Listening to the rain…

It’s raining outside, and has been all night.  It rained a bit yesterday, but this is a large system moving through our entire region and we’re going to have rain for several days, or so the forecast says.  We need the rain to make sure that fire season stays somewhat under control this year, but it sure makes it impossible to go bouldering outdoors!  I have sandstone in my local area, so it’s very fragile when wet, and takes several days of good, hot sun to dry out so that the holds don’t break and the boulders don’t get damaged.  The sandstone rims are the same way.  They need plenty of drying time between rains.  Unless I want to get all wet, I’ll have to forego bike riding for a few days, too (not that I’ve been terribly good about that this last week, anyway…).  My poor little nephew Squiggle Bug isn’t going to understand why we’re not going for walks these next few days, either!  Listening to the rain is very soothing and calming for me, though, so I do like it when it rains, except for all the reasons listed above.  If only I could climb in the rain!!!  Oh, well.  I’ll go to the climbing gym and see if I can get a turn at the auto-belays or the bouldering walls today, if I feel brave enough.

Brave enough, you say?  What’s the problem, you say?  Anxiety.  Crowds.  Unsupervised kids.  Gumbies who have no clue what they’re doing.  Don’t get me wrong – everybody starts out as a gumby (a beginner with no idea what they’re doing).  That’s okay.  It’s a stage we all go through.  It’s the ones who don’t ask questions so that they can learn the safe and proper way to do things that worry me, and there are plenty of them!  Stupidity happens in these cases, and hopefully nobody ends up with a broken neck and being quadriplegic for the rest of their lives…  If you’re ever not sure, whether you’re a seasoned veteran climber or brand new to climbing, ASK!!!  If you’re a seasoned veteran climber, then you likely didn’t get this far by not asking, but sometimes pride gets in the way.  You know better.  As for the beginner, the climbing community is happy to help others out with questions!  We ALL want to be safe, and that requires a lot of information-sharing in the way of proper technique and steering each other in the right direction.  Most climbers are happy to share what they know, which is great!  If you run across an unhelpful climber, then ask somebody else because that unhappy climber doesn’t represent the majority at all!!!  They might just be having a bad day, or they need a nap…or they need it to stop raining so they can climb outdoors, haha!  I know we’ve had this weather pattern this spring that allows it to dry out enough to climb outside for about two hours every week and a half and then it rains again.  It’s been frustrating for a lot of us, but I don’t curse rain because of the fires we could have later in the summer.  It is what it is…

I haven’t been outdoors to climb yet this season, and it’s the middle of June!!!  Isn’t that a crime of some sort?  Probably, but I had a rough winter and I’m just getting back on my feet as far as roped climbing goes.  As you know if you’ve kept up with my blog, I finally put my harness on again just this last week in the climbing gym and the day before yesterday, I made it to the top of the wall for the first time!!!  I’ve been bouldering to get my strength back and it was a pleasant surprise to find that my endurance hasn’t entirely faded away, as evidenced by my ability to get to the top of the 40-plus-foot wall in the gym.  I made an attempt at a different route on that wall yesterday and got three quarters of the way to the top before I ran into a big move that I could’ve done, but didn’t for some unknown reason.  So I missed the flash opportunity on that one.  I’m really kicking myself over that, too!  Today, if I get a shot at the auto-belays, I’m going to do what I can and hopefully get to the top of the wall on either the yellow route or the blue route.  I haven’t attempted the blue route yet, so I could get a flash send out of that one still, and I want to get that big move on the yellow route that I didn’t go for yesterday.  That all depends on how well my body’s working today, too.  Today may or may not be the day for it, but I’m going to try!!!  I need to climb every day possible because it helps me maintain my mental health!!!  I need all the climbing I can get!!!  In the meantime, I’m listening to the rain…