- The more days you spend outside worshipping the holier you are.
Doesn't matter what faith or how you worship.
- The time and love you put into your outdoor experience defines
your true closeness to god.
- The less words you spend on slandering other climbers or styles of
mountain experience, even if they deserve it, the holier you are (this
is a hard one to live up to).
- The more you share the joy of the mountains with people at any
level, be it clinics, slideshows, articles or in the bar, the holier
you are.
- The more total positive impact you have on the mountains, the
holier you are. None of us truly belongs in the alpine environment (we're
not goats).
Leaving pins on rap is as wrong as leaving bolts. Ditching gear is as
bad as ditching garbage. The only way to atone for these sins is to
work toward mountain preservation; raise $, pick up garbage on the
trail, work for local and international preservation, etc. Realize
that we are all sinners, but try to make a positive difference in the
long run. This is very hard; I like four-wheeling, jeting to new
mountain ranges, rotor crack, etc. All faiths are hypocritical;
recognize this and do better with your own faith rather than
attacking the hypocrisy we all see in other faiths.
- Staying alive brings you closer to god; dying does not.
- Converting disciples through positive energy is allowed; using
your position as a prophet to slander other faiths is a sin.
- Climbing is only one facet of a mountain faith; a hike on a
perfect day counts the same (perhaps more because you can actually
stop and think) than a hard new route.
- Arrogance with the supremacy of your sub-faith is one sure way to
piss God off.
- Public posing is allowed (like Jesus' disciples didn't work the
propaganda machine), but monotheistic posing at the expense of other
faiths is shallow. False posing ("I'm more bad-ass than X
because he used two pins and I only used one") is not posing but
false proselytizing.
Services to be held every day anywhere outside (failing that, bars
will work).
While the above is meant only semi-seriously, it is a credo I'd like
to live up to-the climbers I most admire are those who climbed lots,
slandered little, and shared the mountains often before they died at a
ripe old age. They had faith in what they did, and did it well.
Will Gadd |
