Ten Sleep Climbing Begins Early Thanks to Wyoming’s Warm Spring Weather
It’s been a bit of weird spring here in Wyoming this year; the weather’s been unseasonably warm and dry, meaning that my husband, prAna ambassador Kevin Wilkinson, and I have logged many more days of climbing outside than we anticipated we would. Having a couple of equally psyched climbing friends stay with us through April only encouraged us to climb like the fanatics we honestly are. All four of us had climbed ourselves into frazzled, flapper-ridden and muscularly worn-out specimens by the time they departed at the end of the month, much in need of some rest and recovery to recharge our bodies for the summer season that’s rolling towards us with unstoppable force, as always. I have a feeling it’s gonna be a good one…
Looking forward to the imminent arrival of prime climbing season in Ten Sleep Canyon, I feel a familiar sense of excitement. This year will mark a dozen summers for me spent captivated by the canyon’s climbing and overall summer ambiance and lifestyle. This summer, too, I have some scores to settle with a couple of longstanding foes – and I’m hoping my training and perseverance will finally pay off, resulting in settling these enduring battles of mine once and for all, allowing me to move on to different, possibly yet-to-be-bolted challenges that might await me once I can see beyond my hoary old adversaries.
The first adversary I want to slay is a climb that I first played on probably six years ago, but that I’ve never buckled down to finish, due to its location at a less-popular crag (harder to get partners to go there) as well as its less-than-fun style of climbing. It features holds that are just mean, plain and simple. This route’s long section of climbing on miniscule monos and dime-edges would never be classic in anyone’s book. The appeal for me? I think it’s kind of crazy that this piece of rock has these features and that they can be pieced together and made to work for climbing at all. It’s a balance-y, finger-shredding nightmare that I’d never recommend to anyone…but I’d still like to clip the anchors on it, regardless. I don’t know what it would be graded, either. I’d probably call it 13d, but who knows?
The second rival that needs elimination by yours truly is the 14a that I one-hung for what felt like 100 tries last summer – and while this is an exaggeration of the number of one hangs, it’s probably not an exaggeration of the times I’ve attempted this climb. Despite multiple one hangs and getting as close as I could to sending without actually sending, I had to leave it unfinished last summer. I’m hopeful that the distance in time plus the addition of more strength from training will help me send it this season. I have yet to try this route this year, but I do know that I feel much more excited about getting on it again right now than I did for the final month I spent trying to send it last summer – and honestly, I think I should have probably just left it for that month and had fun climbing other routes and sharing that fun time with friends.
That’s actually a lesson that I finally internalized and that has changed my climbing, too – that experience of not sending, coupled with my more recent nerve impingement and paralysis episode, both seem to have worked to my advantage, strangely enough. How? Well, they both hammered home the obvious but often hard to embrace truth that I should relax and enjoy and appreciate every day I get to rock climb, no matter what the outcome may be in terms of tangible results. Otherwise, it’s a total waste of time and pointless, too, since I truly believe the only real point of sport climbing hard and pushing my limits is for fun, for the of delight of operating my total being at its top potential level in the moment, and for sharing that experience with others who enjoy it, too.
I never want to forget this again, never want to be overtaken by the frustration of “failure” on a climb to the point where I’m not having fun rock climbing – because failures like these really are only a state of mind, and this kind of failure is always part of the process if you’re working toward a truly testing achievement for your being. If sending these two climbs were simple for me, they wouldn’t be hard climbs for me, and I wouldn’t have to put so much into them. And then, the sense of personal accomplishment if and when I do send them would most certainly be diminished. So while I most definitely want to achieve my big-project goals this summer, even more than that, I don’t want to lose sight of the greater point of climbing as I see it: to have fun with the process of pushing my personal limits and to share that fun with friends, send or fail.
~Alli Rainey, prAna Ambassador
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