Fear is a strange thing in climbing. It comes with different levels: I’m going to get hurt, I’m going to die, I’m going to get hurt and not be able to get help and eventually die. I place those in order of fear amount. I have said many times that I don’t fear death, but I definitely fear dying slowly and painfully. More and more I feel like I should take up gardening or knitting for an all-encompassing hobby. I don’t recall ever reading reports of people getting hurt while posting their handmade beenies on etsy.com.
For me, I’ve come to grips with much of my climbing fear; I divide fear into good and bad fear: good fear being what keeps you from doing things you’re not prepared for or able to do, bad fear being the hysterical barking dogs in your head that yelp and whine about how anything you do is going to fail and cause harm. This division has helped me to see climbing as a process and fear and a living thing. Fear is intrinsic in climbing’s ability to force you to meet yourself face to face, something that is not present in much of the rest of my life (Irving in Oakland aside, j/k)
With fear, we become greater than ourselves. With fear, we encounter the doubts that we bury beneath chores and expectations and deadlines and holidays and the myriad of other small things that drain precious seconds from the actionable parts of every day and night.
Because of this, fear no longer is something that keeps parts of the world at bay; at worst, fear is the thing that keeps parts of the world just a little bit down the road once I’ve worked on my abilities to bring that thing into reach. I recall climbing “Entrance Exam”, a chimney at Arch Rock in Yosemite.
It sucked,
I ripped through my jeans and left much blood on the wall before bailing from the “thank god, oh no, it only gets worse” chockstone halfway up the pitch. This led to a period of climbing chimneys everywhere I could find them in order to feel up to the challenge.
Fear abated. I Distinctly remember being spit out of the off width pitch of Traveler’s Buttress at Lover’s Leap. My technique was atrocious and this led to a year of climbing every off width I could find (with a good amount of failure and even more bleeding and sideways looks at my hands by checkout workers at the grocery stores) until I returned to TB later and sent the off width easily (though not without plenty of whining and moaning during the process) – I must be very clear that nothing about this is meant to paint me as some person becoming some hardman that breezes through life with ease. No, I’m a wimpy climber that whines and cries and shakes before during and after routes, but sometimes I make it through, every time reminding myself of Harding’s quote from the top of The Nose, “As I hammered in the last bolt and staggered over the rim, it was not at all clear to me who was the conqueror and who was the conquered. I do recall that El Cap seemed to be in much better condition than I was.”
The story of fear, failure, and (sometimes) success plays itself out for me in almost all techniques in climbing. I don’t even want to think about what I’ve put myself through in order to become better at runout slab climbing in Tuolumne and the valley; certainly I would not be surprised if I’ve downclimbed more slab pitches than I’ve finished.
Aid climbing and (to more of an extent) solo aid climbing follows the same path. I go, I freak out, I fail/survive (because in aid climbing especially, I feel like the words failure, bailing, surviving, living are synonymous) I work on it, I get better, I move on.
Overcoming the fear of placing pitons? check.
Overcoming the fear of placing heads? check.
Overcoming the fear of shitty C3 placements? Check.
Overcoming the fear of hooking? Sort of check.
It is not unlike the concept of freesoloing. We all freesolo at some level whether it be boulder hopping, easy fifth class, 5.6 routes with bomber rests, all the way up to Honnold’s insanity of freesoloing multiple 5.12 pitches on massive bigwalls.
No different from aid.
Slammer angle placement? no problem.
1/3 driven angle straight up into a crumbling roof? problem.
Hooking bomber flakes? check
Hooking crumbling sloping nubs? maybe not
Really it all comes down to knowing what you’re capable of and playing within the margins of error that allows. Hence, fear is present but never in control. This is the gift that climbing has afforded me. Not the absence of fear, but the management of fear. I am a stronger person overall because I now deal less with the barking dogs that proclaim doom and gloom with no light in sight from across the River Styx and more with the whispering voice that doesn’t tell me there’s no way forward but simply asks me to stop and take stock of myself and make an honest assessment of my abilities.
This is part of what I’m getting at; fear and climbing has made me honest. Honest enough to scream “I can do this!” between hiccups and sobs while hanging in my harness but also honest enough to admit that I don’t have to be the best because I’m not the best, nor was that ever my goal. Before I admitted this to myself, I was subconsciously controlled by a desire to be the best that I didn’t even really wish to have. The slow taking stock of one’s self that comes with allows you to realize that this unspoken drive is messing you up.
