The teleology of climbing.

Written By Emily Anderson
 

‘Eventually there is a failure, even the best climbers that have ever been, there’s always been the project that they didn’t do…you call it uncertainty but it’s almost like a guarantee that you will have things that you don’t climb’.

Photo credit: Alistair Lee

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There’s something particularly Sisyphean about turning up at a climbing wall or a crag week after week and not getting any better. Maybe the cliché of using climbing (mountains, ladders) to describe personal advancement is a metaphor so embedded in our minds that when we’re engaged in the actual physical activity, our brains assume the goal is to progress. Not only is there a story attached if you’re a climber, in other words, but that story really should be one in which you improve.

Everyone who climbs seems to have a story about how they started and how they got to where they are now. Whole evenings are spent recounting recent and decades-old tales of being on the rock (and preferably of reaching the top). Often these narratives are about progressing to a summit. And that might be because a structure of progress helps to create a sense of purpose, of movement, and of an end goal to an activity that can appear repetitive (pointless?).

The narrative of constant improvement partly comes from the history of the sport, or the history of the sport in Europe and North America in the last couple of centuries. An emphasis on the importance of summiting and conquering, of being the first or the fastest or both to get to the top, runs through the early days of mountaineering. And it also runs through the early stories that are told about it.

teleology, n.  /ˌtiːlɪˈɒlədʒi/

Frequency (in current use)

Origin: mid 18th century (denoting the branch of philosophy that deals with ends or final causes): from modern Latin teleologia, from Greek telos ‘end’ + -logia.

Etymons: French téléologie; German Teleologie.

1. The study of final causes.

2. The fact or quality of being directed towards a definite end of having an ultimate purpose.

Heinrich Harrer’s famous account of the first ascent of the Eiger’s North Face is one of the most well-known examples of this body of literature. Harrer provides accounts of unsuccessful attempts, including multiple deaths on the mountain, before detailing the journey of his own successful party.

Shaping Harrer’s experience and writing is a culture in which emotions are one of the things that have to be controlled in pursuit of the real point of mountaineering – namely to get to the top (don’t look down). Describing an avalanche that he’s convinced will sweep his partner away, he emphasises ‘My thoughts were quite clear and logical’. And then iterates a few lines later - ‘All these thoughts were calm, without any sense of fear or desperation’.[1] When the party survives, he reflects that ‘Climbers are not only men of action, they are also matter of fact […] The miracle and the mercy were none of nature’s fashioning nor the mountain’s, but were the result of man’s will to do the right thing’.[2]

There’s something to be said here about the extent to which it’s possible to be effusive under extreme conditions, and about the cultural specificity of how emotion is expressed. More cynical readers may question whether Harrer’s stiff upper lip remained as intact as he says it did, but moments like his account of summitting are credible and authentic: ‘our bodies [were] too utterly weary to permit of any violent emotion’. In any case, the summit in the middle of a storm ‘was no place in which to turn handsprings or shriek with joy and happiness. We just shook hands without a word’.[3] He may not have felt big feelings, but this doesn’t make his experience on the mountain any less valid – and in 1938 a handshake might well have been the equivalent of, say, a hug today. But what does seem to be the case is that, for Harrer, almost everything is secondary to the goal of summiting. And those second place priorities include expressing – in whatever form that may take – an emotional response to the environment.

The point of contrast to Harrer’s narrative is that of Nan Shepherd, whose interaction with and outlook on the outdoors is less combative. Shepherd published The Living Mountain, considered a masterpiece of nature writing, in 1977, but she had written it primarily in the final years of the Second World War – not long after Harrer had made his ascent of the Eiger. Her most famous, now aphoristic, perspective is that ‘To aim for the highest point is not the only way to climb a mountain’. (Don’t focus too much on looking up). Shepherd was speaking in a broader context than of completing particular rock-climbing routes – The Living Mountain covers the experience of mountains in a wide and varied sense. But her comment has obvious resonance with the teleology of improvement that’s still evident in the rock-climbing world.

Recent authors who have participated in the boom in nature writing of the last few years have continued to feel the need to point out that climbing, and especially climbing outside, can be about something different from reaching the top. Reflecting on Shepherd’s work, Anna Fleming writes in her Wainright-prize nominated Time on Rock (2022) that ‘if rock climbing were merely a ticklist exercise of conquest and attainment, I would have long since lost interest in the activity’. Completing a route ‘is only part of the story […] a route is also a process, an excuse, an opening to find another way in. Climbing can be an experiment, an exploration and an investigation – a way of feeling the landscape’.[4]

Another contemporary climber-writer, Faye Latham, has actually taken a 1942 volume by Frank Smythe, titled British Mountaineers, and recreated it. Smythe’s original tells a history of mountaineering from a UK perspective over the twentieth century. It aligns with the ‘summit and conquer’ school of thought and Smythe was himself part of pioneering expeditions in the Alps and Himalayas. Latham isn’t seeking to be critical of Smythe, but through what’s known as erasure poetry, has deleted large sections of his text to create an entirely new narrative. In Latham’s poem, the ghostly voice of an avalanche victim emerges that contrasts Smythe’s assurance. This includes the voice expressing emotions that are buried in the original.

