Conan Thai shares a short film and some words on the importance of community.
By Conan Thai
Nov., 16, 2024
It’s a picture-perfect autumn Saturday in the Northeast, with the occasional breeze sending rich red leaves down to carpet the dirt. The temps are dreamy — t-shirt and a light puffy weather. Hardly what makes you think of ice.
Nonetheless, I’m at Birdsboro Quarry in Pennsylvania, lacing up my comp boots for a day of drytooling.
The folks here have organized their second annual Birdsboro Drytool Enclave, mainly to welcome the uninitiated into the nichest of niche forms of climbing. These community days are an opportunity to practice, learn from more experienced climbers, and meet future partners.
Just like me, a year ago, it was my introduction to drilled-and-bolted drytooling. I seem to be drawn to esoteric sports — it’s like the bikepacking of the climbing world — and I haven’t put my tools down since.
So today finds me giving back: coaching, rigging topropes, and documenting the day through photos and videos. Let’s ride.
I’m Here for the Moments
It wouldn’t be a fall day without coffee and donuts, and after intros we scatter throughout the crag, which sports more than 30 bolted drytooling routes. I help set up three top ropes, and then spend most of my time hanging off a fixed line, filming and cheering as climbers cautiously scratch, hook, and torque their way vertically. With trembling breaths and darting eyes, they search for natural features or drilled pockets marked by green paint.
“I’m a little bit psyched out today. I don’t know why,” my friend Claudia says, taking a break mid-route.
She’s dangling in space about 30 feet off the deck, her tools hanging on her shoulders as she shakes out. Claudia searches the seemingly blank face in front of her until she sees a hidden feature. She reaches up, hooks it securely with her pick, and readjusts her feet.
“Okay, I’m back in the headspace!”
I put my eye back behind the lens, and find myself in my own focused headspace.
The Lens Doesn't Lie
Filmmaking is still new to me, but I’m drawn to it because of the honesty present when a person is engaged in sport — the camera ceases to exist in their mind’s eye as they focus on figuring out the sequence. There’s a certain intimacy that develops with a climb too, when I revisit the route afterwards to capture its aesthetic qualities.
When a climber locks in on their technique, it almost feels like poetry on the wall.
When climbing, I feel my mind reduced to the objective at hand, the sense of spatial awareness heightened. Every turn of the hip and every rotation of the wrist is magnified, all while my front-points are perched precipitously on the few millimeters of nearly impossible ledges.
I’m perhaps drawn to the dichotomy of finding graceful, delicate movements while wielding sharp points on every limb. It’s this seeming contradiction that I try to capture through my camera.
Making Connections
We take a lunch break for homemade chili and I use the downtime to connect with new folks and exchange contact info with the people I photographed. There are more than 30, many from out-of-state, and I’m certain that I’ll bump into them soon enough. Drytooling is a small world after all, and there are only a few places that funnel us all together — which is good because the challenge of finding someone to climb with, safely, on an ongoing basis often seems more difficult than sending a difficult route.
Community days like these are vital; they bring people together as they share a rope, their aspirations, and I like to think, something true, too.
Acknowledgements
As the oft-recited truism goes: “A rising tide lifts all ships.” Thank you to Ted Coffelt and Lynda Tonge Pedersen for organizing this day, thanks to Furnace Industries and Ice Ice Beta for sponsoring the event, and thank you to Bob Perna for spending the past few years developing the drytooling routes. Check the Birdsboro Facebook group for dates on future community days and consider donating to their bolt fund!
About the Author
Conan Thai is a NYC photographer who loves weird sports and believes the city is a surprisingly great basecamp for outdoor adventures. He’s fueled by chili mangos, Fritos, and Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies.
Find him on the web at conanthai.com or on Instagram: @everydaycult_. Want to help grow the local drytooling community or help open up a dedicated space in the City? @nycdrytooling
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