NTKOG #97: The kind of stridently intrepid sportnik who scrambles up the face of a wall with no harnesses or hesitations.
I am: terrified of heights.
I am not: embarrassed to admit that walking on the second floor of a shopping mall is enough to jack up my heart rate. Those glass barriers do me in, guys.
The Scene: The rock-climbing wall at the Orwellianly-named FitRec at BU, where I sneaked in under the auspices of a WinterFest alumni event. All afternoon, Sister, Hot Hands and I watched dismayingly adorable toddlers in their Dora the Explorer underoos scurrying up the wall like cockroaches, shrieking with sticky-faced glee. I turned to Sister: “Hey, if little kids can do this, I certainly can, right?”
“You?! Climbing a wall?!” she cackled, oozing schadenfruede from every pore. “Oh, I’ll pay for the shoe rental. I have the feeling I’ll get my money’s worth.”
Sister has a point. Things I am good at navigating: word processing software, tricky menus, tables of contents; things I am bad at navigating: MY PHYSICAL REALITY. I’m bad enough just operating on the X-axis, let alone throwing some Y action into the mix.
The rock wall in question. We're -- we're not exactly talking Everest here, people. My head was, at the highest, about a foot below the black line.
First few attempts upward were total non-starters. Grabbed handholds, swung one leg up, then stopped to think too long. In the background, a Disney-villain chuckle ground steadily out of Sister’s throat. Finally steeled myself to scramble up a few footholds and — my god, I didn’t die! I spun my head to smile winningly at Sis and Hot Hands, then turned back to the wall.
Just then, one of my feet started to slip. As I frantically adlibbed a few feet to the left, it occurred to me: my sasquatch feet are eighteen times larger than a good three-quarters of the foot rests. My head is more than a story over the ground. Why are my hands so goddamn slippery?! No big deal, though — I came, I climbed, I will blog — no shame in heading down now. Except–
Except.
When I looked back at the wall, all the handholds seemed to scramble like a CGI rendering of dyslexia. I was a single trembling sun in a vast, empty galaxy. Not one potential handhold or footrest existed within my grasp. My heart ratcheted up to a techno beat; I hyper-hyperventilated. I knew it was really bad when Sister stopped laughing at me.
Fun fact: there have been three times in my life when I knew I was going to die. Once, lying in a hospital bed with a fully collapsed lung; another time, stunt-driving 80mph backwards through a closed train-crossing arm with the locomotive three car-lengths away; and now, six fucking feet off the ground with five-year-olds scampering up the walls on either side of me. Panic attack is, I think, the mot juste? “This will be my inauspicious end,” was certainly the mantra.
If I didn’t cry, it is only because every ounce of fluid in my body was gushing out of my palms. “I’m going to fall!” I cried. “Is that okay? Will I die if I fall?”
Hot Hands looked down at the tiny protective spring mat, then back up at me. “Just … just don’t fall.” Fuck. There went Plan A.
Plan B involved me clinging to the wall and cursing, loudly, as though my life depended on it, while Sister and Hot Hands called out a demented vertical game of Twister. “Put your left hand on the green one!” (the green one is in fucking Rhode Island) — “Get your right foot on the purple!” (it’s the size of my pinky toe!). I have literally no recollection of how I managed to clamber down, but it must have taken ten full minutes.
Once I was back on solid ground, Sister let loose the laugh that had been brewing the whole time. “You’re so red you’re blushing through your shirt!” she laughed. “I’ve never seen you like this!”
I tried to flick her off, but I was still shaking so hard it looked like I was waving hello.
The Verdict: Well, now you know where NEVER to throw me a surprise party. My chest literally broke out in hives again writing this post. As for rock-climbing walls, you can leave them for the six-year-olds, with their tiny feet and cheerful disregard for mortality.
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I absolutely love love love rock climbing!! And strangely, I love heights, like in a kind of psycho way. I don’t think our definitions of fun match somehow… ;)
haha, apparently not! Something like 80% of my favorite memories occur in subterranean venues. I take my fear of heights seriously!
I tried climbing as a teenager on holiday (we used to go to places where there was adventure stuff for kids and there was a tower you could climb up one side and abseil down the other) and I wasn’t BAD at it, then I started to develop a bit of a fear of heights and after that I was screwed.
I always am fascinated by these people who freeclimb up buildings without equipment. Don’t understand how they can do it!
“seemed to scramble like a CGI rendering of dyslexia.”
I have totally had this exact feeling before. I can’t believe you managed to put it into words!
I just remember waking up the next day and not being able to sit up in bed ’cause my whole upper body was broken. :(
Very funny! Especially the part about not crying because all the fluids in your body had rushed to your palms. Descriptive, lol.
Dear, Sister says, “There are photos,” and a photo is worth a thousand words. You could have skipped writing this entry. I
would so enjoyed being a fly on that rock climbing wall. Did you teach the children new words?
Dude, I was cursing so hard that I learned new words.
Oh, there are definitely photos! I’ll e-mail them to you, Mom! And yes, she did teach the little cockroaches a few new words, and Hot hands and I had to tell her to watch her mouth.
You and Dad would have enjoyed watching her flail- I know I did. Heh Heh! ::insert deliciously evil Maleficent cackle here::
haha, you’re a genius! I was thinking Ursula, but Maleficent is a much better fit. Trust you to know the perfect Disney villain for any occasion.
