Outdoor Research Verticulture » Karen McNeill http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com Get Stoked! Outdoor Research Verticulture Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:23:11 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Why Climb? http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2009/12/why-climb/ http://www.outdoorresearchverticulture.com/2009/12/why-climb/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:07:57 +0000 Margo Talbot http://outdoorresearchverticulture.com/?p=356
Caption from Margot

Descending from Silverton Falls and a great day out ice climbing with Cheryl Wallace, January 2009 near Silverton, Colorado

I recently was accepted into the Banff Mountain Writers Program which runs from October 30th to November 20th 2009. I had thought about applying for this program ever since its inception a few years back, and fortunately everything conspired for it to happen this year. Part of this conspiracy was the decision by my sponsor, Outdoor Research, to branch out and support me in an endeavor that is outside of their usual parameters.

For twenty years now I have been climbing mountains, rock faces and frozen waterfalls. It has been the perfect analogy to what I have really been doing, which is climbing the mountains of my heart.

When I discovered climbing I quickly realized that this was an endeavor that caused me to focus my energies, both physical and mental, in a way that nothing else had previously done. This focus drew forth an ability to be in the present moment that I had heretofore never experienced. And each time I went out and attained this feeling it only served to make me want to go out climbing more.

Another caption from margot

Margot enjoying a moment of pure joy while posing as a leopard in Ouray Ice Park, January 2008, Photo by Chris Giles

I grew up in an environment that caused a fragmentation in my sense of self, and this served to sever a connection within my psyche that I could not even remember, let alone name, after a certain age. It is this reconnection with myself that has been the biggest draw for me to climbing. When I am out there I am dealing with the honesty and simplicity of Nature, I am pushing the extremes of my physical and mental boundaries, and I am moving forth in my ongoing journey of self-knowledge.

My close friend and climbing partner, Karen McNeill, was an integral part of this journey. Her death on the flanks of Mount Foraker in Alaska in May of 2006 sent me into a tailspin of tragedy and loss. I use the timeline of her last days on earth as the starting point for my book, and my ten-year friendship with her as the platform of the present from which I delve into the past.

Last photo needs a caption

Margot enjoying the barren wilderness of the Antarctic Peninsula, February 2005

When people ask me what my greatest accomplishment is to date, I tell them that it is overcoming a lifetime of debilitating depression. I spent decades probing the contents of my psyche, going back to the source of the imbalance and moving through the inherent instability of that state of mind. I decided part way through this venture that the only purpose I could possibly find for having lived through all of the pain was if what I had learned could be of some use to others.

I will be writing in an online journal while at Banff, and I invite you to follow me on my blog at Glitter Girls as well as on the OR VertiCulture site.

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