Fun.

***Warning, this post contains strong language and adult themes.***

Dedicated to our friend Andrew “Beaver” Cameron.

The description of fun has many definitions. Websters defines the noun fun as what provides amusement or enjoyment, specifically playful often boisterous action or speech; a mood finding or making amusement. 

In the outdoors there is a common scale from one to three that was originally coined by a geology professor, Dr. Rainer Newberry around 1985 and further developed by climber Kelly Cordes into the scale we know today. The fun scale is popular with climbers and mountaineers when describing an adventure.

TYPE I

Type I: Always fun. It’s fun while you are doing it. It’s fun when you remember it. Having beers with friends, a hike with your family, a swim in a cool stream on a hot day. You enjoy it the entire time you are doing it, you love to remember it, and you can’t wait to do it again. Who wouldn’t love it?   

TYPE II

Type II: Common in the outdoors and often exactly what adventures seek. This isn’t fun while you are doing it. It’s been raining for three days and you’re holed up in a tent with your climbing partner and the stench of swamp ass and unchanged socks. You finish a piece of vertical ice and the blood begins to rush into your fingertips feeling like you just dipped your hand in a pile of needles. You’re in mile 18 of a marathon trail run and your nipples are about to rub off from the friction of your Capilene. 

All sound equally miserable, but when you look back and reflect, you cant fucking wait to do it all again. Those three days stuck in the tent due to weather may have been bad but they are but a bump in the road during your 138 mile paddle of the Au Sable River into Lake Huron. The screaming barfies are painful, but worth your first lead up 120’ frozen pillar of WI3.  Mile 18 sucks but the bloody nipples dont mean shit when you’re kicking off your trail runners and crushing a beer after crossing the line at 26.2. A suffer fest, but through the blood, the tears, and the discomfort, you know how damn good it feels. You want more. Always.

TYPE III

Type III: You never want it to happen, but by default playing in the outdoors is unpredictable and when you spend enough time with mother nature, an unforgiving bitch, she will eventually kick your ass. Accidents happen and, if you hang around long enough, people you know die. You’re stuck on an exposed alpine ridge at 4300 meters and the air is charged, your hair stands on end. You’ve rappelled a thousand times, but you get sloppy and don’t tie stopper knots in your rope. You take a bad line river left and that hole sucks you down into a hydraulic. Mistakes are inevitable, unfortunately sometimes they can have fatal consequences. We all manage risk when we are outdoors and we all have our own thresholds and tolerances, but nobody wants Type III fun. It isn’t fun while it’s happening and you never want to do it again. What the fuck was I thinking?

Consider donating to the Climbing Grief Fund.

Beaver, you will be missed.