Maleficent is my favorite Disney villain of all time! She is an all powerful bad-ass with magical powers, no pathetic sidekicks, and virtually no character flaws. She’s my hero!
They didn’t put you in a harness? I thought that was standard practice? At least at PWCU, you couldn’t get near the climbing wall without signing a liability waver and hearing a little lecture on how to set up your harness.
That being said, I had actually progressed as far as an intermediate rock climbing class before I had a freak-out on the wall and couldn’t do it again. The instructor pushed me to do a route that was just slightly more difficult than “insanely fucking easy,” but the sheer terror I felt when there was no handhold, even WITH a harness, ruined me.
It’s too bad, it’s supposed to be really good for upper body strength.
You only had to wear a harness to go above the black line; below that, I think they figured any fall would be non-fatal. Plus it was 98% kids, for whom the springy “keep yo’ head from cracking” mats were actually big enough to serve their intended purpose.
Dude, judging by what’s going on in my arms this morning, I can see how this would be a crazy-effective work-out. But I would have to be an idiot to try it again ’cause, uh, dude.
Rock climbing is an INSANE workout. I had a membership at the local climbing gym before I moved, and I went at least 3 times a week. Let me just say, I’ve got freakin’ GUNS now!
I have the same feelings about the upper level of shopping malls. When presented with the opportunity to climb one of those rock walls in the past, I took the cowardly route and stood below while all my friends had fun climbing. I’m sure I would have panicked if I’d gotten up there. So, seriously — good for you for trying! That took real guts.
I had to shake my hands out to regain feeling in my fingertips after reading this. I have empathetic panic for you.
I’ve been rock climbing with kids, but hell no am I going up there myself. I just like to watch the little boys cry “My nuts! Ow!” as the harness cuts into their crotches on the way down. Tee hee.
not one question about the stunt railrway crossing?
i really love your descriptions, i needed a good laugh today. how you felt on that wall is how i feel on rollercoasters. hey at least you tried and got a good blog post from it :)
Sadly, there’s not much more to the stunt-driving story than what I told. I used to have to cross pretty busy train tracks to get back to my old house in California, and one day as I was crossing them, I pulled onto the tracks to make a right on a green light, but for some reason the guy in front of me just decided not to go ahead, regardless of how much I honked — even when the arms came down! So I got caught between them; there was a long line of cars behind me that couldn’t budge, and traffic was flowing in the opposite lane. I was literally on the verge of abandoning my car and making a run for it (which I obviously didn’t want to do! I don’t want to know what would have happened to the train or its passengers if it ran over a Corolla!), but just as I was unbuckling my seatbelt, the traffic in the opposite lane behind me broke, so I crashed through the train arm and managed to navigate my car to safety.
Thus hopefully forever ends my career as an action hero…
That is. So. HARDCORE.
Maybe you would have felt more secure if you were in a harness and top-roped…
Definitely true. But this was during “free climb” hours, so there weren’t rope-holding dudes; the deal is that you can’t go above the black line without a harness. And really, the black line wasn’t very high (twelve feet, maybe?). I wasn’t in any danger — I just panicked anyway. :-)
I am impressed and also want to give you one of my not-so-smothering hugs. Get a stunt double. xD
I’ve always wanted to try rock climbing, but I am super weak. Like pathetically weak. AND I am slightly fearful of rocks, climbing and crotch harnesses. Hmmm….maybe I won’t be trying this anytime soon.
You’re too brave! I kind of want to try this but I’m totally afraid of falling. Though in high school/middle school we used to do this climbing the walls thing and it was kind of fun…
I once went rock climbing with Scouts.
My foot slipped the TINIEST little bit, but everyone noticed it, and because Scouts are bigger drama queens than the Girl Scouts, they were asking me all the way home “Are you okay? That was a close one” and then telling everyone at school and stuff how I “Almost died”
It’s a lot easier with a harness…
I actually had a similar story when I went abseiling a month ago, although instead of freaking out the whole way (I freaked out most of the time) I spent most of it cracking bad jokes and then verbally assaulting the people in charge for laughing…
I would pee. I can’t handle heights.
I’m not sure they’d even let you on a climbing wall without a harness and safety line in the UK.
That said, sorry but :D ROFL!!
Now then, I love heights; I’m one of these people who will go and stand on a Pierced Steel Plate catwalk, or on a glass floor, or in a glass elevator, and then look straight down. As a man of contradictions, I also love disappearing down holes as long as they’re big enough to take 4′ 22″ tall and 44″ chest with no need to do more than stoop. I once went to Wales, and spent a whole week visiting castles and mines (slate quarries to the Welsh [well mostly; one was a Neolithic copper mine], but they’re underground, so mines to the rest of the World).
It isn’t necessary to be clipped in when climbing below the “bouldering line”. You’ll see this line in a lot of climbing gyms, especially if they don’t have a designated bouldering room or cave. That being said, I prefer to have a spotter when bouldering, because even though it’s only 12ft (at max), it hurts A LOT when you land flat on your ass.
I rock climb three days a week. I love it. I would have paid good money to see your try at it, though. Sounds hilarious.
You have to admit, at least you’re brave enough to attempt such things!!!
Although you’re right. I’ll have to remember never to invite you out to truly rock climb with me . . . we tend to do it with no ropes either, only on real rock.
HEHE.
Bravo.
The thing about climbing is that EVERYONE has sasquatch feet in relation to the footholds. It’s supposed to be this way! You can easily support yourself on your toes and just enough rock for your fingertips. :)