In climbing the line is
everything. It is
the route that the climb follows, the
path one takes from
the
bottom to the
top.
The line is
created/discovered by the first person to climb it.
Easier routes often have obvious lines and the extent
to which one can claim the line is a creation is marginal.
Some hard lines are also obvious but defy the ability
of current generations to climb them. They taunt and tease,
and sometimes a new piece of equipment will come along,
standards will rise or a person of true vision will appear
and the line will fall (i.e. it will be climbed)
Other times there will not appear to be any way to climb
a piece of rock. This is when creativity in climbing is
unquestioned. The successful ascensonist will bring a spark
of imagination with them, a new approach and suddenly everyone is doing it,
eyes opened by the creation of the new line.
Finding new lines can become everything to the climber, a passion,
a sickness.
Sometimes worthless pieces of crud will be climbed just in order
to have the new line, but it is the lines of majesty that speak to the
imagination. These are the climbs that are remembered by generation after
generation, these are the climbs about whom stories get told in dark
corners and these are the lines that all climbers aspire to succeed on
at some point in their lives.
The person who bags the line gets to name it. In naming it and in
the way that they climbed it they place a part of their personality
on the rock. Climbing it is like learning something about those who
went before. Getting to the crux and realising that the person
was tall (shit could they really reach that hold?)
or that they had fingers of steel. The greatest pleasure
comes when a sequence of moves calls out to you, moves you
would not have thought of on your own but which appear through
the logical progression of the route. You learn something.
Lines that I will never forget, in Ireland; Siren, Sarcophagus.
Pis Fluch, Samson. Climbs I still dream about in Wales
Cenotaph corner, Comes the Dervish, some day, some day they will be mine.