Climbing through Adolescence

During the summer of 2000, at age 16, my friends and I departed on a two month trip by car to explore some of the most famous rock climbing areas in the United States. My two friends, Jeff and Ian, are also from Florida, and we became acquainted during rock climbing competitions in the Southeastern division of the Junior Competitive Climbing Association (JCCA).  The JCCA is a circuit of indoor climbing competitions which one can enter in order to gain qualifying points toward receiving an invitation to the United States Junior National Climbing Competition. The top three competitors are then invited to be a member of the United States Junior Climbing Team that competes at the World Climbing Competition each year. The fourth and fifth place competitors are alternates for that team. Becoming a member of that team is dream of most young competitive climbers. 

            Jeff, Ian, and I were living in different cities at the time. Jeff lived in Orlando, and Ian lived in St. Petersburg where I also used to live. However, I had just moved in with my older brother in Gainesville, Florida after my sophomore year in high school in order to go to Santa Fe Community College via my General Education Development Test.

In June, we began our adventure. Jeff drove his 1991 Ford Crown Victoria from Orlando to pick up Ian in Tampa, and then they came to Gainesville to get me. We packed a U-Haul Roof Rack, and the old Ford’s trunk was filled as full as we could get it with everything from clothes and climbing gear, to stoves and sleeping bags. We had everything three guys needed to live out of a car for two months.

Our first stop was Atlanta, Georgia. In Atlanta, we competed in the JCCA Regional Competition as our last event before JCCA Nationals. All of the dieting, dedication, and training had us set to reach our peaks at the time of National competition in a few weeks. Unfortunately, I did poorly in the Regional Competition and failed to gain enough points for the invitation to the big competition in Portland, Oregon. I made a mental error early on in my first climb, and it left me with little chance of reaching the necessary amount of points. We left Atlanta headed for Denver. We were not even quite sure which climbing area to hit first. We had Portland as our goal at the end of the first month.

            We first decided to try out the boulders at Morrison, just outside of Denver. We arrived about a day and a half of continuous driving. We did not sleep like any other sane people would after such a grueling road trip. We jumped right out of the old, beat up Ford running for the rocks. The boulders there were impressive red sandstone that have enough climbs (or boulder problems, as climbers call them) to keep us occupied for about half of the day. My favorite climb there was called Helicopter because at the last move a climber is required to throw his right hand up and out so far that the entire left side of his body swings off the rock with tremendous speed.

            Our next stop was Rifle, Colorado where the mystical Rifle Canyon lay on the outskirts of this little town. Rifle Canyon is a dazzling display of colors on a canvas of limestone rock. I had never before seen any such coloring. The canyon was carved by a river, and at some spots the road is only wide enough for one car. The entire structure appeared to be falling on us at all times. It is a polished limestone canyon that has an onslaught of all these crazy little angles. The rock is an overhanging face that threatens to throw your feet off at any second. The climbing there is world renown for its tests at power and endurance. Some of America’s hardest climbs are there as well, i.e. Zulu and The Crew.

We met a group of Swedish guys at the base of one wall of Rifle Canyon. They told us a little about their heritage which was fascinating. At night we sat around campfires and talked about the climbs of days past. As we talked, we sought advice from the other climbers on certain approaches to different climbs because we knew that there was always another way that could be easier. The collection of climbers around campfires was like a brotherhood. No one criticizes anyone, and everyone is feeding off of each other’s enthusiasm and energy for climbing. I felt like we were all brought together from different parts of the globe to do some hardcore soul searching.

            For the whole time we were in Rifle Canyon, it felt like I was a kid in the Magic Kingdom. I had the feeling of not knowing where to start. I tried to soak up as much knowledge as I could on the unusual climbing style that is forced upon a climber by Rifle Canyon. Many of the climbs require unorthodox techniques that are really trick moves which seem to boggle one’s mind with every newfound quirk that the rock has to offer. We left Rifle Canyon to proceed on to Maple Canyon, Utah where we heard there were dozens of cobblestone covered walls with excellent climbing.

            Unfortunately for us, our Crown Victoria had transmission problems so we were stuck in the middle of nowhere in a town called Price, Utah. The population of this place was like two thousand people, and there was nothing to do for the three days we were stuck there. We made the best of it by trying to pick up girls at night on the main street of the small town. We hesitantly got a hotel room while we were there because there were no parks for us to pitch a tent nearby. We were all a little short on cash, so the hotel set us back even more. The whole trip we ate the cheapest possible food we could, so that meant a lot of nights with a hot bowl of Ramen noodles. Our stomachs were put through hell daily, and I got down to a lean one hundred and thirty pounds at the midway point of the trip. I was weighing around one sixty at the beginning. After the car was fixed, we were short on time, so we went to American Fork, Utah instead of Maple Canyon because it was more on our way to Portland.

            American Fork Canyon is located just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. When we arrived at the climbing area, we met these locals who were putting up a new climb. They seemed to be cool guys, and they showed us around to a few walls where there was some really excellent climbing was. At the end of the day, the kids asked if we wanted a place to crash because they knew we were camping. We gladly accepted, and these kids took us back home to their parents’ house. This Mormon family showed us the best hospitality with dinner at night and breakfast in the morning for the two nights we stayed there. We were indebted to them for their kindness, but Jeff, Ian, and I had a competition to get to that started in a little more than a week. We had to depart from them, but we still keep in touch with the guys every once in a while.

