On the Ascent

Many also find it curious. Of all the sports for a one-legged or one-handed person to pursue, why climbing? Why not bowling? Ultimate Frisbee? Running? Beck says she did play soccer—but she was a goalie.

The athletes say they like the challenge. They like to prove they can do it. They like to prove people wrong. At Earth Treks, 12 feet up on a wall, Scott Land reaches his hand up for a hold. He has all his limbs and fingers. But he brushes his hand across the climbing surface in an arcing motion, like your aunt Windexing the glass patio door.

Land is blind. And so, to find the next hold, he has to swipe his hand over the wall the way you look for a light switch in a darkened, unfamiliar hotel room. Remember how frustrating that can be? You know the light switch has got to be there somewhere, but the switch refuses to be located, and you have to keep skimming your hand over the drywall, and you can’t move on with your life until you find that switch.

Now imagine that the light never comes on, that it never will come on, and that you’re 25 feet up in the air while you’re looking for that switch, and that finding the switch does not solve all your problems—all it does is give you the opportunity to look for the next switch. Wouldn’t you be tempted to just go back to bed? Life for these dudes is one long struggle in the dark. And there is a real feeling of joy when Land summits, touching the gym ceiling 35 feet up. “Scott Land is like magic,” says David Schmid, regional director of Adaptive Adventures.

There’s a real buoying effect for everyone in the room when Jim Pilkington, 54, a novice climber, summits. “Not being able to see how high you are helps,” Pilkington says. “There’s no fear of heights if you can’t see the ground.”

Craig DeMartino, on a different night at the Boulder Rock Club, easily summits an overhanging route, despite missing part of one leg, which he lost in a climbing accident. He easily clambers 35 feet up, something I could never do. Fear grounds me. And so it’s possible to say that while these folks are missing some piece that you and I probably have—some part of some limb or some component of their eyes—they have a larger portion of something intangible you and I might lack: willingness.
The bicep on Maureen Beck’s left arm, for instance, is smaller than the one on her right, full arm. She built that right bicep up, just by using it. Maybe willingness is like that. You just do it.

“How do you tie knots?” I ask Beck.

“Correctly,” she replies.

If someone offered to magically give her a full left arm tomorrow, Beck says, she’d stick with her stump. “It made me not be a boring person,” she says. Also: “Halloween is fun.”

Anyway. Spring is here, and maybe if you’re having some trouble getting out of bed and motivating yourself to get outside because it’s a little cold or dark or windy still, remember Beck, and remember the image of Land and Pilkington, the dudes with the white canes at Earth Treks. Remember that, even at one of the most badass climbing gyms in the world, there are handicapped parking spaces, and they are often full.