On Saturday, Audrey had a bridal shower to go to. So I headed out to Earth Treks all by my lonesome to try some bouldering. Bouldering is rock climbing without all the gear. All you need are shoes, a chalk bag, and a crash pad. A spotter might be helpful to save you from cracking your skull, but at the beginning level, you’re not hanging upside down. Bouldering routes are called problems. Solving a problem requires more skill than strength, although having monster finger strength to grab onto little chip holds helps tremendously.

Here’s what bouldering looks like on actual boulders.

In the bouldering cave at the gym, the highest a problem will take you ten feet. Doesn’t sound terribly high, but for me, it’s pretty damn scary. Still, the walls call to me. So I braced up and started on an intro problem. I got up to the top fairly easily and dropped down. Now, a ten foot drop is more than manageable, especially with the cushy pads. But it’s still a little high. I saw some more advanced boulderers down-climbing so I gave that a try on my next route. Much less scary. I think I have found a way to get over my terror! It took me a few tries to solve the beginning problems, but I had a lot of fun.

On Wednesday, we met up with Garth, Cole (who has just made a guest appearance on Comedity), and Larom for our regular climbing night. I started on an 8, worked up to a 9, and finally tackled a 10. Took for fucking ever and I slipped a few times, but I made it up to the top! And then Audrey proceeded to do the same 10 in a third of the time it took me. She proceeded to tackle an 11 and though she’ll say it doesn’t count, she finished the route.

Feeling ever so confident with a 10 under my belt, we headed over to the high walls where I proceeded to fail after the second move on an 8. By starting out on the advanced routes in the classroom area, I had pumped out my forearms and didn’t have the strength to power past this one bitty hold. Audrey had no problems tackling a 10 on the high walls. She’s a monkey ninja! I went back down to a 7 just so I could get in another climb before the gym closed. Sure enough, when I made it to the top, the death fear set in. So instead of leaning back into my harness to be let down, I start down-climbing. Much much better.

Our next big purchase is rock climbing shoes. The rental ones are fine and all, but if we ever wanted to head outside and find some boulders to mess around on, we’d need our own shoes. Next time, nothing but 9s and 10s!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 11:52 am 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.