High Infatuation

I've just finished reading Steph Davis' autobiography (High Infatuation: A Climber's Guide to Love and Gravity). Two months from my final PhD deadline, it's not as if I don't have enough reading to do at the moment. But last Friday I pulled this off the mini-mountain of non-work books that are stacked by my bed. There's something reassuring about autobiographies. Maybe, as I stare into the abyss of freedom where for the first time in my life I don't have the next stage neatly lined up, I'm subconsciously searching for inspiration from those who have had the courage to find and follow their passion.


Steph is cool. Not only is she an amazing climber but she's also a sugar-free vegan yogi. This is more than enough to make me turn my head in her direction. She came from an academic, suburban background, trained in classical music and English literature. She didn't discover climbing until she went to university, where she completed a master's degree but rejected a PhD scholarship in favour of living out of the back of her car for years to follow her climbing dream...

...which she succeeded at remarkably. (I recommend the book if you're at all interested. It's short, easy to get through, well-written and thought-provoking).

Something that Steph discusses is the various ways in which individual or teams of climbers orchestrate their big wall free climbs. Stashing gear, finding belayers willing to follow them thirty pitches or more, leading one pitch then coming back to the ground before going up a fixed line to continue, leading each pitch but not in order... Something about it seems incredibly contrived. I suppose all climbing is contrived to an extent, but the meticulous planning and breaking down of a whole concept into individual, sometimes even independent, parts seems to lose some of the simple beauty of just climbing for the sake of climbing.

I'm not for an instant criticising those who do make these ascents. They have more skill and strength than I could ever hope for. However, what climbing means to me is a way to explore my freedom in the amazing natural beauty of the world. Deconstructing it into a to-do list removes the pure joy from it.