The Somewhat Complete Rock Climbing Journal of Austin Bontrager

Group Meetings

The handful of times we initially met were more about paperwork and liability than rock climbing. This is unavoidable in a university setting, I suppose. I remember playing an icebreaker game but not remembering anyone’s name afterwards, except for Nick and Chris. I knew both of them before the class started. We filled out a lot of forms.

We did learn some very useful information, though. We practiced putting on the harnesses and tying knots. This is probably the single most important skill to know in rock climbing, so I’m glad we got familiar with that before moving on. We also went over the correct phrases for the climber and belayed to use. “On belay,” “belay is on,” “climbing,” and “climb on” are the important ones to know here. Also “ready to be lowered” and “lowering.” Oh, and if someone yells “ROCK!” it has nothing to do with guitar music.

We got to go to the wall to be certified. I forgot to do the take-home test, so I quickly completed it as people started to climb. I think I only missed one question because I read it wrong, so that was good. I didn’t drop the person I was belaying or get strangled while trying to tie a knot so I passed the test. When I climbed, I cheated up the path to the right, and made it to the top (barely).


Climbing on my Own

I’m going to start out by saying that I didn’t make it to the wall nearly as often as I should have. I got there the required number of times to pass the class, but that’s still pretty pathetic. I think the honest thing to do here would be to put the blame entirely on my professors for giving me so much work to do out of class, when I should be climbing instead. Also, I blame the university parking service for insuring that it is virtually impossible for students without parking permits to get within three miles of city campus. (Hyperbole?) Actually, it’s my fault and I’m lazy.

When I did finally go to the wall on my own for the first time (about two weeks before the trip) I had a lot of fun. It was kind of awkward at first, because I had to really review everything we learned in class to make sure I didn’t get myself killed. Not being familiar with climbing wall etiquette I sat there for about fifteen minutes before coming to the conclusion that the guys with matching T-shirts worked there and would likely belay for me if I requested it. For some reason I didn’t think it was worth the hassle to check out climbing shoes, so I climbed in my boots. This is roughly equivalent to typing a paper while wearing oven mitts. Needless to say I didn’t do terribly well, but I made it up the wall (via the easiest route) a few times before the muscles in my arms decided that they didn’t want to unclench any more. (Stretch FIRST!) I was still pretty terrible at climbing, but I felt more comfortable with how things work at the wall.

The next few times I went were when Chris was there as well. As someone with a fair amount of experience he was able to give me some good advice and encouragement. I also started checking out shoes and chalk, which helps tremendously. My strategy for climbing was to start easy and get comfortable on a route before moving on. Needless to say I didn’t make it onto any of the remotely difficult routes, but I was struggling enough on the easy stuff anyways. My first goal was to make it up the far right orange route (“fire below,” I think the name is?) without cheating by using non-orange handholds. With proper footwear and a little confidence this was a fairly easy feat to accomplish.

My next goal was to conquer the other orange on that side of the wall. I forget what its name is. The beginning is pretty fun. It’s easy enough and has some interesting lateral movement. I kept getting stuck in the middle, however, where the holds really space out and you have to make some long pushes to reach the next hold. I didn’t have the confidence to put my entire weight and balance on a single foot, which is more or less required at a few points on that run. I made a few unsuccessful runs but after watching Chris and Amy go up that route, and gaining some confidence, I was able to accomplish the reaches that I couldn’t convince my body to try previously. Once you get past the reaches of the middle of the run, the holds get better and it’s just a matter of using your remaining stamina to make it to the top.

The last time I went to the wall I focused on making it up that orange without extended periods of hanging on the rope to let my arms regain their strength (the first time up took me quite a long time.) I found that once you have a good idea of how to make it up a climb, keeping a fast but steady pace is a lot easier than going so slow that your arms get tired from the effort of holding your balance before you’re even halfway up.

I also discovered that you must train your mind to accept new standards regarding the failure rate of predictable actions. When you are on the wall, there are certain holds that you know you can make, if you really try. Other holds, you know you will fall if you attempt to reach. However, a surprisingly high percentage of the “impossible” moves can be successfully performed, if you just see how close you can make it before falling. Usually, you will fall, but sometimes, you don’t. There’s been a few times I was so sure I wouldn’t make it that when I actually did, I realized that I hadn’t even considered where to go next. I guess I can sum it up by saying that the laws of probability break down while climbing, so you might as well ignore them outright.


The Trip

What can I say in a few paragraphs that is not already expressed better in the dozens of photos now posted on Facebook? The group of people in our climbing class was great. Everyone had a refreshingly laid-back personality; we weren’t out to impress anyone. The class consisted almost entirely of class clowns, which meant that the excursion at times seemed to be one ongoing comedy routine. It was a lot of fun.

Climbing on actual rock turned out to be a lot more fun than the wall, even if it was all snot-slick quartzite. I didn’t make it up the two or three hardest routes that were set up, but I did make it up some that I thought were going to be too difficult for me to do. I was very satisfied with my accomplishments.

