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Comment by nlfwhulsdhouv | Hacker News Reader

Rock climbing has a very long and storied history of climbers living on absolute scraps to get by, just so they can climb more. This persists in the culture to this day. Yvonne Chouinard, depicted in the article, was one of those climbers. He tells stories of eating catfood and stealing leftovers from the hotels in Yosemite Valley to survive.

While you're right that making money helps people live an easier life more able to do extraordinary things, climbing culture exemplifies those extraordinary things are possible without it. Much of the development of modern climbing was done with almost no money.

Read Steve Roper's "Camp 4".

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I think the myth of the dirtbagger is a little played out. It makes for great marketing though.

Post War America was a time of relative easy living, especially if you were born in America, white, and a man (and were dodging the draft, too!)

I 100% agree it's played out, and was never totally true in the first place.

However, compared to a lot of other sports that are complex and require a significant amount of equipment, climbing culture is a lot more weary of throwing money at the problem. Critically, a lot of serious climbers are willing to trade more money for more time climbing by selecting less-traditional careers or focusing less on corporate ladder-climbing.

I dunno, climbing gear isn't all that expensive and there's not THAT much gear you need - you can fit it all in a backpack, you know.

I see it more that adult life is delayed, since there's the opportunity and privilege to delay it. It's kinda rich kids acting like their poor kids, 'cause that's kind of a cool thing to do.

Not everyone of course, but those $100,000 tricked out vans don't pay for themselves. Lots of career folk do roll those out on weekends, but some of those are owned by twenty-somethings. In the minority, you see some people scraping by.

> I dunno, climbing gear isn't all that expensive and there's not THAT much gear you need - you can fit it all in a backpack, you know.

Wut? Not expensive compared to what exactly? You know climbers are leaving material behind in mountains and trips themselves are expensive?

Why would "fit into backpack" be an argument for why something is cheap?

To be honest he's not wrong. I bought my trad rack (widgets that go in cracks and carabiners for them) for around $2,000. Rope, shoes, helmet, harness, backpacks, etc on top of that is probably another $2,000 at most. Camping gear is another ~$1,000.

Most of this stuff (aside from the rope) will last for many years. Occasionally I'll lose a cam out climbing which is $50-80 to replace, but only happens a few times a season.

Compare this to skiing or mountain biking and you can see how climbing is a vastly cheaper sport.

Spending 5k on a sport is expensive for most people.

what materials do are you thinking about when saying climbers leave things? If you do it correctly you leave with all the gear you came with

Not always.

Sometimes you have to sling a tree or rock in order to rappel. Sometimes gear gets stuck and you have to move on. Sometimes you drop gear by accident.

When living in ski areas we called some of these kids "Trustafarians"

Again, I think you're making a fair point about the intersection of privilege and the 'dirtbag' lifestyle, but that's not really what I'm getting at. I'm just commenting that those people with 100k$ vans are sneered at pretty heavily in climbing culture. A lot of other sports cultures are the opposite, where they sneer at people who don't have the 'right' gear. Lots of rich golfers for instance that don't want to interact with the poors and run exclusive clubs partially for that purpose.

Regardless, any leisure time at all is a privilege. Working-class and poor people largely don't have time or money to do _anything_ at all, climbing or otherwise.

I also think you're putting a little too much value on 'adult life'. We can and should work on allowing more people from more diverse socio-economic backgrounds to enjoy more leisure time, not criticize the people that can.

It is a much different world now, My friends who did the dirtbag life are now finding their hens coming home to roost in a major way as they hit their late 20s/early 30s. If you don't have wealthy parents or connections it is going to be very difficult for someone with no degree and little work experience to catch a break at that age.

The freewheeling artist/hippy lifestyle of that time period was probably partially encouraged by how strong our economy was. Almost anyone could take the "risk" of dropping out of the workforce for a time to explore their spiritual side.

A white dude in his 30s with a high school diploma in the 70s-80s still had plenty of opportunity to jump into the workforce and start down the road to home ownership and family life.

It's funny because the economy is currently in one of the longest bull runs ever, and yet the above is no where near possible. The income inequality today is staggering.

I still have climber friends that dumpster dive for basically all their groceries. Yes they still have (seasonal) jobs, but they save every last penny using such antics so they can climb / recreate more.

So no, I don't think it is played out at all.

Surfing has the same history, they lived on beaches, ate coconuts and fished, or relied on the generosity of locals, when these places were still not "surfing destinations". Everything cool "skateboarding", "snowboarding", "BMX-biking" started with a rag-tag band of individuals, who were scrappy and had pure love for the activity.

I like Alex Honnold's answer to "Do all rock climbers live in vans?"

https://youtu.be/kDUeh8nyLT0?t=159

Close on the timing mark, this one did it for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDUeh8nyLT0&t=129

Or google 'dirtbag climbing'. Fred Beckey was one of the masters. I heard a story that he didn't even have an address for much of his life.

Funny you mention Fred Beckey. Randomly met the guy once in a backcountry lodge (I'm an avid backpacker, he was on his way to summit a mountain).

Anyhow, most of the climbers I've known were more well to do. It's like ski bums vs. skiers.

I never met Fred Beckey but have been reading his Cascade Alpine Guides for a good chunk of my life. It's an amazing series. Even did a few of the routes. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRfJGmXg4Yg

There's a great great movie about him that came out a year ago.

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