These discussions that circle around equivalences between summitting and repressing emotion can be attended by gendered stereotypes and subcultures. Commentators on modern outdoor culture have long recognised that aspects of male identity have had an impact on the teleology of climbing and mountaineering. In his introduction to the 2011 edition of The Living Mountain, Robert Macfarlane puts it bluntly – ‘Most works of mountaineering literature have been written by men, and most male mountaineers are focussed on the summit: a mountain expedition being qualified by the success or failure of an ascent’.[5]

Zooming out from mountaineering specifically, the many different forms of climbing that exist today give rise to a multiplicity of approaches, with associated differences between climbers of one gender and between climbers of different genders. Bouldering bros – an epithet for groups of male indoor climbers who go topless where possible, shout loudly when falling, and might want to talk to you about protein shakes – have less in common with the likes of Harrer and Smythe than they do with female indoor boulderers.

“Bouldering bros – an epithet for groups of male indoor climbers who go topless where possible, shout loudly when falling, and might want to talk to you about protein shakes – have less in common with the likes of Harrer and Smythe than they do with female indoor boulderers. ”

There are meanwhile plenty of female mountaineers and climbers who have at least the same level of obsession about summiting, originating routes, and completing routes as male twentieth-century mountaineering pioneers. In an article for UKC Fleming highlights the careers of three pioneers from the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries: Lucy Walker, who ascended twenty-nine 4,000 metre peaks, completed the first ascent of Balmhorn in 1864, and was the first woman to summit the Matterhorn in 1871; Lizzie Le Blond, whose career included climbing thirty-seven 4,000 metre peaks; and Fanny Bullock-Workman, who in 1906 set the woman’s altitude record (6,930m), which she held until 1934.[6]

Today, we have people like Jenny Tough, an endurance athlete, writer, and film-maker who has completed the extraordinary feat of running solo – completely unsupported – across mountain ranges on six continents. That includes plenty of world-firsts, such as completing the first solo run across the Tien Shan mountain range in Kyrgyzstan. Tough has written about how during that particular expedition she found herself trapped between a gorge and a fast-flowing river and had to save herself by conducting a climb to the word ‘dangerous’ doesn’t do justice. She promised herself that if she survived she would call off the rest of the expedition. She did survive (just)… but she didn’t go home.[7]

The different versions of climbing also complicate its teleology by adding a perceived hierarchy, with an associated expectation that climbers should ‘progress’ through its strata. Putting mountaineering aside and taking just the types of climbing that are most accessible and most commonly pursued, the hierarchy goes like this: trad (traditional) is superior to sport, and sport is superior to toproping. If you’re bouldering, then outdoor is superior to indoor.

The logic to the hierarchy, such as it exists, is about levels of risk and expertise. Bouldering is the most accessible. It involves completing routes that (in theory) are short enough for the boulderers to land safely on a mat, so it doesn’t require a rope or gadgets, just a mat and a guide for finding routes to take with you if doing it outside. Toproping is where climbers are always attached to a rope that’s fastened above them, so are caught immediately when they fall. You can hire everything you need (harness and shoes) at your local climbing wall. Lead climbing (inside) and its outdoor sibling, sport climbing, are slightly more risky and involve some expertise in how to use gear and ropes. It means attaching yourself to bolts in the wall as you climb, so you might have a short(ish) drop before being caught by your rope when you fall. Trad climbing is the most risky and demands the most expertise because it means placing all the gadgets you need to stop you hitting the floor as you go – so it’s important to know how to use them. And after that of course you can always push the level of difficulty so the climbs you attempt are increasingly hard physically, increasingly demanding mentally, increasingly technical, and increasingly risky.

The problem is that, if your story is one in which you’re constantly getting better, then you run into difficulties with how that’s going to end. Franco Cookson, a pro climber known for developing routes in the North York moors and for his capacity to take and manage risk, put it this way when asked how he feels about the possibility of leaving climbs unfinished. ‘It’s kind of like the definition of life itself, eventually there is a failure, even the best climbers that have ever been, there’s always been the project that they didn’t do…you call it uncertainty but it’s almost like a guarantee that you will have things that you don’t climb’.[8]

The trick is not to spend too much time dwelling on that. Cookson speculated that approaching a failure in climbing is comparable to ageing and approaching death: ‘maybe then you come to terms with it somehow’. But before then, when you’re in the middle of your climbing days, ‘you’re just focussed on climbing the best stuff and the hardest stuff that you can’. This doesn’t mean not thinking about the prospect of injury or death when working out a route. Cookson himself has written about the importance of contemplating, when preparing for a climb, that ‘Somewhere down the probability tree […] you’re lying in a mangled tangle on the ground, with bones poking out in the wrong direction. How do you feel when this has happened? If you have regrets in this scenario, you can’t set out on the route’.[9] (Look down, but make sure you do it before the climb rather than when you’re in the middle of it.)

