I've Always Wanted To.  .  .

Try Rock Climbing

Shut Up and Climb

There was a rock climbing gym in San Francisco. All the bad asses went there to climb and people around town would smugly say, “yeah man I climb, do you?” It was a status symbol. If you left chalk covered and sweaty you were one of the cool kids with the insane back muscles. I went there for yoga and would longingly look at the climbers wishing I could join them but too intimidated to try. It felt like stepping out on a dance floor full of professionals, watching them with admiration from afar but convinced you could never be one of them.

Rock climbing has long been on my list of things I’ve always wanted to do. This time, with determination, a friend and I waltzed into a local climbing gym with our game time faces on.

I started taking off my flip-flops to put on the climbing shoes. Our instructor, Ben, looked at me in surprise and disgust saying, “you don’t have any socks?” Suddenly, I remembered what a climber friend said about rental shoes- they are “totally foul, nasty and smell terrible, you don’t want to put those things on, buy some if you ever climb.” Whoops, good advice not taken.

My feet have a tendency to sweat and by association, to smell as most feet do. Oh great I thought, if the shoes don’t reek now, they definitely will when I’m done with them. I looked up at Ben’s question in horror. “It’s ok you don’t have to wear socks but…” he trailed off as I completed his sentence in my head, “but that’s really nasty and I wouldn’t do it if I were you.”

Our instructor walked us over to the rock wall—level 1-- a 5.5 wall- as easy peasy as they get- but somehow it still looked a little freaky. Looking around me I noticed we were the only women there. As with REI or weight lifting rooms this was a total men den but I was determined to elbow my way in like a girl craving a drink at a crowded bar.

I had never learned how to belay, or man the ropes for another climber from the ground, but I climbed once as a kid. I was up Ben said, the guinnea pig first climber with my friend on the ground manning the ropes. I started climbing- it was easy enough and I shot up pretty fast. At the top I looked down at my friend below to make sure she had my back and was ready for me to fall, at which time I was supposed to yell, “catch” to be sure.

You know how people say never look down? Well, there’s a reason for that, what wasn’t scary on the ground floor can be pretty scary from up high.

I’m not a huge fan of heights, that fact somehow slipped my mind when I decided to do this. I’m not deathly afraid, as in I won’t get on an airplane but if I were on top of the Empire State Building I probably wouldn’t go anywhere near the edge.

As a kid, I refused to walk across this big metal cat walk/bridge across a canyon, which at the age of eight might as well have been the Grand Canyon. My parents had to coax me the whole way across. It was metal and when you looked down it was like seeing through a grate- you could see everything below. I remember freezing mid-way across and refusing to go any further. I stood frozen and, as I do when I reach a point of supreme frustration and fear, I started crying and protesting my ability to do it. Holding on to the rail in the middle of this bridge I was afraid to go back and afraid to go forward, instead I just stood there and had a melt down.

Now at the top of my climb looking down, I thought, I don’t know if I can do this, what was I thinking! Given that my friend had just learned how to use the belay to lower me down, I was a little freaked out to sit back in my harness and push off the wall and trust that she had me- even if Ben was standing right next to her. It reminded me of those trust games they make you play as a kid, you know, lean back as though you are falling and trust that the person behind you will catch you. Man I hated that game!

“Catch!” I yelled. “Ok,” she called back. Deep breath. I leaned back sitting into the harness and pushed off the wall in one insanely trusting leap of faith. She had me. I was fine. I didn’t go careening downward to my death. We switched, my friend climbed up the wall and came down with me slowly lowering her down. Ben said, “Don’t let the ropes get twisted,” and took off leaving us to climb.

“That’s it!” I thought. Seriously? Once up and down and we’re cleared to climb alone? I looked over at my friend. She had an unphased grin from ear to ear. I felt panicky like a deer in the headlights thinking what if I fall and she handles the ropes wrong or I handle it wrong?- a less than 10-minute instruction and we’re now expected to entrust our lives into each other’s very novice hands? You crazy? Ben walked back to the front desk as I look concernedly after him. My friend nonchalantly said, “cool, come on!”

Turns out we were fine. A little clumsy at first maybe but never unsafe. We went from 5.5 to 5.8 in one hour- taking turns climbing different walls. I’d reach a point in the wall and get stuck but giving up was not an option. I’d push up with my legs and reach a little further with my arms and take more risks- sure I might fall but I knew my friend had my back and when I got stuck I’d pause, survey my options and then make a move- it was kind of like life really.

Each wall I climbed I climbed better and faster and each time I reached the top of a climb it was like conquering my own doubt in myself that I couldn’t do it. When I sat back in my harness, making my way down after having reached the top- I realized that I could do it and what’s more I did do it!

Both of us left that day proud, and with a sense of empowerment. It may have been a men den but my friend and I lived up to the quote at the entrance, “Shut up and climb!”

I thought briefly about my first rock climbing experience at a gym in San Francisco- how clumsy and insecure I felt then- how timid and embarrassed to even try climbing- like all eyes were upon me laughing at how bad I was, I had little faith in what I was capable of then. What a different person I am now. I didn’t believe I could do it then, I never even had the courage to get up to bat really but now I know I can do it and even if I can’t the real difference is that I’m no longer afraid to fall trying.