Buchstein

Published on 2019-9-22 by Michael Stanton

Friends: Rowan, Elijah, Tamer
Location: Buchstein
Elevation gain: 900m = 900m

We hike up to the Buchstein on a nice Sunday, setting a fantastic pace. We passed lots of folks, only Rowan seemed a bit tired today. Somehow roles were reversed. Lately, Rowan keeps up and Elijah stays back. Ever-changing boys I've got...

Leaving the kids to their electronic dreams, Tamer and I talked about work (boring), about the history of Turkei and the amazing Attaturk. We talked about how wisdom seems to emerge in populations independent of how much access they have to the latest internet news and gadgets. Actually, there might be a relationship, but we'll leave this as an exercise for the reader!


The Tegernseer Hütte


A very popular goal today!

The summit scramble is pretty interesting. I decided on a confident approach, and by gosh, it worked. The boys and Tamer came right up, the latter looking a bit dubious but willing to try. I described the route as a series of pleasant moves of moderately elevated risk between spacious and comfy "safe zones," in various wet caves left or right of the main gully. We went up easily enough, finding our own special sub-summit to sit on away from other people and the many bugs which mobbed the very highest point.


Tamer, Rowan and Elijah approach the summit.


More summit approach.


Tamer in the steepest part.


Selfie amid flying insects!

We looked out at the Achensee in the distance, and now-snowy peaks here at summer's end. Rowan described the scheme whereby he is up on the latest memes despite our parental ban on a reddit account. There is a thrice-daily Telegram thread which delivers the best memes to phones, for children in his predicament precisely (IMHO). Chuckling over his pictures of moon landings without helmets, of great wooden crucifixes with basketball hoops mounted on them (okay, there was only one), I liked how he solved a problem.


Rowan on top.

We went down, me happy to have a student in Tamer for the art of downclimbing without getting sketched out. "Compress like an accordian! Always look. Don't get into the habit of lowering a foot until you hopefully land on something that sticks! This way lies madness..."

We ate some food in the hut, Elijah sharing his theory that CGI ruined movies about animals from about 1998 to 2010 or beyond. I really like his theory and I subscribe to it, too. "Homeward Bound" was a fantastic early-90s movie about 2 runaway dogs and a cat. The only "technology" used to humanize the animals was a voiceover. This allowed us to empathize with the animals, while also feeling they were animals and therefore what wisdom they embodied was something of their own, from their own kingdom. Not merely a replica of ours.

Then, as Elijah continues with an evil grin: the dogs lips begin to move like human lips as CGI got "better," tempting producers to "jazz it up," and demonstrate the improving technology. However, it's disconcerting to see these odd, rubbery lips on a dog (or a cat). Elijah proposed that a boy might be given a dog one day. Raised on these movies, he'd expect it to talk. He'd be flummoxed by the lip and jaw structure of his pet, expecting an anatomy close to his own. He'd then spend his life hoping for something that could never be...


Flushed down to the hut.

This reminded me of a question Rowan asked on the descent: "Would you rather live in a virtual world or a real world?" I was firmly on the side of the real, feeling that it's already a virtualization. My brain interprets sense-data and shares it with me along with the promise that this is the real real. However I know well the texture of dreams. How inviting they are. How real.

Is this the one? This world? This world the real world?


The joy of bouldering...

Later, as we left for the long descend, Elijah wondered if perhaps the Lego children in the Lego movie had human toys. This idea struck me as well. Yes! I thought. Because in a world of quantized digital blocks, what could be more wonderful than a blobby thing that splayed across it's space, refusing to conform in any particular. This would be "A Good Toy," because it unlocks the imagination of this Lego child in a way that nothing else in his world could. The Joy of Failing to Fit.