It’s the climb

Round two of my quest to try six new sports in celebration of my 60th birthday turned out to be both harder and a lot more fun than I had anticipated.

Fortunately, I had a great coach.

My niece Erin has been rock climbing practically since she was old enough to walk. She started a competitive rock climbing team at her high school and is on the rock climbing club at Marquette University. (Ring Out Ahoya!)

So, I knew just who to call when I wanted to give rock climbing a whirl. We met at Adventure Rock in Milwaukee. My sister Kathy came along as our official photographer/cheerleader. Our mom joined us too, even though she absolutely would have preferred a brisk walk along the lake. Our sister Jenny (Erin’s mother) photo bombed our end-of-session video, announcing to us that she, too, had arrived.

I obviously had not given this project enough thought because I had a lot of questions after my orientation — like how did they say to clip on the carabiner?

Erin clipped me in and sent me on my way. She also talked me through foot placement and, when I reached the top and realized I had not been paying attention at all when they told us newbies how to get back down, she coached me through that too.

Rock climbing is such an obvious metaphor for life, but it still took me by surprise. Exercise-induced epiphanies generally do.

I reached for my first handhold and felt a little panic bubble up because I didn’t think I could hoist myself up. Then, my foot settled on a hold and I gained some confidence along with those few inches. Each time my foot found a place to land, or my fingers grabbed solid hold of a rock, they got a little shout out from my brain. “Hey, look at us,” it told my limbs. “We’re doing this!”

Rock climbing bonds a body whose various parts might have been having an otherwise surly day.

After she congratulated me on my nice, slow climb, Erin scampered up the wall like a graceful mountain goat. If rock sprinting were a sport, she would have been out of the blocks and at the finish line before the smoke from the starter’s pistol cleared, without breaking a sweat.

I stuck to the lower difficulty climbs, she reached for the hardest ones, and we both enjoyed a few more successful rope climbs. Then we moved on to bouldering, which is climbing on a lower wall without a rope.

By then my arms were shot. I don’t know why I didn’t consider how much work it would be to haul my long body up those walls. I made a few more short climbs on the bouldering wall and then announced (to my mother’s audible relief) that I was done for the day.

I really enjoyed my rock climbing experience and I’m looking forward to the other sports on my list.

Mostly, I’m just so pleased to keep discovering that, while 60 is five short years away from the official definition of elderly,

it is not old.