Attacked by Wolves

I’ll start the non-fiction with some fiction (Any similarities with actual people or events is purely coincidental.):

Once upon a time, there was a road race.  The organizers, however, wanted to make things interesting, so they added a bit of a twist to the race: the competitors wouldn’t know how long the race would last, nor where the finish line was.  It was the craziest, most bad-ass race ever conceived.  Some even questioned the organizers’ sanity.

The first competitor was named Fatty McFatstein.  He started at a good pace, but soon came upon a pizza bush.  He ate a slice. Then another.  After that, he got tired, and took a nap.  Before long, he had eaten about 46 slices of pizza in-between about 10 naps.  He never really left that pizza bush… after some time, he was attacked and eaten by some ferocious forest animals.

The next competitor was named Mick.  Mick was equally intrigued and confused by the race.  He kept thinking about how much he wanted to see the finish line, what glorious prizes awaited there, and how many boobies he’d see if he won.  Mick made the decision that he would make it to the end no matter what it took.  He ran and ran, so long and fast that soon he had worn his shoes right off.  Still, he continued, without rest or food.  His body gradually lost its ability to properly heal itself, but he just focused on the pain, the road ahead, what lies beyond, and kept going.  Mick even saw a couple women on the sidelines flash their boobies, but he knew the finish line would pay off, so he smiled politely, waved, and pressed on.  Eventually, he was running naked, on bloody stumps of bone and mashed flesh that used to be his feet.  Starving and infected with gangrene, he collapsed.  Soon, he had rotted away into dust.

The last competitor, named Schpat, decided that he didn’t really care about the race all that much.  Shpat trotted along the road, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, stopping as he pleased.  A few times, he even explored some other trails that ventured off the road, and found they were shortcuts.  Along a few of the shortcuts, he met people, ate good food, and felt some boobies.  After a few years of journeying, Schpat had completely forgotten about the race he had begun.  He just kept trodding along, eating food, drinking drinks, and feeling boobies.  He crossed the finish line without ever realizing it.

Saturday morning rolled around, and I got a call from Pat.  I quote Pat: “Ok, are you ready for this?  You may need to grow some balls for this next part.  Not big ones, maybe just little, mediocre balls.  I got out of rehearsal early, dude!  I say we go to [IP] for a night session!”

The preceding week was spent editing video, and learning a new editing program – I had told people I was going to shut myself in all day Saturday to get a certain video complete, which I still wasn’t entirely confident was possible.  I was so committed to this video all week long that everything else, save my climbing training, had fallen to the wayside.  My room was in shambles, and it was literally impossible to get from the door to my bed without stepping into a laundry basket.  Also, my house was out of food.  I couldn’t imagine going to IP for bouldering… especially since I had just woken up and it was 1pm, and it took 2-2.5 hours to get there.  What would this mean for the video?!

I quickly went through possible reasons why I couldn’t go:

• I trained very hard yesterday, and I’m going to Rumney on Sunday.  Won’t work – he trains just as hard as me, and we distinctly agreed to never forgo ACTUAL climbing due to cushy recovery times.
• I have to finish the video.  Might work – use business interests and other hard work to divert attention from the fact that I’m pussing out.

I went with no. 2, to which Pat quickly replied, “Dude!  What the fuck are you talking about?!  Are you a little office jockey computer nerd, or are you a climber?  What is all this lifestyle bullshit you’ve been preaching, then?”

I then tried Plan C, which is only to be used in the most dire circumstances:  ”Dude, I need to do laundry like you wouldn’t believe.”

You can imagine how well that went over with my best friend who wanted to go bouldering with me, due to the fact that he may not get another chance to do so for a few months.  I ended up in my car, in a state comparable to that of Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

The evening comprised of sussing out the moves of an amazing arête V8, and working on Diesel, probably my new favorite boulder problem, in cool nighttime temps.  It was probably my most fun bouldering experience to date.

It was getting late, and we heard a wolf howl.  We decided it was time to pack up, and Taylor was acting weird.  I decided she was just tired and hungry.

On the home stretch of the hike out, both Pat and I were probably thinking about how vulnerable our position was: trodding along a narrow path in the woods, surrounded on both sides by a nice cover of tall brush.  In the pitch dark.  Almost in unison, we saw to our right, not 25 yards away, two beady yellow eyes.  A fucking wolf was following us the entire way.  We immediately started barking and yelling at it, and kept our pace toward the cars, 100 yards up the path.  Our noisy retreat was met with a cold, deadly stare.

Taylor, my dog, ran out ahead to the road, happy as can be, and only then was there an adjustment in the wolf’s position.  It’s target was now apparent.

Pat, with his big, imposing crash pad on, went up the embankment, grabbed Taylor by the collar, and I fished out my keys to unlock the car.  We successfully got the happy-go-lucky mutt into my Forester, and looked down the embankment.  Still staring up at us were the same yellow eyes of the wolf…

So we got in our cars and left, feeling a high that I hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

I could have finished editing a cool video that night, but instead, a friend came along and reminded me that I was a rock climber.

-NS