Place

They say hiking is the best way to see a place. I don’t agree. Driving down Buttermilk road, a stretch of dirt with waves or washboard reaching from shoulder to shoulder, I know exactly what speed I need to drive to stop the ratcheting vibrations. I know all the curves, gentle and smooth as the walls of a wine glass, and where all the erratic rocks protrude from the dirt.

So do all the other climbers who make the winter pilgrimage to this eastern sierra bouldering Mecca. And after so many days of sitting beneath a projected boulder problem the same kind of awareness builds itself like snow drifting into a cornice.  I don’t think we’re always aware of it, at least I’m not, but the more time I spend driving through the desert and sitting alone on my pad under the same several dozen boulders, the more I realize that we, as climbers, have better opportunity to develop sense of place than any outdoorsy fancy pants with thousands of dollars of gear and a pair of trekking poles.  

We are taken to places where snow falls year round, where the lines between desert and mountains blur, where dusty washboard and the two-fingers-lifted-off-the-steering-wheel-wave are daily routine. With all the massive lengths of time in our own wild parks, we learn all the intricacies until that place is another home and the bump from driving over the end of the pavement or the buzz of a cattle guard feels like going to meet an old friend.