A huge narrative we hear in climbing goes a little like this:
a. person struggles
b. person overcomes fears
c. person sends the climb
It's cool. We love that. But I feel like a huge story is being left out of the picture, the one of people taking steps, however small, to overcome their oh-so-relatable mental roadblocks. I'm not pushing the frontier of climbing grades, I'm not climbing some uncharted face in a remote and distant land... it's just your every day struggle of being a weirdo who decided it was a good idea to dangle from a thin rope hundreds of feet up on a cliffside... only to remember that falling is an intrinsic fear that takes time, effort, and mental strength to combat.
I haven't been doing it since I was a wee child, I'm NOT used to falling at ALL on rope (despite having fallen a few dozen times!), and have yet to be confident on lead. The fear is heightened when it's a tough grade for me (note: IMO this climb is sandbagged as sh!t), and more so when it's a runout, exposed slab in jtree that only has 3 bolts (we learned this later: only those bolts, then mantle over the lip and solo to the top, no anchor bolts either).
I'm proud of agreeing to try it. And then, against the will of the screaming voice in my head saying DON'T DO IT DON'T DO IT, I kept tying my knot, putting my shoes on one by one, and traversing slowly but surely to the right until I reached the next hold, the next bolt, etc.
And that's the whole story. No send in sight, but I came off that wall absolutely beaming.
yeeeeeeeesssss!
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#facingfears #girlsclimb #joshuatreeclimbing