Rock-Climbing

I went rock-climbing for the first time when I was in middle school. My class went on a little team-building camping trip. Over the course of this trip we did a number of stereotypical and annoying group activities. It was chilly and rainy for most of the first two days. The third day, however, it started to clear up. The camp we had gone to was by a lake, and on the edge of the lake there was a small gap in the trees. The owners of the camp had set up a plywood wall with plastic holds. This was your standard wall you might find in any indoor gym.

We climbed this wall first, and our reward for top-roping (the climber's term for getting to the top of the wall) was to see over the wall and get the view of the lake. I did this wall twice, but this was like riding a bike with training wheels. Later in the day, the training wheels came off.

They took us out to a real rock wall.

I'm not talking about a larger hunk of wood with holds, I'm talking about solid stone. There were no color codes here to tell you where to put your hands and feet.

I was thrilled. I had done the other wall twice, this would be easy. I'd follow the half of the class that had made it to the top, wave at those still on the ground, then run down the back of the rock. I was going to dominate this rock beast.

It didn't occur to me that I would get halfway up, freak out, and climb right back down. I failed, epically.

Nevertheless, I'd already fallen in love with climbing. I already knew I wanted to do it again. All through high school I was invited to go to one of the city's indoor gyms again and again, but was never able to do so. I sat this because it is important that you understand that the piece of writing below was written almost four years ago, well after I had actually been on a wall, and well before I had gone again to the local rock gym.

This is how much of an impression rock-climbing made on me.

Enjoy.

Lisa

P.S. Please leave comments, this piece means a lot to me, short and rough though it is.

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Originally this was where the first chapter of my story was. Due to some mild copyright concerns on my part, I decided to take it down.