Getting back into climbing

Awhile ago Jess and I became very interested in rock and ice climbing. Taking to it with all of the obsessive zeal that we tend to bring to new interests.

Photo:  Jess traversing ‘Pete’s Farewell’

In a short period of time we booked multiple guided trips. Read everything on the subject we could get our hands on. Hit the local Quincy Quarries just about every nice day. Visited the rock gyms religiously, and attended presentations from ‘famous’ climbers who came through the area… hell, we even had ‘movie nights’ where we would watch climbing films ranging from instructional to absurd (think Sylvester Stallone).

That summer and winter were some of the best times I have had in the outdoors. And yet, we sort of… just stopped. We stopped climbing. There is no one specific reason, just lots of small ones – but all along we kept saying to each other “let’s get back into it!”

Well, we are finally doing just that. Last month, rusty and out of climbing shape… we struggled through a few hours of easy routes at Metro Rock Gym (Everett, Massachusetts). At the end, predictably, we couldn’t help but wonder what took us so long to come back. It is so much fun and is such an incredible work out – these things I remembered. But what I almost forgot was how challenging and satisfying it can be. Like when you finally figure out how to get to the top of a route that was stumping you… that moment when a different sequence of holds becomes obvious, or when you figure out you can bend and twist your body in a new way, or when you discover you have it in you to just physically will yourself past a hard spot.

Since then we have been trying to make it to a gym twice a week just to get back in the swing of things, splitting time between Metro and Boston Rock Gym (Woburn Massachusetts). I won’t say it is like riding a bike, it seems to be coming back to me a little slower than that – but it certainly wasn’t like starting from scratch. Hell, the hardest thing about the first day in the gym was making sure we didn’t screw up the belay test!

In the near future I plan on doing a profile/review of each of these Boston area gyms, as well as included some more climbing related posts and articles. And when we finally get our lazy backsides out onto real rock again, you can expect to hear about that too.