Up close to the fire ring I moved the last of the rocks into place. After four or five beers I felt like royalty and the work went easy.  Shaped from boulders I found around the campsite, what I’d made looked like a stone age La-Z-Boy, armrests and all, straight out of the Flintstones. By the time it grew dark, I’d have the best chair in all the land. I had another beer and poked at the coals with a crooked stick atop my rocky throne, the drunken king.

The Phoenix Bouldering Competition kicked off at the main stage in a large flat below where I was camped. It was dusk, and there was a chill in the air. The kind of desert-only chill you get when the sun dips beneath the horizon, and the temperature nosedives as if you’ve suddenly found yourself locked inside a walk-in refrigerator. I met some friends and we headed down to the party.

The rules for tomorrow’s contest were laid out, a slideshow was projected onto a big white screen about a place I’d never been, and I finished off the two beers I took down with me. After the slideshow, the Chairwoman of the Access Fund got up to talk about access of all things.

“Continued access relies on our good stewardship of these areas we love and climb,” she said. The crowd erupted in cheers; after all, it was a good thing the Access Fund did. They fought for us climbers and our right to chalk up and bolt whatever we wanted to.

I joined in the applause and at the top of my all-too-drunk lungs yelled, “Fuck You!” The people in front of me spun around with a confused look on their faces. I shouted again, “Fuck You!” I laughed, and stumbled, “Fuck you.”

One of my friends tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, let’s go for a walk.”

“Fine,” I said and we headed back up to the campsite. On the way, I fell off the dirt path and into a thicket of low and thorny desert scrub. Most everything in the desert is low and thorny, sharp and bitter. I fit right in. A king indeed.