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Sat on the coach to Heathrow, it struck me that I hadn't felt so nervous since I took my driving test, ten years ago to the month. It took me some time to identify the source of this anxiety. Sure, I was worried about finding someone to climb with, staying injury free, coping with loneliness, having enough money, and turning out of LAX onto an 8 lane highway in an automatic, but even the sum of these did not explain how I was feeling. More than these, for the next 9 months I am a full-time climber. I have no job and no fixed abode.
Obviously the best solution for this upheaval is to actually go climbing. I headed to yosemite and befriended David in camp 4. David is a softly spoken physicist from Seattle. Reserved, intelligent and astute, he also makes these mini-shrieks when he's trying hard, acting as a cue to increase encouragement.
Climbing with David, it soon became clear that I am Shit on granite.I have a lot to learn. I pull too hard with my arms, but if I put any more weight through my feet, they start to creep on the slick edges. In spite of this difficulty, climbs were climbed and progress was made.
This progress culminated in one of the best days cragging I've ever had. The cookie cliff: we started with waverly wafer (5.11a), hard because of a traditional wide section followed by some laybacking, which leaves you at a ledge from which two of the best pitches I've ever done depart. First we did butter balls (5.11c). David slayed a seasons-long project in doing this splinter finger crack, which I also just scraped up. Next up was wheat thin. If this flake-line was made from anything but the soundest granite it would have already crumbled to pieces, its just so thin. Laybacking this provides strenuous and exhilarating fun, just remember to pull gently!
We finished with another finger-crack, butter balls (5.11a), and the British style crack-a-go-go (5.11c), before the rain stopped play.
Pleasure in climbing manifests from many things, but classic routes, the feeling of progress and new friends is a sublime combination.
I'm meeting Katy and Ryan off their flight to LAX tmrw. I don't know where we're going yet, maybe tuolumne and the high sierra before they're too cold, or to the needles, which every American I've asked speaks so highly of, yet no one seems to have been there.