Climbers
Because of the rain in the valley for the past couple of days the transient climbing population that are in Chamonix in the summer haven’t been going up the mountain, so I’ve been taking the opportunity to go and study the species in the internet cafes etc as research for the climbing website the Chamonix Collective are working on at the moment (www.chamonix-valley.com).
They’re a weird bunch, climbers. I’d never come across them before I came here and they’re the one group of people I haven’t been able to relate to yet. They travel in pairs. Climbing couples are common, the male generally the leader. Pairs of males are the more serious climbers. Partnerships formed by hours of near death experiences up mountains form bonds that are visibly solid and calm.
Climbers have a particular look. Practical clothing, glasses, wiry physiques and characteristic injuries on their hands and sometimes feet. The guys generally look like those nebishes who work in offices. The quiet kind who the more unkind office workers joke are serial-killers.
So I’ve been watching them on the computers. Watching the sites they visit, listening to their chat. Over focussed nerdy little geeks they might be, but they really know what they want. They want information, and lots of it. And you’d got to respect that.
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