Rock Climbing Introduction - The thrill of the climb

The process comes back, though not as quickly as I'd like. I can't quite push the nagging worry out of my mind as I reach
from hold to hold and tick away a body length at a time toward the top. I start forgetting things that used to be second
nature, hesitating on what should be simple moves. Climb with your feet. Breath. Relax, I keep telling myself. The entire
time, all I'm thinking about is whether or not he'll be able to lower me safely to the ground without dropping me if I make it
to the top or will he be able to arrest my fall if I should shake a foot off a small piece of quartz.

I keep going despite my concerns, slowly finding my rhythm again. My mind gradually slips back to experiences a decade
past and my body, mostly, follows suit. I weigh a lot more than I did then and I'm using muscles I haven't used in some time
so the physical grace on the rock is nothing to be proud of, but I'm doing it and it looks like I'm going to finish it.

Leaves, gold and amber, cascade from the top of the cliff in a lazy shower towards me and then drift on by. The breeze that
threw them from their perch in the trees above cools me a bit and that old familiar feeling returns. It's a rare sensation; one I
only sometimes experienced even back in the day when I lived for climbing, but it's as welcome as a kiss from the prom
queen. The world becomes pure Zen around me. Colors are more crisp, sounds deeper, the world opens up to the senses in
an indescribable way as the mind focuses on the very real task of preserving your life. Imagine all the benefits of a
fight-or-flight adrenaline rush without the panicky, rushing feeling accompanying it.

Before I know it there's no more cliff to climb. I'm at the top and I'm no longer afraid that my belayer will botch the lower.
He's kept up with me the entire way, taking in enough slack to keep me from falling too far if I slipped, but not so much that
my weight was ever on the rope. I slap the carabineers to eliminate any question of my success and call down to him to
take, a climber's way of asking for all the slack to be pulled out of the system. He doesn't take. I call down again but there's
still nothing. I feel if I were to let go now I'd plummet to the bottom. I glance down at him and he nods reassuringly. He's got
me, his look proclaims. So I let go and feel myself fall - all of 2 feet. The rope catches and my heart elects to resume
beating. I slowly walk backwards down the vertical face as he lets rope slide through the belay device. Just as the harness
begins to annoy the jewels, my feet gently touch ground. The next thing I plan on teaching him is how to take slack so that I
feel it.

Each of my novice climber friends takes a turn on the same route. It's what I consider a kiddy route, but I don't doubt for an
instant they're fighting the same initial panic I fought on my first run back at climbing. I may be an experienced belayer, but
they don't know what that means. They haven't learned to trust me, their feet, the gear, the anchors, the rope, anything.
They're going on blind faith. God bless them, though, they do it. Before long, we've each climbed a couple easy routes and
are spent. It's a good start.

At lunch, the shit-eating grins have faded. Mouths are stuffed and beer is consumed. There's no idle chatter. Each of us is
basking in the experience I promised them… an indescribable physical experience which is almost invariably followed by an
astounding sense of mellow peace. We'll ache tomorrow, probably the next day too. For now, though, every nagging
problem that assails us in our daily lives is at least temporarily a thing of the past. Neither of them will ever look at a vertical
structure the same way again.

Two years later we're still at it, though we're all recovering from injuries at the moment. I'm climbing at a higher rating than I
did twelve years ago despite the extra weight I'm packing. My novice friends are no longer novices. We're at the same level.
I can't speak for them but not a day goes by that I don't think about climbing. If we can inflict the same obsession on you,
we'll consider it a job well done.

I'll make the same promise to you that I made to them - Give it a real try. Don't give up on it until you've climbed something
real outdoors (climbing gyms are a great place to learn the fundamentals, new things when you're advanced and help to stay
in shape, but they are just a substitute for the real thing outside. Don't stay gym rat). Finish one climb outside that you find
challenging and you'll be amazed at how good you feel. You'll marvel at how everything looks, smells and tastes better -
more real, as if you're experiencing the world for the first time. For a precious little while, your daily cares and concerns will
seem inconsequential. Oh, and you'll never look at a vertical structure the same way again, because you'll always be
calculating how to climb it.