3. RRG - '22 / '23

I’m on my way to the Red for Easter, my second trip since my separation, first trip divorced. Last year’s trip was so hard. So hard. Everywhere I turned I saw us and felt our absence. The past few years have taught me that I need to let myself feel everything that comes up, that denying it and pushing it away only makes it worse, though doing this in the middle of a route is it's own special kind of challenge. I’m 80 feet up on a beautiful sandstone route, climbing with people who don’t know me that well. I'm the only woman in the group and I’ve spent most of my climbing life wanting to be/acting like I’m “tough” (whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean). That identity has faded but there’s a faint silhouette of her in the background. 

Anyway. There I am in 2022, sitting on the rope up high, a beautiful day and I’m dry heaving from trying to swallow my tears, thankful that at least up here no one can see what’s happening. I lower and we eventually call it for that crag. We start hiking out from Fruit Wall, trying to find Graveyard but somehow getting lost. The cliffs and trees rise up all around me, holding me in. I trail behind, trying to get space from everyone so I can get myself under control. One of the guys is making small talk with me about training, a subject I usually can’t shut up about once I get going and I’m trying, I really am, but the more I talk the more the tears want to come and my voice is quivering and I can’t focus on hangboarding and weights and PE drills and now I’m blubbering and now I’m full on sobbing. FUCK. I tell him “I’m sorry, I just can’t” and he says “It’s ok, you don’t have to” and I’m grateful for that and for another one of the guys who pretends to tie his shoe until I catch up and who stays and listens and gives me a hug.

The tension and pain gets a clearing through my tears and I feel better for the release. We find another crag, I try an 11 but I’ve got nothing left for the day. 

I knew heading into that trip it would be hard, just as I knew going to Lion’s Head a few months later would also be hard. So much of our life was spent out here. I don’t want the specter of memories and the pain they’d bring hanging over all of these beautiful places; I go to them deliberately, with the intent to remember and feel. Afterward I draw myself inward and let it all come, rinse and repeat.

My buddy is working a route at the Zoo. I look past it and notice a route that’s not in the guidebook. The Red is so different from Ontario. I can test out my onsite/flash skills here with all the well defined holds, map out my sequence, and there's usually good rest stances to regroup. I know I can look up the grade online before tying in but choose not to. For so many years I dreamed of being a climber who could walk up to any route knowing nothing about it, and just go for it, put up my own draws, feel confident in my abilities and let whatever happens, happen.

I remember letting my husband put draws up first because I was too scared and feeling ashamed of being scared. I remember feeling so angry and frustrated with myself for not being able to do a move in front of other people, of feeling like they were judging me. I remember watching other strong women and feeling a mix of admiration and resentment that I wasn’t like them. I remember trying to climb with all that shit hanging on me like a weight vest. Useless, dead weight that had to get so heavy before I committed to myself to look at it head on and work to let it go, bit by bit, day after day.

I count out the draws I’ll need and put them on my harness. Tie in and put my shoes on. I can see what looks almost like a duck bill below and right of the first draw. My buddy and I joke I should quack when I hit it, so I do hehehe. 

I’m in the flow of the route and just responding to one hold and then the next, cut my feet a little, get the third draw in off a bad right hand and move past on some more bad holds before getting to a right hand handle and left hand jug. There was some trying leading to this rest, and as I look up to the anchors I can see this must be where the crux is. 

The route is overhanging, about 50 feet, and from my rest stance there is a ledge above me, then the rock dips in like a scoop and back out. I’m scanning the holds above me, working out a sequence. Then I look back at the sky above me, keep my breathing even and deep, alternating shaking out one arm and then another. 

I shift my weight on my feet, pressing my toes down, deep breaths Sabrina, you can do this. I look back up at the holds and make my plan. I’m going to traverse to the right a bit on those two crimps on the ledge, gaston that weird shallow undercling thing with my left hand, get my right foot up and suck my hips in, hit that pocket with my right hand, left hand to whatever that chalk is with feet on the crimps and hopefully the next holds will be good enough to bring me to the anchors.

I get partway through this sequence when I realize it’s not going to work, shit, downclimb to the rest. I manage to reverse the moves I’ve just done with a lot of effort and get back to my rest stance.  Breathe, relax. Deep breaths, you’ve got this. Fucking focus and commit once you leave this rest. I’ll take that gaston with my right hand as an undercling, left hand to a two finger pocket, build up my feet then cross left hand to that chalked hold. 

“Ok, I’m gonna go” I say as I move to the crimps staying more centred. I can feel the restriction in my forearms, they're tight and my hands take a little longer to close on the holds. Whatever, get the right hand shallow undercling, bring my right foot up high, get the left hand pocket and pull up and in, push down with my right foot, get my left foot up and cross my left hand, grunt, push, pull, yell and then I fall.

Oof. I needed my left foot just slightly higher to finish the cross. I go through the sequence and it works to get me to the next few holds and then the anchors. I try again, and again my third day on and now I’m tired and I have the chatter about sending before leaving and sore skin and so much pump and also feelings and processing and bullshit and clarity and hikes and meeting puppies and being in the forest and pretending and Star Trek and pizza and a lost phone and I keep on learning.