The Gravity Of Grief And Pressure In Extreme Outdoor Sports – Mountain Journal

What drives extreme athletes or, sometimes, any outdoor-oriented person to court the perilous edge?

What ethical and moral obligations do people have to loved ones should they be rendered widowed survivors?

How much pressure are sponsored athletes under to keep pushing the envelope by outdoor gear manufacturers, and what kind of toll does it take on them psychologically?

Why does our society seem to have such a weird voyeuristic fascination with desiring to witness people doing extraordinary things that could result in them perishing right in front of us?

How do maturity and ego evolve over time?

When does self-centered yen give way to self-effacing zen?

These are not obtuse existential questions. They are examined in a March 2020New Yorker profile of two Bozeman friends.

Fascinating is that part of the background for Paumgartens investigation began with a series of pieces Tate had written for Bozeman-based Mountain Journal and his column, "Community Psyche."Some of Tates writings deal with the trauma of athletes being lost to the mountains and the grief that settles in hard as people search for meaning. He often invites readers to reflect on the ultimate personal inquiry: for what purpose are we here? When we head into the wilderness is it to lose ourselves or find ourselves?

This piece caught the attention of Anker and via social media it generated hundreds of thousands of views around the world in a couple of weeks. He thought Tate was hitting upon something that no one else was really raising.

If I may acknowledge a bias here, Conrad is fundamentally a good caring person; a consummate introvert; a valued neighbor; a person who thinks deep about the problems of the world. And, as a physical specimen, hes reached the highest rafters of the planet with skill and grit. Now he's trying to make sense of it all.

Tate has been his confidante and blood brother. Hes had a therapy practice in downtown Bozeman for decades and he admits to being a shamanistic seeker. He is rapt with Carl Jungians theory of the archetype, and tales of the quest to find the holy grail and ancient religions, be they indigenous or druid. He is, in the truest sense, a character.

His columns in Mountain Journal are popular with readers if not interpreted by some as Quixotic musings. They call attention to not only the bright lights of illumination that come with living in outdoor-oriented towns where a premium is placed on spectacular gestures of athletic hedonism, but there are downsides, the dark sides, the shadows and sometimes wailing pain of self-destruction.

Eco-conscious fun-hoggery, as an ethos, a culture, a life style, and an industry, spans the world, and even rules some corners of it. Chouinard is its best-known avatar and entrepreneur, its principal originator and philosopher-king, and is as responsible as anyone for guiding it from the primitive tin-can and hobnail aesthetic of the mid-twentieth century to the slackline and dome-tent attitude of today, Paumgarten wrote.

He added: He [Chouinard] has made it more comfortable, and more glamorous, to be outside, in harsh conditions. His influence is way out of proportion to his revenue footprint. He has mixed feelings about all thissome apprehension about the world he has made. He celebrates the spread of an ecological consciousness but laments the disappearance of danger and novelty, and the way that the wilderness has become a hobby, or even a vocation. He disdains ski areas ('Theyre golf courses'), the idea of professional climbing ('I just dont like the whole paid-climber thing'), and the proliferation of extreme sports as programming and marketing ('Red Bulls in the snuff-film business').

Paumgarten went on, When I ventured to mention how the catalogue sometimes irked me, he was quiet for a while, and then said, When you see the guides on the Bighorn, theyre all out of central casting. Beard, bill cap, Buff around the neck, dog in the bow. Oh, my God, its so predictable. Thats what magazines likeOutsideare promoting. Everyone doing this outdoor life style thing. Its the death of the outdoors.

I dont want to give too much away about the Paumgarten piece on Anker and Tate except to say his goal wasnt to perpetuate a cult a hero worship. He lays threadbare the human trajectory of soaring high and falling back again to earth.For some, it will be a hard and cursing read, viewed as an attack on fun hog culture. For others, an insightful glimpse into the compulsions of outdoor rock stars who seem larger than life.

Paumgarten seems to explore the issue with equal measures awe and bewilderment. With Anker and friends, he has protagonists who are wrestling with the big questions, with the same ones we doof how do we confront our own mortality, whats the value of love and leaving behind more than weve taken or squandered?

Tate has his own interpretations. Is he really Bozemans version of Gandalf?

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The Gravity Of Grief And Pressure In Extreme Outdoor Sports - Mountain Journal