High Times

"Most kids in the Lawrence scene, they're new and don't get out much," Wolfe says. "Those that have been around a little longer know what [routes] they've been up and have climbed on some of their routes. I'm aware of what they've done."

Wolfe lives with Ward Byrum, a recent graduate, in a rented duplex cloistered between rows of beige off-campus houses. This summer, Wolfe spent more than $400 to create a climbing wall in their garage. They sport designer fleece and nylon shirts and $100 climbing shoes.

Despite the expensive gear, though, members of the Lawrence climbing club have seen two serious injuries in the past six years. One woman fell from 350 feet while rappelling in Arkansas, her free fall ending after 30 feet when she hit a ledge. Someone helped her to the bottom, and she was airlifted from the canyon with a split skull and a severed ACL. Another guy fell from 35 feet, and when his last safety piece finally caught, the force stretched the rope out like a rubber band. The guy's body stopped before impact, but his hand hit the ground and shattered to pieces. Wolfe says the accident cost "like $60,000 of reconstructive surgery."

Those kids, he says, knew the risks and messed up.

"What you've got to realize is that being a climber in Kansas is just a big part of a big social scene and not so much about accomplishments," Byrum says.

For these guys, it seems to be mostly about the lingo. A good handhold is "bomber." Climbing directions are given in "beta." A good thing is "primo," a bad thing is "chauncy," and to run a route from start to finish is a "flash" if you don't fall. Wolfe notes enthusiastically that some guidebooks have glossaries that push the newest slang.

They climb tough out here, Wolfe says, and he's been in trouble only once. It was that night. The night he tried to climb the parking garage of the Kansas Memorial Union, he says. The night the cops came and "were, like, really interested." The night that law enforcement officers seemed cool, were "just chit-chatting, no problem, shooting the shit." And then when he untied from the rope at the fourth story, they took his ID, wrote down his name, weren't nice anymore and asked him to sit on the ground. The night they issued him a warning.

It was not cool. Not cool at all.

Although there is no law specifically against climbing buildings in Lawrence, the KU Police Department says that climbing is both trespassing and possible vandalism. Such offenses fall under Article 23 of the Non-Academic Misconduct Code. If the offense is egregious, a student may face suspension, expulsion or dismissal. Climbing a building once will probably not get anybody kicked out of school, says Associate Dean of Students Ann Eversole. But multiple offenses are always questionable.

At noon on a Thursday, the campus looks sleepy -- 20,000 undergraduates go to school here, but no one is outside. Snow fell this morning, tucking everything from grass to granite under a blanket of white powder. The temperature is below freezing. Wolfe and Byrum carry their climbing shoes the way Boy Scouts wear merit badges. Today, they are the only yahoos on the scene.

"The best time to climb buildings at KU is in broad daylight," Byrum says. "People either assume you're supposed to be there or don't know whose job it is to tell you not to be there."

KU climbing routes include the retaining wall by the gymnasium, the overhang traverse at the library, the crack on the third floor of the parking garage, and some building corners overhead.

But by 3 p.m., with nearly every possibility deteriorating into a we-could-do-it-if-the-weather-were-better situation, Wolfe and Byrum abandon their campus wandering and arrive at the bar The Crossing. Amid stale smoke, Wolfe orders a $3 pitcher of Bud Light.

"I'd like to get them out here," Wolfe says of Collins and Burns. To see what they can really do. Wolfe has one beer; Byrum has two. Wolfe's watching what he drinks, he says. He doesn't want to reek at his afternoon job interview.

That night, the roommates stop at a liquor store on their way home. At the duplex, Byrum pumps '80s music on the ground floor, hip-hop in the basement. People start showing up around ten.

A Pete's Wicked Brew sign and a bottlecap-covered coffee table decorate the living room. An Animal House poster hangs in the dining room, and a 2-foot-tall plaster statue of a naked woman wearing someone's cowboy hat rests nearby.