Climbing Partners & Drinking Buddies - Xander Whipple

Jai and I had talked many times about going climbing together. He was the one person that didn't mind hearing my climbing stories over and over again. He'd listen intently each time as if he was hearing it for the first time. Naturally, then came the day when he wanted to make a climbing story of his own. He asked me to go with him to REI to help him get some climbing shoes. I was absolutely ecstatic that Jai not only wanted to come, but was committed to getting his own pair of shoes. It's one thing to tag along, but it's another to get your first pair of shoes. When we went out for our first climbs together. I would usually just go for it, go out for the day with no breakfast or food "Did I have enough water? Maybe? I'm sure it'll be fine." But when I went with Jai, he slowed me down. He made a day out climbing fun. He made it a memorable event. Our first day out we went up to 3 sisters in evergreen. I was testing his grit. It was an aptitude test as to how well he'd handle the heights and see how his climbing style would develop. Jai surprised the crap out of me. He was right behind me every time I looked. When we got to the very top, I cautiously stepped over the edge to the anchor, but Jai was right behind me, completely unafraid. We set up the rope to do a rappel, and Jai had his very own eccentric rappelling style. I was certainly surprised. He was up first to climb on the rope we had set up. This was a route that had taken me a few tries to get up my very first time climbing. Jai managed to do it in about 5 minutes... He got to the top and came down and mentioned to me "That's it? I thought climbing was like a difficult trial on a big mountain." He had much bigger ambitions and more adventure in his heart to do bigger and better things. We spoke about a practice climb. Up a face by Saint Mary's glacier that had never been climbed before. He was completely on board. So we set out to get up this unnamed and unclimbed route to be the first. The hike up was a shared experience of each of us complaining about how out of shape we were hauling all of this gear up to 11,000 feet to the climb. When we started, Jai had a Starbucks canned coffee that he dropped when we got out of the car that was spraying everywhere out of the little hole, and he put his finger on it said "it'll be fine, I'll just hold it like this and drink it as we hike" and he hiked the whole 2 miles with a leaking Starbucks can. Luckily he had finished drinking it just as we arrived at the base. I gave him a backpack of things we might need as we climbed up, and he made sure to put the trail mix in because "it was named trail mix for a reason." After a grueling 4 hours of climbing we finally reached the top. We sat admiring the view and Jai turned to me and said nonchalantly "I have a surprise" and pulled out 2 sour beers from the backpack I had given him. I have no idea how he managed to sneak those by me, but he had expertly concealed them just to surprise me. He carried the extra weight and made the summit that much better.