Athlete to Athlete Interview

Mark Synnott interviews Abby Watkins

September 2002

The North Face athlete Mark Synnott uses his unique perspective to get to know the rest of our athlete team - who they are, what inspires them, and what lies ahead.

Mark:

I'm glad I got a hold of you. Tell me about your upcoming mission on Edith Cavell.

Abby:

Well, I'm training to be a guide up here in Canada. On this trip I'll be the assistant guide. In the US you don't have to have any type of certification to become a guide, but up here it's a full-blown profession and the certification process is extremely stringent. It's called the UIAGM -- it's the same system they have over in Europe. It takes five years and costs $20,000 to get the certification, so it's not something to be taken lightly. I'm really enjoying what it's bringing to my climbing. I'm learning so much because people who have been guiding for longer than I've been alive are training me. These guys are so slick and their mountain sense is so fine-tuned. In the long run I'll be a better mountaineer because of it.

Mark:

How close are you to being finished?

Abby:

I started two years ago so I still have a ways to go. There's a really strong component in ski mountaineering, and since I'm kind of a lousy skier, that's probably the part that's going to involve the most work. I love powder skiing now, so it's certainly going to be a lot of fun to work on getting better. And the skiing around our home is some of the best in the world.

Mark:

So, I assume they test you at some point. Tell me a little bit about it.

Abby:

The alpine certification is by far the hardest thing to pass. The exam is two weeks long and during that time you're pretty much going from morning to night with no rest days. You're climbing lots of big alpine routes, gaining 5,000 feet of elevation every day, crossing glaciers, pulling people out of crevasses, short roping and switching constantly from snow to rock to ice.

Mark:

So, what happens once you are finished? Do you go into business for yourself or do you have to find some company to hire you?

Abby:

Actually, Rich and I already have a company. Rich is already fully certified, so as I go through the exam process I can work under him. Basically, I can guide anything that he feels I'm capable of doing. He's like the overseer. There are tons of great guiding opportunities up here in Canada. And because of the certification, the money is a lot better than what people make down in the states. A guide can easily make $350 to $400 a day up here.

Mark:

Wow that's awesome, even if it is the Canadian dollar. I can tell you from first hand experience that guides don't make nearly that much around here. So, I take it then that you work as a paid apprentice guide to help pay for the certification?

Abby:

That's right. Rich and I have been really busy this summer. In fact, right now we're working on setting the course for the Eco-Challenge Canadian Championships. It's all going on around Golden. Actually, just today Rich was out in the backcountry working on a leg of the course by himself and he got in between a grizzly bear and its cub. I just talked to him and he was like, "Oh my God, Abby. I was nearly eaten." Apparently the mother bear was roaring. Rich ran away, and luckily she didn't chase him. Rich has lived here his whole life and has never had an encounter before.

Mark:

So, tell me about Golden? What is it like around where you live?

Abby:

For years I was looking for the perfect mountain town where I could settle down. I lived in both Boulder and Mammoth, and while I really liked both places, I just didn't know if I wanted to settle in there. Then I met Rich, and I guess you could say that the town came with him. Golden is right on the western side of the Canadian Rockies and sits in the middle of the Columbia Trench, where the Columbia River has its source. To the west we're bordered by the Purcells and Selkirks -- we're only an hour away from the Bugaboos. There are a lot of other granite intrusions around here, like the Adamants and the Gothics. The powder skiing here in the winter is unbelievable.

Mark:

Are you worried that guiding all the time will diminish your passion for climbing on your own? I know some guides who are just too tired or burned out to go out climbing on their days off.

Abby:

Not at all, probably just the opposite in fact. Guiding just means that I'm out there in the mountains a lot, and the truth is that I just really love being out there, whether it's for work or play. And when you spend that much time in the mountains, you start to get a really good feel for conditions, what we call mountain sense. So this can only make me a better, safer climber. You also get really fit doing these big alpine climbs and that seems to help a lot with rock climbing.

Mark:

Do you guys have any big adventures coming up in the near future?

Abby:

Not this summer. Mainly because I'm pretty well tied up with the guide's exam. Last year, though, Rich and I both competed in the Ice Climbing World Cup.

Mark:

Tell me about it.

Abby:

It was pretty wild, great fun. Having the opportunity to travel in Russia was an incredible experience. We competed in Europe for four weeks and it was pretty full on, with lots of comps and travelling all over the place. The best part about it was definitely all the amazing people that we met - especially some really great female climbers. The comps themselves were interesting, and difficult because you always had to watch out for the "red line." The red line is this arbitrary boundary that they paint onto the climbs. If you even brush the line with your tool, knee, whatever, you're disqualified. In the first comp I put my axe outside the line without even thinking about it. Obviously, this part of it is really contrived, but they do it because it really does make it a lot harder. I ended up fifth overall, but in the World Championships I came in third, and I got a second place finish at the finals in Quebec. I felt like I was finally getting it together by the end of the season.

Mark:

Do you think you'll do it again this winter?

