It’s such a beautiful day for February that it would be a beautiful day for April. There’s no reason why we can’t climb anything we want today, even multi-pitch, but for some reason I have my heart set on bouldering.

Perhaps it’s just stress-avoidance, to not have to lead for the day, but I like to believe that bouldering is good for me, unlike a day of TR’ing, which is also stress-free but does nothing to ease my worries for the next time I step up to lead. Besides, I need to get strong again after my annual January layoff and the routes I’m capable of leading don’t exactly challenge my strength (physical strength, that is).

So I put my foot down, claim that it’s my day to decide what we’re going to do, and we load Todd’s mattress-sized bouldering pad into the car and set off for the Gunks.

We start with the 5.9 variation to the left of Keyhole, a route I have some history with in that it was the scene of one of my less forgivable temper tantrums. I should be able to climb 5.9 and the fact that I couldn’t that day, even on TR, caused me to pitch a fit of disproportionate proportions.

On our first-ever day of bouldering we also started with this route. On that day, it wasn’t clear if I couldn’t make the last couple of moves or wouldn’t make the last couple of moves. Ah well, it was only practice that day, learning to land on the pad and to spot each other.

Today I have to get used to dropping onto the pad all over again. I get a move higher with each attempt until I reach that point where it’s all or nothing. Todd has done it by now, ready to move on to the next problem, it only remains for me to finish. I jump.

“I don’t really have to go any higher than that,” I explain to Todd from the ground, “and I’ve already dropped from there. If I move my hands and don’t make it, it’ll be the same fall.”

He agrees, not that there’s anything to agree with. I’m stating the obvious in an attempt to talk myself into moving, instead of freezing, the next time I’m up there.

I climb back up to my high point, place my left foot on the edge Todd’s found for me, higher than the one he uses but probably better, carefully move my right foot so that it’s against the crack instead of in the crack so that I won’t flip if I fall. I pause. I look up. Funny, the top seems easily reachable from here and I feel so stable. I think I can just take my right hand out of the constriction and calmly put it right up there on top. I’m sure I can. It really feels like I can. Yes, certainly I can.

I do.

Now for the bad part – I still have to jump. It’s not like my feet are any higher, but my head is, so it feels higher. Ugh. I don’t like jumping.

This is why I imagine that bouldering’s good for me – the steady pushing forward, one move at a time, with no promise of sudden safety if I make it, and then the intentional fall. I can hang there as long as I like and unless someone comes along with a ladder, sooner or later I will have to fall. There’s no slamming in an emergency piece to hang on, no specter of the stance to come if I can only pull through this next move, no asking Todd to take over the lead for me. Do the move, take the fall, black and white.

Triumphant on this route at last, we move on. The Gill Egg next to us is empty. A ridiculous dyno problem I have no hope of ever sending, we give it a try for the sheer bouldering-ness of it – you don’t have to be able to do it to try it.

“Why don’t your feet slam into the rock when you fall off?” I ask Todd petulantly after striking my soles against the slab beneath the roof yet again.

“Because I swing them out before I let go,” he tells me.

“If I could swing my feet without falling off, I wouldn’t be falling off,” I complain, but on subsequent attempts I do somehow become more capable of getting my feet under me before I hit the ground. I guess it just needed thinking on.

Before too long we’re joined by about a hundred other people, psyched by the meatiness of our pad. A lot of them can actually do the problem, including one guy who manages to do it statically, to great applause from the spectators, including me.

Although the atmosphere is social and entertaining, we eventually reclaim our pad and shuffle off. I’m too intimidated to step up for my turn at the plate when it takes me five moves just to get into the starting position, especially considering that getting into the starting position was actually kind of my goal for the day.

Note: it turns out this next problem is called the Middle traverse. No wonder it didn’t seem low!

So we move under Doug’s Roof and start the Low Traverse. I’ve seen people on this before, often without a pad or spotters, but I’ve never tried it. So far Todd and I have stuck to problems with simple, obvious landings, where the pad can be placed once and then forgotten till needed. The Low Traverse is, well, a traverse. Todd sets out first and I struggle to keep the pad beneath him, he moves so fast. I’m terrified that he’s going to fall while I’m looking down and either a) land on me, b) miss the pad because I don’t have it positioned right, or c) topple over backwards and hit his head because I’m not spotting him.

Todd arrives at the end of the traverse without incident. Now it’s my turn. I’m moving too slowly, that’s the obvious problem. The holds aren’t really bad, though they have that soapy feel that chalk-caked holds under roofs at the Gunks sometimes get. If I swung confidently between them, crossing through instead of shuffling, smearing my feet instead of looking for that perfect foot hold, I might have the endurance to get through this.

I’m too cautious, too hesitant. I get to about the middle of the traverse where the feet disappear altogether and can’t go on. My God! I’m so high up. Low Traverse, indeed.

The High Traverse, which Todd works next, having mastered the Low Traverse on his first try, is absolutely no higher at its highest point. It is scarier though, because in order to make those first few traversing moves you’d actually have to get horizontal. Todd is unwilling. He jumps.

I try the Low again, then try the High for jollies. The moves up to the start of the High are delicate and slabby, a nice change for my tired arms. I enjoy working out the intricate body position options, so close to the ground and so much more my style, but then I’ve succeeded at last and am up to the two-finger pocket where the real fun begins.

I grope around the horizontal crack that starts the hairy traverse, trying to decide if I can hold on long enough to at least bail safely. I have absolutely no desire to fall on my back from this height and no delusion that I can actually do the traverse. It’s only a question of whether or not to try the next move.

This is why bouldering is good for me, I remind myself, and make the next move, swinging out under the roof proper. I throw a hand up for the next hold and get it. Even Todd didn’t go past here. I lower my legs and look at the pad way down there beneath me, nothing but air between us. I’m glad it’s so big. I don’t know how those boulderers with pads about the size of Crazy Creek chairs do it.

That’s enough of the High Traverse for me. I make two more attempts at the Low, one starting from the other direction, but never manage to get through the blank area in the middle. On my last attempt I call down that I’m going to jump and Todd exhorts me to continue on, to try at least. I make once last hand shuffle and come off, not jumping this time but really falling. To my surprise, I make my best landing of the day, square on the pad and upright. Surprised, dizzy from the adrenaline rush, I lean back to lay down and fall off the edge of the pad. A perfect landing and I failed to stick it!

By now my arms are like rubber and my fingertips are raw. Even Todd can’t make it through the Low Traverse again. We assemble our light, though bulky, belongings, and totter off down the carriage road. Just a couple of anonymous boulders out for another high-fun, low-commitment day.