Katie Brown has run away

What ever happened to Katie Brown. One can find an answer to this question in her book Unreveled: A Climber's Journey Through Darkness and Back.

In short, she has run away from her demons (her mother and faith) and their dwelling place (climbing).

The book is really sincere. Yes, it is repetitive as our patterns truly are. It's hard to read, but it is also therapeutic. It illustrates double standards regarding women as well as the indifference of medics who never mentioned her apparent underweight as a possible cause of health problems.

The way out of that was tricky, but she is strong enough to cope with all that shit on her own.

Some quotes:

• My tongue refused to move and my mind was fuzzy with the confusion between what I wanted to say and what I felt like I should say and whether either of those things were the right thing to say.
• Onsighting was a world where I felt completely, wholly at home. It’s just see how far you can get before you fall, and give it your all. No do-overs.
• I didn’t like the feeling of wanting things. Wanting things meant dealing with the inevitability of loss, and I needed to shut that down before its tidal wave consumed me. It was safer to not want anything, to be more dead than alive.
• To go through life feeling like you belonged, rather than feeling like you were taking up space meant for someone else.
• ...see how far I could get before I fell—my usual approach to onsighting.

Rock Athlete by Ron Fawcett and Ed Douglas

 

This book is especially valuable for at least 2 reasons. First, there is so little data about Ron Fawcett on the internet or elsewhere, nevertheless he is a true climbing legend. Second, this book was awarded with the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature in 2010. And it’s about rock climbing, not about mountaineering. 

It is about the epoch era, when “heads were stronger than arms”. He became one of the first pro-climbers. Whilst it is hard nowadays, it was unimaginable back then. 

It’s about dedication and passion. It was unthinkable that they could live off climbing, but they gave it all without any expectations. It’s about self-drive. The story begins from the end (or almost the end) when an already very experienced author challenges himself with one hundred ‘Extreme’ routes climbed solo in a day just to push himself to the limits again. Just to feel where these limits were. Sometimes, it was a rush, sometimes, it was a disappointment, sometimes, it was an inner piece, and sometimes, it was satisfaction, tiredness, and peacefulness. Like all his climbing life… which had begun in

a farm and made a sudden turn to unknown, vertical, terranean. He became a climbing film star, a sponsored athlete, and a father, and he became… But the most interesting aren’t endpoints, but the way to them, his thoughts and feelings, doubts and triumphs about endless challenges, and he and his co-author managed to show it clearly and entertainingly. 

Taking into account the tiny bits of data that are available about Ron Fawcett, the book is worth reading for all climbing fans. We can learn a lot about commitment and courage from such people.

Quotes:

• 'Your favorite new routes are a bit like your kids; they don’t belong to you, but you want people to think well of them.'

• 'I'd do a couple of thousand press-ups before breakfast to keep in shape'

• 'Nothing else mattered beyond climbing. I was obsessed. Looking back, I don’t regret any of it.'

• 'If the weather was bad, we’d hole up in the Beck Hall Café. They were always kind to me there. I’d sit watching the rain, getting endless top-ups of hot water for my teapot. I think my record from the same bag stood at sixteen.'

• 'We knew that if you fell off there was a good chance you’d hit the ground.'

• 'Without access to modern climbing walls, it took longer to become strong. That saved me from overtraining injuries, which climbers would begin to suffer from as walls were built.'

• 'In those days, heads were stronger than arms.'