My wilderness journey thus far has been a tale of escalating adventure: arrival, settling in, hiking, rock climbing. The words have come easy. Today is different. It is a day of labored progress, creeping self-doubt, and persistence.

Our itinerary repeats the day before. We wake up beside the same concealed meadow, break camp, and head into town for several hours of writing at the Dark Horse Coffee Roastery. Then we head back to Donner Summit to repeat yesterday’s climb. By doing the same climb twice, we can focus on skill-building and efficiency. We aim for smoother climbing, faster belay transitions, and completing the climb in two pitches instead of four. If we’re fast enough, we’ll have time to knock out a second route.

I feel good, driving up to the summit. Yesterday’s anxiety has melted away; having done the climb once, I feel good about repeating it. As we gear up at our van, we are already incorporating lessons learned: leaving excess gear behind, bringing walkie talkies in case the wind is howling, using a better technique to coil and carry our rope.

It is another gorgeous day. I still can’t believe I’m here, in this gap between lives old and new. Hannah and I still feel exhilaration from yesterday’s successful climb. It’s a good day to get on the rock again, for continual improvement, for pursuing mastery, even if it’s just on a baby route.

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My biggest challenge when I lead trad is running out of gear. As I climb, I place protective devices like cams or nuts in cracks, then clip the rope though them with slings and carabiners. If I fall five feet above a piece, I’ll theoretically only fall about ten feet—five to the piece, and then five past it before the rope goes taut. If the top piece pops, it means a terrifying fall to the next piece down. This incentivizes a new trad leader to “sew up” routes by placing gear often. If I place cams every two feet, falls will always be small. The pieces also back each other up.

Unfortunately, gear is finite. I carry two full sets of cams plus an assortment of nuts, which is a lot. Still, I run low on gear on every trad route I climb. A climber needs to end each pitch with at least three good pieces, to build a triple-redundant anchor for belaying the other climber up to join them. Those pieces need to be the right sizes to fit the cracks at the intended belay spot. This is one reason I’m so anxious about the unknown; I don’t know what size of cracks await. It would be highly inconvenient to arrive at the belay without the necessary gear.

This is why Hannah and I needed four pitches yesterday to complete a two-pitch route. We wanted to stay within sight and earshot of each other, but I also wanted to create belay anchors while I still had adequate gear clipped to my harness.

To improve as a trad climber, I need to place protection less often. This means longer runouts and the potential for longer falls. Doing this safely requires developing an exquisite ability to evaluate risk. This route is less than vertical, which means there are long stretches where a fall is highly unlikely or would just mean a short tumble. The safe and efficient thing to do, counterintuitively, is to cruise through without placing protection.

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The first pitch starts strong. I move efficiently, placing gear where needed, forcing myself to avoid placements when unneeded. I feel healthy and strong. Movement over rock always feels good, a comprehensive exercise of body and mind, like yoga. I pass the ledge where we belayed yesterday. Good. I’m doing better.

Something changes after that: brain fog, unease, difficulty. I struggle to find the right way to protect my next move. I remove one cam after another from my belt loops, hunt for a good placement, and then trade it for another size. My headspace is suddenly different from yesterday: I feel less confident, more fearful. I eventually find a good placement, but my nerves remain abuzz.

It’s hard to pin down why I feel “sketched out” at some times and not others. Yesterday was the scarier climb: my first multi-pitch trad lead, my first time on this route and in this location. I felt sick with anxiety beforehand, but once I started, I felt great the whole way. Today everything is familiar, so why the nerves? I suspect it’s because I’m pushing myself harder, expecting more of myself. This is yet another case where climbing mirrors life.

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Later, sitting down to write, I feel the same sense of being “off”—a headspace not quite right, a simmering anxiety. The writing has flowed naturally thus far. Despite my nerves, I’ve felt good about sharing these posts. I’m ignoring the howling demons, writing what I want, with no expectation of an audience.

Not today. Something has changed. The thought of writing feels wearisome. I’m feeling something I hoped to avoid on this trip: pressure. The writing takes time, but at least it’s time I enjoy. Sharing online entails less enjoyable tasks: copying into WordPress, reformatting, adding hyperlinks, sifting through photos, posting, sending an email version to my mailing list, sharing links on Facebook and Instagram. Every time I share, I’m reminded why I hate social media. And yet the only way I’ll ever break through my current barriers as a writer is to share, to dispatch messages in bottles. Social media is the devil’s bargain every creative has to reckon with. It’s a bit like placing gear, I suppose, doing it just enough to stay alive but not so much that I find myself bogging down.

The sense of pressure springs directly from the strength of my commitment to writing. Just like this climb, I suppose. I’m sketched not because of inexperience, but because I’m consciously trying to become better.

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Climbing while sketched is a necessary part of the sport. Just like writing while sketched, or running a business, or committing to a relationship.

At day’s end, after we return to our van and enjoy a dinner of ravioli and meat sauce with a bottle of Cabernet, we watch the wonderful documentary Fourteen Peaks, about Nepali climber Nirmal Purja’s record-shattering effort to climb all 14 peaks taller than 8000 meters in just seven months. Nirmal is a larger-than-life character, charismatic, bold, passionate. He repeatedly emphasizes the need for courageous leadership in precisely those moments when our nerves are fraying.

I don’t dare compare myself to a veteran mountaineer like Nirmal Purja. But I can at least take his lessons, apply them in my own small way.

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I set up my first belay station thirty feet higher than yesterday, which is something, at least. I could probably go higher, but there isn’t much gear left on my harness. I build an anchor and prepare to belay Hannah up. We miscommunicate, and she nearly starts climbing before she’s on belay—a dangerous goof. We both catch her mistake immediately, but it’s enough to rattle her nerves.

She climbs on. We’re orderly and efficient at the belay station, but neither of us feels the joy we did yesterday. We’re too focused on process and technicalities to savor the views. Again, the price of improving.

The second pitch goes much better. My nerves settle down. I’m feeling confident again. My placements feel solid and safe. I use less gear than yesterday. I very nearly make it to the top, but once again, I run low on gear. I sigh and build an anchor, which means we’ll need to make a third pitch. Not ideal, but better than yesterday.

When Hannah arrives at the belay station, we’re both in good spirits again. We take our time there, enjoying the views. This whole trip is, in our shared vocabulary, a dance between being and becoming—of enjoying the present moment without expectations, and striving to grow. Today’s climb embodies that tension.