What Climbing Gave Me

We were racing the sun, and trying our best to avoid the moon.

My partner and I were climbing in the Verdon Gorge, six hours from our home of Chamonix France. August is peak tourist season in the area known as the Grand Canyon of Europe. All summer long, families flock to the deep slotted canyon-hiking, canyoning, and visiting the 12 century chapel situated near the rim of the gorge. August is a bad time for climbing with high heat and the sun’s intense gaze. But it was the only time we had, and my partner, Pierre, wanted to share one of his favorite parts of France with me.

On our last day, we found ourself repelling down into the gorge at 4pm-usually the time I’m trying to wrap up my day’s activities. We would have five hours to climb 11 pitches back to the car before the sun set and headlamps would become mandatory. We set off from the bottom, easing into a smooth rhythm- swapping pitches and gawking at the view of the river below us at each belay station.

I started climbing at a very young age. The exact date and place is unknown. Most likely it was in Wyoming, where I was born and raised. Since there were full body harnesses involved, I’m sure it was under the age of seven. My parents love of climbing and the outdoors naturally spilled over to my two brothers and me. Going climbing was not so much of a choice as it was an assumed part of our lives. I don’t remember ever asking to go climbing, nor do I remember ever complaining when we did.

Warm weather weekends and holidays found the five of us piled into the family’s ’94 black and red Chevy Suburban driving to numerous crags in the Mountain West. Spring break at Joshua Tree. Summer camping in Yosemite. Autumn weekends scrambling up bulbous stone formations at City of Rocks in Idaho.

Our parents let us run wild and loose. It was the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. It wasn’t unusual to find my brothers and I crouching on the summit of a boulder near nightfall, our parents out of eyesight preparing Top Ramen for dinner. The rocks were our playground, the sky our babysitter.

My participation in climbing has ebbed and flowed since those days. Soccer, volleyball, skiing and hormones replaced climbing in middle school and high school. I picked it up again in college as an easy way to make friends while being 2,419 miles from home. When I moved to Washington, DC, for my first “real” job; climbing (as well as all other forms of exercise and movement) fell aside yet again.

At the age of 25, I traded my stable job in the hospitality sector for the dream and instability of becoming a professional skier. While my parents taught us to seek beyond our limits, I think even they were surprised by my bold jump into the world of professional sports. I graced very few podiums during childhood athletics. I warmed a lot of benches for soccer games. My box of childhood mementos had more participation awards and stellar report cards than trophies or medals. Yet the activity, the community, the call was all more appealing than the corporate track I had found myself on.

I loved the challenge of getting better at skiing, at getting better at moving. It took years to learn all the techniques and tricks I needed to be the best skier, but throughout the process I felt the familiar feeling of contentedness, of personal expression found playing outside.

The worlds of skiing and climbing often overlap. Many skiers climb, and many climbers ski. A summer activity to pass the time between winters. A counter-balance to all the compression incurred while skiing. Skiing is all about speed, compactness, and embracing gravity. Climbing is all about slowing down, elongating, and ascending. In the winter I would jump off cliffs; in the summer I’d climb up them. 

Just like it did when I was a child, climbing takes me to new places as an adult. Living in Europe, the sport has introduced me to small villages I never would have visited. I’ve traded our large family suburban for a car the size of a golf cart, but the adventures remain the same. Cliffs are off the beaten path. I find myself playing in dense forests, or hanging high above cerulean seas. On occasion, I’ve been able to share climbs in my new foreign home with my brothers—reverting back to the days of our youth.

Climbing grants me access not just to new locations, but to new landscapes. The vertical world is different than the horizontal. Climbing forces my eyes to focus more acutely—delicate flowers and bugs so transparent you would miss them if you weren’t looking intently for holds. Birds are known to swoop around climbing cliffs—for a moment, you join them on their plane. I’m 5-foot-2 and have spent my life looking up. Climbing gives me the opportunity to see the world from above. 

New towns, new landscapes, new heights and new thoughts. Long climbs give me the opportunity to think. Instead of a barrage of inputs, the singularity of climbing distills my thoughts. Similar to the mental trains caught running or walking, climbing lets my mind wander, ponder and reflect.

Season after season as a professional skier, challenge morphed into pressure. It wasn’t always a bad thing—pressure forced me to focus, to work hard and take risks. Equally so, the pressure changed my relationship to movement. The playfulness I experienced as a kid slowly faded as I felt anything I did physically had a microscope on it. A day spent skiing or training was more frequently performed in front of a camera than not. I felt I wasn’t allowed to fail which froze me with fear, and inevitably I became stiff in my movements. The microscope began to burn a hole into my ego and confidence.

Climbing let me move my body without consequence—my income, competition results, and social media followers are not hinged to my performance on rock. I don’t have to be a professional athlete when I climb. There is something refreshing about moving as an amateur.

I’m used to setting goals for my skiing—be it a first descent or particular cliff to hit. Or a benchmark weight I want to be able to squat each autumn before ski season. That instinct to set goals occasionally crosses over to climbing. I’ll think I want to climb 7c or I want to get to the top of that particular rock. But these goals have never stuck around long, and not for lack of trying. I think it is because what I want out of climbing has nothing to do with the standard metrics of sport, nor the attachment of worth and success we place on it. 

Joy is the end product of climbing. I resonate with the gentle, low impact movement. The time with friends, outside, away from distractions fills me up. It’s hard to do anything while climbing or belaying besides climbing and belaying. Some days I try really hard, and some days I just cruise easy routes—both experiences have the same consequence: I have fun. 

Traditional metric goals don’t work for my climbing. Some weeks the goal of climbing is reacquainting with a distant friend. Some climbs are all about the end reward of gelato or a good slice of pizza. Sometimes it’s about me getting to the top of a climb, and other days my motivation centers around the desire of my partners to reach the top. My goals are ever shifting, and impossible to track on a spreadsheet or leaderboard.

With climbing, I’m not actually interested in progression; I’m interested in enjoying my time, my friends, nature, and movement as they are, in that exact moment. I’m interested in reinforcing the lessons my parents taught us on all those trips—how to play unencumbered, how to work together as siblings and partners, and how to appreciate my body and nature for the tranquility they bring me. Climbing never seems to mind that I haven’t stayed faithful to it; the rocks don’t care how hard I try. Climbing always welcomes me back. 

Around 8pm, we came to the final pitch of our climb in the gorge.  It was my turn to lead, and the grade wasn’t softening. Pierre urged me to take the final pitch-a good partner knows when you need a little push. I took a big breath and began scaling up the rock. Despite it being the end of the day and many hours into the climb, the movement felt easy. It was as if I was a marionette with someone else pulling the strings. When I reached the top, tears streamed down my face. Many challenging years had passed where I hadn’t experienced the flow state I usually found skiing and climbing. On that climb I felt a recognition of someone I once was. There was a feeling of grief and sadness around losing easy access to my former hard charging self. But the overwhelming feeling was one of gratitude. For my parent’s efforts in raising us in nature. For my friends and partners who’ve always had me on belay-literally and emotionally. And a gratitude for climbing itself-for the way it can evoke joy, curiosity and memory. I’m thankful for the ways climbing instills a sense of faith in oneself and a belief in a beautiful life ahead.