DISPATCHES

O'Fallon

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In truth, a few small rocks fell about 10 feet to the right, yet I would not be surprised to read the former in huge headlines in some publication somewhere.

We are mostly amateur climbers. Two of us are amateur by choice alone, for they surely could make a living as climbers if they chose. Climbing is not like football or baseball in that the best in the game are not always, or even usually, professionals. In my nearly 20 years of climbing, I have often been surprised at the poor climbing performance, but skilled personal promotion, of professional climbers (not all but some). It is all about hype.

Amateurism is the lifeblood of mountaineering for it is truly the love of the sport that propels it. Unlike football or baseball, if the truth be told, climbing is incredibly boring as a spectator sport. We sit at ABC (Advanced Base Camp not American Brodcasting Company) for weeks on end waiting for weather, we jug lines and sit on ledges for days waiting for the slopes to clear and we haul heavy packs for days up fixed (and many times climbed) faces. It reminds me of harvest time on a farm. Lots of very hard work and very little excitement. That is why this four-month expedition will be cut down to a one-hour documentary.

We have five media members on this expedition. Nearly all of our major problems have been due to media related topics. The problem is not that the media is unprofessional — but that we are amatuers. We climb for deeply personal and selfish reasons. We do not climb to cure cancer, free imprisoned religious leaders, or stop world hunger. To claim so would be narcissistic. I am sure no Jungian terminology could explain why we climb — and certainly no reporter, climber or not, could either.

And so stories, snapshots really, of our expedition are told. A small period in time, out of context without the backdrop of the other two months of the trip, are being told. We tell many of those stories ourselves here on MountainZone.com. Melifluous speech, exaggerations or left-out facts often misrepresent what we do and what happens around us. Perhaps it is the nature of trying to tell a story so seldom exciting.

I was asked what I thought of all the coverage we had by a reporter. I realize that the coverage is of little importance to the climb but very important to the sponsorship we have for this nearly $300,000 expedition. We have to pay our dues. It is our responsibility, but I have watched the pure joy in which Paul Teare and Mike Bearzi, the two aforementioned climbers, climb and talk about climbing. I have seen that their skill, and praise or respect from either of them or any of my fellow climbers would be worth more than any coverage that could be offered. It is the friendships and shared time, exciting or not, with these people I will take from this trip aside from my own deeply personal experience.

If you want to know what is going on, ask an amatuer. What he or she may tell you will likely be uninteresting but so is most of climbing.

— Shawn O'Fallon, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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