Climbing Fear Getting Started

I try to stay living. So, as I began climbing outside and starting to leave the ground where falls had actual consequences, I found myself getting nervous.

My first leads in and around Austin weren’t nerve-wracking. In fact, my first two serious falls I was oblivious, or at least naive.

In my first multipitch, being so high off the ground was unnerving. And, what freaked me out more than that was doing my first rappel. Desperately wanting enough friction in my device, I wrapped my Figure 8 with the rope. Being the newer climber, I had to rappel second. So I left the cliff edge by myself for the first time, and leaning over the edge was frightening. But, luckily, I was going down slowly - for I had too many wraps on my Figure 8 :) Pretty soon I realized that my Figure 8 was annoyingly tight and my arms were fatiguing from pulling the device down through the turns of the rope. But, I made it down. And, while I was nervous, I also had a grand day on the rock with a friend. Why was this so freaky?

During a trip to Smith Rock, I remember feeling palpably nervous when hiking with my pack on when we had to go up near a 20 ft drop. What if I fell? Will my bag tip me over?

The scrambling nerves reappeared my first time hiking to the Velvet Wall in Red Rock to get to Sour Mash. There’s a quite exposed 4th class section of the hike where you do not want to fall. Maybe more like 40 ft if you are unlucky in the fall. Should we rope up here? Everyone else seemed okay so I steeled myself to get up and over on this trip.

All of these experiences get easier with practice. And when your leader is sensitive to fear and other feelings, they have an opportunity to talk with you ahead of possibly scary situations to prepare you, so you’re not surprised. So, let’s get talking and practicing before you get out there.