Rock On
Tomorrow I finally get to test out my new rock climbing wall, which I have dubbed, MoonstruckPurna in honor of all those vast Himalayan peaks that I will never get close enough to see, much less to climb. I have the means to include Nepal in my travel itinerary, but, quite frankly, the altitude scares me off and I prefer to get my mountain climbing kicks vicariously and from a distance. I love the grandeur and danger of the high mountains, but I just do not relish getting to a place where I’m gasping for breath, feeling an embolism forming and moving towards some vital part of my heart, lungs or brain. They say that anything over 8,000 meters is in the Death Zone, but I get my deadly serious attitude on at 8,000 feet, and that doesn’t even get me through the Rockies, much less the Andres or the Himalayas. But that doesn’t stop me from wishing I was lithe as a mountain goat and able to skip my way up a rock face with the confidence to grab a handhold, let go a toe and three-point my way upward on some steep piece of rock.
I am far enough removed from the reality of that sport to not ever even having suggested my kids, who are all adults now, should climb some gym wall somewhere. I remember on one trip through the western canyons with my youngest son and my cousin and his boys of similar age to my son, we were waiting outside of Bryce Canyon at a Ruby Lodge and his youngest, Anthony, started scampering up a stacked stone column. While I’m sure it was less of a daring feat than I remember, it still impressed me because I would never have tried doing it and I would have been duly scared if my son was up fifteen feet on some stone wall. My cousin was obviously more used to Anthony’s antics and seemed more annoyed than scared about the climb. He didn’t want Anthony to get in trouble with some ranger or hotel employee. Anthony was clearly athletic enough to handle the climb.
MoonstruckPurna is no high altitude test of strength, but it is dauntingly high when one stands at its base and looks up, over the draped belay rope lines and the top-positioned brass bell that will be the goal of all climbers to reach and claim their place on the rock wall’s hall of fame. I have already placed an award plaque on the side of the wall and I’ve purchased a brass name plate in the name of every child I’m expecting to see tomorrow and who has a shot at climbing the wall and ringing the bell.
Never having done this before, I don’t know what the attention span of this gaggle of kids, age ranged from six months up to six years. They are two young girls and three young boys (I am not counting Captain Jack, the six month old). I’m betting all but the youngest of those five will make an attempt and I’m guessing one or two will make it in good bell-ringing fashion. I am taking no chances on injury (other than a potential knee scrape) by having a kids harness to strap them each into the belay line that their parent will counterbalance for them such that no one will fall off the rock face. If someone does slip and fall and their parent is either not attentive or not able to hold them, I have taken several added precaution. To begin with, I bought something called a Gigri, which is a momentum-induced gadget that will lock down on the rope to stop a fall if it should get out of hand. That is in addition to two hand ratchet grips (one left hand and one right hand…who knew these things were so specific) and several other apparatuses to keep climbers as safe as possible. I have kid and adult gloves, kid and adult helmets and kid and adult harnesses. The idea is to harness up the climber (be it a kid or an adult) and attaching him/her/them to the belay rope and thus the belay person who will hold onto the rope to keep it from running amok. If all else fails, I had bought a portable foam pad that gets put at the bottom of the rock wall, but then my sister Kathy (who architects schools most often) and asked if I wanted a large track and field outdoor high jump cushion. That seemed like a good idea at the time, but this massive 9’x6’x2.5’ block of vinyl-covered cushion now sits at the base of the wall and kinda overwhelms the whole enterprise. That is doing a good job of making the back hillside look like a Gymboree campus.
The family gathering will have those kids and probably as many as eight adults aged 35-45 (the parents of the kid kids) that will probably want to try their hand at a climb (how hard could it be, right?). That might not have been such a must-do if I hadn’t put that big brass bell at the top, but with that staring at people, I think of it as what they would describe in the word of torts as an “attractive nuisance”. You see a bell, you want to ring it. I want to see how many of the five kid kids and how many of the eight kids take the bait and at least give it a try. Of the eight of us from the Baby Boom generation (age 64 to 80), I am not expecting any take-up to this challenge. We are less prone to being wooed into craziness of a physical risk nature, but that does not completely eliminate the risk that one of us eight will get that silverback thing going where we feel the need to beat our chest and try climbing up a little bit of the wall only to be able to say to the rest that “it’s not so bad and I could probably do it if I really wanted to…” I sincerely hope that doesn’t happen because at this age you can look sideways at a knee or shoulder joint and get a red hot flash of searing pain if you miss perfection by half an inch.
It’s an 84 degree sunny afternoon and I have to already go change my shirt, which I have sweated through around the neck and armpits. I have hosed off the big blue landing pad, I have packed and repacked the chest with all the climbing apparatus and placed it at the base of the hill, I have swept out the Hobbit House, figuring it as the logical on-deck circle for this team sport. The first-aid kit is fully stocked and sitting up in the open garage because there are bound to be a few boo-boos and its better to be ready.
Kim has ordered up the Pizza Guys for the event. They will drive up and park their pizza oven truck in the driveway and torch up their coals for a catered pizza party that will bet served at tables they will set up under the Sailshade over the driveway outside the garage. That used to be a place I called Tortilla Flats since it used to look so hot and sizzly, but now its more of a nice shady spot that gets a decent ocean breeze or mountain breeze on most afternoons. We’ll see how it does as a picnic spot and perhaps rename it accordingly thereafter.
Everyone wants to be a rock climber these days. When I was a kid, there was some amount of that going on, but nothing like today. I’m not sure why that has happened, but I have decided to just go with it and rock on.