#7: "Hey, want to climb tomorrow?"
For me, turning down a climbing invitation is painful.
I was out front with the weed wacker this evening when yesterday’s aforementioned “lean and strong as hell 60-something” happened to stop by in his pickup. He rolled down his passenger side window and leaned over —
“Hey, want to climb tomorrow?”
I didn’t have the presence of mind to just say straight out that I was still nursing a shoulder injury, and I didn’t remember just then that I’d already promised my kid a hike tomorrow, so I blurted out, maybe. It’s painful though to not be able to just jump on the invite.
The first time this guy took me climbing, I sent my first 11b. Mind you, I’d still never done an 11a clean. He basically got me to skip a grade within an hour or two.
Matt Kahl on Tatanka. Photo by Torie Kidd, via Mountain Project
The story of Lane
And my first 11b
I’ll call him Lane (not his real name). I met Lane over at the swimming hole one day last year, and I introduced myself as the young guy who had just bought the house down the street. I told him I was a climber, and he promptly invited me out climbing.
Later that week, a hot, humid July day as I recall, he took me over to the Buffalo Pit, a small batch of 20-25 foot high climbs literally a 1-minute approach from the farthest parking lot. After warming up on a 5.9, Lane led Tatanka, an 11b with a brief, slightly overhanging crux roof move between the third and fourth bolts.
Lane hung the draws, we kept the first bolt clipped to avoid ground-fall, then I gave the route a go. I must have asked for a take 3 or 4 times before I got up to the top. But along the way, Lane taught me the heart of projecting in a depth I’d never really attempted before: thinking through each move in perfect detail, and maybe more importantly each clip. He was also unabashed about hanging the draws in such a way that made me feel comfortable taking, clipping, and falling on the route.
The fourth clip, for example, was a little high up from a clipping stance, depending on the hold one used, so Lane put an extension on it to make the clip lower. In past times I would’ve considered this cheating — maybe I still do — but the lesson remained: projecting is about leading the route clean, period. Hang the draws beforehand. Make sure they’re where you want them to clip. Take as many times as you need to sort out which holds you’ll be clipping from, and which parts of the route are giving you added trouble. Don’t be shy with “beta” — take as much advice from someone who’s done it before as you want. Work out how to do the moves as efficiently as possible.
Lane was all about projecting, and he did it with more dedication and applied siege tactics than I’d ever seen in person before.
After working out the moves, we left the draws up and moved over to a 12b that Lane wanted to try out. I belayed him and watched him project it, like he had just taught me, until he had every one of the moves worked out. Then we took a break and went back to Tatanka so I could try my red point.
I nailed it. The second time on the climb, and I moved up through the steep beginning moves, threw for the nice hold below the roof, pulled hard through the crux, and grabbed the clipping hold for the fourth bolt just below the anchors.
Lane didn’t know it (or maybe I didn’t hide it all that well), but I was kind of elated. I looked forward to this mentorship moving forward. And then, later on in the day, Lane said to me, “You know who you should climb with: Thomas.” The truth was, Lane was way ahead of me in his climbing, and his preference was to be out with someone more on his level. Left in the dirt… by someone more than 20 years older than me. On the other hand, Lane introduced me to Thomas, who, as it turns out, is my most reliable climbing partner. And it’s true that Thomas and I had similar approaches to climbing, and were going at similar levels. Lane had played match-maker.
Lane remains a good inspiration though, even if we don’t climb together that frequently. When I’m 60 plus I hope to be climbing as strong as he is. That’s part of what I love about the sport: stay lean, stay hungry, stay strong, and stay injury-free, and you can keep climbing hard for a long, long time.