Dream Big Wall
El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, California
Truth be told, there’s nothing more that I like blogging about than my climbing journey. Yet, as I find myself reflecting on the past year, I realize this is only my third climbing post in 2025. Since June, most of my energy – and the lessons I’ve learned in fitness – revolved around training for the NY Marathon. That’s not to say climbing took a back seat on my journey – only that it did in this year’s content. In fact, as I look back on my climbing year, I realized that I never even shared my highlight of the year – climbing in Moab.
A year ago, I wrote my year-end update on climbing along with my aspirations for 2025. It took looking back on that post to remind me that I was only just a beginner in 2024. In fact, when I launched Legally Fit in May of last year, I had only just recently climbed outdoors at The Gunks for my first time (with only one other experience before that on an Alaskan cruise in 2023). I had contemplated making a mountain part of the logo for Legally Fit before launching it last May, but ultimately, I thought it might be too presumptuous to include something that was so new in my life. I knew I loved the brief taste of it that I had, but was it possible that I would really turn my hobbies upside down to make this new adventure as big a part of my life as I dreamed it would become?
If each year of my climbing journey is its own title, 2023 would be Trying Something New, and 2024 would be The Journey Begins. For 2025, as I’ll explain below, the title is Dream Big Wall.
Throughout my fitness journey, I often wonder if I get ahead of myself a bit too much. As those of you who follow this blog know, I first set the goal of running the NY Marathon nearly a decade ago when my body had no place running long distances. I learned during the early days of that goal that I had to stop running. Perhaps, again, I was being too presumptuous about the marathon being achievable. After all, I clearly had to turn my life upside down to transform my body and get in better shape. Amid the realization that I was nowhere near running the marathon, I felt that I set my ambitions too high, and I ultimately set aside any expectation that I’d ever run it. The hope remained, but without any belief that I’d do it. That changed a year ago, and despite this year’s setback, I have no doubt that I can run it. In the end, despite not yet having finished the marathon, I look back and know that dreaming early on about running the marathon was never getting ahead of myself. It only helped me focus on the process I needed to follow to get there.
Still, in my climbing journey, this may be the year I look back on and wonder again if my ambitions are getting too far ahead of myself – which brings me to the one update I will share from this year’s climbing journey . . .
Climbing in Moab
Earlier this year, I posted about my cliff jump in Moab, Utah. Going to Rope Swing Moab was undoubtedly reason #1 for the trip, but it wasn’t the only important part of it. Moab was my first ever climbing trip. In my year-end post last year, I wrote about my aspiration to travel for climbing. I wanted to replace golf trips with climbing trips. Moab was mission accomplished.
Travel can open my eyes to the world in ways I just can’t imagine at home. Beyond the obvious opportunity to observe new scenery and go to new places, it exposes me to new people, cultures, and ideas. And it was on my trip to Moab, that an idea was put in my head, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
While out in the dessert climbing the red rocks in the most breathtaking canyons, my guide, Nate, asked me a question I never expected . . . “Do you want to do big wall climbing someday?” As someone who admittedly spends too much screentime watching movies and social media reels of elite climbers on the most massive mountains, I laughed and said, “Well, that’s the dream!” And by the tone of my voice and everything that was behind my response, I meant it in the same way as if I said my dream was to go to outer space. I mean, climbing El Capitan – or any big wall like it – isn’t possible for me . . . is it? It’s crazy.
Later that night, as I discovered more about Nate on his Instagram and truly discovered how awesome-crazy he is, I began to think about how awesome-crazy his comment was.
I mean, if this guy, who could zip-line/base-jump across a mile-long canyon in Moab, was asking if I was interested in big wall climbing, does that mean he knew I could do it? After our first day climbing together, Nate certainly observed my limitations. But that wasn’t all he saw. He told me how impressive it was that, after each climb, I analyzed every part of the route and relayed everything from which moves were difficult to how balanced or off-balance my body felt at certain key points of it. He commented on how insightful my analysis was. So, the next morning, as we headed out to the rock for more, I asked Nate if he was serious. My question was, “Is big wall climbing even possible for me?”
