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Climbed July 31, 2023
"How do you handle failure?"
I am for a second, dazed by the question. I was still trying to recover from my guide's first question, "What do you want to do out there?" and my unhelpfully timid response of, "I don't really know, I've never done this before." We're standing in the High Peaks Cyclery store. There's a wood table with maps and a white board with a rock wall illustration that is well done from a shading and depth perspective but inscrutable to me because I had no idea what the information the picture is meant to convey. An explanation of a route? Safety positions? Rope placements? It looks like a cartoon cliff. Like the kind Wil E. Coyote would fall off of and then splat, crash, and crater into the ground below.
Highly motivated to recover from the abysmal first answer, I'm eager to frame the question into something I am familiar with and do know instead of answering the more existential part of the question.
"In the rock gym," I start, tentatively, "I do get really frustrated. There are routes I'm just not strong enough for and others that were made by someone with more reach than me or bigger hands. Sometimes I'm having a really off day. I just can't make the next hold. But rather than get in my head about it, I let it go because I know I can come back tomorrow and just through trying, I'm learning." Despite my attempt to stay grounded, there are the stirrings of a more philosophical mindset.
I live in walking distance to my home bouldering gym and before I moved closer to work, I had lived in a five minute drive of a mixed top rope and bouldering gym from the same regional chain of climbing gyms. Not finishing routes frustrates me a lot, but rather than dwelling on failure, I comfort myself with the assurance I can easily try again tomorrow. Ultimately achieving success is not the point of continuing to try. It's about continuing. I have a tight control around non-ambition to keep life more sustainable.
Back on firmer ground, I try answering the first question again. "I want to do something that I can't do at the rock gym. Somewhere with great views!" What being in the gym did prepare me for was knowing my body and understanding my mindset, so I add, "And probably the best route for me would be where I could get a first climb in to boost my confidence and then be really challenged on the second. I'd like something at the edge of my limit. Something that's more of a puzzle and less of just a brute force upward climb."
In short, I want my $300.00 for a guided rock climb to have been worth it.
My limit is 5.9+ on top rope and a V1 bouldering. I could do the occasional V2s or V3s on shorter walls or slab climbs with less overhang. But barely. And not many. C can crush a 5.10 and occasionally do a 5.11 or 5.12. He powers through V3s on the inverted walls and can make the long reaches, despite our similar heights, by relying on his ability to do a one armed pullup when the route poses problems. It's tough for me. I need either my legs to do the lifting or good holds to stabilize. If not, I feel wobbly, like I'll just make a Hail Mary reach, grap empty space and fall.
My guide, Lucas, smiles brightly and points to the illustration. "Awesome! I think I have just the route for you. It's a multi-pitch." I don't know what a pitch is. This is where the gap between enthusiast and casual enjoyer is most apparent, as if my enthusiasm for spending $300 means I would equally enjoy 300 hours spent reading manuals and watching outdoor climbing videos to learn all the lingo. He explains that pitches are different climbing sections. He indicated to the first pitch in the illustration, the ground to a ledge halfway up the cliff and then a second ascent where hard anchors have been placed into trees at the very top. This concluded the amount of instruction I receive at the basecamp store. Other than a brief interview of what I want to do, an introspective interlude on failure, and then grabbing the gear I don't own myself—a pack and a helmet since earlier this year I came to possess climbing shoes from my gym and a harness from REI a la late X-Mas gift from my boss—we headed out to the Pitchoff Chimney Cliff area near Cascade Lake.
Lucas was chatty, friendly, encouraging, reassuring, and warm. I could tell he's trying to quickly build trust in the car ride out of Lake Placid and onto the 73. I recognized the remnants of his van life setup still installed in his van from the countless wish fulfillment videos I've watched. He was not a climbing bum. He actually worked a long time and saved and had to be convinced by his parents to use that money to live his life. He ended van life to return to the area to take care of his dying step father. He's rescue certified and did that for awhile, but he's a guide now because he wanted to do something positive but also joyful. There's a difference between getting to be a part of someone's best experience ever and showing up for what was probably the worst day of a person's life. His van chatting worked. My nervousness was at a minimum.
