The Fun Scale

A friend of mine that I used to climb with in Canada first introduced me to the Fun Scale, having read about it in the Canadian Alpine Journal. I've done a bit of googling and it seems that its an idea thats been mooted around mountaineering circles for sometime. What it's basic function is, is to divide 'fun' up into three discrete categories each of which can be applied to experiences in the mountains, and to some extent real life. I'll give a bit of a basic description below of what I perceive each type to be and include:

Type I
Things you actually enjoy when they are happening, and perhaps the purest form of fun.
Roadside iceclimbing. Good food. Sunny south facing rockclimbing. Beer. Lift accessed Chamonix-stlye alpinism (when everything goes to plan). Good sex. Powder skiing. Gear shopping. Scrambling.

Type I fun rarely leaves you with any real significant memories though, you may think back that you enjoyed the day, but you didn't really have to graft for anything. Ultimately I find it to not be quite as satisfying as it could be.

Type II
Fun in retrospect, can be anything from unpleasant to downright hateful in doing, but given a un-specified amount of time you look back on it as a good time.
All other alpine climbing. Scottish winter. Going rockclimbing in the UK in the bad weather 'to make the most of the day'. Pretty much any day I spend in the mountains with Carl Stubbs. Dropping one tool on a route. Going hillwalking.

Martin Freeman getting the fear on, and hence having some good old Type II on Viking Buttress IV 4.

Type II days are perhaps the best, usually being a lot for satisfying in the long run that type I. There good character building and you quite often come out of them having learnt things.


Carl Stubbs after a retreat from the Col de Fourche bivi hut in bad weather.

The video above shows Stubbsy after we'd descended the 200m couloir that leads up to the Col de Fourche above the Cirque Maudit in Mont Blanc Massif. We'd intended to do the Kuffner Ridge but got screwed over a little by Chamonix Meteo with warm temperatures and lots of new snow. If we'd of gone for the route we'd of taken a long time on it, and probably been committing to going over the Blanc in a storm as neither of us wanted to descend the Tacul normal route, so we bailed abseiling down the couloir which was wet and loose in 25/30m sections as we only had one rope. The last one left us a good 5m short of getting over the bergschrund - definite type II territory for both of us there. After a few tedious hours crossing the Valle Blanche to get back to the Midi in a white-out we were down in town, eating lunch in the Petit Kitchen thinking that actually it was all pretty good fun, and we'd probably go for another crack in a day or two.

Type III
Not really fun at all, things that were certainly a bad idea, and you'll probably never do again.
Near death experiences. Loose rock. Dropping both tools on a route. 9am Lectures. Getting avalanched.
This is probably my least favorite of the three types, and thankfully I've only experienced it once or twice. Type II events often have the potential to become Type III if things don't go your way.

Martin Freeman high on Via Alvera, V+, Averau.

Two summers ago Martin and I climbed a big rock route on the south face on Mt. Averau in the Italian Dolomites. The day didn't start well as two rocks came flying down while we were gearing up at the bottom. It progressively got worse, with each pitch and belay becoming less and less well protected and even looser. The in-situ belays that the guidebook referred to were often missing or very poor state. The climbing was never super hard, just super scary. We were both pretty relieved to get to the top, and made the decision that we'd probably never do this route again. Ever. I can look back on this now, and while there were limited sections that were perhaps Type II (the scary traverse) the Type III elements far outweighed these.

Thoughts?