Climbing

[Thumper]

During a rare several day stint where The Kid has been in town since getting out of school a couple months ago, she asked if I'd like to go climbing with her. We went up to the indoor facility where we first climbed several years ago that started her near obsession with rock climbing. I realized that even though she has been climbing all over locations across North America, this was the first time I'd seen her climb in years, the last time we were at this facility. The difference in her climbing was almost indescribable. The smoothness, the confidence, the technical know how. Back then, it didn't take her too long start out climbing me. But yesterday, she lazily warmed up on a route harder than I ever will be able do.

The roles had reversed. She was encouraging me when I was stuck or having difficulties. She also was confident enough in my ability to belay that she was able to attempt routes that tested her skill level. Watching her come off the wall, swing for a few seconds, study the holds then go after it again was quite a site. After I was completely exhausted, she went over to some friends and they decided to have a speed climbing tournament. The facility hosted a big competition last weekend and the side by side speed courses were still up. While my arms and wrists were so tired and sore that I could barely hold a water bottle, she was competing with friends to see how fast they could get up the 10 meter speed wall (about 20 seconds).

It hurts to type this morning but I enjoyed last night in several different ways.

[geonuc]

[SciFiFisher]

She cheated by about 20+ years.

[Thumper]

Hey, you're right. I do have 34 years on her...

[Swift]

Its not the years, its the miles.

[Thumper]

And my mileage may vary...
And she's off on a month long hike in CA on the PCT, Mt. Whitney and Yosemite...

[Thumper]

Thy have 8-9 more days of hiking in CA. We've gotten several updates from the trip leader through a liaison at school and by all accounts, the trip was going very well. We were at a ballgame yesterday with my parents and got a notification that The Kid was trying to call us on the trip leader's phone. My heart sank. This had to be bad news. To my great relief it was not. They paused near the top of a pass to wait for everyone to catch up and the leader noticed he had a phone signal for the first time in 2 1/2 weeks and let all the climbers call family quickly. She's having a blast and sounded really great. They are summiting Mt. Whitney on Thursday or Friday. They've been up over 11,000 feet and have seen tons of snow.
ve

[Rommie]

Mt Whitney is impressive!

I'm also impressed that someone keeps charging his phone even though they haven't had signal for 2.5 weeks.

[Thumper]

It's the trip leader and he has a couple of booster batteries to power the satellite phone. It's for emergencies, but they also have sent brief weekly update texts that then get passed around to relatives. Thay told all the participants either not to take their phones or leave them off the whole time because it would be pointless. I think Spencer just took a chance and turned his on while waiting for a couple stragglers to catch up.

Yeah, I've had a Death Valley to Whitney summit dream hike in the back of my head for 30 years. Figured it would never happen. Now that I'll finally have the time to do it, I won't have the @ass.

[SciFiFisher]

Amazing trip.

[Thumper]

I'd say, "Once in a lifetime," but I'm pretty sure that's not going to be the case.