And then we parked off the middle of the road and had to hike, really hike over to the start. I don't know what I was expecting. Probably a delusion of a flat area where you could drive a car right up to at the bottom of a cliff with an eye hook at the top. As Lucas prepared gear, my nervousness was just a high key buzz in my head, making it impossible to really listen to the technical aspects of the talk. All I was listening for was the, 'Don't fuck this up'-instructions. Lucas was very blasé about my quiet blankness as he ran through cams and nuts (the things that anchor into the rock) and he showed me various ropes and tethers leashed to carabiners.
He was explaining so much but all that was sticking was, "Try to keep your lips over your teeth to avoid chipping a tooth," aka 'you could fuck up your teeth so do this' and, "Wiggle it out like this or this and then clip it onto your belt," meaning, 'You drop this, the climb is ruined.'
I think he correctly interpreted my silence as becoming somewhat overloaded, so with much, much less instruction than I would have expected, we were climbing. Very learn-as-you-go. Very much, you are learning how to climb by climbing. Lucas rarely offered advice until I was really struggling. And the struggling started out pretty early.
The first ascent of what I later learned was Peter's Farewell was easy but it was not like being indoors at all and that was the crux of the difficulty. There were bugs. There were plants. There was slidey dirt and loose bits of rock. This was not like the curated indoor gym space. You look at the rock face...and it looks like rock. Rock everywhere in your range of vision. Not like the gym with it's color coded routes and brightly colored holds with distinct shapes that prompt you on what kind of hold to do. Just a vertical slab of rock. It was exhilarating though to climb up the same kind of rock face I encountered so often when doing hikes in Upstate NY. I always wondered what it would be like to climb up the crags that jutted out like stairways or jam my body into the chimney like cracks. Now I was doing it.
It was hard. I was scrabbling over the rock, clutching at anything, feeling for something I could use as a hold. Another challenge was that this was my first time doing a follow. Lucas was laying out our route as lead, placing the cams and nuts to secure the line, allowing me to safely climb behind him. My job as follow was to pick up gear after him, aka unwedging those very securely placed pieces of gear. The tricky part was that to avoid the aforementioned cracked tooth, you need to climb just above where an anchor is placed before pulling it out, which is tough when you don't have an easy foothold in the right spot and you're halfway pulling yourself up with one arm and the your other fatigued hand is trying to work the cam's trigger release. Then I had to clip the gear onto me, the purpose of the multiple gear loops on my harness finally becoming apparent as I've never needed anything past putting an extra carabiner and chalk bag on there. It's all heavier than I'm used to and I'm worried about getting caught or tangled. But I learn and I manage.
When we got to the first crack, I couldn't quite muscle up it. I was clutching at the edges of it, like I was prying an elevator door open, but I wasn't keying in my foot correctly and I was having trouble going hand over hand, unable to grip and balance the forces of the hold. Some gyms do have a simulated crack climb to train hand jams, but mine don't. This is when Lucas shouts instructions: "Wedge your hand flat into the crack and then make a fist. THEN use your jammed fist as a hold for your other hand."
He wants me to fist the fucking mountain. And then what? If my skin rips off, I fall, I guess??? I also needed to do something with my foot. I wasn't exactly doing my most active listening whilst mustering all my strength to hug myself to the wall. Something something jam my toe in with my leg turned outward and then push up. But it's hardly intuitive. I'm gripping hard to stay attached to the mountain but my leg folded underneath me is pushing me out from the wall, making me feel unstable. Later (as in well off the mountain and inside a gym), I'll learn the correct hip movement and then train for the flexibility and limber strength needed to propel upwards more gracefully, but despite my novice ability, I make it up relatively quickly even with clumsy technique. I felt elated! I didn't even drop anything!
