And there I was!…
You’d never believe it!!…
I thought I was going to die!!!
That's the way Stan & I were taught during our whitewater kayaking days to always start out telling our adventure stories. And that's the way I feel on my first experience rock climbing outdoors at Red Rocks, Nevada.
It is my 61st birthday in May 2002, and we are visiting daughter Tiffany and her husband Jason in Las Vegas. As a birthday present, they give me two days of personal rock climbing instruction. Tiffany and Jason are world-class rock climbers and both have been featured in rock climbing magazines during their professional climbing years.
The caption of the photo of Tiffany on the cover of Climbing magazine on the left reads: "Tiffany Campbell gets burly on Cowboy King (5.13), Wild Iris, Wyoming."
The photo of Jason on the right is from a RopeGun ad in Rock and Ice magazine.
Stan climbed a couple of times before this with Tiffany and Jason. I was along during those times, and I can no longer recall why I didn't try climbing myself then – I must have been suffering from some physical ailment.
We spend our first day climbing indoors at the Powerhouse Climbing Center in Las Vegas.
On my 61st birthday, learning to rock climb for the first time.
Tiffany and Jason are on each side of me and Stan .
Stan is belaying* me in the gym in Las Vegas
* Belaying is the act of exerting tension on a climbing rope to counterbalance the climber when they fall. The person holding the rope, or the belayer, pulls the rope through a belay device as the climber goes up.
The following day, we drive 25 miles west of Las Vegas to Red Rock Canyon. We have a fairly easy hike in to Calico Hills where we are climbing.
Stan, myself, Tiffany and Jason at the start of our hike in Red Rocks
On the hike to the climbing area at Red Rocks
Here we are looking up at the cliff at the start of the climb!!! This is a route with a climbing scale of 5.10.*
I don't know any of this at the time. Tiffany just takes me over to the cliff and says, “Here, Barbara. This is where you’ll climb today. You can do it!”
* The American system of climbing grades is based on the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS), which ranges from class 1 (hiking) to class 5 (technical rock climbing), with class 5 being divided into difficulty grades from 5.0 to the current highest grade in the world: 5.15. A 5.0 to 5.7 is considered easy, 5.8 to 5.10 is considered intermediate, 5.11 to 5.12 is hard, and 5.13 to 5.15 is reserved for a very elite few. Tiffany & Jason climbed at the 5.14 level during their competitive years.
About 30’ up – the largest holds are the size of a dime – and the first dozen feet have no holds at all, so I have to leap and scramble until I find one!!
About 60’ up – the first chance I have with holds large enough to rest and shake out my arms.
A different view of me about 100’ up.
Farther up, the slope becomes less steep, and I think that I am in luck.
Another 20’ higher, the rock becomes almost smooth with no holds at all. At one point, I lose one foothold, then a handhold, and then I lose the other two holds and fall! However, Tiffany has me so tightly belayed that I only drop a few inches, and I am able to regain my holds on the rock and continue to the top – about 160’ up, as I recall.
Success! After reaching the top, I am able to rappel* to the ground.
* In rock climbing, to rappel is put one's weight on the rope and lower oneself. Except in aid climbing, you are not supposed to put any weight on your rope while ascending.
It is Stan’s turn on the route next – Tiffany had put him on an easier one before I started on mine.
When Stan sees the starting point, he exclaims, “No way!!!” When I tell him that I have just finished the route, he has no choice but to try to climb it also.
Stan rappelling down after he successfully finished his climb.
Every time Tiffany sees these photos, she is still astounded that she had me – a rank beginner, and an older one at that – climb a 5.10 route on her first real rock climb!
She had intended for me to climb a 5.6 or 5.7, but that route was already being used. So she took me over to this one and told me that I could do it. I didn’t know any better, and I believed her, so I just climbed it!
I didn't rock climb again for another 18 years, when Tiffany finally convinced me to try it again at the ripe age of 79 in 2020. Stan climbed also, of course, and did much better than I. Check out my missive on this web page for that story (once I get it written).
The May 2020 issue of Rolling Hills Living magazine featured me on its cover with Tiffany and her 10-year-old daughter Juliet while rock climbing in a gym in Los Angeles. The centerfold article in that issue is about my rock climbing adventures in 2002 and 2020 (see below).
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