This weekend was filled with some life changing emotions, and emotional control. It started with a BBQ at Forest Park in St. Louis, MO with some friends. There was frisbee, hot dogs, beer and generally a great time. After the cops drove by and told us to vacate the park we shifted to Alison and Aubrie's house where the drinking fun began! Let's just say the promises we made ourselves about waking up early the next morning to go climbing were quickly broken. HA!
Saturday consisted of climbing 5.9's, 10's and a roof where it literally took 9 of us to rig someone back onto the route. Alison and Taylor are definitely champs to sit in their harnesses so long on that route. Oh yeah Patti is a 'goddess' and showed everyone up on the Snake's Roof by climbing that in a short period of time and looking like a pro with minimal sweat action.
The conquering of fear began this day for me. I starting climbing a 5.9 (which in the past I was lead climbing without a problem) and had a panic attack. Mick, my belay, talked me down. I was ashamed and slightly shook. But still continued to have a good time the rest of the day.
We drove to Carbondale and appeared at Thatti and Gabe's house around midnight where Alison, Aubs and I were so tired we were slap happy. After about 2 hours of making, eating and fighting out mac n cheese with hot dogs, dancing, laughing til we cried and overall making a fool of ourselves bed became our bitches.
The next (late) morning we ate a hearty breakfast at a vegan cafe, mmmmmm, and began our adventure to Kinkaid Lake. On the way out there the blowing up of inflatable rafts and constantly asking "Are we going the right way?" lead us to a parking lot in the middle of a corn field. We hiked around an hour to suddenly appear on a side of a cliff facing a gorgeous lake. This was going to be fun.
Stripping and swimming over to the 5.10a route on the side of the cliff, we met a group of our friends who had been there for awhile. A harness bag filled with beer, 2 bottles of Barefoot was 'binered to a raft that was 'binered to another raft, to another one to a rope to a rock. They knew how to make a proper float city.
After watching multiple attempts, some successful and some not, a few shots of Barefoot and tequila, I made my way over to a scramble section of the cliff. There I began to traverse over a section of the cliff hanging over trees and rocks. Here I met my fear again.
I was at this point where I had climbed high enough that if I fell it would not have ended well, but I had one part left that was super sketchy and I panicked. Thatti was there and talked me through the whole process to the point where I took big breathes and powered through. I was so proud of myself!!
Well now I had to cliff dive. Shit. So I laid there for a bit to 'gain my strength back' aka try not to pussy out of this. I eventually took everyone by surprise by leaping off the edge failing my legs about and landed in the lake.
'WOOOHOOOOOOOO!' It was amazing! I did it! Needless to say I had gotten rid of the fear within me from breaking my ankle climbing and am actually going to SoIll, local rock climbing gym, to test out this new found strength.
I am incredibly proud of myself and excited that I was able to dispel this internal fear of climbing. I am grateful for the friends surrounding me to talk me through and just support me in general. What a great life I lead...
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