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- Climbing on Mars
It’s snowing outside today—hard.
I sat down to summarize the violent history of psychiatry for all of you and that brought on a bout of PTSD so, I stopped. That post is coming, just as soon as I figure out how to write it without—you know, doing the whole PTSD thing. Anyway—
Around this time last year, I was in a story rut. There was one particular piece of writing I had been vivisecting for a month, with no success. That piece later became Redline which was published in the first issue of Heartlines Spec. At its core, it’s a story of two friends trying to climb a cliff on Mars, and trying very hard not to say goodbye.
Climbing has a special place in my heart. Due to my disability, climbing is at best very uncomfortable for me and at worst, quite painful. It’s a complicated and frustrating relationship. Whenever I bring up climbing to someone, they instantly mention Free Solo because at this point, who hasn’t seen Alex Honnold and his repressed amygdala scale El Capitan without rope or any regard for the mental well-being of the film crew? Although, climbing’s boom in popularity is probably in part a consequence of this film.
For the rest of us mere mortals, there are two kinds of climbing (yes, speed climbing is the third but we don’t walk about speed climbing): bouldering, and lead.
Bouldering is a type of climbing for people who want to brag about climbing, but do not want to face their fear of heights. Usually, boulders or problems are set with the exclusive purpose of breaking people’s spirits as they fling off the wall and land face-first on the mats below. See photo from the IFSC below.
As you can see, the bouldering wall is not too tall but is often set at an angle to make things extra difficult for climbers. A combination of tiny holds (crimps), extra large holds (volumes) and awful round ones (slopers) are used to create these body puzzles for climbers to solve.
Outdoor bouldering also exists and looks like this:
Nature sets those boulders. Instead of mats, people use crash pads to protect their brittle bones. The grading system used to tell which boulders are harder than others (and which people are better than others) is the V Scale which ranges from V0 to V16, each level signifying an exponential increase in difficulty. To give you an idea, I can climb a V3 without crying on a good day, and one day, if I train six days a week and eat my vegetables, I might be able to climb a V5.
Lead climbing is for those climbers who like going super high and then fall, and swing on their rope while screaming because no matter how long you’ve been climbing, you’re always a little afraid of heights. Also, swinging out on your rope after a fall is called a whipper and taking big whippers is how you establish your credibility in climbing. When lead climbing, the climber wears a harness that is connected to a rope. That is their lifeline. As they climb, they clip the rope into pre-set carabiners along the route. In indoor climbing, it looks like this:
Outdoor lead climbing takes people to greater heights and includes other types of climbing some as multi-pitch (where you stay on the wall overnight and pee in a bottle), crack-climbing (where you shove your entire body into a crack and bats eat your face), and ice-climbing (where you get to destroy your hands and freeze). Although, ice-climbing does actually have indoor competitions as well! Lead routes are measured by the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS) which begins at 5.0 and ends when Adam Ondra says it ends (he’s at like 5.15d now, someone please stop him). To give you an idea, I can struggle through a 5.11a as long as there’s a pizza at the top.
So, what kind of climbing were Seo-Jun and Ari doing on Mars, and what would they need to make first ascent (which is a big deal because it means they’re the first person to climb the route)? Well, first they’d be wearing different shoes from on-Earth climbing. Climbers on Earth wear pointed shoes to better jam their toes into cracks and to balance on tiny foot chips. However, Martian terrain would provide less friction and probably fewer and smaller foot chips, so softer shoes that could morph around any tiny imperfection on the wall would be preferable.
Just like on Earth, Seo-Jun and Ari would need to lead and drag a bunch of rope with them as they made their ascent. Even with the reduced gravity (which is roughly a third of Earth’s) that rope weight would add up! Finally, unlike on Earth, oxygen supplies would be important, so they would probably also have to haul some oxygen tanks with them as well. And I can’t say any more because then I would spoil the story for those who haven’t read it. But, fun fact, the story was supposed to be called 5.19a to signify the difficulty of the route they’re climbing!
I’m not the first to consider what climbing on Mars would look like. For as long as we’ve been getting photographs of the surface, people have been planning out routes and boulder problems for when we will get to the red planet. But with the reduced gravity, the difference in rock composition, and you know—lack of oxygen, I’m not sure anyone can predict what climbing would look like or if it would even be possible.
But one thing is for sure, if it exists, people will find a way to get to the top of it.
And now for some Writing News:
I have SEVERAL NEWS.
But I can’t put any of them down in writing. All I can say is that there will be physical THINGS with MY name on them in the coming future.
In the meantime, I am finishing edits on a few long-form projects and trying hard to abstain from starting any new ones (unsuccessfully).
If anyone is reading for awards, I have several short stories eligible and I would be honored if you’d read them, but below are two I am especially proud of. Both are on the Nebula Reading List:
**and congratulations to the entire Embroidered Worlds team!! The anthology has made the BSFA long list!!
If you want to learn more about climbing you can check out these sources/ movies. The Dawn Wall is the best bromance I have ever seen and it made me cry:
