The fun scale

Climbing is a kind of profession, commitment, technique, fitness, life-goal, lifestyle, feeling-you-can't-describe-to-your-mother-unless-she's-a-climber...and most of all it's is basically all about fun.

Now, we always grade climbs. It's a hard 5.10, easy 5.13a, a classic 6c... But how do you compare that all, not everybody can climb 6c, but it doesn't mean they're less of a climber when they can't do the route. Climbing is something personal I guess, and you can all have fun in your own 'personal way'.

So, I found the 'Fun Scale' on Kelly Cordes blog. The fun scale is about how hard the route was for you personally, doesn't use standardised gradings and tells your friends about how demanding it all was for your mind ánd body.

Here it is:

Type I Fun – true fun, enjoyable while it’s happening. Good food, good sex, 5.8 hand cracks, sport climbing, powder skiing. Margaritas.

Type II Fun – fun only in retrospect, hateful while it’s happening. Things like working out ‘till you puke, and usually ice and alpine climbing. After climbing the West Face Couloir on Huntington, Scotty and I both swore that we hated alpine climbing. The final 1,000′ was horrific – swimming up sugar snow that collapsed beneath us, roped together without protection – and took nearly as long as the initial 3,000′ from camp. On the summit, Scotty turned to me and said, in complete seriousness, “I want my mom so bad right now.” By the time we reached Talkeetna our talk of Huntington turned to, “Ya know, that wasn’t so bad. What should we try next time?”

Type III Fun – not fun at all, not even in retrospect. As in, “What the hell was I thinking? If I ever even consider doing that again, somebody slap some sense into me.” The final 1,000′ of Huntington, when I stop and think about it…but, then again, a friend climbed it the next year and had perfect conditions.

And he's right, you never know what kind of Fun you'll get in your route and "Maybe the whole goal, the path of the enlightened, is to turn Type III situations into Type I fun. Right. Anybody had any luck with that?"

Here a new video again, part 3 of the Icelandic diaries. Maybe Type 1 fun, but, we were there for Type 3+ fun and didn't find any...not really funny to find Chocolat Chaud being one big shower...