Let’s start with what sports psychologists call intrinsic motivations.
What if we are simply drawn to pushing our limits, the pursuit of the ultimate challenge? Personally, the idea of succeeding at something that initially feels beyond my limits is deeply appealing. In climbing, that sensation is particularly intense. What ecstasy there is in catching a hold that once felt too far away or too bad. What an incredible emotion in figuring out a smooth, blank section of rock, where you finally, through creativity and stubbornness, find a way through.
On the Dawn Wall, that sense of self-transcendence and progress was omnipresent. I can’t even count how many moves, how many sections, seemed utterly impossible the first time I discovered them.
So yes! Personal growth, the pursuit of a worthy challenge, was undoubtedly the first driving force of this adventure. But it didn’t stop there!
Among the intrinsic motivations, there are some concepts quite popular in Yosemite: the famous Type 1 and Type 2 fun!
Type 1 fun is the joy or pleasure you feel directly while doing the activity. It’s probably my main motivation, and the most precious, the healthiest one: the simple pleasure of climbing itself.
Oh, what a joy to be out in nature, to feel the grain of the rock under my fingers, to see them jammed into a crack, to touch a crimp, to hear the faint squeak of fingernails on granite! What delight in moving precisely, quickly, fluidly, in harmony with the rock. I love that feeling of controlled fatigue in my forearms, the taste of effort in my mouth, even that dizzy state that comes when you push a little harder or longer. So many things, far from an exhaustive list, that make me love climbing, and make me want to get back on the wall tomorrow.
The Dawn Wall, with its movement, its stunning rock and line, its unique setting, certainly stirred up a powerful drive in me.
Yet, during the long process of working on the route and during the redpoint, I definitely cannot say that Type 1 fun was always there.
The cold (almost constant), the pain (frequent), the fear (let’s just say the DW protection isn’t exactly five-star), the stress (especially during the push), the unexpected foot slips (a Dawn Wall classic)... All of these are part of the experience, and they can easily eat away at your Type 1 fun.
When that happens, and maybe it’s a bad habit I picked up during years of damp Belgian climbing, I still like to throw myself wholeheartedly into the fight.
That’s when I rely on good old Type 2 fun! The kind of joy that comes afterward, when you’re back on the ground, in the portaledge, or slipping off your climbing shoes and harness. That feeling of accomplishment, of pleasant fatigue, sore fingertips and aching muscles as proof of effort. The pride of having found a beta, fought well, or even just refused to give up, despite the lack of Type 1 fun. Oh yes, Type 2 fun was very much there on the Dawn Wall. But was it enough? Was that really what I was looking for?
Sometimes, and this is where the story turns dramatic, there was no Type 2 fun either. I climb; it’s hard, stressful, freezing, and I’m scared. I don’t want to be there anymore. And when it’s finally over, I feel no joy, no satisfaction. Only doubt, fatigue, sometimes pain or dread about returning the next day.
When there’s no pleasure during nor after, what remains is the hazy idea of Type 3 fun, the fun you don’t actually feel at all, but still call “fun.” It’s strange, I still struggle to understand it. Maybe because we choose to do it despite the absence of pleasure, we call it fun to convince ourselves? And maybe that was exactly what I was seeking?
Type 3 fun doesn’t happen to me often, but it does remind me of the last night of my push. Hours of suffering in the middle of the night, utter exhaustion on the final pitches: despite the intensity and excitement, I don’t remember feeling any pleasure… Too much fatigue and stress to feel anything beyond nausea, far from any Type 1 joy. When I finally topped out, my joy felt oddly faint, drowned in everything else. I knew I was supposed to be the happiest man in the world up there, so I searched within myself for scraps of happiness, screaming almost to convince myself.
Maybe that was it, Type 3 fun, the kind you don’t feel, but that makes for a good story afterward. And maybe that’s part of what I was chasing all along: a good story to tell.
Then come the extrinsic motivations: when our desire to act is driven by factors outside ourselves.
The first and most obvious one can take many forms: social pressure, the need for validation, recognition, or simply, glory!
We are social animals, and that need to be seen and recognized by our peers is natural. Yet it becomes insidious when it blurs the line between what we truly do for ourselves and what we do, consciously or not, to please others.
In the case of the Dawn Wall, I’d be lying if I said that need hadn’t influenced me. No doubt: for a big-wall climber like me, El Cap’s Dawn Wall represents the ultimate prize, the Holy Grail. Ticking that line in my logbook felt like ultimate recognition, synonymous with glory, and therefore maybe eternal happiness. Or at least, that’s what I thought.
In the age of social media, this quest for recognition is even stronger in sports projects, amplified by that insidious “like-seeking” phenomenon. Those little red dots and notifications are designed to hook us. No matter how much we want to rise above it, it still influences us, just a little, or maybe a lot, or even passionately… sometimes, to madness.
Then there’s the motivation tied to sponsorship, an inherent part of professional climbing. It can come in the form of rewards (new sponsors, better contracts…) or punishment if you fail (contract cuts, performance pressure…). Again, I can’t pretend to be immune to those pressures, even if sponsors always say “results don’t matter, what’s important is to have fun.” Let’s not be naïve: while not the only ingredient, performance does matter to sponsors, and the Dawn Wall was my main “selling point” for years. Coming home empty-handed from this transatlantic trip would have certainly endangered my already precarious financial situation as a pro climber.
Another often-overlooked reason we do things is simply habit. Doing something just because that’s what we’ve always done, because it’s part of our routine, and more importantly, our identity. Climbing again and again, on ever-harder routes, simply because it has become an essential part of who I am. Being a climber: someone who pursues ambitious goals, who builds themselves through effort, consistency, and perseverance.
But that process can become problematic when it drives me to act mechanically, without asking whether what I do still makes sense for me, or if I’m just chasing an outdated version of myself.
Glory, recognition, sponsorship, habit, and identity... All these motivations undeniably play a role in my climbing and my drive for performance. There were certainly pieces of what I was hoping to find in the Dawn Wall among them.
Yet I know, and this is one more lesson from the project, that it isn’t in recognition or sponsorship that I feel fulfilled, as a climber or as a person. Those motivations can only distort the deep and powerful experience that the Dawn Wall represented for me.
