I’m often asked if I’m afraid when I climb. It’s probably the most common question presented by people who don’t climb. Other than “how’d you get the rope up there” or “does your mother know you do this?”
I usually answer “no,” but thinking about it the other day, I realized that this answer isn’t entirely correct.
It’s true I don’t have a fear of heights. I’ve been regularly standing on the edge of cliffs since I was about fourteen and never once felt "fear." I’ve been 1000 feet off of El Cap meadow in
Yosemite
, looked down between my legs and watched dropped gear (expensive dropped gear) whistle out into the void. And from that height, it takes a LONG time to hit the ground. I’ve blown gear and been sent on a twentyfive foot lesson in physics while I was 800 feet up on Leaning Tower. I’ve traversed a rope between the
Lost Arrow Spire
and the rim of Yosemite Point nearly 3000 feet off the deck. I’ve climbed fourth class terrain up
Kilimanjaro
, sans ice ax and sans crampons at midnight in the cold, kicking my boots into hardened snow for purchase, looked down and saw hundreds of feet of air between my legs. And I’ve run off a cliff in
Rio
attached to a hang-glider piloted by a smelly guy who really didn’t speak any English.
So no, I’m not usually scared of heights.
But I do respect them.
I am, however, scared of falling.
Actually, I’m not so afraid of falling either. I’ve taken some pretty exciting launches into air. I’ve been resting on a tiny little chip in Bishop and suddenly found myself sailing to a sudden stop at the end of my rope, fifteen feet below. I’ve foolishly unclipped from the rope in Utah and put twenty feet of slack in a rope when fifteen feet from the ground. A little lapse in judgment and a lesson in mathmatics that cost Kaiser $800 for eight stitches, a CT, and a lecture from an ER attending physician who just happened to be a rock climber, and, really, it could have cost me my life. I have popped a cam from a shallow crack while 800 feet off the deck in the Valley and sailed surprised past my belayer to a gentle if a little bloody stop on the slab twenty or so feet below. I laughed when he looked down to me with a huge grin and his heavy Czech accent and asked, “Jim, what are you doing down there?”
“Bleeding.” I laughed. “Bleeding.”
What scares me is the thought of falling. Not the fall. Usually the fall is so fast and so well protected that it’s over in an instant. The fall is the calm before the adrenaline hits your heart at the end of the rope when you realize you just pitched off a rock.
This fear is largely irrational. Climbing is a sport of managed risks, which is why I have probably taken to it so completely. My whole life has been about hedging my bets. About covering my ass before turning my back, fastening the seatbelt before turning the key, having an out before heading in. And, for the vast majority of climbers, the sport of climbing is all about protecting it all before you hang it all over the edge. Sure the bold push the limits and take the biggest risks. The guys who leave the ropes at home and prefer to stake their life on their heads and their hands and hope that nothing out of their control starts their descent a bit earlier than anticipated.
For the rest of us mere mortals, climbing is about managing the risk. The rope, the harness, the protection, the planning. Subsequently, if you’ve done your homework, if you’ve tied your knot, trust your partner, know your abilities, and understand the risks, pushing your limits out in the vertical shouldn’t be so goddam scary.
But the fear hangs out there too. It’s the doubt. It’s the desperation. It’s the dark and cancerous incomplete expression of “what if.” Fear finishes that inquiry with “I fall.”
Courage finishes with “I succeed.”
Unfortunately, all too often, the fear is the louder voice in my head.
And when that doubt comes, when the imaginary catastrophe leaves me bloodied and broken in my head, when I’m palming that blank face of rock and look down to see that last bolt ten feet below my waist and look up and see that next bolt another ten feet above my face, I’m petrified. Rationally, I know I’m not likely to get hurt even if I did pitch, and know that if I’m even attempting the route I’m likely to have the requisite technical skills to finish it unscathed, but when the demon takes possession, and the knees start to shake, my worst fears suddenly seem like inevitability rather than possibility.
And everything starts to shut down.
Where and when the demon takes possession varies dramatically. I’ve been on relatively easy routes I’ve done before and suddenly found my self petrified, swearing to anyone within earshot (and, frankly, out of earshot) and convinced I was just going to quit the sport forever and leave my rack at the base of the climb for some other idiot to use. I’ve experienced panic attacks on climbs that I should have floated, and backed off when I should have been bold.
When Gary and I were climbing the Chief in Canada this past September, I had to cross the famous Bellygood Ledge after a long, dehydrating day on the rock. Bellygood is a ledge along the face of that famous rock, about 1000 feet above the forest below. It’s generally pretty wide by climbing standards, between three and four feet across, but that’s still plenty narrow enough to result in a fatal reminder that this is no place to be cavalier should you stumble.
About halfway across the rock, Bellygood earns its name. For a fifty or sixty foot span the ledge narrows to no more than twelve inches in width, and the smooth gray granite of the chief pushes outward at just about chest high, forcing the intrepid climber to shuffle across the rock, belly plastered to the rock, leaning back, arms desperately hugging the rock searching for a hand hold. Now do this when you are already spooked, dehydrated and exhausted, and you have the rack and remainder of the rope hanging heavy from your shoulders, and this span is terrifying. About halfway across is where the rock really begins its push outward, and it was here I found myself leaning backwards, unsure of my balance, my heels well off in space. The rope hanging over my shoulders, pulling me backward. My legs fatigued from a day of hard climbing. My new approach shoes unstable without the wonderfully sticky rubber I would have wanted for this kind of event. And now my head wasn’t with me either.
A slip and I would have pitched out on a wild, sixty plus foot pendulum off the bright gray granite ledge with some very questionable results. Long rolling pendulums on slabby rock is definitely not the kind of fall you want to take. Sure, the rope would keep me from a sudden and definitely terminal stop into the trees at the base of the Chief, but sixty feet of banging around on a rock is plenty dangerous in and of itself. Soiled shorts would not have been so questionable. Neither would a fractured rib. Or ankle. Or skull. It was here that I found myself truly afraid.
I felt the fight and flight response hit my bloodstream. And really, the whole flight option didn’t seem so compelling. The fear made me want to stop. To turn around. To cry. To give up.
But the source of my fear was also the result of my fear. Losing the battle to fear and failure would have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I stood there, desperately afraid, convinced that any move would send me over the edge, and equally convinced that just standing there would eventually result in the same.
Slowly, I gained control again. I knew rationally I had reached that point that most risk takers love the most. Where you have no choice but one: to move forward. I slid my feet right. An inch at a time. I trusted they would stay grounded as really, I had no alternative. And if I had no alternative, why be afraid?
You either succeed or you fail. You climb or you fall. Losing control to the fear would have only made my worst fears a reality.
Does this mean that I should turn off the fear? Approach life with a do or die attitude, accept the risks blindly and trust completely in my skills and my fate in all of my decisions, whether on the rock or on the ground? I don’t think so.
Courage without fear makes you impulsive and potentially dangerous. Fear is the voice tells you to think twice. Fear is the coach that can make you strong. Fear is the sign that tells you when to stop. Or when to run. Courage not tempered with fear makes you sharp but brittle. Too much fear makes you strong but dull.
The trick is to listen to the fear, but to listen to it rationally. To understand and accept the risks and to listen first to the reasons why you can, as opposed to why you can’t. To seek first how high you can climb, rather than how far you can fall.
