Clear Creek Thaw

It is also unnatural to haul your cookies up 85 feet of vertical rock, clipping into bolts that are spaced 10 feet apart with only a rope threaded through and a belayer at the bottom to (hopefully, most times) catch you before you hit the ground or a ledge or other nasty obstruction to wholeness of life and limb. Yet I did it today.

And loved it.

My lead head is coming back to me. Today was all about being humbled, reassessing, and then pushing through to the shiny light at the end of the tunnel - the anchors at the top of the climb. Last night I bought the Clear Creek Canyon guidebook, pored and drooled over the thing, thinking "we can do this one, and that one, and, and, and..." I had myself pegged as the climbing star of the cliff, shooting up these climbs as comfortably as I've been leading in the gym.

Not so fast there, Texas.

I got on an 8 first and nearly wet myself trying the tricky bouldering move to get to the FIRST CLIP. As in lots and lots of grounding potential. And not only grounding potential, but guaranteed scrapes against jaggedy schist and gneiss. Not nice. I  walked myself out onto a ledge - way far from the first clip and shook there for a few minutes. Meanwhile my climbing partner tried to talk me out of my tree -- or off my cliff, as it were. I bailed. I downclimbed and let her have a go at it. She got the first clip, but then was too scared to go to the second. I got on again and finished that route for us.

Which made me really glad that it was a weekday on a 50 degree, somewhat cloudy day.

Most climbers do not take three attacks to get up a route. Especially an 8! So I was humblized. I topped that one again just to dial into the rock and then went on to lead another 8, a 10a, a three-star 9, rounding out the day with a 7 on a new crag. By the end of the day, I was feeling strong and wrapped around the rock and the movement, NOT my fear and risk analysis. I trust my shoes, I trust my serpentine movement, clinging to the rock, moving upward along it, feeling for the crimp, planting a toe, edging on a ledge.

At one point I needed to switch hands in a hueco. I slowly snaked the left out of the hold, arcing it over to my left while walking the fingers of my right hand from the middle of the hueco to the outside left edge of it thereby enabling me to reach a better hold with my left hand. Tiny, controlled, mindful-breathing movements allow you to translate yourself along the wall.

All this was trust was relearned with Clear Creek gurgling in the background, its cold water flowing over rock and ice. Chilly beauty, thawing, like me, for the summer climbs to come.

Route record:
Pony Up 5.8
Poker Face 5.8 or 5.9
Ace in the Hole 5.10a
5th of July 5.9+
Halloween 5.7

The Body Comes Home

It is unnatural to race into the day. To embrace hecticity with a cup of coffee in hand. To clutch and pinch and brace for the big brainwork and the cheering coaxing that is teaching. It is unnatural. Yet it's what I do most mornings.

Over this spring break, I feel the natural. I indulge and revel in it. Wake up, yes, with a cup of coffee in hand, but then... move from one thing to the next, knowing that no one thing is more urgent than the other. I have T-I-M-E. The children are not going to press, colleagues are not going to need, my content is not screaming to be broken into meaningful, digestible-by-seventh-grader chunks.

It is just me. Moving from one thing to the next, feeling the muscles that last night's yoga found and, by virtue of their non-participation in this morning's squalling, the ones that were slinking on the sidelines.

This is my new balance, this partnership of yoga and climbing. If I weren't in this quiet, bodhisattva, body-satisfied place, I'd be screeching "Eureka!" from the Front Range peaks. Instead I'll whisper on my blog, Climbing + Yoga = contentment, balance, healing, strength. 

My body is coming home.

Bolted Places

I find refuge in the bolted places. Look. A bolt, a climbing route, an opportunity to commune with lichen and rock. Stuck there in the eternal spot, enabling the climber to breathe hard, to move up, to progress from the leaf-strewn forest floor to the bright sun. To top out and look. And see far.

I like seeing far...

Longs Peak, Solstice 2012

Tinsel

The old dragging desolation
the surety that nothing is right
Thought I'd licked it
Left it at 14000 feet
Fifty-eight times over

I try

Believe me I try
I build mansions
of red tinsel
stuffed gift bags
alcohol and cherries

Pfft

They are houses of cards
so much morning trash

Breaking up is hard to do

Who do you wanna be?

I want to be a good teacher, a really good teacher. I want the kids to like me and learn like crazy. I want their scores to reflect their growth. I want them to be far-seeing yet near-sighted too, when it comes to others' feelings.

