Over the past two weeks, Hannah and I have made five climbing excursions to School Rock at Donner Summit. Each time, we push ourselves a little harder. We like this crag because its six major routes span the lower range of difficulty levels, allow a new multi-pitch trad climber to work their way up a nice ladder of progression. We started with a 5.3, then a couple 5.6s. Today we plan to climb Mary’s Crack, a three-pitch climb that starts with a 5.7 crack, then an easy 5.3 slab, and finally a 5.8+ crack with a reportedly difficult crux move.
I feel ready for this climb, but I still feel intimidated. I have very little experience with crack climbing, which requires different skills from face climbing, so even a 5.7 or 5.8 crack will be at the edge of my abilities. My left shoulder is still weak from a partly-failed surgery, so I don’t know when or where my body might let me down. The crux move is near the top; if we can’t make the move, we’ll need to find a creative way off the face.
My greatest fear in climbing is getting stuck. I worry about reaching a point, muscles straining, struggling to hold on, where I can no longer safely go up or down. This isn’t as much of a concern when single-pitch sport climbing, because fixed bolts offer regular protection and can facilitate a quick and easy bail off the route. Multi-pitch trad is different. Although it shouldn’t be a problem on these specific routes, it’s possible to encounter long runout sections without cracks for placing protection. These routes also don’t typically have fixed anchors for rappelling off a route, so bailing can be tricky. Each time I climb a multi-pitch trad route, I feel like I must commit to the unknown.
All of this is familiar; I have written about this dynamic before. But today’s climb feels different. I have rapidly gained experience over these past two weeks, and I know this climb is within my abilities. The cracks might be challenging but offer abundant placements for protective cams.
Mary’s Crack makes a straightforward demand: that I show confidence in my abilities. It mirrors a much larger calling in this transitional season of life.
—
The past two years have been a time of transitions—not mere moves or job changes, but seismic upheavals in the foundations of my life. Repeatedly, life has presented forks in the road: do I stay or go? My wife and I faced the question every single day, teetering between divorce and reconciliation. Military retirement presented another dilemma. Once I crossed the 20-year mark, I had the power to retire virtually any time I wanted. Staying became a choice I had to renew each day. I exasperated my bosses by submitting retirement papers, pulling them back, and staying for another year.
All of us find ourselves at such crossroads multiple times during our lives. We face anguished choices between the familiar and the unknown. Most likely we feel restless discontent with the status quo, which is why we contemplate a new beginning at all. Yet we also recognize the good we’d be leaving behind, and we are mindful of the dangers and uncertainties that lie ahead.
A common response in these situations is to hedge. We try to have it both ways, clinging to safe and familiar shores even as we test the waters of this unknown sea.
Sometimes this approach makes sense. Our fantasized new life, which we are so hopeful will deliver greater happiness, is only a hypothesis. It often makes sense to test this hypothesis by making small bets, an approach Bill Burnett and Dave Evans advocate in Designing Your Life.
Other times, hedging simply reflects decision paralysis. We cling to our purgatory, trapped between past and future, afraid to let go of either. The fear of regret haunts us. We might also lack confidence in our ability to chart a new course through life.
During this season, I read two things that finally helped me step into a new future.
First, I read that an overwhelming majority of people who finally commit to a major life decision believe that the decision made their lives better. I can’t find the source now, but it may have been an extrapolation from studies showing that most people’s regrets are about inaction rather than action (54% vs. 12% in one study; in several later studies, around 70% of respondents regretted inaction; see Gilovich and Medvec (1995).
Second, I read William Bridges’ classic book Transitions. Bridges argues that “transitions” are different from mere “changes”; changes are situational, while transitions are psychological; furthermore, changes often result from the pursuit of goals, while transitions start with letting go of something in one’s life that no longer works. From there, Bridges develops a three-part model of transitions: an ending, a “neutral zone”, and a new beginning.
The Bridges model is simple, but it shook me deeply. He showed me that I needed to decisively commit to an ending before I could reap the benefits of a new beginning. Once I took that step, things fell into place quickly.
—
I think about this now, facing Mary’s Crack. It’s a different context, to be sure. No major life transition is involved in making this climb, but it feels like a metaphor for much bigger stirrings in my life.
A life transition calls for courage; it asks us to trust ourselves, our abilities, and the goodness of the world around us. When we burn the boats behind us—or leave the ground on a climb—we need confidence that we can overcome whatever obstacles lie ahead. We can never count on a problem-free future. Our fairy tales teach us that any hero embarking on an adventure will face perilous dragons, but they also teach us that this unlikely hero can rise to the occasion and triumph.
