you think you're tough?

I saw a slideshow by Ed Webster on Friday night. You've likely never heard of Ed Webster, and you likely don't much care about his slide show. That's fine, it's over anyway.
Ed was a prolific rock climber in the late 1970's through the 1980's, and had some incredible slides and fascinating stories to accompany the images. His exploits, at least for the purposes of this particular show, centered upon the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and Eastern Utah's Canyonlands, Towers, and the Wingate sandstone of Indian Creek. Undoubtedly, he could have talked for months about the adventures of his life, and his off the cuff comment "this was just before I got back from Everest, when I still had all my fingers and toes" hints at other war stories.
While he spent over an hour talking about new routes through the fragile and terrifying pegmatite bands of "The Black," the first ascent of Supercrack, and huge falls onto jumars that left the ascender's teeth unthinkably embedded in the rope, the transcendent moment of his show was the very end. I can't say it better than he did, as he displayed a slide of his juvenile self basking in the glow of the desert sun atop a newly climbed tower, arms extended in pride and elation.

"And that's what it's all about. Looking out over the world below you with the sun on your face, and you can just yell 'Yee Haw! I'm alive!'"

Thanks, Ed, for putting it in perspective. He talked about losing friends and lovers (and nearly himself) to gravity, rubbing elbows with legends, and a life of travel, but each and every day was spent in the pursuit of a simple gratification that reinforced his feeling of being truly alive. And he did it all in EB's and painter's pants.