Enchaîner à Vieux

I need to explain a few things before I can get to the joke. If you’re a climber, you can skip the intro:

INTRO: The point of some modern, single pitch climbing is to get to the top of a route, putting the rope into protection points along the way but you only use the rock to reach the top. If you’re super classy, you do this without knowing anything about the route or the holds. This is free climbing on-sight.

The terms get mixed a bit between English and French. In English, we say “on-sight”, which is to climb a route on the first attempt, with no prior beta (which is information about the route). In French we use “à vue” for “on sight”.

In French we use the term “enchaîner” which to climb a route according to the rules of free climbing without relying on belay equipment. This is part of the ethics. In English we say this is “free climbing” but this is a “newer” aspect. Back in the early days, the only thing important was getting to the top. You could take a break and hang yourself off the protection points, use a ladder, anything and everything goes, or went because this is no longer considered acceptable.

(My friend said, “When I started climbing, we didn’t have climbing harnesses and we pulled on all the quick draws” to which I responded, “the only thing that’s changed now is that you have a harness.” Ha ha.)

To climbers, this is important. Did you “on sight” the climb, and free climb it, or “enchaîner à vue”? This means that you did the whole climb, from bottom to top, and sussed out all the moves as you were climbing. It’s the highest level of classy climbing.

MAIN PART: I want to introduce a new term, but it only works in French: enchaîner à vieux.

I have another friend who takes beta blockers to keep his heart rate down. He’s had a stroke and a heart attack. He climbs really, really well, hard climbs, but at some point his heart rate can’t follow what he needs his muscles to do, so he has to stop. He waits a bit, the heart rate comes down, and he goes on.

Technically, he can’t say he did the “enchaîner à vue” thing because he stopped in the middle. However, he only did this because he’s taking heart medication, so I would now say… “enchaînter à vieux” or an “old folks on sight”.

Most of the climbers I know that are my age and older have bits and bobs that hurt from time to time. Sometimes a knee clicks out of place, or a back twists and, if we’re lucky, we just need to shake it out or whatever. This happened to my partner in the middle of a climb today, so he didn’t “enchaîner à vue” because he needed to take a break to shake his meniscus back into place. He did, I think, “enchaîner à vieux”. Not his fault that his knee is wonky.

Let’s empower older climbers then with a new term! We can do everything younger climbers can do, we just might need to stop in the middle so as not to die of a heart attack.

Foro is so adorable as to cause heart attacks all on his own, don’t you think?