Then the second ascent. I balked at the idea of a traverse across. Mentally, it feels scarier edging across dead space than to just go up. Going up that's all your focusing on. The ascent. Going across is avoiding all of the down. Lucas, as lead, finished the route up top and tells me he'll belay from there rather than coming down again. So I am, for the most part, alone.
It's a really rough start. You have to get past an overhang over the secure ledge it begins on. I struggle and I struggle hard. This is no longer a fun novelty of being outside the gym. This is rock climbing and it is hard. I can't get a hold. I can't find a grip. My hand is just sweeping over sheer rock, scrabbling for a hold. I got a foot in the crack but I slip and I don't have a secure hold so I fall. The inside of my knee slams on rock. My exposed skin cheese graters along the rock face. My brain is on survival mode. I am no longer enjoying the scenery. The mountain peaks in the distance nor the glittering skinny lake alongside the winding road penetrates my conscience. This high up the mountain, the wind is whipping. I feel the empty space between me and the ground below. Although the first part was easier, my body is still fatigued from it.
There's a video of Alex Honnold, the Alex Honnold of Free Solo fame, convincing Magnus Mitbø, YouTube's Nordic zen climbing master, to do a free solo climb in Vegas. It's well within Mitbø's climbing level, but when you're not roped into a harness, the challenge is the fear. In this POV GoPro clip you can see Mitbø, a climbing pro, sweeping his gaze back and forth over the rock face in front of him, looking for somewhere to grab. There's no chalk marks to serve as hints. For Mitbø it's because his route hadn't been heavily trafficked, for me it was because the white chalk was lost on the light gray rock. You can feel his uncertainty as he touches all the possible holds in front of him, anxiously double checking foot placement, breath thready. Although our actual danger levels were wildly different, we were both desperately searching for what felt safe.
Lucas shouted down to remind me I can take, a move where you let go and hang off the rope for a break. Reluctantly, angrily, I do, sagging into the harness. I'm gritting my teeth, fingers curled around my rope. I'm less than a third up and I can't do this. But what the fuck can I do? I have to do this. There's gear all the way up the route. I quit and I'd just be sitting there while Lucas retrieved all the abandoned gear stuck into the mountain. Humiliating. It would take way too long and I would feel stupid the whole time. I just have to finish. This is not like my local gym where I can just come back tomorrow. I'm not trying to conquer the wall. I need to push.
I shook out my arms and I attacked the crack again. I cheated a bit and grabbed the cam for stability and relied on Lucas pulling hard on the belay for the extra boost I need in my weakened state to get to the next secure hold. It gets me to the small, barely large enough for your toes ledge. The next crack is a different size and by then I started to get a feel for it. There are times I can slip my hand in and then spider cramp my fingers into place. I marvel when they stay firmly attached to the rock. I'm getting scratched, but I'm not losing chunks off me like I feared. As you can see from the photos, there's a rock jutting out in the corner and with a round bulge at the top which I can get my whole hand over and grip. In a larger section of the crack there's a secure, grabable piece of rock, like God had transplanted the unnaturally sculpted jug hold from the baby walls at the indoor gym and hid it in the crack as a surprise gift. Finally having one hold that wasn't an edge or a crimp gave some critical relief.
Once I'm two thirds of the way up, I'm exhausted, but I'm golden. I am finishing. I'm too far not to finish. With victory in sight, I finally looked around to take in the view. This time I do stare at the mountains spanning across the gorge I am in, like the layers of blue ridgelines in a watercolor. Lucas shouts encouragement to get me through the last bit. I was tiring and ironically that was powering me forward, eager to ease off my burning forearms and cramped fingers. Every time I finish a move, I am smiling. But during the process, you can see that my face is pinched with concentration and expressions clouded by doubt. You can see me looking at the next hold unsure of whether I'm strong enough to make it.
But I do.
