Goal, Accomplished

Reminder:

This blog is a record of my journey, set up for my use, my inspiration. What I put up here is personal, a part of the trip, not set in stone. I may think this one day, change my mind the next.

Am I really one of those wall rats down at Morning Glory? I don’t think so. I don’t fit into the high school mentality that perpetuates at the base, I was never one of those popular kids, and time hasn’t smoothed me over. My best bet is to be my amazing self, awkward and assuming and judgmental and full of nervous laughter, until I know these people, until I’ve found my niche amongst them or until I’ve completed my projects and gotten the hell out. Right now I’m not sure I want to endure the ‘fitting in’ phase. Like I said, high school was painful enough.

Painful or not though, I’m on my way. On to my project. Projecting something? A daunting proposition for me, when my project this spring was to onsight Heinous Cling.

Yeah, that WAS my project. Until yesterday, when I was climbing with Paul Tomlinson, down in the Dihedrals, and I’d just done Latest Rage on TR and led Moondance and was looking around for the next route du jour and I was feeling mediocre, a little shaky, like I had to prove myself alongside this hardman whose project is Vicious Fish (5.13d), but I was climbing well, had the goal of scaring myself still to accomplish, since I hadn’t yet fallen.

Latin Lover was behind me, that slightly overhanging face lined with half-pad crimps that my book says I flashed on TR when I was 15. I should do that again, I thought. Paul also talked about Vision, a 5.12b arête beside Go Dog Go that sounded heavenly.

Just to my left sat Heinous, chalked pockets marking the way, the two rails like safe havens to recoup your focus for the next sequence. ‘Too hard,’ I thought, “I’m not ready, I don’t know my partner well enough, it’s too cold, I’ve sent all my projects on innocuous days like today. I don’t have any pictures of me on Wartley’s, or Magic Light or Overboard or Zebra Seam. Those were all unplanned too. No expectations.’

Paul finished cleaning Moondance and asked, “What’s next?”

I looked around, avoiding my proj now looming to my left (I’m not ready yet) and suggested Latin Lover.

“What about Heinous?” Paul came right out and said it. “You’re climbing well today.”

That was all he had to say. A little encouragement, and I said, “OK. I’ll do it.”

You can’t think too much about these things. Standing at the base, tied in and balancing in my trusty Katanas, I looked at the starting holds, then focused on a wrinkle in the rope bag, relaxing my shoulders and stomach, breathing out the anxiety and expectation of onsight. Relax, I told myself. Enjoy the climb, feel the movements, be in the moment, be present, feel the moves, enjoy the climb, I repeated as I breathed out my anxiety, relaxing my muscles and drawing into myself. I closed my eyes and felt the emptying out of my mind, wondered how to get there the next time. Paul was silent.

When the anxiety had faded to a quiet ticker tape, when the emptiness took over and I couldn’t simplify any more, I looked at the starting holds, checked my knot, and said, “I’m through two and double-backed.”

“I’ll spot you.”

I started on pockets and the crack, looking carefully for feet, conscious that falling at the beginning was no beginning at all, and truly feeling the solidity of the holds and my fingers in them. I breathed and placed my feet, grateful for the blunt numbing cold that I’d cursed and tried to windmill out of my fingers minutes before. I ratcheted my left hand up the crack to a worse hold, scrambled for a foot while my right hand still held a pocket at my shoulder, said fuck it, and went for the top of the crack. With that much chalk, it had to be good.

A daring opening move that set the tone for the rest of the route. I tried to be smart, take rests where I needed them, not chalk too much (damn gym habits) map out my sequence before I committed. I was in it at the first bolt, focused on scoping chalked holds, feeling the deep pockets, the clean moves, kicking myself for never having been on the route. Classic! It screamed, Beautiful line! I wouldn’t mind working this, I thought.

I breathed chalk, got the particles in my eye, blinked through it, forgot. I looked ahead at the maze of pockets and edges, focusing on the moment, deciding which way to go, what’s my best bet? My fingers patted a mediocre pocket, reached above and hit another sloping edge. I downclimbed to rethink the sequence, keep myself safe, not pump out. With two fingers slotted into the well-chalked pocket, I hung out and dipped compulsively, considering my options and the pump building in my forearm. I had to go.

Feet. It’s all about the feet, I reminded myself. Use ‘em, get ‘em high, trust ‘em. Breathe.

“Climb smart!” Came at me from below, and I went. Precise movements, trust in the holds and the pattern that emerged of two bad holds, one good. Feel the moves and go, focus on the movement, the present moment, don’t look ahead, don’t think ahead, BE.

I breathed and moved my right hand to the pocket, crimped the slopey edge with my left, and relying more on skin friction than grip strength, I back-stepped my right foot, found a potato chip for my left and feeling wholly into the movements, I realized I was through the crux as I reached easily for the left-slanting ledge that had to be the end.

I did it. I was 10 feet above the last bolt, had another 10 to go before the next, and another 20 to finish the route. It was too soon to scream, to yell, to smile. I focused on each move, on placing my feet, making careful movements and planning the sequence. Breathe.

“Hell yeah!” I whooped when I reached the anchors, then told Paul I was going for the full Heinous, like I promised Logan. “I figure I have enough rope to clip the second draw,” I called down.

Paul just said ok as I went for it. I climbed a little above the first bolt, to a pocket sequence that ended with a desperate lunge for a hold too far away, and took a 15-foot whip that elicited an involuntary scream. On the ground, Paul said with a grin, “I had to be quiet when you said you were going to the second bolt.”

He knew I wouldn’t make it past the first one. I didn’t expect to either, but this was a way for me to get scared for the day, acclimatize to pushing and falling.

Goals accomplished: Get scared and Onsight Heinous. Check.

It didn’t hit me until I began writing about it. Last night I barely told Esther, and spent the night cooking and watching Mr. Skeffington, an old black and white flick I picked up at the library. I did a freewrite in bed before sleeping, then awoke at 6:30. This morning I sweated as I poured out the drama onto the screen, more full of adrenaline than when I did the route. I wanted to stay home and write rather than climb.