Fall Theory, a 2021 film by Alistair Lee, depicts Cookson’s preparation for and eventual success completing the first ascent of a route called ‘The Immortal’ in the North York Moors. The route presents an astonishing physical challenge, and such limited opportunity for placing safety gear that the consequences of falling off would be dire, to put it euphemistically. The film drives towards and culminates in Cookson successfully making it to the top – and it’s gripping. But one of the most memorable parts of the film is the opening sequence, in which Cookson throws himself downhill, bouncing off the bouldering mat strapped to his back in a fit of full-pelt forward-rolling exhilarated playfulness. And the point at which he’s standing on top of the route, having completed it uninjured and alive, stands out for his scream of an emotion so good and so powerful it makes a passing hiker stop and ask the support team if he’s OK.

Cookson has said in interview that ‘Even the quite black and white objectives you have […] are about the emotion you’re chasing’. Eventually, when it’s impossible to climb ‘harder and harder and harder…it’s all going to come back to that isn’t it. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try hard athletically or mentally’.

So it’s about the emotion and about the achievement – the finishing. It’s about not contemplating a time when climbs have to be left unfinished due to age, and about contemplating the possibility of injury or death putting a halt to climbing full stop.

It’s also about repetition as well as progression. Good climbing stories don’t really follow a narrative of improvement through a beginning, a middle, and an end. They go round in circles too. Cookson says that he maybe has a bit of a reputation for being ‘boring, going to the same crag day in day out…you might go to the same crag, the same route, five days a week”. Climbing can also be a matter of standing still – metaphorically and literally. One part of it involves spending long periods belaying your climbing partner (standing at the other end of the rope to ensure the climber’s safety), which isn’t always thrilling but which teaches you about mutual patience and support, and even gives you time to pause and enjoy your surroundings in the moment. More prosaically, it can be useful to spend periods deliberately not trying to progress through increasingly difficult grades of climbing – for example in order to build up neutral or positive associations as part of a process of overcoming fear.

“Jenny Tough, a woman who seems to know the happiness of Sisyphus well, captured the essence of the sentiment when asked if she could imagine a moment in which she decides one of her journeys is to be her last. ‘No. No’, she said, ‘No that’s very uncomfortable, no’.”

Climbing narratives come more in the shape of spirals than of lines, spirals that sometimes get tighter, sometimes looser, and sometimes repeat themselves – round and round in circles for long periods of time. It can absolutely feel Sisyphean, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Albert Camus used the idea of Sisyphus repeatedly pushing his rock up a hill to think about the absurdity of how we persist with our lives without knowing what they mean. Camus thought that ‘The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy’.[10] Jenny Tough, a woman who seems to know the happiness of Sisyphus well, captured the essence of the sentiment when asked if she could imagine a moment in which she decides one of her journeys is to be her last. ‘No. No’, she said, ‘No that’s very uncomfortable, no’.

Discover unfinishing episodes about climbing and the outdoors:

[1] Heinrich Harrer, The White Spider, 1958, trans. Hugh Merrick (Harper Perennial, 2005), p. 105.

[2] Harrer, p. 106.

[3] Harrer, p. 123.

[4] Anna Fleming, Time on Rock (Canongate, 2022).

[5] Robert Macfarlane, Introduction, The Living Mountain, by Nan Shepherd (Canongate, 2011), p. xvi.

[6] Anna Fleming, ‘Herstory 2: Lady Climbers of the Long Nineteenth Century (1850-1914)’, UKC, 2022. https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/lady_climbers_of_the_long_nineteenth_century_1850-1914-14903

[7] Jenny Tough, Foreword, Tough Women (Summersdale, 2020), pp. 5-10.

[8] ‘Mental preparation, castles, and guaranteed failure’. unfinishing. Podcast. https://open.spotify.com/episode/69pkWjlGcqlUqt3BqlxRNl?si=odJRwNpvSH6B0Zxj8mMW6g 3 January 2023.

[9] Franco Cookson, ‘The Immortal’ https://francocookson.wordpress.com/ 23 December 2021.

[10] Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (1942), translated by Justin O'Brien. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Emily Anderson
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Shirkers and the joy of unfinishing.