Climbing

I have a good friend who has offered to help keep me sane by taking me out to do things that I don't normally make time to do. He has been rock climbing now for a few years and has posted about his climbs on his blog. Back in April I told him that I would be interested in going with him to watch sometime. Growing up, my family went to Yosemite every year. One of the things that we would always do is stop and watch the climbers on El Capitan. We always watched through binoculars. So, I thought it would be fun to go with my friend and see it up close. He was more than willing to take me, even though he knows my inabilty at most things I've done with him. So, after six months of saying I would go with him, I found an opportunity. The scouts in the ward were going to go camping on Mt. Lemmon overnight. My friend was going to go and then take his son to complete the requirements for the climbing merit badge the next day. So I took the opportunity to go with them. It turned out to be really fun. I had never been rock climbing before and had only been indoor climbing once before. We went to the "Practice Wall" which is where people go for their first time (or so I'm told). It is where they take the girls when they go for girl's camp. Anyways, we get there and set up the ropes and put on the gear and he gives me about 30 seconds of lesson and says go over the cliff.

At first, I wasn't sure if I was nervous or not. I don't normally like to look over the edge of cliffs while standing, but I don't have any problem if I am laying down looking over the edge. Like when I have been on the top of Half Dome in Yosemite, I didn't mind looking over the edge, as long as I was laying down. I guess what I am trying to say is that I'm not afraid of heights, just cautious around opportunites to fall. I wasn't ever nervous about falling or concerned about the heights. So I made it about half way down the face when I felt comfortable with the rope and harness and my ability to control how fast I went down. Once everyone was down, we took turns climbing up. I learned how to belay another climber. I had a great time. I learned to be confident in the equipment and I knew that it would keep me from falling. That allowed me to just have fun trying to get up the face and not worry about falling if I didn't quite get my feet in the right position. The shoes are painful, but it was interesting how they basically stuck to the rock.

I work with one of the guys from the stake who does the climbing with the girls at girls camp. After I told him, the next day he invited me to go climbing with him and his wife the next Saturday. Long story short, I ended up getting both friends together and the four of us went climbing again. That is two weekends in a row that I got out and did something fun and didn't worry about things. I have been asked if I am hooked. I'm not sure if I am hooked or not. I need to build up a lot of strength to continue. But, it is definitely something I would like to try and see if I want to get hooked. It just takes time and money.

Here are a few pictures. This is me going down for the first time.

This is approaching the top of my first ascent.

These are from the top after we were done for the day. It must have been fun, we were still all smiling.

This is from the second weekend. This picture reminds me of all the pictures that I have of my family out in the meadow in Yosemite looking up on El Capitan trying to find the climbers.