What Are Men Compared to Rocks and Mountains
Words by Cailey Baker
This article was originally published in The Goodland Journal Volume 3
Pumping out in 95 degree heat in Yosemite Valley above a Metolius Ultralight Mastercam #1, I eloquently yelled down to my friend and climbing partner, Remy, “Shit dude, I’m so scared.” To which he responded, “You need to stop placing gear and just gun it.” Thanks Remy, I’ll communicate that to my forearms.
I was on the second pitch of a thin finger crack, shaking and feeling my little digits slipping as my clammy hands threatened to betray me.
I was coming off a rough month after my college boyfriend abruptly left my life and I was forcefully shoved into the real post-graduation adult world as a single woman. I couldn’t quite figure out how to be happy, so my friends took it upon themselves to show me.
Part of how to be happy involved doing scary climbs in less than ideal conditions, apparently.
Four years ago I started going to the climbing wall at my college campus rec center. It was out of desperation, honestly. I had a hard time making friends my freshman year, and the hottest dirtbag boys who wore ratty vans, biked everywhere, and looked like their last shower was over a week ago hung out at the climbing wall. I remember making a deal with myself that I would buy a pair of climbing shoes (the classic La Sportiva Tarantulaces) once I sent my first V2 boulder problem. I felt like freaking Tommy Caldwell on the Dawn Wall when that day came.
A year and a half later I started dating a surfer boy from San Diego and found myself falling in love for the first time.
But I was in a dreadful predicament - I hated surfing more than any outdoor activity I’d ever tried. I hated sharks, I hated the cold water, I hated the way the waves took my breath away. I’m from Colorado, a landlocked state, and the ocean freaks me out.
Finally, after months of suffering from panic attacks in cold, murky water, I convinced him to give climbing a try in order to prevent our budding relationship from falling apart. I needed to introduce him to a new passion so that I would never have to paddle out past the break again.
And then… he fell in love - with climbing, that is. Without a healthy amount of hesitation he bought a rope and a top rope anchor and we watched a few Youtube videos on how to be real climbers.
Taking it SLO: A classic day exploring SLO county.
I quickly became a top rope queen, crushing all the moderates that my boyfriend put up for me at my local crag, Bishop Peak in San Luis Obispo. But I began to notice that, among the climbers we met, most people assumed that he introduced me to climbing, not the other way around. I seemed like the girlfriend who came with him to the crag to belay him on his projects, not the woman who was there doing something she felt passionate about. It was a fair assessment from a stranger- his accomplishments clearly demonstrated that he was a much stronger climber than me, both mentally and physically. I felt like I was falling into the traditional dynamic I’ve seen in the world of outdoor sports, where the men are the trailblazers and women tend to follow behind, just trying to keep up. Climbing was about bold innovation, pushing grades and achieving big objectives- concepts I didn’t connect with.
I felt increasingly inadequate and overly conscious by my overwhelming fear of lead climbing. The little voice in my head constantly reminded me that I wasn’t improving and I wasn’t brave enough to call myself a climber. I was supposed to enjoy climbing, but as I doubted myself more and more I felt nothing but disappointment and dissatisfaction.
Trad, or traditional climbing, was always the ultimate goal. Trad involves placing your own removable gear into cracks in the rock as you ascend, therefore decreasing impact to the aesthetics of the rock by avoiding unnecessary bolting. But more importantly, trad opens up an incredible array of climbs and takes one to places that are only accessible with the appropriate gear and knowledge of how to use it. Placing gear is an exciting and often stressful puzzle, because the leader faces the predicament of wanting to put gear into the rock quickly, so as to avoid overexerting themselves, but wanting to ensure that they can trust their life to that little piece of metal clipped into the rope. If they fail to place the piece well enough, and fall after climbing above it, there’s a chance that the gear will pull out of the rock, leaving the climber plummeting further down the wall, and potentially resulting in a collision with the ground.
Trad falls are unpleasant at best, fatal at worst. I followed my boyfriend up trad climbs for a year before I even thought about taking up leading myself. I couldn’t imagine getting into something that dangerous. I wasn’t a risk taker, sometimes I felt anxious when I tied in to top rope a new route - I couldn’t possibly become a trad climber…
Finding Flow: Top Roping at Bishop Peak, San Luis Obispo, California.
And then I did. Just once leading a 5.6 Yosemite classic. And then another one, a 5.7 splitter hand crack. Small potatoes, but they meant a whole lot to me. Slowly but surely I began to dip my toes into trad, but despite relegating myself to only leading routes I knew I wouldn’t fall on, my fear was unwavering.
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, my boyfriend left me. I had the rug pulled out from under me, and I fell flat on my face. Graduation from college was two weeks after my breakup, all my plans for my last free summer collapsed, and I felt completely lost. For several weeks I felt sad every time I thought about climbing because my partner was deeply intertwined with my concept of myself as a climber.
I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to be a climber anymore.
It took time to regain my footing and to fall in love with climbing again, but through that process I learned that I was quite strong. I learned to stop constantly doubting my abilities. I learned to place a piece and to trust that it would catch me if I fell and to breathe through the scariest moments. I learned that climbing meant much more to me than sending sick routes. I fell in love with the movement, the flow of my body on the rock. I decided that my anxiety was something I was going to have to live with, and that I might as well climb through it rather than letting it overcome me.
More and more, I reflected on the unique experience of climbing as a woman, especially a very unconfident woman who mostly climbed with men.
I had struggled with anxiety and depression for much of my life, and had always been highly critical of myself. I poured my emotions into climbing but discovered that it could be a strength rather than a weakness. I didn’t feel like I conquered a mountain when I got to the top of a climb. Rather, I felt empowered and humbled and grateful for my body that I spent much of my life hating. Climbing has this unique way of proving to me that I am worthy, even if I don’t always succeed. I am worthy for overcoming my fears, and I am worthy for backing away from overly dangerous situations. I grew up in competitive sports, and when I first started climbing I had a competitive attitude that was unhealthy, especially around other women. This attitude stemmed from some deep-rooted insecurities I had about myself and my romantic relationship with my partner. I had been conditioned to tie my self worth to my accomplishments, and when I was climbing poorly my negative self image spilled over into my personal life, manifesting in conflict with my partner and jealousy when he went climbing with other women.
Over time I learned to love climbing with other people and cheering for them even if I was having an off (or as climbers call it, ‘high gravity’) day. I performed better when I was at a crag supporting my friends who were also supporting me. Trad climbing is the kind of sport that involves too much risk to wish a poor performance onto others. Nobody wants to see you fall; everyone is there to uplift you.
Climbing has changed my life for the better, and I can only hope that some female-identifying person out there reads this story and feels a little bit of excitement about giving a male-dominated sport a shot.
I’m grateful for the first day I gathered enough courage to overcome my anxiety about heading to the climbing wall on campus to climb some V0s. Along the way I’ve met other badass, inspiring women who pushed me to climb hard while prioritizing the laughter and empowerment that comes along with this goofy, selfish sport we love. Those people and the experiences I’ve had with climbing keep me coming back even when I have a terrifying day in the mountains or a day of endless falling at the bouldering gym, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.