to meet the variety of challenges that lay above. 

                The climb began smoothly and we moved at a comfortable but consistent pace, the systems planned out by Eric providing a framework for constant progress.  For the first many pitches my mind reeled uneasily and I was intimidated by the many pitches above.  As we inched closer to the top, my confidence grew and I began to climb freely and enjoy each pitch.  Early in the afternoon, I finished leading the last of the Zig-Zag crack pitches, fixed the rope, and looked across the Thank God Ledge. 

                The confidence forged on the pitches below built to a crescendo as I considered my options for traversing the ledge.  My thoughts moved quickly and I hastily cobbled together a plan.

“I hear this is supposed to be hard to walk” 

“Honnold did this whole thing ropeless, of course I can walk it with a rope…. It’s only 5.7”

“It would be rad if I could walk it without placing any gear”

“Walking it on rope-solo should be fine”

I took the first few steps across the ledge.

“This is too easy”

Simultaneously the wall above the ledge began to steepen and the footledge shrink.

“Ok, I can see how this requires some balance”

My steps turn in to a shuffle, my chest to the wall and my backpack and heels hanging high above the first 20 pitches of the route.

“Maybe I should put a piece in for Eric”

“Maybe that piece is really for me!”

I shuffled back right, reached down and stuffed a good cam in the crack between the footledge and the wall.  I payed out armload after armload of slack through the Gri-Gri until the loop looked equal to the distance remaining across the ledge, which didn’t look so easy any more.

“The worst that can happen is a little pendulum here…. I’m going for it”

I repeated the shuffle-steps back to the left and pressed on as the steps became smaller and more desperate.  My hands frantically alternated between a futile search of the wall above for any feature and windmilling involuntarily to provide some sort of balance.

“just a few more steps”

I had made several moves that I had no hope of reversing, placing gear was impossible, and I was fully committed to the traverse.  My steps became more like stabbing hops as I desperately fought to maintain balance and continue progress.  Controlled movement was no longer possible.

The point of no return became also the point of no progression; I could no longer lift either foot.  That lonely cam placed 30 feet behind laughed at me as I stood, unable to move any of my limbs. 

“If I could just find even the smallest hold, a potato-chip-sized flake would do, I could make another step”

My hand found exactly that, a tiny flake of potato-chip thickness, and just as greasy as its namesake.  I gingerly moved first my left foot, then my right and prepared for another shuffle, allowed by this miraculous thin-cut fried gift of a hold. 

“SNAP”

The breaking of the chip-flake was as quiet as the crunching of a single Lay’s, but felt as devastating as the instantaneous smashing of entire stack of Pringles.

Both arms reeled in a rhythmic flapping as my conscious mind attempted to maintain balance and my subconscious prepared for flight. 

Somehow, against the laws of physics and in spite of my preparations for flight, my feet remained on the ledge.  The potato chip had given me just enough to make it past the most difficult section.  Trembling, I finished the shuffle to a secure stance at the end of the traverse.

At that moment, Eric reached the belay at the beginning of the ledge and asked how I was doing.  I lifted up my fleece to expose the blaze orange and blue beneath. 

“I just earned my shirt!  I walked the ledge!”

I was happy just to be alive.  That was a breakthrough moment for me in which I found the soul of why I climb.  Climbing presents challenges in many different ways, and that walking traverse had been a challenge for me in the moment and symbolically.

The idea of Earning the Shirt was born that day.   The process can be different for everyone.  Mine was unexpected but certain once it had occurred.  For others it may be a project climb to break through a mental barrier, a link up that pushes endurance to a new level, or a moment of decision on a committing climb leading to success, or a glorious whipper. 

Whatever form it comes in, Earning your Shirt is about challenging yourself and overcoming on a personal level.  What is monumental for some may be mundane for others, but that fact is fundamental to the soul of climbing.   Self-challenge and improvement, not competition and comparison, is what Gnarbarian Climbing is about. 

Maybe you have already had an experience in which you “Earned your Shirt” and maybe this idea can inspire you to challenge yourself on a new level.  Either way, share your story!  Post up your story on the GNAR page and add some psyche to an already super-psyched community.

-Joel Unema

on the ledge, after Earning the Shirt