This is the truth I’ve tried to avoid for so long: in life, in my writing, and in my climbing. I want control. Through endless study, skill-building, and practice in safe environments, I want to eliminate every source of uncertainty before I embark. I want to guarantee success before I leave the ground, submit my retirement request, or publish a blog post. It’s a fool’s errand, time-wasting, draining away potential.
This trip is challenging me to approach life differently: to try things, to write with abandon, to climb routes with uncertain outcomes. Life is asking me to trust that I can handle what comes.
—
I feel the usual fear prior to beginning the climb. As always, I’m silent on the drive. When we reach the wall and rope up, I start up immediately, before my nerves can stop me. It’s the same way I approach leaping off rocks into swimming holes with my kids: a single, fluid movement to the edge and out into the air. Nothing good comes from hesitating.
I hit the first tricky move just a few feet off the ground. Fortunately the cam placements are good, protecting me. After testing various handholds and footholds, I commit to the move. I stick it on the first try. Hannah and two nearby climbers cheer me on.
I quickly climb the rest of the pitch. The second pitch is unremarkable. We eventually arrive beneath an imposing roof, spit by an off-width crack, too small to fit my body but too large to jam hands. This is the crux, the hard move I’m not sure we can make. Even if I complete the move, I’m not sure Hannah can, which would leave her stuck beneath me. I breathe through the anxiety and consider options. From her belay station, we can traverse sideways to another, easier route. If we really get stuck, that will provide a viable escape; it will just require some downclimbing and take time.
I climb up to the off-width crack, place my first cam, and wedge part of my body up into the crack. I spend a long time studying the rock’s features, identifying opportunities for good cam placements. I try twice to pull the hard move, but I struggle. I’d really like another cam, but the piece I need is with Hannah. I lower myself out of the crack, build a new anchor, and belay Hannah up to me. I return to the crack, place a black Totem, and try the move again.
I heave and struggle and groan and curse. I know I’m capable of this move, but I can’t do it. If I recall what I read earlier, the usual way to pull the move is to jam a left fist overhead in the top of the crack. But that’s my bad shoulder, and as I try to contort my arm upward, my shoulder seizes up; it refuses to move at that angle. I feel twinges of pain. Even if I can place my fist, I’d hate to take a fall, sinking my whole body weight onto that shoulder. I try other approaches.
After twenty or thirty minutes of effort, I decide to call it a day. I grab the strap on a cam and pull myself upward. It’s cheating, pulling on gear instead of the rock itself, but it gets me through the move. A reasonable way of adapting and ensuring we can complete the route.
I build an anchor above the crux. Hannah follows. She tries just as hard to make the move. I can see her down beneath my feet, squirming and cursing. At one point she falls and slams her shoulder hard into the rock. She shakes it off. Eventually she repeats my move, pulling on a cam, and hoists herself up onto the next ledge.
—
When we reach the top, we don’t feel our usual exuberance; we’re simply tired. However, we do have the deeper satisfaction of knowing we reached the top. This might be one of my biggest confidence-improving climbs yet, because it showed me I can safely handle a climb even when I can’t make all the moves.
It’s not altogether different from my writing. I’m still writing at a wild pace, publishing daily, and trying not to worry about readership. That’s admittedly hard to do. My readership is small, not growing. Each social media share attracts only a few likes, probably because of the ways the algorithms work; I suspect very few of my friends even see my posts. I also know I’m violating all the rules, writing so frequently and at such length, without a clear value proposition to attract readers. However, I’m doing exactly what I promised myself: writing for myself, battling my inner critic, proving to myself that I can put my work out into the world.
It’s a way of leaving the ground, or sailing away from safe shores. The safety I’m leaving behind—the thing I’m decisively ending—is staying hidden, where I won’t face criticism or rejection. I’m up among the bright granite now, searching out holds, trying things, seeing what happens, open to danger and trusting I can handle what comes.
Messages of affirmation trickle in. A high school classmate tells me she is living vicariously through my posts. A Navy friend who has been navigating his own decision about military retirement tells me how meaningful my posts are. An old Air Force colleague, out of the blue, writes an encouraging multi-paragraph message about his deepest lessons learned while processing divorce and his post-military transition.
Magic is happening, the first hint of a new beginning.