Yosemite (Day 3)
Mother of the year Award!!!! Go Climb a Rock Program! Beginning rock climbing outdoors in
Yosemite. AHHHHH! Bill, our fearless leader, took us as well a
3 person family from Texas to a rock wall near Yosemite Village. There is no way I can tell you where we were
we were exactly except we could see Sentinel Peak across from us. Bill started talking and talking and talking
about the history of climbing. I just wanted
to get started! And I know 2 other people who agreed with me. The history of rock climbing seemed silly and
unnecessary for a while, then it became quite interesting to hear about all the
different ways a person a clip themselves in, tie on, not die!
Our first climb was called Bobcat Crack, truly. It looked
easy from the bottom. HA! It was not
(for me). When I got up to climb my
belayer, the person who was in charge of my life for the 55ft ascent was none
other than the burly, huge, giant….Sullivan Peter Gleason! He was able to belay with the best of the
them. I got up then rappelled down with
no story to tell. The boys went up and
down MANY times. I went up once
more. And it was even harder than the
first. I was about 2 ft off the ground
and couldn’t find a foot hold (As most foot holds were ¼ inch, nothing like the
hold in the indoor climbing gym. NOTHING
like them.) and at the same time I was psyching myself out about my ability to
climb. Bill kindly encouraged me and yes
indeed I was able to stand and keep moving
upwards. The granite in the heat of the 90+degree day was blistering
hot, glad I wore my leggings, not shorts. I made it up then made it down. Our
(or should I say “their”) last climbing area was more challenging but not as
high, only 35 feet or so. There they
learned the Lay Away style of climbing (leaning back to help you get up). The final ascent was unassisted. Meaning, Bill belayed and he didn’t help them
by pulling of the rope. Both made it to
the top unadded. Seth got up without
falling once. Sullivan fell 2x. Bill gave him a 3 strike rule. After the 2nd ‘fall’ (Bill caught him on
belay) Sullivan was fearful that he wouldn’t make it up like his brother so he,
and his cute stuck out tongue, slowly and methodically made it up. You could almost hear the Rocky movie theme
music as he got to the top ledge. Bill thought we would peter out around 2:30
as it was so hot. We lasted till 4:00.
Bone weary exhausted.
Dirt so thouroughly embedded it took 3 days to finally get clean nails.
So dehydrated (not one of us went to bathroom from 9:30-4:00). We needed to not do a thing so they got there
screen and we went to the one place near us with reception to zone out. 90 minutes we felt strong enough to get
dinner.
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