Scaling New Heights

OUR ADDICTION TO NEW HOBBIES

Peter and I suspended our climbing passes this summer. This was following a successful stretch of scaling the walls at our local gyms. Just over a year ago, I was introduced to Sender One and quickly adopted it as a new hobby upon my return to Orange County. Rock climbing is quite the popular activity amongst my peer group. It appears that many of my friends are active climbers or went through a phase in their more limber days. Unsurprisingly, Peter was also rock climbing when we first met, and it quickly became part of our weekly schedule.

As a hobby, rock climbing added variety to my physical activity, and was a great way to spend time with friends. It also posed new challenges for me to overcome—walls were updated with new problems on a rotating schedule. My biggest struggle with having a pass was that I’d have to go twice per week to really get value from the cost. It didn’t help that I chose one of the more expensive gyms to attend. Despite the price and commitment, I made great improvements in my strength and endurance during that time.

I started with bouldering but quickly grew fonder of top-roping. Bouldering had shorter problems that required large bursts of energy. It was also unsupported by ropes which became a major issue for me when tackling harder problems. My fear of heights was often triggered upon looking down, knowing there was no safety mechanism should I fall. This often led to paralysis mid-climb or worse: de-scaling right before reaching the finish line. Bouldering also was much rougher on my finger joints, often leaving them feeling locked the day after an intense session.

By contrast, top-roping had much taller walls. However, you had a buddy connected to you by a secure pulley system designed to support you mid-air. This rope mechanism allayed my fears of falling, despite the ironically taller walls. The climb was also much less strenuous for my fingers and tested my endurance rather than explosions of energy. I could also safely take breaks mid-problem while dangling from high above, rather than expending precious energy holding onto the wall.

Peter found the opposite to be true—he much preferred bouldering because of his fear of heights. Despite the buddy system in top-roping, the sheer height of the walls were too anxiety provoking for him. As such, he only bouldered, but would occasionally join me and my friends in our top-roping sessions to hang out. As Peter advanced in his climbing, his fingers also started to ache and lock. We both have friends who have sustained serious hand or finger injuries from long-term climbing, and we certainly did not want to sustain any permanent injuries.

Risk of injury was one of the reasons why we stopped climbing. I’ve oft fallen from atop a bouldering problem but mostly without issue. I have, however, also sustained painful injuries from falling, including kneeing myself in the face. My small collection of healed wounds still leave behind some faint hyperpigmentation, a subtle reminder of all the experiences we had in the climbing gym. Needless to say, we are sad to be leaving our climbing gym for various reasons including the risk of injury and cost of membership.

Possibly the largest consideration for leaving behind the hobby was the time commitment. Going twice per week to make the membership financially worthwhile was not a problem initially. As we carved out time in our ideal week for various activities, rock climbing fell further and further down the priorities list. The commute there and back in SoCal traffic imposed time constraints that made other priorities difficult to accomplish.

We were going on Wednesday afternoons and Sunday mornings consistently. We planned it as such to better suit our work-out schedule so that we wouldn’t wear out our bodies too much. Wednesdays, however, became increasingly difficult to accommodate between work schedules, couples therapy, and mid-week meal prep.

As much as we enjoyed rock climbing for its physical, mental, and social aspects, it became more difficult to maintain in our busy lives. It certainly was not an easy decision to cut back on rock climbing in lieu of other activities. From mentally crafting a solution to the problem to enacting it in real time was a really fun process.

We were being challenged to find multiple or alternative solutions to the same problem, leveraging different aspects of our physical attributes such as height or arm span. It also gave us a chance to work with each other and with friends on solving particularly difficult problems.

The type of engagement that rock climbing offers is quite robust, and it is hard to find an activity quite like it. We don’t see ourselves quitting altogether. We’ll certainly be back to climb on occasion, but regrettably not part of our weekly or biweekly ritual. We only hope that our substitute endeavors can match up to the memorable times we had climbing together.

XOXO,

Howard and Peter