Climbing tends to attract some pretty die-hard personality types. Once people get the climbing bug, it can expand until it crowds out many of the once-important components of a healthy, well-balanced life, such as relationships, eduction, jobs, even hygiene. But sometimes, just sometimes, life circumstances are such that climbing becomes impossible for a period of time. When this happens, whether due to workload, family vacation, or injury, climbers exhibit telltale behaviors that can ultimately only be remedied by the sweet caress of stone. Following are eight of these symptoms of climbing deprivation. Any others I’m forgetting? Add ‘em in the comments.
1. Generalized anger
When I was a kid, I would get upset whenever I was hungry—I could barely enjoy anything and basically felt like crying all the time. Back then, it was just called being a baby, but now this state of hunger-induced grumpiness is referred to as being “hangry.” Similarly, climbers deprived of their Precious have been known to exhibit snarkiness, impatience, and outright rudeness. You might call such a person “clangry.” One afternoon of climbing can temporarily alleviate clangriness for several days, as many climbers’ significant others are well aware.
2. Fitness dysmorphic disorder
In as little as three days without some serious pullin’ down, a climber can develop a warped self-image. Perceived physiological changes include: fatness, smaller forearm and shoulder muscles, total loss of both power and endurance, and a sloughing off of hard-earned finger calluses.
3. Restless finger syndrome
In cases where there is no damage to the digits, climbers who can’t climb have been observed to direct undue amounts of attention towards their fingers, stretching, cracking, and picking at them with as much as 73% greater frequency. Perhaps in response to the perceived decline in fitness as described above, it is also common to attempt to pinch, crimp, or hang from any load-bearing (or, with hilarious/dramatic effects, non-load-bearing) structure within eyeshot. The compulsive use of foam stress balls and other grip-builders is a surefire sign of RFS.
4. Climbing vicariously
Thanks to the Internet, climbing-deprived climbers can access limitless flows of videos, blogs, trip reports, Instagrams, Facebook photo galleries, and even tweets from fellow climbers who have been lucky enough to get out and sample some of the good stuff. While this behavior can temporarily reduce vertical cravings in some, it can actually exacerbate them in others, leading to feelings of resentment and exclusion.
In extreme cases, there have been reports of out-of-body experiences. One climber recalled being overwhelmed by a vision of himself floating face up, hovering across a field of talus under the shadow of Half Dome, “like Maximus in that movie The Gladiator.” Other times the hallucinations are purely auditory, as was the case with one Colorado-based climber left unable to climb after breaking his collarbone in a snowboarding accident. For several weeks, he was surprised by a disembodied voice shouting, “Stick it!” and “Allez!” while he performed even the most mundane tasks, such as moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer, or picking up milk at the store.
Depending on the reason for restricted access to climbing, the obsessive climber personality type can sometimes seek out another, similarly addictive activity such a surfing, mountain biking, or crossfit (aka “jumparound”). Once a sufficient skill level and social network has been established, the new activity can actually supplant climbing as the prime motivator.
7. Compulsive gear fiddling
In lieu of actual climbing, the deprived often turn to the organization and maintenance of the equipment used for climbing. Time to wash that rope, oil those cams, clean the dirt and chalk of those stinky old rock shoes with a damp towel… . Studies have shown that mere exposure to powdered chalk can stimulate brain regions associated with climbing.
Desperate climbers attempting to reconnect with their preferred lifestyle have been known to sleep in the yard, live primarily off of tinned sardines and power bars, and forgo showering for long periods of time. Likewise, alpinists stranded in warm, flat environments have been seen running up and down stairs with packs full of household items, or even sticking their faces in the freezer, in an attempt to simulate that brisk feeling of near-frostbite typical of high-alpine environments.