Tag Archives: Climbing

On My Mind

Guys, I’m back!

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Leute, ich bin wieder da, read my Whatsapp message to a group of climbing friends.

Not too long thereafter, I dusted the chalk from hands sporting four open blisters (rookie mistake: continuing to climb when the baby-soft skin first begins to rub away), went through my stretch routine, and packed up to go home.

I didn’t, but I could have skipped down the street. I could have grinned at every passing individual. My heart felt carefree. My body felt used, tired, worked. I took a deep breath and savoured it.

The last time I was in the climbing hall was on my birthday. I was at the beginning of my eighth month of pregnancy and had spent the previous months waiting for the moment when it would be time to stop. I’d felt a little too much pressure on my lower belly, a little too much tension on stretched muscles that I wasn’t supposed to engage. Objectively, the top rope route had been easy and boulders before it even easier, but I owed it to my baby and to myself to answer honestly when my belayer asked if climbing felt okay. “Actually no,” I replied then. “I think I’m done.”

And now, with my baby six months old, I was ready to come back. In some ways, ripping open my hands in exuberance was a reminder of what it means to return to a sport after so much time away: Go slowly.

While pregnant, my joints softened and pelvic floor stretched; my pretty darn good abs disappeared; my belly stretched out and knitted back together. My hands are no longer calloused. My body is not what it was.

Go slowly.

Early on in my pregnancy, I stopped climbing three days a week. And then I stopped climbing twice a week. I was content when I stopped climbing altogether, and surprised at the fury that took hold when I couldn’t start again once the baby was born. Everything that had been was no longer, and I didn’t recognize myself in the life that had begun. It took time until I stopped looking for who I had been and lamenting what I used to do. And then I found who I had become.

As a new mother, I am living in the very real luxury of a time that will not come again. I am home with my daughter, and this means that I can focus on her without having to worry about balancing work just yet. When I have the time, I can attend to myself.

Now that she is getting older, now that my body is fitter than it was, I’m back at the climbing hall, this time with a new appreciation for the time spent independently, in physical exertion, and as part of a community that knows a very different version of me. I’m a tiny girl’s mama, and a climber, too.

On My Mind

Once a Runner

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I gave up running a number of years ago while managing an illness, and because I realized something important. While my relationship with running had always been love/hate, I had discovered sports that I really loved, which proved to me that I didn’t have to settle for love/hate. So I gave up running after a final bad run, and have rarely looked back since.

This month, in preparation for a higher, more technical alpine tour than last summer’s Berliner Höhenweg or climbing the Zugspitze, I started to run again. Casually. Slowly. Work on a little endurance and don’t make a challenge out of it. Just do it. That kind of running.

And this time, I liked it.

This time, I felt like there was a reason for the running rather than just to run, and this allowed me to let go and enjoy the air, the quiet path, the trees. The weather was the very beginning of summer rather than the depths of the tropics; the water source a river rather than the ocean; the vegetation oaks and larches rather than palms and frangipani. After so much time away, my body felt different, reinvigorated by the new challenge rather than worn down by the habit. The knee that had so often twinged made itself known once, a “welcome back” greeting, and went quiet.

Interestingly, over the same time, I realized that I had stopped looking forward to going to the climbing hall. After a few days out on real rocks, the thought of plastic grips and footholds lost its appeal, and I was happier spending my time outside than indoors. So I traded two nights a week in the climbing hall for two nights a week going for a run, just a little one.

I find myself beginning to miss the climbing hall, so I’ll be heading back there soon after some time in the mountains. Hopefully the body will make use of the endurance that comes from running. And even if it doesn’t, it’s a comfort to the mind to know that ten years as a runner are still in there somewhere.

New York City – October 2016
On My Mind

Choosing the 4+

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The weather has been unfortunately uncooperative for outdoor climbing this spring. Our nearest climbing area is in a forest and it really needs to be dry the day before an outing in order to get on the rocks safely. You can’t grip clammy stone. So we were delighted last weekend to have the opportunity to spend two days climbing outdoors, only our second time out this year.

It was quickly apparent, and completely expected, that we’re unused to the endurance and challenge of outdoor climbing. It was also very hot, which softens the hands, presenting an additional challenge. Outdoor climbing is part sport and part meditation, in that one tries to feel the rock, to understand it, to work with its nuances and quirks. There’s no bright colours telling you where the next move is; rather, you need to be attentive, responsive, creative, and flexible. You need to look for texture in the rock, which is often not there at first glance, and figure out what to do with it. It takes a few days outdoors each year to return to that feeling and to grow comfortable doing outside what we so easily do inside.

In the middle of the afternoon, we set a top rope on a route far too hard for any of us to lead, but one that looked possible when one remained secure the whole time, removing the fear and potential hazard of numerous expected falls. And fall I did, until I decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. My hands hurt, I swung out of the line and had to repeat each sequence to make any progress, and my belay partner was doing at least half the work by pulling me up past tricky areas that I couldn’t manage. And the route wasn’t even fun. After yet one more try, I called down to my belay partner to lower me. There’s no role for heroism in climbing.

Rather, climbing is about being part of nature, not fighting against it. Climbing is about listening to oneself, knowing when to push and when to back off. Climbing is about a healthy respect for fear, knowing the difference between fear that is manageable and fear that will overpower. The joy of of climbing is to reach beyond oneself and follow the rock.

We climbed long and hard that day, and I felt it in my fingers, hands, and throughout my body the following morning. A friend who is a much more skilled climber led a hard route as a warm-up and I fought my way up it, again on top rope, just for the experience.

And then the body had had it. I looked up at a route that was within my capacity but not easy, and then at another that was as close to a stroll as I would get that day. And then I ignored the difficulty grading in the guidebook and took the easy route. There’s no role for heroism in climbing.

As climbers, we celebrate falls. A fall means you’ve tried, you’ve taken a deep breath, you’ve pushed beyond the survival instinct that tells you not to fall. Amateur climbers often fear falling (it’s how the human species has survived) and that’s why we sometimes decide to practice. Falling happens so fast that you often don’t feel it at all. It’s the fear of falling, or the thought of falling, that can be debilitating if you let it. But then there are other circumstances where a climber would rather not fall, situations where the fall line could hurt. Risk-taking is part of climbing, but in a way that is managed. Things can, after all, go devastatingly wrong.

And so I listened to my body and climbed what I knew I could. We were on rocks that were brittle, rocks that were a little bit creakier than we would have liked. Sometimes, climbing can just be a lot of fun. It doesn’t always have to hurt.

Zugspitze, Germany – July 2024