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disobey_gravityThis is a trip report I wrote a while back locked down on lj. I had already joined this community, but didn't repost it because, well, I didn't know anybody here. And, as I just mentioned in the intro thread, that's kind of silly. So here it is. It was specifically targeted for new climbers growing up in a gym environment, but it also goes on about fear and why I got into this hobby in the first place.
*
To arrive at Shawangunk Ridge in New Paltz, New York before we thought the cliffs might be too crowded on a Saturday morning in August, I awoke at 4:30am and was out of the house well before 5. Those who have worked with me professionally understand that it is impossible for me to reliably get out of the house several hours after that. Those who go out dancing with me understand that this is because I have often not gone to bed much sooner. I schedule business trips to drop me off in foreign cities at six in the morning without public transit or a clue to avoid having to get up at 4:30am. For climbing, I did this. Willingly, if groggily. I saw sunrise, quite unfortunately while traveling East-ish on I95. That make two summer sunrises I've seen this year. Something is wrong with me. With help from Starbucks, loud music, and the natural melatonin of a circadian rhythm having given up, I made it to town safely by 9:30am, more awake than I started.
New Paltz reminds me of nothing so much as Estes Park in Colorado - tiny outdoor adventure resort towns seem to all be filled with the same kindly natives, hippie shops, microbrews, veggie-friendly restaurants, and athletic freaks. Hooray. After picking up our climbing passes and then becoming lost for an unconscionably long time trying to find parking on the single street worth driving, I met up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chiashurb in front of Rock and Snow, rented the equipment we didn't already own, and we drove up the mountain.
Climbing itself (the part you actually wanted to read!) was, as I'd been told enough times to expect, rather differently fun than climbing indoors. Combine the best parts of hiking, which (especially if you're top-roping) there will be lots of, with the worst parts of gym climbing, for starters. One generally hikes from a parking lot a fair distance to the foot of a wall worth climbing, with 15-30lbs of gear a person plus whatever food and water one wisely brought. This includes everything from a standard gym setup to a lot of webbing, various carabiners and trad gear and the rope itself. Also, if one is smart, a guide book or map. Then, if one is top-roping, one and one's partner hike the long way round the wall to climb, carrying most of the gear if not lunch, set it up, and throw only some of it down before hiking back to the bottom of the hill and for some crazy reason, climbing back up a second (and third, and fourth) time, the harder way.
The effort was anticipated; I'd known about it and effectively done it before on a hike turned rescue mission. What I didn't anticipate is how it would affect my motivation while climbing. When you wake up at 4:30am to drive many hours to hike with many pounds of stuff to follow a map to find a spot to carry your gear to set up your gear to hike back down in order to climb back up, you are more motivated to complete every single climb than you have ever been motivated in a gym.
When I first encountered crack climbing in a gym, it was in the form of some concrete irregularly attached to a cutout of an average climbing wall. It was somewhat rough, but simple enough to grip from one side while ascending the wall proper. Then I found out that people climbed using only cracks in the wall. One jams a hand or foot in blindly, turns the limb to hold oneself up by skeleton, and hauls oneself up. One also bloodies one's knuckles and can come away with joint problems. I took one look at someone doing that and vowed I would never try such a thing and I didn't care what I couldn't climb because of it. Less than 20 feet up a cliff filled with tiny sharp quartz crystals, leaf litter, spiderwebs and their owners (have I mentioned I'm terrified of spiders?), I blindly jammed my entire left hand sideways into a crack in the rock and helped haul myself up to the next safe place to stand using my wrist and forearm, without thinking. I scraped a gash in one of my fingers that I wouldn't notice for hours and would take weeks to heal. I was elated and considered myself victorious. After all that, I was not going to give up. Every single successful ascent has more of a sense of victory and surprise at one's own abilities for the effort put into it. And that is most of what I'm into climbing for in the first place.
There were also a few expected differences between outdoor climbing and a gym. One, of course, was the scenery. I'll stop blathering for a moment and let it speak for itself.
The other expected difference is that routes are marked by guidebook or oral tradition by a vague description of "start here, go that way, then that way, until you reach the top. Use or do not use a blatant feature" There are no colour-coded tape markings differentiating places that are "allowed" or even safe to use as holds. There is in fact no marking whatsoever for holds, except sometimes in leftover athletic hand-chalk if you are climbing in a very busy place where other climbers had recently been. For easier routes, this is offset by the fact that one is simply allowed to climb whatever features in the rock one finds suitable to one's own size and strength. I climbed a 5.7 very differently thanchiashurb, who is several inches taller than I with a male-bodied center of gravity, but we were both technically on route. It's when you get to the harder routes that route-finding becomes as important a skill as it was the very first day one started climbing in a gym. We spent some time falling off a 5.10 that very clearly had One Right Way to go for a good fifteen feet, and the key to it was finding a flat and possibly spider-infested place to blindly stick one's fingers and be pleasantly surprised to find a good grip waiting inside. And while I did in fact fall off the 5.10 several times without completing it, for that one hold, adrenaline won out over bugs that weren't even there.
