What I Learned About Climbing from a Puzzle

This week I spent four days guiding a backcountry hut trip outside Aspen, and while there, I started a 500 piece puzzle that was among the collection of games visitors have donated over the years. The picture was a beautiful shot of Mt Everest, and it seemed like a good way to pass the downtime you get on these excursions. Over the course of the trip I made good progress, but in the end I ran out of time and had to leave it unfinished. The process, however, really reminded me of projecting a hard climb in the following ways.

At first, it seemed overwhelming. This wasn’t any easy puzzle, as many of the pieces were simply different shades of blue or white. But I started working on the edges, then moving onto the mountains, which had discernible features, and then into the more difficult shady blue bottom. Each section seemed overwhelming before I got to it, but then once completed, I had a new idea of what was “hard.” Much like working on a route outside, initially it felt like the whole thing was too overwhelming, but by breaking it down, it began to come together.

In the end, my progress was slowed to the point where I had to identify the next piece not so much by color, but by the shape. This is a long, tedious process, especially when you still have over a hundred pieces left. I continued to make some headway, albeit slow, and I realized that, yes, I could finish this puzzle if I had enough time and the mental fortitude to push on, but I had neither. Now, I’ve never worked on a climbing project for months, but this seemed to relate to that kind of process, where you are only making little bits of progress at a time, but if you stick with it, you can achieve something well beyond what you originally thought possible.

All that from a 500 piece puzzle. Or maybe it was just sleeping in the thin air too many nights in a row…