Friday glee goes roof-shuffling

[rydra_wong]

The Friday post of glee is where you get to tell us about your climbing-related happiness this week.

It can be a new achievement or adventure, or just that you climbed and had fun; it can be that your favourite climbing wall is expanding or that you bought new rock shoes or that you found a cool ice-climbing vid on YouTube. No glee is too small -- or too big. Members are encouraged to cheer each other on and share the squee.

N.B. Please feel free to post your glee on any day of the week; the Friday glee is just to get the ball rolling.

To enhance this week's glee: the Wideboyz in Canyonlands.

Comments

[rydra_wong]

I have glee because I got back on the Moonboard (after a couple of months abstaining from it because of a tweaky finger). The Moonboard is my mean friend; it is everything I am worst at as a climber rolled up into one steep board. I love it so.

[language_escapes]

I just looked up what a Moonboard is and - just...

O_O

I am so happy you have glee, because that looks terrifying to me!

[rydra_wong]

Nooooo, not terrifying, just really really hard and frustrating. Short falls onto big squishy mat!

And honestly it's a red letter day if I make it to the top of the board; most of my Moonboard sessions are spent flumping onto the mat from about 30cm up and swearing a lot.

[language_escapes]

We went to the gym a few days this week, and I've begun trying some of the simpler routes on the taller walls. I've largely been working on 5.7s on the 25ft wall, but I moved over and tried a 5.6 on a 45ft wall. I'm actually terribly afraid of heights and have to work really hard to control my nerves when climbing, so 45ft walls are... intimidating. But I nearly made it! I figure that will be my stamina building project, and "control the panic" project, for the time being.

[rydra_wong]

GO YOU! \o/

I'm actually terribly afraid of heights and have to work really hard to control my nerves when climbing, so 45ft walls are... intimidating.

Honestly, I think that's pretty common -- everyone's scared of heights to some degree, almost everyone finds the bigger walls intimidating, etc.. Obviously different people have very different levels of fear/anxiety and it gets tripped by different things, but we're almost all working with fear to some degree.

It's actually one of the things I love and that's very important to me about climbing, that you have to/get to engage with fear in a way that's very under your own control and on your own terms.

And it sounds like you're very self-aware about it. Just getting comfortable on the wall (and expanding that comfort to taller walls and situations that are more challenging in one way or another) is a whole process in itself. So -- yay you! Be patient with yourself and go at your own pace; it's wonderful how much things open up as you start to feel at home on the walls.

[wpadmirer]

No climbing this week. Even though I ended up with Friday off, I am so incredibly tired from the week that I decided it wouldn't be wise to try to do it.

Plus I'm really struggling with pain in my right hand. The arthritis in my thumb seems much worse this week. (sigh) So I have called the hand doc and will see him in a week.

[rydra_wong]

Awww, crap. Hope the hand doc can be some use!

[wpadmirer]

Me, too. It's been steadily getting worse, which I knew would happen, but I can't help but be annoyed.

[emperor]

Despite feeling a bit poo, I went out climbing this week, and it was Just The Ticket. Also, my toes are in a bit of a bad way, but I found the old pair of 5.10 spires I bought in the wrong size (46 rather than the 44.5 my other spires are), and they were quite comfy... I'm now trying to get hold of my current shoes (Boreal Silex) half a size larger...

[emperor]

Also, those roof cracks look horrible! Tom's leggings, though, were excellent :)

[echan]

I went climbing with new shoes, first non-rental shoes, and WOAH. So many footholds that were tenuous before are rock solid with these shoes.