Sorry, this is so long but I had a lot to say haha.
This weekend I had another amazing opportunity provided by Paradox Sports to join old friends and new in Yosemite National Park. We were there for a weekend of learning, climbing and hanging out. We spent two days pushing ourselves to new limits and learning new techniques to get us there. It was also a family reunion of sorts because I got to see a lot of the people I met last year while living in the park. I talk to them on Facebook of course but there is nothing like being there in person.
Day One
I personally learned a lot this weekend. I had the opportunity to spend some time at Leconte Boulder with a very knowledgeable guide named Patrick Warren. This is what I love most about Paradox events, the amazing people I get to meet and learn from. He and climbing ranger Brandon Adams took the time to help me figure out a rappel system and learn some new knots that I hadn’t tried before. Patrick didn’t treat me different than any other person he might be teaching but pushed me to learn and to grow as a climber. I appreciate that about being in Yosemite, no one treats anyone differently. If you are disabled, so what, you learn like everyone else and you climb as hard as everyone else. There are no excuses, just solutions. The motto is adapt and overcome and that is what we do at this event.
Day Two
The second day I joined the other climbers at Church Bowl. This is a really easy crag to get to for all abilities and has a great variety of learning routes. I had spoken to Adam Fisher the day before about going out and doing some real climbing and he told me that the only place at Church Bowl was going to be a low angle and hard dragging. I said “Great that will be even more fun. The harder the better.” or something to that effect. He and Brandon set up a rope for me at the Church Bowl Tree route with the intention of learning to rappel back down on my own. It was only 60 feet up to the anchor but it was 60 feet of hard dragging on the rock. I actually was able to bust it out pretty quick which gives me confidence that I am physically ready for El Capitan next month.
I got to the top of the climb and Adam taught me about the system he had rigged for me to be able to rappel. It was actually quite an ingenious and smooth way to go about it. He had set the rope with about 20 feet of tail and attached a grigri to the tail so that when I got to the top I could attach my ascender to the brake side and pull myself up to relieve the pressure on my croll. For those of you that don’t climb, I will post pictures of these devices and explain them. So once I have the pressure on the croll relieved I can add another grigri to my harness and to the rope and then take the rope out of the croll and be lowered onto the grigri. So at this point, the grigri is what is holding me from sliding down the rope. I can then use the grigri to lower myself down all on the same rope that I used to climb. It worked quite perfectly. I did it a second time later in the afternoon just to get in some more practice and climbing.
I was also able to witness amazing people pushing their limits and achieving their goals. Anna Soens was just injured in December while rock climbing actually. She can still move her legs enough to use them to climb but definitely has difficulty. She pulled off an awesome ascent at Church Bowl of the Bishops Terrace route. She spent the better part of a day completing over 200 ft of climbing and totally rocked it. Another climber Scott who I actually am not sure how he became injured but has limited use of his left side was able to climb the Church Bowl Tree crack completely on his own using aid gear and some really cool tethers that he came up with. It was an awesome sight to see. He stuck with it and an hour and a half later he topped it out.
Revelations
Throughout the weekend it was mentioned that the hanging out is just as good as the climbing in Yosemite. This is a very true statement. It is one of the most peaceful, beautiful, and stress relieving places on earth. We spent a lot of time at the campsite just laughing and telling “gimp” stories and getting to know one another. I think this is probably what I love most about Paradox events is getting to know more like-minded people. I always leave with more friends than I had before. Another moment that occurred made me realize how people take this place for granted and maybe don’t understand what it really is about. We were in camp and just hanging out and a deer walked out into an open space. It was just standing there minding its own business when a woman with a dog on a leash walked out into the open space. As she got closer the deer started to scratch at the ground like a bull getting ready to charge. I thought for sure this scene was about to end badly. Even after the deer demonstrated this behavior she chose to walk even closer. She was probably within 30 feet of the deer before she finally got her picture and moved on. We hear stories from time to time about people overstepping the boundaries with animals in our national parks and it almost always ends badly. I sometimes wonder if people are so desensitized to reality that they don’t realize that this is not a zoo and these are wild animals in their natural habitat that we are invading. So please next time you are in a park and see a beautiful animal admire it from a distance and take a picture but don’t encroach on their space because we are already taking up enough of it.
Posted by Enock Glidden on Monday, September 12, 2016
Croll
This is the croll that I attach to my harness. It allows the rope to slide through as I go up but it will not slide back down.
Grigri
This is a Grigri. The Grigri works by pinching the rope when it is moving quickly (like in a fall). Internally, the rope runs along a cam, which allows the rope to pass if moving slowly but when the rope moves quickly the cam will rotate, pinching the rope. So it is sort of like a croll but it allows the rope to move through slowly allowing me to rappel down the rope but if I let go it stops the rope from sliding.
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