Dave Weighs in on Risk Aversion

For an unforgivable amount of time, I've been meanint to flag an excellent post over at BigBrit regarding rock climbing and risk. Dave writes:

The second event which I got word of yesterday involves a good friend of mine, John. He was climbing out near Yosemite, and, while I won’t go into the details, ended up taking a bad fall, and breaking both his ankles.

As a climber, this rattled me. More so, since I have also broken my ankle climbing, albeit under a much different circumstance. Last weekend, before John took his fall, I was climbing down at the New River Gorge in WV, I lamented to my partner, ‘drew, That “I don’t really enjoy rock climbing any more”

Quite a statement from a guy who, aside from having a basement full of gear, has spent the better part of 3 years recreating in the outdoors, mostly climbing, and spending 2-3 nights a week in the local gym doing the same.

Maybe it was a pre-cursor to Johns fall, but, I don’t think it’s that I dislike climbing now and I didn’t before, but rather that my tolerance for risk has waned.

The first event, omitted here, is the London bombings. Dave knits together beautifully the two things, as beautifully as all of his friends hope John's two broken taluses knit together, and it resonates with me.

I too have been having trouble resuming climbing after effectively quitting last fall. I attribute it to a lot of things, most of which are more about time constraints than reservations about risk. Unlike Dave and John, my only notable injuries from climbing involve a whiplashed neck that's never been entirely right since a nasty fall a year and a half ago, and a dodgy ring finger that has made clear its displeasure at being called upon to hang the better part of my weight fromk its stringy pinch of sinews and tendon. But I do contemplate risk sometimes, more recently in connection with my sometimes dare devilish cycling (a sport dangerous enough to the cautious).

In any event, Dave's post is well worth a read.