Things are always busy this time of year, aren't they? Taxes, springtime, lots of friends in town, spring cleaning, etc.
So, I spent the week working with Mike Call, doing a bunch of filming down in the creek. We got some great footage of Alex Honnold climbing From Switzerland with Love and Belly Full of Bad Berries, not to mention stuff of Matt Segal sending Dean Potter's roof crack boulder problem here in town. It's been pretty inspiring stuff.
But you know, it's funny climbing with youngsters like Alex. Not that I'm that much older, but I've just been at this whole climbing thing for a lot longer.
Anyway, my point -- and I do have one -- is that it's strange to climb with someone who is so unbelievably strong but really has no idea to what extent yet. I mean, he's been reading and hearing things about me for years, so he has this incredibly unnerving belief and faith in my abilities.
The other day at the base of Belly we nearly got in an argument because he couldn't understand why I didn't just go redpoint the route. The thing that he doesn't understand, though, is that I do two moves and then have to take because I'm so tired. I'm nowhere near able to try and redpoint the thing. I'm still trying to figure out how to get up the thing, let along climb it in one push. But Alex seems to think that if he can do it second try, then for sure I should be able to.
You'd think it would be motivating to have someone around who believed in you that much, but strangely enough, for me it works the opposite way. In spite of all the good intentions of the person who is telling you over and over "you should just do it. You could.." I start feeling really pressured and hurried and I find myself just wanting to be left alone to do things in my own timing, when my brain and body tells me that I'm ready.
Okay. So maybe I don't have a point exactly. When I used to climb more with Chris Sharma, he would do the same thing, and it made me feel the same way. I think these boys just don't have any idea how strong they are, and how although it may be trivial for them, it's really hard for me. Anyway, by the end of the week climbing with Alex I was ready to go hide in a hole and climb only with people who didn't seem to care whether or not anybody ever "sent" anything.
I wonder if I ever do that to people, and if it effects them the same way, or if it's just me and other people find this kind of optimism motivating and encouraging. Either way, though, I'm signing off on this blog and headed down to the creek to camp for a three or four days and go completely off the radar.
See you in a few.