With the Athletes... Ben Wessler '03

Author: Andrew Nicholas Zimmermann I

In most sports, accomplishments are measured by points or rebounds, goals or assists, hits or strikeouts, touchdowns or interceptions. It's all about the stats. They are a meaningful, if not pompous way of comparing athlete to athlete. Yet for the climbing faithful like Ben Wessler '03, success lies in exploration, the accumulation of experience and new people met. Chalk one up for a refreshing viewpoint. And chalk up your hands from palm to fingertip because the pursuits and experiences of senior climber Wessler are what we are after.
If you are afraid of heights, this journey might not be for you, so be forewarned. "Vertigo can be a difficult block to overcome," notes Wessler. "But what climbers come to realize is that heights are scary but the systems that are used are very, very safe. If they weren't safe, I wouldn't still be climbing." If you can learn to trust your support systems, you are only part of the way there, however. A good climber is strong, especially in the fingers, has good endurance and a good strength-to-weight ratio says Wessler. The strength is different though. A climber might not be able to bench press 400 pounds, but ask yourself, football players, while you wipe that snide grin off your face whether you can pull yourself up on your fingertips? This is what a climber is routinely asked to do over and over again during the course of a climb.
Climbing, of course, is a blanket term that can be used to describe mountaineering, hiking, rock climbing, bouldering and ice climbing. Wessler does all of these although his focus is primarily rock climbing. He enjoys the mental and physical challenge of the longer ascents made up of vertical "cracks" in the face of a rock wall. On a more passive level, he also instructs. If you are looking to acquire some of the above skills a climber possesses, you can learn the basics from Wessler and other experienced climbers in a climbing physical education class. As manager of the rock climbing wall, he oversees a great deal of the daily activity down at Middlebury's state of the art facility in Nelson Area.
"The climbing wall is tremendous and as a good as an indoor facility gets," he says. The wall was put in over a year ago and is a vast improvement over the wooden slabs that passed for a climbing wall in the old Fletcher Field House. "It's the best decision they have ever made," says Wessler jokingly. But all jokes aside, since its opening the new climbing wall has spurred over 700 separate waivers to be signed which means that roughly a third of the student body has tried out the wall.
Unlike the countless students who will discover climbing here at Middlebury, Wessler grew up in Andover, Mass., and with the help of his older brother was turned onto the sport at the beginning of high school. "I was introduced to hiking at a young age and often went with my family," he says. The White Mountains in New Hampshire soon became a favorite destination along with subsequent opportunities in the Adirondacks and the peaks around the Champlain Valley. Rock climbing quickly became a favorite pursuit of Ben's and he has not slowed down since her started. "It has since become a way that I can travel and experience absolutely amazing areas away from large numbers of people."
Those travel destinations include essentially a Who's Who of national park visits, with trips to Joshua Tree in California along with the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. Wessler has spent significant time away from the crowds in locales such as Squamish, British Columbia and Western Texas. One drawback to such seclusion, as Ben will tell you, is that there is no one around when something goes wrong.
Two summers ago on the Grand Teton, Wessler and a few friends found themselves high up on the mountain when Wessler fell and broke his ankle. The team organized and rappelled him several times down the mountain until he could be airlifted by helicopter to a nearby hospital. "The overall experience was probably the most challenging and intense of my climbing career," recalls Wessler.
Such events have not turned Wessler off to a sport that seems very dangerous. "There are people out there who choose to weigh risks differently than I do when climbing," he notes, which is to say that climbers perched on a rock outcropping 200 feet off the ground without safety supports have likely already weighed their risks and chosen a means to go forward with those risks. For non-climbers this is difficult to understand. "It is often scary to watch, I'll put it that way," Wessler says. "But there are people who do this stuff very safely and it doesn't look it. But these people calculate risks just as I do; it's just that they have a different equation."
The sport of rock climbing more than ever finds itself embroiled in a competitive game of one-upsmanship.
Many top climbers today are looking for faster and more stylish ways up the mountain in order to compete with their contemporaries. This is one way the sport has evolved over the years.
Yet closer to home on the climbing walls of schools like Middlebury, competitions are not taking place in such a cut-throat fashion. Every February Middlebury hosts climbers from around the Northeast for what is called "In a Blender." The competition aspect of this event is "not emphasized," Wessler says.
What is emphasized is meeting people, hanging out amongst friends and climbing a bunch." Competition, ironically, is not the main goal of the event.
As any senior would attest, the most common question these days is, "What are you doing after school ends?" Wessler the climber has a good short term answer to that question. California is on his mind and will be his destination after graduation ceremonies in late May.
However, Ben, a biochemistry major, sees medical school as a slightly longer term solution. With the uncertainties of any senior faced with the demons of the real world, one constant will remain for our humble subject. "I am going to climb as long as I'm able. It is a life sport for me."