I want to be good at conflict resolution. Or when that ain't gonna happen, I want to be quick to put it in its proper place. I don't want to take it with me to climbing dinners or on hikes -- or at least not that it sticks with me for the duration. I want my mind to be pure and clear as mountain air. Inevitably, there will be difficulties in life. I don't want them to run my psyche.

I want to be married. And I mean married hard. I want a soulmate. Someone who, when I listen to him talk, is saying words I wish I woulda said. I want him to hike, bike, read, and beat me at cribbage.

I want to be five pounds lighter. I want it for vain reasons. I want to look better and I want to climb better.

I want to capitalize on my knowledge of how I tick. I want to quickly center myself when the spinning starts. Hikes and walks do that. Nights out with my girls do that.

And when I get there? I promise to be more grateful than today even. And I promise to make a new list.

Trial, Error, Triumph

  

Alpine meadow

Trial -- Last week I stashed my mountain bike at trailhead B and drove to trailhead A, setting up a nice through-hike to bike to car. Pretty brilliant and exciting, but alas thwarted by a snarl of blowdowns. After evaluating the carnage and trying to spot trail signs for 45 minutes, I decided it was impossible. I headed back to the last water I'd seen, set up camp, and hiked back out in the morning.

Yesterday I hiked in from trailhead B to see how far that carnage of trees stretched. Could I complete the loop from the other direction? The answer is no: I found carnage's twin on steep terrain about two miles from the spot where I'd turned back last week. Yesterday I could hear a river I knew the trail crossed. I gave myself six minutes to go off trail and find it. I found willows. Willows mean water. You just can't always get to it. I exhausted my six minutes edging around the pokey buggers. Turning back, I worked my way back to the trail, surprising myself by striking it within 10 feet of the rock cairn from which I'd left. I may be becoming something of a woodswoman.

View from a pass, 11950 feet

There is one more way to access this mess of trees. There is trail C who, handily, intersects my two right between the snarl. I have trips to Wisconsin and New Mexico in the next two weeks, but when I return, the carnage is all mine.

Roosevelt Lake

Error -- Each of my toes feels like a swollen little sausage, a microcosm of throbbing. In an effort to cut weight yesterday, I wore a pair of hiking shoes that, now that I think on it, were recommended for casual use, not hiking. I concur.

Triumph -- Reconnaissance missions in the Colorado wilderness are pretty. And the true bonus: those loaded clouds gave us some much-needed rain!

The Day I Got Through

I got through my divorce day by making promises to myself. They were not pretty promises. There I stood, head against the stall of the bathroom at the Green Lake County Courthouse, squelching tears, clenching fists, breathing deep -- all the over-the-top stuff you don't think is real until it is your heart on the floor. I hoped when I walked out that he'd take my hand and lead me out the door, that he would have realized that this was wrong.

I did not want the divorce. I regretted everything I'd done to hurt him, to lose him. I had the job in Colorado. My bags were packed. This was a formality. But it was so real. We walked into the courthouse on a sunny May Monday, holding hands. He spoke to me in gentle tones. I couldn't speak. We were going to be friends and maybe more again someday.

Afterward we went out on the lake together in the boat. We ate the gourmet cheeses and crackers I'd brought. I had vowed to give him this, to do this graciously. He would not see me cry or shake. I would not plead. I would give him this. He was never to know the price. I sat in the boat, holding my feet in Wisconsin water. I studied their blueness. I studied on my promises. I would keep them. I chewed cheese and made conversation.

The lawyer was there and did most of the talking. We had ended amicably, had agreed. The lawyer had congratulated us on our equanimity, wished all people would end like this. I had to agree once, twice, I don't know how many times. I summoned a voice from underneath the knot, beneath the beating ribcage, forced it past the corrugations in my throat. We'd had to sit apart. I felt him there. I hoped he'd say "no." He said yes.

I would give Colorado a fair shake. I would give it two months and if I still couldn't breathe without pain, if every thought was of him and loss and cyclical regret, I would go into the mountains and keep walking. Or get in my car and drive to Denali and walk there so that my sister would have no shade of responsibility for the sister under her wing. The promise gave me courage. I would give this to him, this freedom. I would do it well.

Leaving the courthouse, he took my hand into his, that big mitt that I loved. He squeezed. "I'm so proud. You didn't even cry."