Yosemite
In College there was one class I wanted to, but never got to take. Either the professor was on leave, or my schedule was too packed with required courses, or registration was full. It was called The Philosophy of Aesthetics.
I still wish I’d been able to take such a course. Because some things are simply beautiful — and I’d like to know why. Why do I in particular find them pleasing to my eye, and why are some other things nearly universally pleasing?
And what do we mean by beautiful in the first place?
I’ve been thinking about that question, and that course I never got to take, every time I type the word “beautiful” and use it to describe a particular climb. “It’s a beautiful line,” I write — but why?
Certain climbs stand in kind of middle ground between the universal and the particular. There are some routes, or crags, or areas, which are simply, undeniably gorgeous to everyone: Yosemite.
Others are more a matter of preference. Some go for the long, clean sandstone cracks in Moab. Others are attracted to the big walls of granite, whether in Yosemite or perhaps like Cathedral Ledge in New Hampshire, home to my first serious trad leads. Yet others are attracted to overhanging jug hauls as in Red River Gorge. For others, it’s technical face climbs.
For my part, I’m curious why I suddenly looked up at Flesh for Lulu the other day and literally thought to myself, “I have to climb that.”
Is it something about what kind of movement the rock suggests? Did Flesh harken to some other climb in my physical muscle memory that I loved, but can’t really register consciously? Are the aesthetics of a climb even connected to the movement of it? It seems to me that they must be, in some way. We connect the visual cue to the joy of movement we remember, or we hope to get from the climb. I can say that it is exceedingly rare that a climb looks pretty from the ground, and yet returns clunky, awkward movement once you’re on it.
Flesh is a face climb, but it’s varied. It’s low-angle in the beginning with a steep upper section, meandering edges and cracks throughout. The angle of the climb trends right, but in a kind of slight arc. I like climbs which require myriad different kinds of movements — Buried Treasure comes to mind, an 11b I first red pointed last Fall. I think I must be attracted to Flesh for the same reason.
As I’ve already quoted Mountain Project’s description of it: “Such a perfect piece of rock.”
I’m sure non-climbers may scoff at someone like me gazing up at a piece of rock and basically admiring it as I would a sunset, or the light in the Aya Sofia (the most beautiful building on Earth), or even the way I might gaze at a beautiful woman. Or maybe not.
And maybe there are some philosophy professors out there who can point me in the direction of some compelling literature on what the philosophy of aesthetics is all about, really. I missed that class in College.
Well done