Climbing Highs And Lows

(For those of you that care about my climbing and/or would know what in the world I'm talking about when I refer to the inverted wall or lead climbing, you may read on. If not, skip to the previous post down below.)

On Monday, I managed to cram in my biggest climbing accomplishment and my biggest climbing failure. So the good news first: I climbed the entire inverted wall! Without falling! My belayer was an expert climber who is also one of the guys in charge, and he challenged me do it. I didn't think I could, but I struggled so much on that wall and finally reached the top. Earlier, one of my climbing mentors (seriously, a 70-something-year-old man with legs hard as a rock and the climbing wisdom of, well, a 70-year-old climber) told me after observing me climb that I go too fast and that I need to concentrate more and go slow, using my whole body and not just my arms. So with his advice, I didn't panic or feel rushed to climb the wall and finally did it. I felt very accomplished. That feeling didn't last very long.

Minutes later, I suffered my biggest climbing scare to date. After seeing how well I climbed the inverted wall, my belayer told me I should work on lead climbing. Lead climbing is basically when you're the first to climb and the rope is not already set, so as you go, you're clipping the rope onto the bolts on the wall. I've done lead climbing before, but always at an easy level. This time, he challenged me to lead climb the wall at a difficult level (french system, a 6A+, which is about a 5.10 or 5.11, I think). So I went for it. I mean come on, I just climbed the inverted wall at the 6A level, I could do this.

I started off fine. I was almost at the top and I had two bolts to go. The inverted wall had taken almost all my strength, but I soldiered on. I put the clip onto the second to last bolt, but my arms were starting to give out. I knew that if I fell now, I would fall a couple of feet down. As I went to put the rope through the clip, I missed, and my arms just gave out. And I went tumbling down, about 5 or 6 feet, and slammed into the rough wall. The rope burned my lips and my arm and I bruised my back, but that's not what burnt me the most. It was the embarrassment. The whole gym went silent, and everyone was staring.

A bunch of people came up to me to see if I was ok, and of course I played it off like it was nothing. But seriously, my life flashed before my eyes! I wanted to cry, but I didn't want to look like a whimp in front of all these tough, experienced French climbers. I want to make an impression on them: not an American that stuffs her face with McDonald's and watches TV all day, but one that is brave and serious about climbing and doesn't break down over a little fall. My body ached but my belayer told me to take a breather and try it again. He wouldn't let me quit, and I love that in a partner. I tried again and when I was getting close to the bolt that I missed, I chickened out and climbed back down. I couldn't do it. I was too scared to fall again and hurt myself. My mom would kill me if she found this out--she already hates the fact that I climb because she thinks I'm going to fall off some cliff or something and die.

I couldn't climb the rest of the night. I was still trembling from the scare. But next time I go into the rock gym, I'm going straight to that same wall and lead climbing it to the top. Of that, you can be sure!