I really liked climbing up the routes that followed a crack. Cracks in the rock give a very unique set of hand and footholds. I probably spent almost as much time bouldering as I did climbing. There were some nice stretches of boulderable rock that were good for practicing lunges and reaches that would wear you out too quickly on the actual climbs.

Despite the fact that the trip consumed the entire weekend, I still scraped together enough time on Monday morning to prepare for the final presentation I had to give that afternoon in a different class. There are plenty of weekends to do work for class; it’s definitely worth sacrificing one for a trip this enjoyable. My skin was burnt, my muscles were sore, and I was so much better for it. Everyone thinks their favorite sport is uniquely able to train skills useful in other areas of life. I have an extremely difficult time thinking of an activity that requires the same level of strength, balance, stamina, strategy, confidence, and willpower as climbing.

Bonus Hour

Burger King coffee in the union, gray Wednesday morning. After being five minutes late to my history class the last few times I made a point to get to the bus stop early enough today. In my rush to get ready on time, I somehow lost track of an hour and sat in the classroom for a while before realizing I was not ten minutes early, I was an hour and ten minutes early. Call it practice for the daylight savings change this weekend.

I haven't updated in a while, though I've meant to often. My grandpa died. I got accepted into grad school (the email arrived the morning of his funeral.) I decided to go to K-State rather than take the job I'd been offered in Iraq. And now, this week, I find out that I'm going to be one credit hour short of graduating (their mistake, not mine by the way.) I guess I'll be taking a summer class before heading to Kansas, then.

I'm not sure how I feel about going to Kansas. Some days I'm excited about grad school, other days I'm really not. It's the most reasonable path to pursue, and that's what bothers me the most. Maybe it's because I never rebelled in highschool but I've been looking back on my life lately and realizing that thus far it's been nothing but a series of taking the path of least resistance. Swimming the English Channel would be significantly less prestigious if all you had to do was tread water for an hour while the current takes you across. Am I the only one that feels this way or just the last person to realize it?

The Sun and the Moon

   

Parakeet

The great thing about childhood pets is that you can go for years without their name so much as crossing your mind, only to remember them with vivid detail at entirely random moments. I can't tell you how old I was, exactly, but I think it must have been towards the end of elementary school. Somewhere between birth and puberty I owned a parakeet.

I wanted a bird that could talk. Who wouldn't? The ultimate form of narcissism is the desire to imprint your own personality onto smaller minds. Lacking the ability to animate my action figures into loyal minions (or have children, which is what most people eventually resort to,) the best I could manage was to get a bird to mimic speech. That was the plan, anyway.

My parents bought me the parakeet from the pets section of an Earl May, if I remember right. I picked it purely based on appearance; I think it was blue or green or something. It was the best looking one in the cage, anyways. All the birds in the cage seemed rather shrill and excitable, but I was sure they were all perfectly reasonable individuals given the proper environment. I didn't realize it was some kind of halfway house for strung-out avian misanthropes.

I named it "Cheeper," which was a reference to both it's noises and its price tag. Cheeper wasn't friendly, which began the tradition of hatred that my pets would have for me. He never talked, either, despite my short-attentioned efforts to teach him. His greatest character flaw went far beyond stupidity and anger, however. It was his fear.

Cheeper refused to leave his cage. Ever. His wings were clipped, so it was safe to let him fly around the living room and enjoy a little freedom, should he want to.

He didn't.

Of course I wanted to play with him, so from time to time I would don a pair of gloves and carefully remove him from the cage, shrieking and fluttering. The first thing he would do each time was to fly directly back onto the cage. Not into the cage, mind you, but onto the cage. Once his tiny claws gripped the bars of his home he would refuse to budge.

Eventually I would get sick of his crap and try to put him back away. Each time I was afraid that to pull any harder for fear of leaving his disembodied legs stuck to the cage like some kind of bizarre ornaments. He was too scared to let go, even if it was the only way to make it to actual safety.

I think we gave him away, eventually. What good is a cowardly bird?

A paradigm shift in the world of fruit juices.

Have you bought any of these fine juices?
http://www.simplyorangejuice.com/products.shtml

I had previously been acquainted with the unsurpassed quality of their "Simply Lemonade" product; a beverage which holds the very rare opinion that the taste of fruit is more important than the taste of sugar.

A few minutes ago I had the opportunity to sample (steal from my roommate) a glass of "Simply Apple" brand apple juice.  If I hadn't noticed it in the fridge several days ago, I would be convinced that it had been wrung from ripe fruit only seconds before I poured it from the container and into my glass.

It doesn't have the flavor of "apple juice" that we have all our lives been brainwashed to accept.  It was not a thin, clear, homogenized syrup.  Nor did it have a distinctly cardboard aftertaste.

Instead, it tasted of apples.