October 17, 2014
We at IMG are fortunate to have one of our awesome guides, Cedric Gamble, hanging out with us in the office this week while Tye’s out guiding our 3 x 3 trek in Nepal. We asked him for some nice blog material, and he delivered!
School is a hazy memory of teachers, peers, and classes all weaving in and out of daydreams. The colors, the smells, the feelings all start to bleed together into a pool I don’t care to dip into. But the daydreams! Pictures and maps were my hall pass to faraway lands where my inexperience and skill were of no limit to my climbing. I envisioned first ascents and wilderness on a scale I couldn’t actually comprehend. The period bell would launch me into the hallway but as I sat down in my next class I had my ice tools and crampons. Swinging from the projector screen I could reach up and hook across the drop ceiling on the metal spacers. Traversing the drywall to the door I was thankful for leashless tech tools. Then I would find myself back at my desk with the school day flowing along, ice tools gone.
-
- Prusik Peak, The Enchantments, Washington (Cedric Gamble)
-
- Woverine Cirque, Wasatch Mountains, Utah (Cedric Gamble)
It’s the shape of things that catches my eye. For something directly in front of me I don’t just see the identifiable object, I see how it can be touched, what kind of friction it has, how an ice tool would go into it. I can’t help imagining what it would be like to literally climb the walls around me. On a larger scale I see the beauty and challenge of a line. In school my imagination used the architecture and pictures around me to escape. Now I explore and participate with The Geometry of Nature through climbing and skiing. Every mountain is so beautiful and so different. Their geometry, micro or macro, is both the inspiration and the goal.
– Cedric Gamble, IMG Guide