Abby:

I'm thinking that I will. It seems like if you're going to try it, you should try twice. And if you're going to do it twice, it might as well be back to back seasons. Next time I'll know better how to train, and I'll be more aware of the red line and other such rules. It was hard going into it this year because I was so used to climbing ice up in Canada, where every stick has to be perfect and you never even consider falling. To be competitive on the World Cup you have to be fast, and to be fast you need to just pull down even when your placements are crap. It's ok in that environment because the pro is good and the falls are usually safe. That's something that took some getting used to for me.

Mark:

How much do you enjoy this type of climbing? It's all leashless isn't it?

Abby:

Ultimately, I think the new style of mixed climbing has brought some great things to my overall climbing ability. By climbing leashless on all this wild overhanging stuff, it has made grade VI pillars feel easy. With leashes, I just don't get pumped the way I used to. So that has helped me tremendously to feel comfortable on even the steepest waterfalls here in the Rockies. I use leashes a lot less now. Leashless climbing just offers so much freedom and opens up a lot of opportunities.

Mark:

I know you are going to hate this question, but what is your dream climb?

Abby:

I'd love to do some big climbing in some of the bigger ranges of the world, probably alpine or big walls in alpine situations. I'm also really interested in big ice lines. In the last couple years, I've stayed close to home because I moved to Canada and had to emigrate. There was a lot to do. I still have a ways to go in terms of getting established up here, but I hope that in the near future there'll be a chance to relax and start to travel again.

Mark:

What's its like having your husband for a climbing partner?

Abby:

We climb well together. We both trust each other, and we know each other's limits. We know we can fall back on each other at any time. Either of us can hand over the lead if we need to. You have to be careful with relationships that are also climbing partnerships. We work hard to make sure that we treat each other really well. When you're married, you've basically agreed that you're going to hold this other person in the highest esteem, above and beyond anybody else in the world. We just make sure that we always treat each other that way. If we ever do have an argument, and one person kind of goes off on the other, it's easy for us to just shrug it off. That's not always the case when you're climbing with someone you don't know very well.

Mark:

What about the risk? I know I sometimes feel weird when I climb with my wife because of the hazards, like rockfall.

Abby:

I think it's different with us because we came together as already accomplished climbers. Rich does not worry about me in that way. He has total confidence in my ability. It's a pretty unique thing really. If you're an accomplished female climber, it can be pretty hard to find the right person who is comfortable enough with his or her own abilities to appreciate yours.

Mark:

How about settling down and having a family? Is this part of the plan?

Abby:

Not in the near future. That would be too much of a life changing commitment for us. We're kind of into just taking the opportunity to enjoy our lives together at the moment.

Mark:

Aren't you from Australia originally? Tell me how you ended up over here.

Abby:

I grew up on the beach west of Melbourne, in Victoria. I was a gymnast and got a scholarship to UC Berkeley. So I moved over there to go to school in 1988.

Mark:

Were you already a climber?

Abby:

No, I basically learned to climb in Yosemite, with some friends from school who were into it. Actually, when they first asked me to do it, I wasn't that psyched. I thought the idea of climbing up to the top of a cliff just for the sake of it sounded dumb and boring. But I tried it and I found that it's actually really fun. Most of my early climbing was buildering on the campus at Berkeley.

Mark:

Did you quickly work your way up through the ranks?

Abby:

I guess I did. One thing that really helped was that I wasn't really afraid of the sharp end. I said to my friends, "You mean I get a rope and I don't have to go upside down?" Compared to gymnastics it seemed pretty safe. I wasn't afraid of heights. My very first road trip was to Joshua Tree. I was leading 5.10s at the time, and it wasn't until afterwards that I realized how hard that really is.

Mark:

Any accidents, close calls?

Abby:

Yes, I got hit in the face by a rock in Pakistan. We were in a couloir just as it was going into the sun. It bounced off the ice, missed my helmet and hit my right in the face. There was blood everywhere and I was in shock. I guess I would have been better prepared if I had grown up brawling in bars. I've never had anything hit me that hard before. We were at 18,000 feet in a very remote place and we had to keep climbing up to reach this ledge. There was no way we could stay in the couloir and go down. It was too dangerous. We spent three nights up there and I just lay there and recuperated. Luckily my injuries ended up not being too serious.

Mark:

Any final words of wisdom for the aspiring young climber?

Abby:

I think that although climbing is a great activity, it's not something to rest your ego on. I don't do it for that. Being a good person and being good to the environment is far more important than climbing. I've found that climbing is a great tool for getting to the most amazing places on the planet. That's true for climbing abroad as much as it is for all the mountains around here, or the ones in your backyard. For example, yesterday to get back to this peak we had to canoe 14k across a lake, then hike for several hours up a beautiful forested valley. We made a camp and then the next day worked our way up through a massive glacier and onto the peak, which gave us some incredible views of the range, from Forbes to Mt. Robson to Athabasca to Alberta. It was a perfect day, the kind that reminds me why I love climbing and exploring so much.