Obviously, I wouldn’t be sharing this story if the answer was a hard “no.” It wasn’t. Instead, we discussed what I needed to do to make it possible, since I’m nowhere close yet. No doubt I have a lot to learn in terms of technical skills. I also need to get a lot stronger. But I also spent the week developing new skills in crack climbing and slab climbing, and that’s a step in the right direction . . .
None of this is guaranteed, but it’s all possible. So, my trip to Moab was where my dream of climbing big wall became my goal. And of course, it was where I climbed some incredibly breathtaking routes.
The ultimate dream is to climb El Capitan. Who knows if I’ll ever reach that? At this point in my climbing journey – like the early days of my running journey – I can’t think too much about the destination. There are at least a thousand things I need to do and learn even before I train for the big wall. But if I look back on where my climbing has come since this journey truly began last year, there’s reason to be hopeful.
A year ago, the highest grade I climbed was 5.6. It was in The Gunks, where the grades are sometimes considered “sandbagged” so it may be that it is truly a 5.7 or 5.8 somewhere else. Regardless, this year I reached a higher level. I’ve done 5.8 routes in The Gunks and climbed multiple 5.10 routes in Moab! In the end, these are just numbers, as there are still 5.7 routes that give me trouble and 5.8 (or higher) routes I can do with relative ease. But one thing I know for sure – having revisited some routes this year that were a real struggle a year ago – is that I’m much better. It’s easy to improve at something a first. There’s so much room for it. But, as I learned when I expected to improve throughout my years of golfing, I can hit a wall where the progress becomes incredibly slow no matter how much I put into it. So far, I haven’t found that wall in climbing.
Gunks climbing
For what it’s worth, the easiest route up El Capitan is East Butress (IV 5.10b). The IV means that it can be done in one very long day. But the most intriguing route for me is The Nose (VI 5.14a or 5.9 C2). The VI means that it will take two-plus days (which includes sleeping on the wall).
The difference in grades for The Nose – a 5.14a vs 5.9 – is whether you do certain sections with aid climbing to move up certain pitches versus whether you free climb the whole thing (no, that’s not the same as free solo climbing without a rope). Aid climbing is among the thousands of things I need to learn and do before I can big wall climb — especially if I climb The Nose. And there are plenty of stories out there of those who foolishly tried to climb The Nose before they should have.
It will undoubtedly takes years for me to be ready. And herein lies my biggest doubt – Father Time. I’m 51 years old and work full time as a lawyer. I can’t devote my life entirely to training. I must work it into my lifestyle at the only pace that I can, and I’m not getting any younger. While I’m not going to say that any age will be too old to try it – because age is just a number – time may nonetheless run out. But the way I see it, while in the end, I may not reach this goal, it may be that I have just enough time to accomplish it. All I can do now, is take the first of a thousand steps. And then the next one. It may be this coming year that the realization of failure comes. It may be in five years. Or it may be that sometime along the way in this journey, I find myself ready to climb the big wall. I’ll never know if I don’t try.
Even as I write this, there’s a part of me that feels like it is silly to share this dream. Part of it still feels like a post about wanting to go to outer space. But then I look back only months ago to when I wrote my Dare to Dream post. The overall message was about never giving up on your dreams. Sure, I put the belief that anything is possible into perspective by recognizing the limits of that concept. But I also noted that it comes down to this:
Only the person that dares to dream knows themselves well enough to dream. We each determine for ourselves what we think we can achieve – even if we may fail at it.
That, right now, is where this dream lies. It rests in a place where I think I can achieve it. I don’t know that I can, and to be honest, I even doubt it. But I’m not afraid to try and fail. Whether or not I succeed, I thank Nate for seeing something in me enough to at least ask the question – and plant the seed.
Over time, we’ll find out how far I get with this goal. If it’s over in six months, I’ll share that. Or, if it continues for years, I’m sure there will be lots to share along the way.
One thing I’ve learned through the blog this past year is that I gain just as much – if not more – from sharing my failures as I do from sharing the success I’ve achieved in this journey. Knowing that, I can’t see anything wrong with Dreaming Big Wall.
Living the dream on top of Brush your teeth (5.9) — the last climb on my Moab 2025 trip.
Aaron