It Only Counts If You Send It 3 Times
It’s mid week at the Rock Oasis, and the gym is busy with the after work crowd. The walls are covered with climbers and ropes are everywhere. It’s loud, chalky and buzzing with energy. There’s a bouldering area in the back – spray walls with taped problems – campus rungs, hangboards, rope ladder - but I only care about the routes. The vert, techy, powerful routes. Ahhh! I check in and head upstairs to change, passing posters of Lisa Rands trying hard with her green nail polish, a baby faced Chris Sharma sporting Prana shorts with the Sierra mountains behind him, Lynn Hill being fucking Lynn Hill. Halfway down the stairs to the main area, I look up and to my right at the steep overhang that dominates this part of the gym. Usually there’s two routes set here, one easy and one hard. The thought of being upside down like that scares the shit out of me, I want no part of it. I tell myself it’s just not my style and there’s no technique involved in it anyway, though deep down I don’t b...