High Times

In 1981, "Spider Dan" Goodwin (dressed in Spider-Man garb) scaled Chicago's Sears Tower, the world's second-tallest building; two years later, he went up the north tower of the World Trade Center. (In 1997, Goodwin tried a comeback, mounting the WTC's south tower, but authorities, fearing a terrorist threat, immediately stopped him.) And Frenchman Alain Robert usurped Goodwin's moniker in the mid-'90s when he started his campaign to climb all of the world's tallest buildings. At forty years old, he is still active and has scaled more than fifty skyscrapers. Robert never thought to climb in Kansas City, he tells the Pitch by e-mail. He wonders, "Is there any building?"

There is. And that's a good thing for Collins. As far as he's concerned, the city has only two decent natural climbing areas. One, a 40-foot mass of loose limestone along Cliff Drive, towers precariously close to the street. The other is a quarter-mile area for bouldering (climbing low to the ground without ropes) in Swope Park, where peaks measure, at most, 15 feet.

In the winter, when the roads get icy, cross-country trips in search of mountains are out of the question, and climbers, many of whom got their extreme starts riding skateboards or BMX bikes, get especially itchy. Winter is no time for riding on slick pavement, but buildings still stand tall, providing opportunities for some die-hard climbers. The most committed people climb for one reason only, Collins says. "They have to find something else to fill the adrenaline void."

Indoor climbing gyms appeared on the scene in the early '90s. At Ibex in Blue Springs, whole families of aspiring climbers could learn in a controlled environment on plastic rocks. The sport quickly went mainstream. It became safer, more domestic. A suburban entertainment staple and a retailer's dream.

Around that time, the ESPN X-Games added speed climbing and bouldering to its skateboarding, snowboarding, BMX racing and wake-boarding competitions. Now it's one of the world's most televised action sports, counting AT&T, Motorola, Taco Bell and Mountain Dew as sponsors.

It's hard work, living up to the image of an extreme athlete.

Tom Cruise climbed in a tight T-shirt on sun-baked cliffs in Mission Impossible II. Vin Diesel climbed in a fluorescent jumpsuit on ocean-swept rocks in XXX.

Sean Burns works at an architectural design firm in Overland Park and climbs in a dingy green T-shirt.

He wears corduroys and a down jacket, almost always. On his right shoulder is a tattooed tree, its roots drawn in Celtic knotwork. Though he would deny it, with his bristled hair, five o'clock shadow and always-rumpled clothing, Burns has achieved The Look.

On a recent Thursday night, Burns leaves the Overland Park apartment he shares with his girlfriend, Katy, and their dog, a pit bull-Doberman mix named Roxy, and heads to the other end of town.

"Hi, Sean," says the girl at the front counter when he walks into Ibex.

The ceiling is 33 feet high. Throughout the cavernous room, walls inverted at different angles are speckled with plastic lumps -- mock-rock handholds. All around Burns, inexperienced people fall off rocks and fumble with ropes, swinging like pendulums from the ceiling.

There's a church group here tonight. The gym is too crowded.

"Goddamn," Burns says quietly. "Maybe if I told them I was Satan."

Most area climbers have heard the name Sean Burns, but few of them know how well he can really climb. In 2001, Burns wrote a guidebook for KC climbers, and Collins illustrated it.

"Write a book about something, and suddenly everyone considers you an expert," he says. Now he never lets people see him climb beyond his ability. "I like for them to wonder."

Strapping on a harness, Burns heads toward the gym's only crack-climbing route. Most rock routes let a climber pull his way upward using handholds, but crack climbing is different. A crack has no exterior holds. It's just a fissure in a vertical face, and the climber must jam his hands and feet inside as he climbs.

Burns crack-climbs the way hurried people try to stop elevator doors from closing: He presses his hand deep into the fissure, cramming his palm between the narrow slabs of rock. When his knuckles wedge, he shuffles his feet against the wall in front of him, jams his other hand into a space above him, then repeats the entire process. The technique is quick and efficient -- Burns climbs about 15 feet in less than a minute. He's panting now, moving farther up.

Local experts say the first generation of climbers to use custom equipment was all the way back in the early 1900s, when mountaineers strapped nails and pieces of metal to their boots to help them edge on rocks. By the early '60s, climbers wrapped inner tubes around slippers -- an innovation that evolved into the modern lightweight shoe with a rubber sole.

At Ibex, other climbers move from hold to hold wearing grippy rubber shoes reminiscent of ballet slippers. Burns finishes the climb in a matter of minutes wearing his street shoes, a boxy pair of hiking boots.