A Climber Is Always Free: Marriage, Memories, and Climbing

Theres nothing like a wedding to make you reflect on your own marriage. On Saturday, Jeannie and I drove up to Bellingham to celebrate with two of our best friends, Andy and Kelsey, who took the nuptial leap on Christmas Eve in Hawaii. And so we had love,weddings, engagements and commitment already on our minds when I started reading Forget Me Not, a memoir by Jennifer Low-Anker, out loud as Jeannie drove the familiar stretch of freeway through the pouring rain. The first couple of chapters of the book describe Jennifer's early love affair with legendary climber Alex Lowe who she would later marry. The parallels between their story and ours weren't at first that apparent. Their family lives were, not surprisingly, extremely different from ours, their passions and insecurities, of a different flavor, and the challenges they faced as a couple, monumentally dissimilar to those we face. And granted I am not, nor will I ever be a legendary climber. However, just like in the early days of our relationship, Jennifer and Alex's lives revolved around one another, traveling, and climbing. Low-Anker's allusions to steamy nights shared with Alex car camping at a crag, and to blessed moments of bliss on the open road, or to the joy of reading books by headlamps in a tent, were like images out of the scrap book of our lives together.
When I first met Jeannie in Keystone, Colorado on January 1st of 2006 (we just celebrated an anniversary) our lives revolved around snowboarding and the freedom that can be found in the mountains, but soon even that took a back seat to one another. By the time the snow season started winding down in May we were ready to run away together and to climb. I remember one of our first dates was a trek through the snow just to get to my favorite bouldering spot just off of Swan Mountain Road on the way to Breckenridge. We hiked up to the rock in our snowboarding boots through snow that was knee-deep in spots and switched into our climbing shoes. We didn't touch the ground until we were ready to make the hike back to the truck as to keep our feet dry, which made for a really long traverse. It was glorious.
Later that month we would leave on a weeklong road trip up to Washington to drop in on my folks. We stopped in Moab on the way where we climbed for a couple of days, took in the Arches, and slept in the back of my pickup under the stars. We also camped and climbed at Smith Rocks for a few days, all the while building what I still believe is the foundation of our relationship. On that trip we established an absolute trust and faith in one another. The relationship that was developing between us on the road and rock as our roles of climber and belayer, driver and passenger, leader and follower constantly changed, resulted in a partnership that would carry over into every decision we would make together.
As I continued reading Forget Me Not, with some difficulty as it is an extremely honest and emotional telling, I kept drawing these kinds of connections between their story and ours and I was actually surprised at how much climbing has built, continued to effect, and in someways sustained our relationship. For example, the day I asked Jeannie to marry me I was actually supposed to be climbing Mount Baker with Andy, but the avalanche danger that day was ridiculously high and the guys at AAI in Bellingham told us to pick another weekend if we could. We decided it wasn't worth the risk. But the whole ordeal got me thinking about the dangers inherent in my pursuit of high places and all the things that I might regret not having done namely asking the love of life to be my wife. And so I planned an impromptu trip to Leavenworth, packed the eep with climbing and camping gear and waited for Jeannie to get off work. The weekend was perfect. Jeannie and I found a nice campground off Icicle Road, ate some grub and hit the sac early. We got up early the next morning and made breakfast, a scramble, and then headed out to Tumwater Canyon and Castle Rock. The three pitch trad route Canary 5.8 was an easy but fun route with great views of the canyon, decent exposure midway up the climb, and with plenty of room on the summit to get down on one knee. I couldn't have picked a more gorgeous day, and I suppose I hadn't. The day seemed to have picked us. I remember what I said to her when she finally reached me at the top, as I pulled out the ring and watched the tears form in her eyes, but really it's none of your business. The important thing is that she said YES at the top of a climb that we accomplished together, a climb on which we had to have absolute trust in one another in order to climb. This is why climbing is so much more than a sport, it's not about reaching the top, winning or losing, or even doing the climb faster or in a more stylish manner than someone else, climbing is all about the climb itself, about the challanges shared between two people joined together by both choice and necessity in pursuit of a common goal that is ultimately, not the summit, but the well being of their partner. Climbing makes me a better husband and my love for and commitment to my wife makes me a better climber. I don't claim to have any answers and as a newlywed myself, I have little advice to give a young couple like Andy and Kelsey. However, what I believe is that marriage, like climbing, isn't about reaching the summit, but about taking care of the life on the other end of the rope and, most importantly, enjoying the climb..

Last night Nick and I went to a Fred Becky event at The Mountaineers event center. How was it? Stay tuned and find out later this week on Legends, Lines and Climbing For now, enjoy some pictures I dug up. Climb on.