It's the hardest thing I have ever done. There are plenty of climbing gym enthusiasts who have no interest in taking those hobby skills and applying them in the real world and I get why. My brain was convinced I was in danger. That to fail, meant to die. My body was at times shaking from the sheer effort of keeping myself moving. I finally understood why the climbing shoes are so stiff. In the gym it provides a little hard spring to toe up or to get a toe grip onto the sometimes smooth plastic. In a crack it protects your foot from being crushed by your own weight. It is the wedge that secures you in place and lets you push your whole body up. All the gear that's merely functional in the gym are necessary outdoors.
Rock climbing in the wild feels like survival. It feels like grab anything, use anything, hold on any way you can to get through it. I couldn't really observe how Lucas got up before me because of the slope of the wall and overhangs. There wasn't a strategy. While you climb your brain is empty, but at the same time your body is very, very present. I could feel the texture of the divet in the wall that is giving my fingers enough friction to hold onto. I could feel the toe edge of my shoe on the thin ledge. The wind picks up your stray hair and breezes across the wall and through your clothes and is cold against your sweat. This is maybe the closest I have even been to meditating, fully present but without any real thoughts. Just breathing from one moment to the next. Feeling viscerally (and sometimes uncomfortably) alive.
It feels great to finish. Lucas was congratulatory. He snapped some pics and says he's proud of me. It sounded incredibly genuine and after banging myself against the wall, it feels earned. I tell him about the problem areas I encountered through the climb. He enthusiastically gave tips for a future me that positively wants to put myself through such a trial again.
Then he goes over how an outdoor rappel goes. I try not to be fixated over the tiny autoblock hitch he ties as a backup to my rappel device and looks no more hefty than an orange friendship bracelet. Of all the things that day, rappelling at a trad climb feels exactly the same as being in the gym. It turns out to be the most thrilling part of the climb, hopped up on adrenaline and sailing past all the parts I had struggled on. Ironically, it feels safer to fall. Maybe because it's a lot less technical. It's certainly less physically demanding. I'm sure this might be the more terrifying part of the day for some people, but it's a smooth glide for me.
When we make it down and Lucas began stowing his rope, he explained that he belayed from the top because he found that when he belayed from the bottom just below the climber, a lot of people didn't end up finishing. They would bail on the climb much sooner when he was standing much closer. I was stunned to hear how I was so accurately manipulated psychologically in order to succeed. It's true though. When I was on my own at the second pitch, it felt like my only option was to dig deep and rely on myself to see it through.
Thinking back over the whole experience, I also remembered how in tune Lucas was to my silences or my anxiety, picking up on what I needed to hear to keep going. $300 indisputably paid for his expertise but more than just guiding me safely, I felt like Lucas' true value was in convincing me I could do it.
You also see this clearly on the Mitboø video between Alex and Magnus. That Alex's chatting is calming during Magnus' stiff silences. Far from being distracting, it's comforting. Lucas was the same way. Keeping me focused but also reassuring while he pushed me, reminding me that this was supposed to be a fun activity. "Look how beautiful it is out! What a nice day to climb!" "Nice! Now just find the next hold." "That's it, you have it. Keep going!" He didn't get impatient, was never condescending, never butted in if he thought I could figure it out myself.
I am so grateful for Lucas' stellar coaching. Trad climbing gave me a confidence and renewed energy for the sport at a time where I felt I was plateauing, convinced routes were completely inaccessible to me without more hardcore strength training and being born taller. But this experience made me feel so much bolder, so much more capable on V2s and V3s. For one, it was no longer scary to fall in the gym. For another, I trusted myself more. The confidence around the holds came from knowing I could make them in a much more difficult context. The feeling of my body being activated during a climb didn't get left behind in the Adirondacks. I got to bring it back with me. And the gnarly ass bruises from it ensured I got to tell the story to pretty much everyone!
An outdoor climb didn't prove to me that I was an adrenaline junky by any means and it wasn't like the Dark Knight Rises where taking away the safety net was the only way to fully committing to the ascent. It just proved that I could do way more with what I already had.
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