lead a trad route

I thought to myself, “What could be easier than plugging in gear every few feet on something way below my limit?” Well. I found out the answer—I was scared!

“You’re putting in a lot of gear,” My belayer commented.

And I thought to myself, “Am I? I’m scared. If you were scared, you would too!”

Fun, high on the adventure scale, it’d be fun to do it again!

Some days when the job is getting me down, I remind myself of the times I’ve been halfway up some rock face and had things start going massively wrong. Hands sweating, running of out gear, pulling 30m of rope behind, and “the fear” grips you. (If it hasn’t happened, it will…) And then forcing yourself to control the situation instead of being controlled by it: you handle your emotions and then the rest is just something to be dealt with in order. You chalk up, run it out a little ways (“only a problem if you fall, so don’t fall”), get some slack from below, and you’ve finished another one. As long as I can lead trad, the likes of my coworkers aren’t anything to be afraid of.

Led my first small trad route a couple weeks ago… It was the most scared I’ve been in a few years. There’s something a little more “Woah, I did this!” than is found in leading sport.