Monday, January 21, 2008

How do you count time?

Climbers do not count time in days or weeks, indeed. It is useless notion for them. Instead, you could sometimes hear such expressions as: "Oh, it was long time ago I went climbing, I had to cut my nails four times!". So the currency of time in climbing is the nails. You can't climb with long nails, so if you climb often, they never happen to grow long as you cut them all the time. But if you are taking a break, you will have to deal with the nail cutting as it is not comfortable to wait until you would be climbing again!
So let me explain the meaning of such expressions:
"I had to cut the nails once" - at least a week has passed (unless you were drinking a lot, as then they grow faster), almost no impact for you climbing skills.
"I had to cut nails twice" - you will not be able to do some things you did well before.
...
"I had to cut nails five times" - you will get thoughts like "what I am doing here" while climbing.

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