The Adventures Continue: Rock Climbing!

The weekend would not have been fun had Java and I not
set out on another adventure.  Where did we go?  We
thought it would be fun to spend the weekend in the
desert at Joshua Tree National Park.  The point of
visiting the Mojave Desert was to learn to rock climb.

I signed up for a two day beginner course with the
Joshua Tree Rock Climbing School.  In a word it was,
Awesome.   Day 1 we did some bouldering learned to
correctly strap on, and tie into our climbing
harnesses.  We did our first set of climbs ranging
from Class 5, category 6 (5.6), to Class 5, category 8
(5.8) climbs.  The Second day we moved onto to harder
and higher climbs:  5.7 to 5.10B!  Class 5 is
considered "Technical Rock Climbing" which requires,
specialized gear and techniques:  shoes, helmet,
harness, ropes, fall protection devices and anchors.

The pictures give you a sense of what Joshua Tree is
like: beautiful, and what the climbing was like, hard!
We did a total of eight different routes, the
shortest was 15 ft. and the highest was 80 ft.  It's
difficult to describe the full experience but mainly
it consisted of trusting everything, and overcoming
your fears.  Trusting that your equipment would not
fail. trusting that the rock you were standing on, or
reaching for would not crumble or break, trusting your
life to a perfect strangers, to make sure they would
not let you fall to a certain death, and lastly and
most importantly trusting your mind and body to
perform things you've never asked it to do before.

Imagine this:  You heart is racing at a 100 mph, your
mouth and throat are bone dry, you can't swallow; the
sun is beating on you, your palms are sweating, every
muscle in your body is shaking from prolonged
exertion; you have a single toe grip, ona single foot,
standing on a ledge no more than 3/8th of an inch
thick, and your hand-hold consists of a finger tip
grip on edges that are no more than a quarter or two
thick.  Meanwhile the wind is gusting and you are 65
ft off the ground, looking up and down at a near
vertical rock face, and you telling yourself to reach
higher and climb further.  If you can imagine that, it
gives you close idea to what the experience was like.
I never would have thought it was possible to climb
unassisted up the face of these rocks, but I did -
Pretty damn exhilarating.


I plan to go back do their Intermediate course which
teaches advanced climbing techniques, and use of
specialized equipment including fall protection
placement and anchoring.  Those skills plus others  I
plan to acquire should allow me to safely (relatively
speaking) tackle pretty much any summit attempt,
including the Mountaineers Route on Mount Whitney.


I hope each of you are having as much fun as I have
been lately.  Life is Good.  Enjoy It!