Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Sociology and Climbing

I was sitting in my sociology class on Monday and my teacher posed a situation to the class. The class was split into groups of three and each group was a member of a group of ten peopl who were shipwrecked on a tropical island that had, fruits, vegetables, hardwood trees, limited freshwater, and birds and fish. The group of ten had a 25 foot rope, two life rafts, 1 large tarp, a can opener, 20 cans of fruits and vegies, a pair of binoculars, two fishing knives and four gallon jugs of fresh water. Each group had to draw up a plan of how they could survive indefinitely on the island, and have rules and regulations and so on a so forth. well it kind of got me thinking about climbing and how a climbing team is managed. Somehow with the resources that we have we're supposed to get up and back down a mountain, safely and we have to do it cooperatively at the same time. How in the world do we do it?

It just goes to show you how climbing follows me everywhere. I was thinking of climbing while i was dishing out ideas to my group. Use one binocular lense to capture sunlight to start a fire; put regulations on how much water each person gets each day; use the rope to hang the tarp up in a rain catching way. Somehow I was able to think of climbing high on the slopes of a snowy mountain while we were supposed to be thinking of surviving on a tropical island. How would we manage the people on the island? How do you manage the people on a climbing team? Somehow I managed to put my experience of being on a climbing team into my school work and my thinking.

Anyway, if i get trapped somewhere I'd rather it be on the slopes of a mountain to climb rather than some sunny tree covered island with no rocks to scramble on or peaks to climb.

Climb High