Climbing Devils Tower Part 1

Like I said in the last post, it is important to gain some skills and conditioning before you attempt some of this stuff. My big mouth and Pats complete lack of common sense got me into this and I knew I sure the hell didn’t know anything about climbing and neither did Pat.

Someone told us about a place in Pontiac, called Planet Rock. It is a climbing gym which is a great place to get the skills you need and in gaining this skill, you condition the parts of your body that needs it the task at hand. A climbing Gym is a place with high walls and on these walls are attached projections that are used for climbing. These are of many shapes and sizes. Some are pretty small and others are, what are called, buckets. Buckets are what you want but there aren’t really as many as you would like. The whole wall is covered with them and quite a few climbers can be accommodated at one time.

The three of us, Pat, Fred and I went to the gym the first day to sign up. There were quite a few people there climbing and it surprised me that there were so many women. When I mentioned it to the person that was showing us the ropes, no pun intended, he said that women make better climbers than men in many instances. This is because, climbing is a leg thing and men make the mistake of relying too much on their arms. Women don’t normally have this upper body strength and rely on leg muscles and balance, which is exactly what, is needed. You try to climb something like the Tower with just your arms and you won’t get much past the rubble pile!! 

We went in there and I will tell you, I was a bit intimidated! Whole bunch of hard body’s there I will tell you. Young men and women that were in terrific shape. No fatties there!! You young guys want to know where to meet some women in great shape , don’t go to the bars! Go to a climbing gym!! We got in there and signed up. The first thing they do is take you out and show you the ropes. They show you how to get in your harness and how to rope up. You always have to climb in two man teams. One man on the ground belaying and the other climbing. The first wall I was to climb was 56ft. That is a long way up there but a hell of a lot farther down, I was to learn. The rope is tied to your harness on a D ring. It goes up the wall and through a pulley that is on a chain at the top. Then it comes back down and through your partner’s dring. . He controls you in case you fall, which happens often. Your partner is also anchored by a rope, to the floor because if the climber is heaver than the belayer and the climber falls, they meet in the center! That sucks! Pat, being a horney little sucker, had to be watched because of all the hard bodies in that place. Pat is a small guy. Maybe a hundred and fifty, tops , at that time and both Fred and I were slapping the hell out of 240 so it was important to keep Pats mind on the job at hand. I wasn’t there at the time but Fred said that pat didn’t tie to the floor one time and he did meet Fred in the middle. Not good! 

I will never forget the first time I climbed that wall. It was the first time that I climbed ANY wall for that matter. The EGO is a marvelous thing. That was the driving force that even got me to think about doing it. Here were my buddies waiting their turns and I was thinking that I was hoping that the Guardian Angel of Dumb Asses was setting on my shoulder! There are walls of different levels of difficulty. We were on one of the easier walls for our first try. Some of the more difficult walls had overhangs and other obstacles on them. I was all tied off and Pat was belaying me. Off I went. I looked up that damn wall and it sure looked high. I reached up and grabbed my first hold. I pulled myself up, securing a foothold and drawing myself up, looking for the next hold. It is hard and in some spots you have to lunge for a handhold. That is what the belayer is for. If you miss he is to lock down on the rope and keep you from falling. In climbing you are not allowed to touch the rope. They will give you hell if they see you touch it. This is ROCK climbing, not rope climbing! It is a pretty slow process going up the wall. A handhold here and stretch out for a foot hold. Sometimes you don’t think there is a way. Sometimes you have to stretch out as far as you can and still lack 6 inches to the hold. Damn! You look down and make sure Pat is not talking to some chick and get his eye. He nods and you lunge. Made it! Aaaah  now what?

It is a slow, exhausting process for the novist. I was doing everything wrong. Climbing with my arms and pulling myself up. I finally got to the top and reached for the chain, holding the pully. Big Grin!!  I turned around and looked down. Damn!! At 56 ft Pat looked like an ant!! That is a long way up!! A hell of a lot farther down as I was learning!!

Pat and Fred cheered and Pat set to lower me on belay. He said. “I got you! Common down!” OK says I and tried to open my right hand which had an incredible grip on the chain! I look at it like it had a life of its own. I could not make that damn hand open up. I looked down and they yelled, What’s wrong?” I looked around and saw a bunch of people looking at me with little knowing smiles on their faces. Clowns I thought. I looked up at that damn trator of a right hand and figured I would out smart it. I reached up with my left hand and latched onto the chain and willed the right to relax. It worked!! That was more like it. Now I looked down and said I was on my way. Damn left hand would not open now. I was in a fix! My hands were cowards or maybe they knew something I didn’t. I couldn’t spend the rest of my damn life on that damn wall so I just grabbed the rope with both hands and relaxed. Pat started lowering me and I was able to take my hands off the rope. The rest was fun. Just bouncing off the wall with your feet and being lowered. Problem is, Pat is the type of guy you would like to strangle on occasion. He loved to let you free fall until you almost were to the floor before he locked down the rope, on occasion. Paybacks were a joy though.

Some of the climbers are remarkable. One guy was climbing with his 12 year old. I was watching him one day and the dad was putting the kid through some tough drills. I swear he had the kid climbing blindfolded. From bottom to top on one of the harder walls with a blindfold on. Is saw another guy climb one of the easier walls without using his hands other than his thumbs for balance. Hell I would have held on with my damn teeth if I could have.

You signed up to climb by the number of times you climbed a week. I signed up for unlimited so I could get in shape and was climbing quite a bit. I did this for about four months. One day I had just started my climb and I heard a loud POP! My ring finger on my right hand instantly went numb. I didn’t really know what the hell had happened but I dropped to the floor and looked at it. It was starting to swell as I looked at it. Didn’t hurt as it was numb. What had happened was that it had popped out of joint and had popped right back in, but the damage was done.

I walked around holding it and noticed a guy with each of his knuckles wrapped in a criss cross pattern. I went up t him and asked just why he did that. He said that if he didn’t his knuckles would pop out of joint! OH! Says I.

That was the end of my climbing for the year. It took about a month and a half to heal and all the swelling to go down but as it was getting close to the time of the trip, I didn’t want to re injure it and maybe have to cancel the trip for me. We still had a couple months but another injury and I would not have time to heal.
The days on the wall got easier as they went along and I gained enough skills and just as importantly, the confidence to challenge the Tower. I knew I could get up that bad boy now. That was until I got out there and saw it again. Those pictures fall way short of giving you a accurate impression of just how huge and high that thing is!!

Next Installment---Trip out!! Opera!! 