Tales from a Week in Hell
As the infamous “welcome to hell” banner came into view above the cattle guard, with its fiery font and abysmal flames, I was overwhelmed with love, joy, and excitement for the days to come. The distinct sound Nigel’s tall and skinny mud tires flowing easily over the steel beams of the barricade, “brrrriiippp”, a visceral declaration of my soul, I was home.
Twenty-Four Hours of Horseshoe Hell (24HHH) needs no introduction, and if it does you should pause here and do some googling. In no time images of sin and debauchery, of costume tomfoolery, of suffering, will flood your mind. Effigies to burning man are common and familiar. Women and men, and everyone in between, testing their bodies and minds for 24 hours (or more) against the stone. A climbing competition? A festival? Something more?
You see, 24HHH was a climbing competition in its inception, and now for 19 years running a community of like-minded “Hellions” have descended upon Horseshoe Canyon Ranch (HCR) to spend almost a week in a communion of community, self-expression, boundary-pushing, play, and so much more. I’m not sure how it was in the earliest days. In my mind's eye I envision almost no vendors, no spectators, just a haggard lot of vagabonds from all over the country climbing fiendishly through the night.
For almost a decade now (the years blur together) myself and my team have joined forces to create a welcoming space of play and community during the event, outside of the climbing competitions themselves. It's an experiment in sociology, self expression, play and community. I didn’t know then what we were inevitably contributing to but this year it all made sense.
It started with the “Boulder Party”, a forest nymph rave mixed with libations, sick sandstone bouldering, and an excuse for staff, spectators, and volunteers to stay “up all night” during the competition. We always thought if the climbers could do it, we HAD to, or at least we had to try. The hourly “calls” billowing through the canyon, we started the boulder party with a single speaker and one kaleidoscope light. Looking back it had to be hilarious, a spectator sport for most, and a dancing dissolution of the ego for a few of us. Since those nine years have passed we have gotten more speakers and more lights but the essence remains the same.
A few years later we started the deep water soloing event the day after the 24. It's a place for everyone at the festival who wanted, to come together, relax, and have our Buffalo River “baptism” before awards, pasta dinner, and the final night’s party. Everyone’s last chance to let loose together. The calm of the river before the final hoorah has come to be one of my favorite times of the event. Stand up paddle boards ferrying climbers to the beautiful bluffs of the buffalo, guided meditations, cliff jumping, slacklining, twerk contests, acro yoga and anything else we organically come together to create.
For 10 years now I’ve come to Hell as a climber, honestly I don’t think any other word would describe me better, and for 10 years now I have rarely if ever climbed at the event. I used to think it was just a party, a fun time to see a once-a-year family. But this year, this year it was different. I saw what it was we were actually doing. Creating a space for like minded people to be open, intimate, and vulnerable, to show total strangers that they belong just as much as any of us. To play together and get dirty and tired and weird, to show people its okay to kiss your friends and tell them you love them. That we don’t need mixers for our liquor but we will take knee pillows. That most everyone has a praise kink and the gold stars were a hit. That each of us has a space that we can create and share with others, no matter who they are or where they’re from. They are, we are, welcome in this common community, this common humanity on Spaceship Earth.
You see climbing, in its essence, is not just a sport. It never was. It’s a vessel to show us our strengths and our weaknesses, our trust in others, to show each of us what we are capable of and how fragile we are in this world. Climbing shows us how close we can be, we must be to other people and tends to put a clarity filter on our lives, on how we live in this world. At least that’s what I’ve discovered as a professional mountain guide and climber over these past 16 years - things I doubt I ever would have discovered if I had stayed in the gym. The world of climbing, outside of climbing.
The electro-roots sounds of Spooky Lights come to a close, “one more song” and encore transpired. The pause. We had set up the Bluetooth speakers in the dark, “Mr. Brightside” blasts into the night. “Give the people what they want.” echoes in my mind. The Play continues…
24HHH may be the best “climbing” event out there, if nothing else it's “the best goddamn party in the South." But don't take my word for it, come find out for yourself. Climb in the 24, compete in the Devil’s Disco, dance in furry costumes, volunteer, spectate, dissolve the ego, hug a tree, hell climb till your tips bleed, do whatever it is that makes you, you, at least for a couple of days a year. Be a part of a family that descends into the Ozarks on the last weekend of September every year.
“Lions, in a field of Lions.”
And remember, climbing isn't always about climbing.
Written by George Bieker
