Have you ever been so scared that every muscle in your body tenses up, sweat starts dripping from every poor, and you can feel blood literally draining from your brain? I certainly was on Saturday. I have never been so absolutely terrified in my life.

Audrey and I decided to grab our own gear and maybe get a few climbs in before an evening barbecue. So Saturday morning, we headed to the climbing gym. We got harnesses for each of us (Black Diamond. Awful comfy and we got a decent price) and a chalk bag and belay device to share between us. Then we hit the walls. There’s a giant 40ft pillar that has a gradual incline outward as you go higher. Audrey asked if I wanted to try it and since there was a nice easy 5.6 route, I went for it. And this is when I lost my shit. Going up the pillar was no problem as long as I kept my eyes in an upwardly direction. As soon as I looked to the side or slightly down, my heart raced. I got to the top and was ready to calm down and that’s when the terror set in. It’s pretty stupid really. I was all snugly tied into the top rope and Audrey is a freaking belay ninja. Nevertheless, I was totally petrified. I couldn’t even kick off the wall to get down.

When I finally got down I was shaking and sweating. Ugh. So scary. Audrey, of course, had no problems. She spent the time totally destroying 8’s and 9’s and even rocked out a 10 that had given her problems earlier. The nice thing about Saturday was that the walls were completely open. There was only a handful of people so we could try routes that we normally don’t bother. I spend the rest of Saturday using the classroom walls to get over my fear.

Monday was a lot better. We started on the classroom walls. I was hitting 7s and 8s while Audrey was going all out on 8s, 9s, and 10s. I felt a lot more confident and even managed to climb up one of the taller walls for my last climb.

Last night, Audrey and Nelly couldn’t make it so it was a guy’s night out. Garth’s brother, Cole, gets the award for the best climbing scar. Somehow, he managed to graze his face against the wall as he jumped up for one of his holds. Freaking nuts! Jim showed off his new gear which he found at REI, the only place mighty enough to contain his awesome might! I was actually able to belay Jim without tying into the ground. He outweighs me by 100lbs which is more a testament to just how safe it is to top rope climb at the gym than to my strength. Rob “Freaking” Balder and his girlfriend came out to join us. They seemed to get the hang of things fairly quickly. Jim and I invented a new game for our last climbs called “Let’s see how well you can climb when your friends are making you laugh!”

So yeah, I think we’re pretty hooked at this point.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Rock Climbing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.