            The road into Portland, Oregon along the Hood River is one of the most scenic drives I have ever seen. There is an abundance of black, slate-like rock everywhere with windsurfers out on the river challenging the mighty winds that rip through the Hood. Being from Florida, I know about water, and the waves created by the winds on the Hood are like the waves created by tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico. It is just a beautiful place to be. Portland is a very liberal town, and we hit it just before the Fourth of July Celebration. The town was crazy with festivities near the waterfront, and there was more alcohol being drunk than fireworks being lit. It was one giant party for independence. During the next couple of days, we ended up skateboarding at Newberry Skate Park and the famous Burnside Skate Park underneath the historic Burnside Bridge. The day of the competition came upon us, and I was stuck in the crowd with the rest of the spectators. I was, however, happy to see all of my friends from all over the country who came together for the event. Both Ian and Jeff did not make it too far in the competition, and Jeff was knocked out first. We had fun though, and the next part of the trip was the event for which we had been waiting.

            We originally planned to climb at the acclaimed Smith Rock in Bend, Oregon, but we could not contain our excitement for Yosemite National Park and Bishop, California.

We left Portland and drove about eighteen hours south to Yosemite National Park in California. Now before I got here, I thought the other places were amazing and interesting. Yosemite is like Paul Bunyan’s climbing area. With the two largest rock faces in the United States, El Capitan and Half Dome, it is easily the most monstrous climbing area I have ever seen. The rock is very old granite that can be any range of white, grey, and black colors. The waterfalls there are enormous, but the Sequoia trees are by far the biggest trees I will ever see, unless I make it to Redwood National Forest someday. We never trained for a multi-day big wall climb, so we did not have the equipment necessary to climb any one of the routes up El Capitan or Half Dome. It takes a tremendous amount of equipment to climb those walls because you have to haul everything from your fecal matter to your port-a-ledge with you. A port-a-ledge is a cot that hangs from the rock wall so you can sleep on it while you are on one of these multi-day beasts. We climbed some boulders in Yosemite because they were also world famous climbs first done in the late 1970’s including the ultra-classic line Midnight Lightning.             We met a park ranger there named Lisa Lopez who is the girlfriend of arguably the best climber who ever lived, Chris Sharma. She was very down to earth and even pointed us to some of her personal favorite climbs. Yosemite was a blast, but it was a little too touristy for us so we moved on down the road to Bishop, California.

            The small country town of Bishop was just south of a skiing town called Mammoth. Bishop is the birthplace of the climbing guru, Chris Sharma. It had the hardest boulder problems in the world on this collection of desert patina sandstone. Within five minutes of the city there are about six different climbing areas. The climbs at the Buttermilk and Peabody Boulders were the most famous, and we had seen some of them in videos. We tore ourselves apart on this super sharp desert rock for about two weeks until we ran out of money. We ended up eating at the A.M. P.M. Gas Station every day because you could get a burger for fifty nine cents.  I met a beautiful blonde girl who loved to climb, and she hung out with us about every day. This other guy who we called Texas Tony also became our friend out there, and he took us out to a couple local parties at night. He showed us some great climbs during the day. The climbing there is unique because most of the boulders start out overhanging or inverted, then you must pull a lip of some sort, followed by a finish on a slightly less than vertical face. It was a lot of fun. Our next and final stop was one of relaxation.

            Jeff’s brother, Mark, lives in San Diego, and we headed there for some rest. On the way there we lost our U-Haul car top off the roof of our car. Unfortunately, it contained most of our personal belongings. We never found it, and we were all limited to one outfit of clothing for the remainder of the trip. We spent a couple of days in San Diego with no work at all. We had climbed outdoors for almost two months, and it was nice to have some recovery. Our muscles stopped aching, and our fingers stopped hurting. We spent a lot of time playing cards and lying on the beach, while we reminisced about all of the people we met and the climbs we did. We went into Mexico one day to see Tijuana, Rosarito, and Ensenada. We ate at the most unclean restaurant I have ever seen, but with the same twist of fate, it was the best Mexican food ever. This guy took some slow roasted pork and cut it up on a tree stump with a rusted machete and flies were all around him the whole time, even when he rolled up the burrito. Tijuana smelled so bad that we could not bear it to stay there, but Rosarito and Ensenada are nicer. The beaches were terribly polluted, and it made me very sad to see that one had to walk on the beach with shoes so you would not be cut by a piece of glass or a hypodermic needle. The local Mexicans were doing anything they could to get some American dollars out of us by approaching us on every block trying to sell some homemade jewelry or Mexican memorabilia. Anyway, back in San Diego, we rested up for the long forty-four and a half hour road trip ahead of us back to Gainesville, Florida.

            On the ride home, Jeff, Ian, and I, realized that the day to day lifestyles we were living and the drives that compelled us to finish school, get a good job, and be successful put too much emphasis on money. The trip reminded us of how important it is to stop for a second and to appreciate God’s greatest gifts of love, life, nature, family, and friendship. In our rapid paced industrial society, we often overlook the most important things in life. Our lives are like a wall built one brick at a time, and each brick is a different experience, situation, or emotion. If we finish the wall by forgetting the most important bricks at the bottom that got us where we are today, the wall is not strong. If we cherish every moment and opportunity in life, then the walls that we build are meaningful to us and strong. We remind ourselves of our trip often because it helps us remember that we cannot work our whole lives toward a goal without enjoying the process that got us there. Everyone knows that the adventure of a story is always more exciting and interesting than the ending, and that is why our trip is of great significance to me.