A Drifter Among Us

I went and conquered #25 (rock climb at Upper Limits) off of my list tonight and I have to admit; I am no Sylvester Stallone. I've gone rock climbing before, but I was 12 years old and don't recall much from the experience. So naturally, going into this experience I considered myself a professional.

I was humbled pretty quickly.

Upper Limits was a really cool place. As soon as I walked in I was greeted by two massive walls and an overhang of sculpted climbing surfaces. At 35' tall, the main climbing area included slabs, aretes, roofs, dihedrals, cracks, and two massive arches. I was not prepared for any of this, so me and my friend Jonathon headed upstairs to start small.

The upstairs area was a little less intimidating. It was only 20' tall and had a lot of smaller bouldering challenges to warm up with. Bouldering, is climbing that is done close to the ground and is a good way to build strength, power and technique for climbing and does not require instruction. After about a half hour of figuring out footwork and movement along the wall, I was ready to start climbing.

With Jonathon belaying me, I was ready to top rope climb with the big boys. The top rope system consists of a climber tied into one end of the rope, the rope runs up through a set of anchors at the top of the climb then down to the belayer. The belayer's job is to take the slack out of the system as the climber goes up a route. Using a special device attached to the harness, the belayer can take in slack, hold a climber's fall, and lower the climber back to the ground when they are finished with the route. I did 4 top-rope climbs in total. The last of which was on the big wall. After a while, my hands started to give out. They weren't prepared for the stress that was put on them.

I plan on going back soon. It was an adrenaline rush to get to the top and look down at what you conquered. One day I hope to be as good as all the beautiful, trendy climbers that surrounded me tonight.