It may be a nice way to get over my fears, climbing. Getting over fears by overriding them with stronger ones. And exercise. And spending very long days with good friends in beautiful places. I'll be doing this again.
*
To arrive at Shawangunk Ridge in New Paltz, New York before we thought the cliffs might be too crowded on a Saturday morning in August, I awoke at 4:30am and was out of the house well before 5. Those who have worked with me professionally understand that it is impossible for me to reliably get out of the house several hours after that. Those who go out dancing with me understand that this is because I have often not gone to bed much sooner. I schedule business trips to drop me off in foreign cities at six in the morning without public transit or a clue to avoid having to get up at 4:30am. For climbing, I did this. Willingly, if groggily. I saw sunrise, quite unfortunately while traveling East-ish on I95. That make two summer sunrises I've seen this year. Something is wrong with me. With help from Starbucks, loud music, and the natural melatonin of a circadian rhythm having given up, I made it to town safely by 9:30am, more awake than I started.
New Paltz reminds me of nothing so much as Estes Park in Colorado - tiny outdoor adventure resort towns seem to all be filled with the same kindly natives, hippie shops, microbrews, veggie-friendly restaurants, and athletic freaks. Hooray. After picking up our climbing passes and then becoming lost for an unconscionably long time trying to find parking on the single street worth driving, I met up with
chiashurb in front of Rock and Snow, rented the equipment we didn't already own, and we drove up the mountain.Climbing itself (the part you actually wanted to read!) was, as I'd been told enough times to expect, rather differently fun than climbing indoors. Combine the best parts of hiking, which (especially if you're top-roping) there will be lots of, with the worst parts of gym climbing, for starters. One generally hikes from a parking lot a fair distance to the foot of a wall worth climbing, with 15-30lbs of gear a person plus whatever food and water one wisely brought. This includes everything from a standard gym setup to a lot of webbing, various carabiners and trad gear and the rope itself. Also, if one is smart, a guide book or map. Then, if one is top-roping, one and one's partner hike the long way round the wall to climb, carrying most of the gear if not lunch, set it up, and throw only some of it down before hiking back to the bottom of the hill and for some crazy reason, climbing back up a second (and third, and fourth) time, the harder way.
The effort was anticipated; I'd known about it and effectively done it before on a hike turned rescue mission. What I didn't anticipate is how it would affect my motivation while climbing. When you wake up at 4:30am to drive many hours to hike with many pounds of stuff to follow a map to find a spot to carry your gear to set up your gear to hike back down in order to climb back up, you are more motivated to complete every single climb than you have ever been motivated in a gym.
When I first encountered crack climbing in a gym, it was in the form of some concrete irregularly attached to a cutout of an average climbing wall. It was somewhat rough, but simple enough to grip from one side while ascending the wall proper. Then I found out that people climbed using only cracks in the wall. One jams a hand or foot in blindly, turns the limb to hold oneself up by skeleton, and hauls oneself up. One also bloodies one's knuckles and can come away with joint problems. I took one look at someone doing that and vowed I would never try such a thing and I didn't care what I couldn't climb because of it. Less than 20 feet up a cliff filled with tiny sharp quartz crystals, leaf litter, spiderwebs and their owners (have I mentioned I'm terrified of spiders?), I blindly jammed my entire left hand sideways into a crack in the rock and helped haul myself up to the next safe place to stand using my wrist and forearm, without thinking. I scraped a gash in one of my fingers that I wouldn't notice for hours and would take weeks to heal. I was elated and considered myself victorious. After all that, I was not going to give up. Every single successful ascent has more of a sense of victory and surprise at one's own abilities for the effort put into it. And that is most of what I'm into climbing for in the first place.
There were also a few expected differences between outdoor climbing and a gym. One, of course, was the scenery. I'll stop blathering for a moment and let it speak for itself.
 |  |
The other expected difference is that routes are marked by guidebook or oral tradition by a vague description of "start here, go that way, then that way, until you reach the top. Use or do not use a blatant feature" There are no colour-coded tape markings differentiating places that are "allowed" or even safe to use as holds. There is in fact no marking whatsoever for holds, except sometimes in leftover athletic hand-chalk if you are climbing in a very busy place where other climbers had recently been. For easier routes, this is offset by the fact that one is simply allowed to climb whatever features in the rock one finds suitable to one's own size and strength. I climbed a 5.7 very differently than
chiashurb, who is several inches taller than I with a male-bodied center of gravity, but we were both technically on route. It's when you get to the harder routes that route-finding becomes as important a skill as it was the very first day one started climbing in a gym. We spent some time falling off a 5.10 that very clearly had One Right Way to go for a good fifteen feet, and the key to it was finding a flat and possibly spider-infested place to blindly stick one's fingers and be pleasantly surprised to find a good grip waiting inside. And while I did in fact fall off the 5.10 several times without completing it, for that one hold, adrenaline won out over bugs that weren't even there. It may be a nice way to get over my fears, climbing. Getting over fears by overriding them with stronger ones. And exercise. And spending very long days with good friends in beautiful places. I'll be doing this again.
