Admiration

Doctor Johnson observing dogs walking on their hind legs remarked that it was not to be concerned how they do it, but admired that they do it at all.

I think that about rock climbers. I have no interest in the intricacies of how they manoeuvre, I am amazed they do it at all. It startles me when I see their safety rope heading downwards from where they have come.

A rock climber looks at the cliff and then at his fingers, then dons his helmet, his harness, his rubber sneakers, his rope, his sprocket and winch, and heads for the climb. I’ve never seen a dog rock climbing. They are too smart. They look at the cliff and then at their paws and go, ‘Nah!’

If I rock climbed I would be sure to sneak my fingers onto a chink of rock that would instantly peel off and leave me swinging by one hand. The cleaved off chip of rock would be sure to expose a spider which would leap straight onto my nose. I could do nothing about it, my hands busy grasping for steadier chinks. Spiders are wonderful cliff climbers, charging about at great speed with never a slip. When rock climbers realise their harnesses are about to collapse these spiders gather around in a circle and roll in glee to mock the climber’s terrified expression.

I hear that spiders have incorporated rock climbers into their mating rituals. An enterprising spider will spring onto the climbers head to hitch a ride to the top. And then as the climber loosens the sprocket of his winch and abseils down the rock face they wave triumphantly from their monumental perch atop the climbers’ head at the gasping circle of admiring spiders. This ritual is considered a test of bravado amongst the spider community. The winner is regarded as the alfa spider and has the choice of any female spider. He usually chooses the female with the hairiest legs.

I worry about a climbers’ fingers but not about his feet. Feet are admirably adapted to gluing onto tiny rock ledges. If man had been designed to rock climb they would have been born wrong way up with feet at the top.

That brings me on to the exciting new sport which is about to supersede rock climbing. Rock dropping is an advanced technique of scaling down the cliff face head first using the toes as an anchor as you descend.

Rock dropping has many advantages over rock climbing. Rock climbing has an inbuilt disincentive in that as you progress the distance between you and the ground increases and becomes more terrifying. In rock dropping as you descend the ground gets closer, a brilliant inducement/ incentive to keep going. A major attraction of rock dropping for the faint hearted is that the safety rope goes up where you have progressed from, not down. A third advantage is that if you are sick, it doesn’t splatter all over your boots. And finally the issue of free loading spiders is avoided as the slow descent on the sole of a dirty boot holds little appeal for alpha spiders.

Rock dropping is a sport where the observer cares little about the intricacies, but is just amazed that it is done at all.