Doug Robinson

First time climbing over Big Air for this girl, Amanda Thompson. Nervous? A bit. Lovin’ it? Definitely!

Learning to rock climb is one of those good news, bad news situations. Here’s the good news:  getting started is easier than you think. With a few hours of good instruction—and climbing is definitely too high stakes for a trial-and-error education—you will probably have scaled vertical terrain and made moves as hard as 5.7, which is halfway up the difficulty scale to its current limit at 5.15. You will have earned the right to stride away with the muscles in your shoulders throbbing and a fine little glow in your head.

The bad news: you will KNOW fear.

Climbing is strong medicine, compounded of exhilaration and humility.  I’ll tell you flat out before you start — rock climbing is addictive. If you keep it up, the alchemy of hesitation and afterglow will stick with you.

Last weekend, I went climbing again (like I’ve been doing for over fifty years now). During the first morning of climbing, I waltzed into moves that were hard for me. It didn’t take much, actually. Not touching stone for a few weeks will do this. So there I was, twenty feet up the side of Power Dome, and already sweating it out on a 70o slab. Nowhere to apply force. The challenge was balancing up a series of subtle depressions in the smooth rock. I was close to falling; one leg was already starting to do the Elvis.

Several others did fall at that spot, sliding five feet to be caught by the rope. The 8000-pound anchor bolts and the nearly three-ton climbing rope hardly noticed. One of them skinned a fingertip. Big deal; the whole enterprise is safer than driving on the freeway. By dark we had climbed 700 feet to the top of the dome, including several more passages that could only be unlocked by finesse and poise … by moves that approached dance. We built a fire, talking and laughing into the night.

I love climbing. OK, I enjoy this addiction because it makes me feel more alive.  Humble before the forces of nature, but lighter and more playful among men. More agile emotionally, nimble in thought, and with a broader perspective on life and my place in it. You know that feeling in your body after a good workout? Climbing compounds the sensation — especially in your head. Thanks to the challenge factor, that dose of fear. This wonderfully clear-eyed elation is the closest I usually get to what the poet Rimbaud called “supernaturally sober.”

So in the end, the bad news is an integral part of the good news. But it doesn’t start out that way. I see the fear of heights all the time in my climbing classes, before we even touch stone. No one wants to bring it up, of course; each is sure he’s the Lone Ranger. So I talk about my own fear of heights. Like being on the summit of Half Dome. Out on the edge, I’m able to look down the 2000-foot face only by laying on my belly with just my eyes peeking over. Like back in San Francisco, breaking a cold sweat riding in a glass elevator. Fear of heights is surprisingly universal. Psychologists have put infants two hours old onto a glass table, and have noticed them recoil from the drop. The bolder among them (psychologists, that is) have gone so far as to suggest that fear of heights might be an instinct. Personally, I’m convinced that those without it got eliminated from the gene pool long ago.

While the psychologists are feeling superior for having classified us as counter-phobic, we will slip quietly away and get to the juicy stuff — the moving heart of why climbing is so compelling. For starters, it’s a totally natural thing to do. We all climbed as kids, scrambling up everything in sight. Then we “grew up” and forgot. So, learning the physical moves of climbing is mostly a matter of uncovering something we already know. Relax a little, and it’s right there. A lot of the fun comes from the sheer physicality of it all — problem solving in the vertical dimension with your mind-body footloose on the strange and stony new medium. Play it.

While you’re at it, watch kids for technique. A one-year-old climbing onto a sofa—kick a leg up and press—exhibits flawlessly the style of a mantle move. They relate sensibly to fear too, climbing boldly—which is a lot safer than being timid—until they reach a height where it hits them and they back down.

If there aren’t any kids around, watch a video. I made one called Moving Over Stone, which gives me bragging rights to the best selling rock video of all time (and it’s due for re-release on DVD). Some of the others are good too, if you don’t mind a heavy metal sound track. You can rent them at any climbing shop or rock gym. Imaging off the moves of top climbers on hard climbs will have a surprising effect on your climbing. Even the countless falls become reassuring. They drill into the old reptile part of your brain (where the fear is kept) the fact that the strand of spun nylon and your partner holding the other end can actually stop you in mid-plummet. Eventually you’ll also get that if you’re not falling, you’re not pushing yourself.

Gear? Don’t worry about it. You can rent shoes. Your instructor or the rock gym will have everything else. Soon enough you can buy your own shoes and harness, as long as you promise not to cave in to the latest fashion and get the shoes too tight. You won’t need your own rope until much later, when you know how to set an anchor up safely.

Gym rats, wake up! Here’s why you should go climbing outdoors right now:

You should go outside because that’s where they keep the real rock, and playing on it will make you a better climber. That includes the very first time if you’re just starting. This used to go without saying. Twenty-five years ago there was one climbing gym in the country, down on the Seattle waterfront. Now there are over 400, and most people assume they will start climbing in one. That’s OK, there are advantages beyond the convenience. Gyms build strength much more quickly. And they’re safer (though all climbing has some irreducible risk—you’re playing with gravity).

But. If you can start climbing outdoors you will get less vertical initially, even though you reach the same difficulty standard. The advantage, even for starting on a 40o slab, is that your footwork and balance will be better right from the start. Two hours outside will put your footwork ahead of two months in the gym. And of course there’s all that nature out there: the fresh air and bright sky and vistas tinged with vivid colors.

Eventually you may aspire to the sharp end of the rope. My mentor Chuck Pratt states flatly that “leading is climbing,” though it’s not for everyone.  Climbing breaks out into so many dimensions that you will probably discover crack climbing, the art of jamming. You may gravitate toward bouldering, moves of extreme difficulty only a few feet off the ground, or multi-day big wall climbs like Half Dome and El Capitan. Further afield are alpine climbing, frozen waterfalls, Himalayan mountaineering. Wherever it may lead, climbing on local crags is the place to start.

On crags everywhere our numbers are increasing, the legions of those who once thought that a double latte was the ultimate legal rush. Get on out there and taste the noradrenaline (we are not really adrenaline junkies, it turns out) that rises out of exacting movements performed with an edge of perceived risk. It gives you a jolt of feeling more alert, more alive. Focus harder, push yourself and you begin to feel the vertical dance steps raise you to a state of flow. When you look up, blinking from that concentration, the world can sometimes begin to shimmer. Everything starts feeling more meaningful. You have crossed a threshold to where your brain begins to produce homegrown psychedelic compound. This doesn’t happen every time, but suddenly you understand how there can be so many healthy addicts.

Coming Soon: I’m excited to announce that we are very close now to the publication of my new book The Alchemy of Action, which explores in detail the hormonal cocktail that flows out of the intensity of those high times when you’re clinging to the ragged edges of the world. Look for it toward the end of September. This is your brain on adventure!

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