((PKG)) PAMELA SHANTI PACK -- OFF-WIDTH CLIMBER
((Banner: Scaling New Heights))
((Reporter/Camera: Arturo Martinez))
((Drone & high angle shots: Sylvan Christensen))
((GoPro footage: Clark Glenn))
((Map: Not far from Moab in Utah))
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
Really, I think I was born to be an off-width climber. That was what my body was designed for and clearly it was what my personality was designed for, because it requires an ability to believe in yourself beyond your physical capacity.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack. Off-width climber))
My name is Pamela Shanti Pack, and I'm a professional rock climber.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
Utah is my favorite place to climb because we have these massive sandstone cliffs and often I'm the very first person to climb those particular cracks. So, it's like being some sort of an explorer.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
I climb in a traditional style, which means that I have specific gear that's designed for placing in a crack and as I climb, that gear catches me if I fall. Choosing when to place the gear, whether you're going to place the gear, what are the chances you're going to fall, it just adds the component of reading the space as I climb and that makes it a little more exciting for me.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
Being a professional rock climber as a woman is relatively new. When I started in this particular style, it was 2010. I was the first woman to devote myself to off-width climbing and there was a lot of resistance to that and I was criticized for everything. It didn't matter what. I was criticized for wearing my hair down. I was criticized for what I wore when I climbed. Ultimately, all that criticism really inspired me to continue climbing.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
Alright. Good to go.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
It is a dangerous sport, so, there's a lot that goes into it. I've climbed despite having broken ribs and various other injuries. In a way, maybe that's a form of meditation. I'm able to put the pain in the background and I will make myself climb and allow myself to feel that pain after I finished the climb.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
And then this is an unpleasant moment where I am getting some blood work done after falling and needing to have surgery on my kidney. I've had two really bad injuries. The one was a fall where I had kidney surgery and then the other was that one where I had the back injury.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
It's always historically been, maybe, the least popular style of climbing there's ever been because of the physical brutality of this style. But I very quickly realized that it was a technically brilliant style and an artful style, and that I could change it, that I could find new routes, and that I could establish new techniques, and my focus, as I said many times, is to bring grace to the grovel.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
I think my greatest passion or obsession, as a climber, aside from just climbing off-width, is looking for routes that are improbable. I'll drive down these canyons and I'll look for routes that no one else has seen before and it takes a certain eye, a lot of imagination, a lot of creativity. It's like being an artist, having the idea for a book, or the idea for a painting, and I'm just seeking out those ideas and then I'll create them. My emphasis is on finding lines that tell a really good story.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
One of the joys of establishing a route is then you get to name the route. One of them is named ‘the kill artist’ so that probably gives you a little bit of an idea of what that experience is like.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
I think as far as first two ascents now, I've lost track, but well over a 100 at this point.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
My father, Robert Pack, is a poet and he wrote this poem for me to express his apprehensions about my climbing but also to express his understanding for what I do.
((NATS))
((Pamela Pack, Off-width climber))
Down on firm planet earth,
my wife and I share apprehensions
that are easy to explain
as dread of helplessness,
and yet without the ecstasies
in disciplined suspension of her breath,
((Voice of Robert Pack, Poet and Pamela’s father))
her almost weightless floating there,
perhaps the vast, unfathomable
uncertainty of parenthood
possesses in its dark abysmal depths
a mad exhilaration of its own.
((NATS))
