To live - Cracow :) To climb – Labak (Czech Republic)
Multipitch and sport climbing
Almost everyday I eat a sandwich with peanut butter, mozzarella and jam.
A friend of mine proposed a one-day trip to the crag near our town, and that was it. Since then, I have always wanted to be better at climbing, and I loved spending time with other climbers at the crags. Not much later, I started to discover new places and new types of climbing, which made me even more fascinated. What exactly made me enter so deeply into this kind of lifestyle? I keep asking myself this question, but I have never found a proper answer.
I was a skateboarder, so my childhood hero was Tony Hawk, of course :) It’s always nice to be admired, although I don’t think there are many moments when I feel that I am. It certainly motivates me a lot, however, it is also a bit stressful, as I know I shouldn’t fail.
Definitely, the time when I started climbing was a significant milestone. Since then, my life has changed to a great extent, and my priorities have been reorganised. Another milestone was when I met my girlfriend, Ida. That also had a profound impact on my life in a very positive way. As we share a similar drive for adventures and climbing, everything was elevated to the next level.
Fortunately, I've had no serious injuries, and I hope I'll be able to say the same at the end of my career. Regarding failures on climbing projects, I experience some every year. Sometimes the effort I put in is big, and I definitely feel a bit frustrated, however, I have never had very negative emotions. Success often depends on the weather or other conditions, and we often face time constraints, so there’s no need to worry too much. Ultimately, what matters most is how much we gained or learned, and how much joy we experienced.
Together with my friend Michał, we went on a climbing trip to Taghia in Morocco. One day we decided to climb a 7c, around 300 meters high. The climbing went fine and we managed to finish it by the end of the day, but the route didn’t end at the top of the mountain, so we decided to go to the peak rather than rappel down the route. As we got to the top, it started getting dark, so after a dozen minutes spent taking silly photos, we began looking for our way back to the gîte (the place where we were sleeping).
It turned out that finding the descent at night wasn’t so easy, especially with only a little information and a tiny two-square-centimeter map with just a few lines that whoever drew it probably thought would be enough. We wandered for a few hours in the direction we presumed was ours until we stumbled upon a big plateau, where we tried almost every direction, but none seemed promising. Exhausted and thirsty as hell, we decided to spend the night there. One thin down jacket and one Gore-Tex jacket for the two of us weren’t enough to call it a warm and convenient bivy.
Michał decided to send a text message to the gîte owner, Ahmed, so he wouldn’t be worried and waiting to serve us dinner. Despite our willingness to sleep, we spent most of the night shivering from the cold… A few hours later, some voices caught our attention. It was a man searching for us – Ahmed's brother, who had come to show us the way down. He must have decided to help after he saw our message. Satisfying our thirst with the water he brought, we went down with his help. Worth mentioning was how agile he was on the descent: he would run ahead about 50 meters, then wait for us as we slowly scrambled down through the boulders… and then run ahead again.
As one of my friends once described to me: when you’re training, you’re creating coupons. When you’re going rock climbing, you’re cutting off your coupons. There’s no strict schedule for me, but I need coupons, so I keep training whenever I’m not on a trip. Sometimes, when I feel that my body needs more rest, I take a looser approach, but most of the time I try to train hard.
A good piece of advice that I wish I had received when I was younger is that no one can train hard for a long time without a break. There have to be some periods when the body can rest and recover. It’s a time to do more stretching and climb with moderate intensity, rather than constantly pushing the limit. Personally, I find that the classic approach of two intense weeks followed by one deload week works well for me, and this is something I recommend to others.
Indoor climbing gyms are a great place to train. It’s best if they are not too far from home, and if there are a lot of friends or company to train with. With rock climbing it is much different. I like it to be wild, in a natural environment, quite far from the city. I prefer to be there with a rather small group, to be able to enjoy nature.
None of that. Strength has never been my strong side. I’m more of an endurance climber.
That really depends on how a person defines success. If success means money, fame, or similar goals, then putting on a show is definitely a must. But I believe most pro climbers still focus on training and climbing, which naturally leads to the development of their skills.
That’s definitely not possible for everyone, as some people may face limiting factors due to genetics or past events, such as a serious accident. However, I strongly believe it is possible for the majority of people. The thing is, for some, accomplishing certain goals will be easier, while for others, the same goals will require a huge effort. This depends not only on genetics, but also on how much physical activity a person engaged in during their youth, and a significant factor is also one’s mental attitude.
Having a climbing goal increases motivation for training, so I often tend to set some. I have always been a person whose goal was to climb more and better. Now, this is slowly shifting in another direction, where my goal is to prepare myself to the best of my abilities before a trip, which allows me to be more effective while climbing.
In life, my goal is to constantly improve in various aspects, so that at the end of my life I can say: that was a good life. The goal is also to make myself and the people around me feel good, without causing harm to the environment. In fact, if possible, it would be great to contribute to positive actions that result in the well-being of society.
What I usually feel when working on projects that are hard for me is a strong desire to tick them off. Often, it’s the desire to actually be climbing on these routes and be executing sequences of moves that I have practiced for a long time. Frustration sets in when time constraints become tight, but somehow I always tell myself, “Even if not on this trip, there will be another.” I haven’t yet had a project long enough for frustration to reach a very high level or for boredom to appear.
As we all observe, sometimes the crags we climb at can get really crowded. Popular routes are becoming more and more polished, and this won’t improve as the number of climbers continues to grow. This deserves some attention, as we contribute to the degradation of the rock, with, at least for now, no solution to restore its original structure. Moreover, the crag areas are often impacted by the way we get there, park our cars, and so on. Brushing holds is not enough.
This is a difficult topic without a simple solution, but I hope it will change someday. Access to restricted areas could definitely help, but we need to be responsible about it. Sometimes access is restricted for good reasons.
Competition climbing has taken its own path and now has little to do with rock climbing. Since its “playground” is shaped by people, it might still change direction in ways nobody expects. Outdoor climbing, on the other hand, is different, as the “playground” is created by nature and resources are limited, so I don’t think it can evolve much. I can imagine that more and more places will be discovered in the future, especially in less developed regions like South America or the Near East.
If I can dream about a role in this, it would be opening up multipitch climbing routes in remote and wild areas. I haven’t done this before, but I believe it would be a great adventure.
