Stone Walls, Stout Hearts

Climbers are a guarded, closemouthed lot, and in most cases prefer to downplay their accomplishments—even first ascents. There are many superb climbers around the country whom few people, even other climbers, have ever heard of. This alone largely explains the general mood of disdain among climbers for Willig's activities after his Trade Center ascent (in October he climbed the Bastille in Colorado's Eldorado Springs Canyon for live television). But another reason climbers are wary of publicity is that they are protective of their rock-climbing areas to the point of paranoia, and they regard publicity of any kind as anathema to the sport—let alone massive publicity for the climbing of an artificial structure. Willig is perfectly aware of this, and he is very careful not to reveal specifically where he climbs.

No climbers are more mum about their area than those who frequent the seven-mile ridge in New York's Shawangunk Mountains that offers the best climbing in the East. (Most climbers feel Yosemite is already lost to the tourists.) Shawangunk climbers don't talk to strangers much. Jery Hewitt, a frequent climber there, says, "I hung around the 'Gunks a week before I found anyone who would climb with me. It took a long climb to crack those climbers."

Part of what the climbers see as the problem with the Shawangunks is their accessibility. The range is barely a two-hour drive from New York City; the cliffs touch ground just a stone's throw from a road. On summer weekends, climbers park their cars and vans next to the road, and camp in the woods. Trucks sell hot dogs, sausages, honey, lobsters and clams. Tourists from the city often stop and stare up at the climbers, oohing and aahing between bites of their sausages.

Although the Shawangunks are a relatively small cataract of gray cliffs, nowhere near as awesome as Yosemite's walls—the highest Shawangunk climbs are no more than 350 feet—there is a great variety of climbs. The guide book, which is currently out of print, includes 393 routes, and many of them are white-knucklers. One local who moved to the area just for the climbing, tensing his body as he speaks, says, "There's stuff up there that will eat you alive."

Being eaten is hardly what climbers fear, however. H. L. Mencken once observed of hot-air balloonists, "They have an unsurpassed view of the scenery, but there is always the possibility that it may collide with them." And so it is with rock climbers. Again, Royal Robbins is the voice of rationality on the subject of colliding with the scenery. And in two eloquent, lucid paragraphs, he fairly sums up what rock climbing is all about:

"If we are keenly alert and aware of the rock and what we are doing on it, if we are honest with ourselves and our capabilities and weaknesses, if we avoid committing ourselves beyond what we know is safe, then we will climb safely. For climbing is an exercise in reality. He who sees it clearly is on safe ground, regardless of his experience or skill. But he who sees reality as he would like it to be, may have his illusions rudely stripped from his eyes when the ground comes up fast.

"We are, of course, all mixtures of sanity and folly, of clear vision and murky romanticism. Such conflicts are a mark of the human condition. And we climb because we are human. The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength. We wouldn't touch rock if we were perfectly self-controlled. And he who would climb and live must continuously wage this battle and never let folly win. It's an outrageously demanding proposition. But I never said it was easy."