Climbing season! A social media diary . . .
My past weekend was quite full balancing work (Sunday) and fun (Saturday), both of which took priority over the blog. Still, it won’t take long to share all that I need to this week. My outdoor climbing season began on Saturday, and I am as inspired as ever! I’ll tell this story here through the social media diary I’ve put together . . .
Before this past weekend, I last climbed outside on New Year’s Eve – an unseasonably warm day, and pretty much the last one we had until recently. It was a great way to finish the year that climbing became my passion . . .
Since last winter, I did most of my climbing at the gym, honing my skills and improving my fitness. At times, the progress felt slow, and I took my share of falls as I tried to reach new grades on the indoor wall . . .
But over past couple of months, I made improvements in the grades I could climb indoors both on the rope wall and bouldering wall. My technique improved first as I became more comfortable with it and more recently with the first indoor lesson I took – something that was necessary for me to reach another level. After making leaps in my progress for several months over 2024 – which is natural at the beginning of a process where there is much room to improve – I got to the point where I needed help. I needed it not just to go right to another level, but to correct the flaws I developed as my own teacher. Here’s three posts that show some of my progress at bouldering and rope climbing . . .
Now, this was the weekend to test it all outside at my happy place – The Gunks. It was supposed to be a dry and relatively mild-temperature day in the low- to mid-50’s, but Mother Nature threw us for a bit of a curve. You know, the kind when your weather app tells you it’s not raining, but the cold mist outside says otherwise. It also never hit the 50’s until we were finished for the day. But since Mother Nature is among the top reasons for my climbing passion, I take her in all her glory . . .
Saturday was as physical, educational, and spiritual as it always is out there. This next Instagram post says it all – admittedly created by AI. All I had to do was put in the photos and tell AI what the post was about (rock climbing) and how I was feeling (inspired). It set up the perfect message for this average climber who is working hard to succeed . . .
The greatest part of the weekend came from something new I leaned – how to crack climb. This entails wedging your hands into the crack of the wall to create an anchor that helps lift you up. At first, it felt a bit awkward – especially not having the trust in that feeling of bolting my hand into a crack – but I took to it quickly and made incredible progress throughout the day – even climbing, Ken’s Crack, a 5.7+ graded route that was the highest level I’ve climbed to date . . .
As I mentioned, Saturday out on the rock was physical — not just a result of the nature of the sport but also due to the conditions outside that morning. I’ve never climbed with my hands that frozen, so I had to adapt when I couldn’t even feel them grabbing the holds on the rock. I also needed to take a rest day from fitness on Sunday, as my body was as sore as it has been in a while.
Saturday was educational. Learning to crack climb opened a climbing world that I was not yet part of, but one that will be a key part of my trip later this Spring to Moab, Utah. A few more days of practice out there on the cracks, and I could be doing 5.8’s or 5.9’s on my first-ever climbing trip.
Above all, Saturday was spiritual. What I love most about climbing is the laser focus I have when I’m up on the wall – tuning out everything else in the world whether it’s on the ground right below me or waiting for me to deal with I got back home to work. Each time out, that focus gets sharper and sharper. To some extent, there’s always been some level of anxiety that I feel when heading out for a day on the rock. It’s a combination of excitement and nerves. The more I get out, the less anxious I get each time. Not for lack of excitement, but because it just feels more like home out there.
Aaron