btreanor
Mar 6, 2010, 1:20 AM
Views: 1197
Registered: Feb 24, 2004
Posts: 121
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Just to be clear, I'm not trashing Patagonia. Almost all of my outdoor gear is from Patagonia, which I support for it's environmental mission more than anything else. However, (1) I don't own multiples of everything and (2) I use it until in genuinely wears out, which means I have a lot of really old Patagoina shite. When I do have to buy something new, I'm happy to shell out the extra ducats to support Patagonia.
What's funny is people decked out in hundreds and hundreds of dollars of high tech clothing to climb single pitch routes on a 60 degree day in Josh.
I take your point about 'unexpected' turns of events, and you are right to make it. When there is a chance of a storm, I'll be the first to toss a light shell into the pack, or tie it around my waist on Sierra routes. However, in many cases that's an extreme statistical outlier, to the point of not really being a concern. I mean, I might be struck by lightning while climbing, some of my friends have been, but I don't really worry about it on 99% of the days I'm climbing. On the 1% of the days where it is prudent to be concerned, I'm the first to be safe about it.
To paraphrase both Thoreau (and Chouinard!, who expressed the same sentiment though in a different way): beware all endeavors that require new clothes instead of a new man. People climb El Cap, in a day, wearing cotton, all the time. On some days that would be stupid, on a some days that would be risky, but on many days it would be just fine.
I think it is easy to "over think" climbing and all the accoutrement associated with it. Most of the time it's pretty straightforward.
(This post was edited by btreanor on Mar 6, 2010, 2:30 AM)
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