My moderate fear of heights has always lingered just below the surface, not troubling enough to bother me on a daily basis but taunting enough to remind me every once in awhile that I feel much more comfortable on terra firma.
One would think in choosing journalism as a profession I wouldn’t have to tackle such a phobia at work.
One, apparently, would be wrong.
In welcoming Evolution Rock and Fitness to town, we also continued the tradition of using me as a human experiment, which has previously meant taking a Zumba class here or an archery lesson there but in this case meant climbing up a rock wall for the first time in my life.
I know, I know. The experienced climbers among us are already snickering. What’s the big deal? It’s an indoor rock wall rising up from perhaps the safest floor in the history of the planet (seriously, this thing is so springy I kind of wanted to fall on it just to see how high I would bounce). Not to mention I had a team of experienced belayers keeping a keen eye on my safety and well-being.
All of this, of course, is true. But try telling that to my legs a couple dozen feet in the air.
There wasn’t much in the way of a formal lesson: The staff decided I had the requisite upper body strength and proceeded to harness me up, fit me for some climbing shoes and set me loose. Sam Zarakotas drew the short straw and had to belay me as I made my maiden voyage up a wall, which started harmlessly enough as I made it about a third of the way up one route before we decided to try another.
The second wall started similarly, with Zarakotas providing helpful pointers on which holds to grab or stand on while also offering needed psychological encouragement, and I managed to snake my way through the first dozen movements fairly easily.
Somewhere toward the middle of the wall, though, things changed. The holds got smaller. So did my confidence. And my legs got wobblier. A lot wobblier.
My pace definitely slowed, even as Zarakotas and fellow Evolution employee Chloe Quinn brightly cheered me on. I strained to reach a few more portions of the route, made some more minor progress, and a funny thing happened: Random climbers who had gathered around to see the poor journalist make his first attempt started offering genuine encouragement. Suddenly a half-dozen people on the floor below were rooting for me to move on.
And it probably would have happened if my stupid brain didn’t get in the way. Even though I knew Zarakotas had me secured and even if I slipped off the wall I would simply hang where I was (or get to bounce on the trampoline floor!), it becomes increasingly difficult to muster confidence when you are literally clinging to the side of a wall for the first time in your life. Physical strength was not an issue (though my fingers and forearms were certainly barking when I returned to the floor); mental strength became a code red. A few looks toward ground level were enough to turn my legs to jelly, which is ultimately what led me to abandon the climb about two-thirds of the way to the top.
Lame? Sure. I definitely felt I had let Zarakotas and Quinn – who were both remarkably helpful and positive – and the posse of excited climbers that had gathered around down. For the rest of the night I replayed the adventure in my head several times, wishing I had made it all the way to the top. And I probably should have.
But in failing to do so, several things became clear. First, your fear of heights can be exacerbated when you feel as if you are supporting your entire self on a plastic foothold about as large as one’s big toe. At a moment like that even one of those creaky wooden bridges that’s always crumbling in the movies would have been a more comfortable option.
More seriously, though, it became obvious that climbing is at least as much a mental activity as a physical one. And the rush of achieving one’s climbing goal is no doubt something that would be hard to replicate in the course of a normal day.
The reality is, my safety was never truly in danger. I had professionals working with me, and the ropes are set up to slow, or even prevent, your descent if you happen to slip. There is no reason to be fearful.
And somewhere in my head I understood that. But there still came a point where I couldn’t convince myself to reach for that next hold. It’s almost certainly a feeling that dissolves once you’ve climbed a few times, but it wasn’t dissolving for me that afternoon.
Will I ever try it again? I wouldn’t rule it out. With a little more mental preparation, I might be able to reach the top – and stay there for at least three seconds before scrambling back down!
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