Faces
CLIMBERS Issue #1Photograph by David Brailey
Words by Will Vidler
The try-hard face takes many forms. It will appear at strange times, often unexpected and unannounced, but rest assured, we all have one. Be it the classic rat face, the sour lolly, the grimacing mixture of pain and fear. These faces manifest in a myriad of ways, and each of us finds certain scenarios particularly prone to conjuring this face from the ungodly realm in which it sleeps. For some, it’s when the forearms are reaching a critical systems failure, well after the crux, with the anchors in sight. For others, it’s when a far greater portion of their body has ended up wedged in a crack than they anticipated, and for others still, it’s that nemesis hold—that tiny edge straight from the Ming Dynasty that turns away all advances and leaves one with naught but bleeding tips and pulley injuries.
However, for Lee Cossey, the hideous holds of Jack to the Hobos (very suspicious Ukulore V11) elicits no more than a serene glance and a no-doubt-who-shall-reign-triumphant furrow of the brow as the bell rings to end this pebble wrestling match.
But despite Lee’s apparent indifference to the difficulty of this Megalong classic, the spotting of approximately 75L of pure, unadulterated froth has brought forth a stellar try-hard face from Jake Bresnehan. You can almost hear him yelling “C’mon!!” through gritted teeth as he uses more try-hard than most of us have for our own projects, just spotting his mate who probably won’t fall off anyway.
Then, if you look hard enough, you can see a very small pair of eyes, like a deer caught in the headlights, a young Max mimicking his fathers clutching grip, internalising the sending of the gnar. And finally, we have uncle Ben, who despite the age gap mirrors Max’s wonderment—the language of try-hard clearly transcendent to all.
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