Defying gravity
Durangoan Pete Davis climbs beyond disability

Pete Davis, a Durango climber, places his prosthetic, self-designed ice axe as he climbs a route in Cascade Canyon on Saturday. Davis, who was born with only part of his right arm, has been climbing since the age of 12 and now works as a climbing instructor. He plans to pursue bigger climbing adventures once he graduates from Fort Lewis College./Photo by Todd Newcomer.

by Todd Thompson

To see Pete Davis on lead halfway up a rock wall, he looks like any other accomplished climber: intense, athletic and slightly deranged. But as he stretches out to get a grip with his left hand, one notices that his right arm ends just below the elbow. Below Davis' right elbow is a stump that he uses as another hand, gripping thin ledges, wedging it in cracks, pinning and pulling the rope. The climb is obviously difficult but Davis takes his time, checks his gear and perseveres to the top. When he comes off the wall, he is proud of his ascent, but not because he is disabled. "One Armed Pete" is a rock climber, and this is just what he does.

"I don't really see myself as handicapped at all," says Davis of his lifelong disability. "I can easily take care of myself on a climb, and I can take care of my partners as well. I refer to my arm as my hand. It's an anomaly, but I don't really refer to it as a disability."

Davis started climbing when he was 12 years old, during a two week visit to the San Juan Mountains with Horizon Adventures. "I approached my first climb without worries," he says. "I've always felt like I could do what other kids did. Then I got up there and said, 'Wow! I can really do this!'" Davis' parents were very supportive of his passion, and by age 14, he was leading climbs near Baltimore, where he grew up. After high school, he followed the call of rock climbing back to the San Juans and enrolled in the Southwest Studies program at Fort Lewis College.

"I love this area," says Davis, "and my education has given me a much better feel of where I am, and of my place in it. It's given me a sense of home here."

He has also studied the region by climbing extensively throughout the canyons of Southeastern Utah and the rock walls of Southwestern Colorado. "I love the sandstone rock here," he says. "It's challenging and unpredictable. The gear is often suspect in that soft rock. I've climbed the granite in Yosemite and the world-class rock in Thailand, but I love coming home to sandstone."

"One Armed Pete" is both notorious and respected in Durango's rock climbing circles. He has worked and taught at the indoor climbing gym Animas City Rock for four years and leads the outdoor guiding program there. He has also been an instructor with Outward Bound. Most recently he was featured in an FLC student documentary entitled, "Upward Mobility." The short film was created by fellow climber Dan Steaves and features Davis in what they believe is a first ascent of a corner system in the Turtle Lake area, near where Davis lives.

"I eyed that rock every day for four years and finally had to try it," says Davis. "I called it 'Nosy Neighbor' when I started getting attention for clearing a path through 1,000 vertical feet of brush." The documentary shows Davis expertly using his body to scale the crack in the rock, and it is interspersed with his personal insights about rock climbing and his ruminations on the opportunities within challenge. The ascent is a successful lead, first try, no falls.

Pete Davis works his way up a solid piece of ice at Cascade last weekend. Although he climbs ice and indoors in the winter, he says he's not as passionate about it. "It's not the same as the feeling of being on rock," he says./Photo by Todd Newcomer.

"I eyed that rock every day for four years and finally had to try it," says Davis. "I called it 'Nosy Neighbor' when I started getting attention for clearing a path through 1,000 vertical feet of brush." The documentary shows Davis expertly using his body to scale the crack in the rock, and it is interspersed with his personal insights about rock climbing and his ruminations on the opportunities within challenge. The ascent is a successful lead, first try, no falls.

Unfortunately it wasn't actually a first ascent. After the film was screened at the recent FLC Student Film Festival and accepted into the 2005 Durango Film Festival, the pair was informed of a previous ascent, eight or nine years prior. Steaves and Davis have begun planning a new documentary to expand on the ideas of "Upward Mobility" and provide more details of Davis' long history of rock climbing and the methods he uses.

Davis was born with his right arm the way it is. It is one of many variants of Amniotic Band Syndrome, which includes webbed fingers and club foot. Overall, the syndrome occurs in one in 1,200 births. "I just started learning about all this a few years ago," says Davis. "When I was born, there wasn't a lot of knowledge about the syndrome. I was a congenital amputee, which is about 1 in 10,000. I always felt that since I was born with it, I never lost anything. I don't really think the arm is a big deal. People see me climbing and think it's cool. Then they want to know how I do it. I always welcome questions. I'd rather talk about it and explain it than have people wondering or staring."

To keep in shape for rock climbing, Davis cross-trains with biking, running and, of course, skateboarding. He uses a prosthetic device to lift weights and fits a custom attachment on the prosthesis for ice climbing. "I'm not as passionate about ice climbing because with the prosthetic I can't feel my grip as well," he says. "I'll climb ice or climb indoors just because it's climbing, but it's not the same as the feeling of being on a rock."

Despite his ingrained self-assuredness of being as able as anyone else, intensive climbing and training has shown Davis that he needs to expand his regimen to keep his whole body fit. "For so long, I've not paid any mind to it, but the reality is that I do have to do extra things to keep my arm from atrophying. I feel like I haven't really even tapped into my potential yet. With a more serious training program I could definitely expand my abilities and up my level."

One of the problems he is working on is the sensitivity and grip of his stump. "The durability of the skin inside the elbow is difficult," he says. "I get a lot more leverage from the short stump, but I have full feeling there, so I'm working with a climbing shoe manufacturer to get a sticky rubber covering to help with protection and grip."

With graduation approaching, Pete Davis, the locally-famous one-armed climber, is considering the best way to pursue his passion and a career. "There is sponsorship and competition, but I'm also looking into grants that fund pure climbing trips. I'm interested in big, wild-looking climbs, aesthetic, large, significant climbs. I'm also interested in big-mountain mountaineering. It's all such a deep personal challenge to be so focused. It's an addiction to a temporary higher level of engagement. I've never found that intensity anywhere else in my life. It's not you against the wall. It's you against yourself."

In the future, Davis would like to work with people with Amniotic Band Syndrome and create an adaptive sports program for kids with hand anomalies. "I'd like to teach kids like me that retreating from a challenge is the worst possible thing to do," he says. "I'd urge those kids to try something no matter how unrealistic that thing may seem. Because you really never know what you can do."