WHY I CLIMB.
Chevaan Daniel
Summer, ’95. I was 16 and scrawny.
Through a series of fortunate events, I found myself in the San Bernadino Mountains along the South Shore of ‘Big Bear Lake’ in California. Half a world away from the dusty suburbs of Colombo, Sri Lanka I lived in. With me at Big Bear, were campers from around the world. Boys and girls from all sorts of places: From Rio to Barcelona, Fairbanks to Cairo, Manilla to Madrid, they came from everywhere. With maybe one thing in common: an untamed energy and a crazy dream to be someone. And someone crazy thought it was a good idea to deposit all of us up on a mountain in Southern California for a few weeks.
It was during this time, spent mostly walking rowdily around with shorts and a bandana at ‘Camp Cedar Lake’ that I was first introduced to climbing. The herculean boulders at Cedar Lake were astounding. Just about an hour from the legendary Yosemite, it was a climber’s paradise. But I didn’t know nor did I care too much about climbing at the time. It was a lot more about trying to impress the ladies by hauling myself up a vertical rock tethered to nothing much except a rope that had seen better days. It rarely worked. Regardless, I was soon bitten by the climbing bug. I couldn’t get enough of it. And I climbed rocks at Cedar lake like there was no tomorrow. Many were the falls. Many were the scrapes and bruises. It didn’t matter.
There was just something about trying to use the tips of your fingers and toes to push your way up an impossible route, that got me somewhere deep down inside.
Fast forward to the next year, 1996. The year of the Atlanta Olympics. Same Sri Lankan, same location, same obsession. I was back amongst the boulders of San Bernadino. I had no real direction in life. I had no idea of what I wanted to do.
“All I knew, was standing in front of these massive monoliths with nothing but some ability and a steely will to climb it, meant something to me. I found out many times in the decades to come, that this would pretty much be the enduring theme of my life".
Meanwhile, I was back in Sri Lanka by the fall of ’96. Far, far away from my Big Bear Boulders. A/L’s, university, work and life took over. I forgot about climbing. I would occasionally stare at photographs and think about the freezing nights I spent trying to claw my way up a rock, along with a friend or two. Now that I think about it, I had always been fascinated with rocks- big and small. I still bring back specimens when I find ones that look like they’ve led an interesting life.
It was sometime in 2019 that I watched ‘The Dawn Wall’. The epic docu-movie about Tommy Caldwell and his incredible climbing journey. I remember watching it on Netflix every day for weeks. I couldn’t get enough of it. And then came Free Solo, with Alex Honnold blowing the world away in what is easily one of the most spectacularly amazing feats of athleticism in history. Only to be outdone by ‘The Alpinist’, which I wish had a happier ending. I’m still crying.
These movies rekindled my love of climbing and I began to see the incredible rock architecture of rural Sri Lanka in a completely different light. Wow- this island is a veritable treasure trove for climbers.
Climbing, or bouldering, is completely counter intuitive. Human beings are not meant to cling and claw their way up rock-hard vertical surfaces, for any reason except maybe to get away from a lion or bear. But for fun? For sport? Doesn’t make sense.
Climbing is part sport, part art.
The rock is your canvass. Your spirit, the brush. You train parts of your body you never knew you could train to be useful. You train your mind to endure incredible pain and focus so intently that you lose yourself to everything except a symphonic motion upwards. The very tips of your fingers become steel anchors. The tips of your toes, iron rods. And then you begin to see things others can’t: Coup D’oeil. Tiny little indents on the face of a rock begin to look like spacious ledges to cling on to. And you can. Because you’re ready for it. You can make use of the opportunity to move up. You’ve trained for it. That’s why, a tiny little dent on El Capitan 1,000 feet above ground is all Honnold needs to swim up the giant featureless wall.
I’m not a good climber, actually. At 43, most of the movements, flexibility and muscle-groups needed to be a decent climber keep ignoring my pleas to come back. But Climbing isn’t about who’s the best. It’s you against you. And you, for you.
Those were a few sweet untamed summers spent up in the mountains of Southern California. A harbinger of things to come, in a sense. I knew I would always love big challenges. Especially the ones everyone thinks are clearly impossible. Because, if there’s one thing that a climber knows, it’s that what seems like a bare wall to most, is chock full of possibilities to the daring and disciplined mind. Its not about what’s in front of you, below you or above you. It’s about the moment. Focus on perfecting the climb, moment by moment, and anything is possible.
Rock On!
