Steven leading On the Loose (5.9+)

"I'm going to put in another piece and come down," I say.

"Put in two more pieces," Todd tells me.

"Why are you coming down?" Steven asks me.  "The book says it's only 5.6 from there."

"Well, it doesn't feel like 5.6, my feet are on fire, and I'm thirsty," I answer, fidgeting in another piece.

"Put in something higher, more in the main crack," Todd orders.

"Why?" I ask, feeling belligerent.

"Because I can't tell how good that rock is from down here.  It looks kind of blocky."

All the rock here looks blocky, I think, but I put in a piece higher up.  "That's a great piece," I say and before I know it, I'm climbing again.  I don't even warn Steven but he's watching and with great gear in the moves are 5.6 and I'm making them.

How did I get here?  Six weeks ago I was leading hard 5.8 at the Gunks, ready to start on easy 5.9.  Five weeks ago I was leading bolted 10s at Rumney, onsight and clean.  Today I'm hanging my way up 5.8 at the Adirondacks, ready to bail off the 5.6 finishing moves, dehydrated and exhausted because I've been leading this damned one-pitch route for over an hour.

I guess it started with a fall - a fall that left me eye to eye with my belayer, my feet dangling mere inches from the ledge he was standing on.  But it didn't hit me then.  That day I went back up, shaky but sure that I could pull over the roof if I made big, confident moves instead of small, controlled ones.  And I did.  I felt like I had gained something that day. 

The reaction, when it started later that night, was at first purely intellectual.

"You don't know what the hell you're doing," I chided myself.  "What if you'd made one more move before coming off?  You had no idea you were nearly in ground-fall range."  I took the rest of the weekend off from leading, telling myself I had some thinking to do.  The next weekend was spent sport climbing and, although I had moments of fear making hard moves between the closely spaced bolts, I made the moves anyway.

The following weekend, not sure what I had resolved except that I was going to stay off R-rated routes for a while, I found myself at the bottom of Pink Laurel, one of the safest 5.9s at the Gunks and a route I had followed cleanly in the past.  Now it was a different story.  Perhaps it was the weight of the rack, or summer's humidity greasing the holds.  Perhaps it was fear.  Whatever it was, I came off at the start of the crux, taking a short, harmless fall onto a good piece that held.  I was angry.  Mark that: angry.  Not scared, not hurt.  Angry.  I'd wanted to lead the route cleanly.

Once I finished kicking the wall in frustration, I went back up, pulled through the tricky first move to a poor stance from which gear can be placed.  I placed a nut, moved up once, clipped a fixed piece, moved up again, and that's when it hit - pure panic.  I needed gear and I needed it now.  I hung from a hideous hold, trying to fumble an Alien into a horizontal I could reach but not see.  When the third piece I tried stuck I clipped the rope through it and considered saying "take", something I'd never done on lead before.  I pulled on the sling to test the piece.  It came straight out.  Doubly panicked, I downclimbed to the fixed nut and hung.

Me on Lichenbrau Dark (5.9)

I lowered off, shaking and hyperventilating.  Todd calmed me down.  I'd done everything right, he told me.  I placed plenty of gear; I tested a piece I wasn't sure of; I downclimbed when I was in trouble.  I was almost through the crux - I just needed to put my hand in the horizontal where I'd been trying to place the Alien and stand up to a jug.  I hung from such a bad hold for so long I could have easily pulled through the move.  I downclimbed the hardest moves on the route.

Thus propped up, I went back to try again.  Which is when I really fell apart.  I couldn't even convince my body to return to my high point, never mind climb past it to a hard move with gear at my feet.   And that's how, several weeks later, I found myself at the Adirondacks, in the middle of what had since become a familiar nightmare - just below the crux, gear in everywhere, paralyzed by the thought of falling on it.

We start the day, my first ever in the Adirondacks, with Steven leading On the Loose (5.9+) at Spider's Web.  As my lead-head stock has been falling, Steven's has been rising and he leads this steep, pumpy hand crack with assurance.  Following him, I reach his last piece overheated and exhausted.  I jam myself into an awkward stance and eye the gear with frustration.  I have to clean it, or at least unclip my rope and clip the rope I'm trailing for Todd.

"I think this is the crux," Steven tells me and I let go in resignation.  Hanging from the rope, I look at my tattered tape gloves and wish once again that I'd just suck it up and buy Spider Mitts, whether it makes me a wuss or not.   Back on, I take a much less strenuous stemming approach to the final moves.  Why is it that I can never find the labor saving variations when I need them most?  Being pumped seems to trigger a counter-productive "just pull through it" response.  After reaching the belay, I drink half the water I'd theoretically brought up for Steven and have to rest for five minutes before I have the energy to pull up the rope to belay Todd.

From there we set up White Knight (5.11) on TR.  I watch Todd curse and hang his way up it, knowing that bodes badly for me but still hopeful.  Later I'm surprised (but shouldn't be) when I can't even make the first few moves off the ground.  Todd is pumped from the route and I'm pumped from just trying to start it.  Steven's still feeling strong, but it's my turn to lead something.  We move our packs over to Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, a 5.8 with a small roof for a crux and excellent protection.

Me leading Mister Roger's Neighborhood (5.8)

I stand on top of the starter block and finger the first holds.  I tell myself the usual story:  You don't have to do this.  You can rack up, put in a piece, try a move, and see how it feels.  If you don't like it, you can come back down.  Or put in more gear and hang.  This is perfectly safe and you can quit any time.

Todd wanders over and throws in a cam to protect the step across from the block to the start of the route.

"I don't have any trouble putting in gear," I remind him.  Since I've started getting hysterical when I lead he's gotten more protective.

"I know," he says.

I lean across the void and stand on tippy-toes to remove the cam, then extend even farther to put it back exactly where it was.

"There," I say.  "Now I've placed my own gear."

I rack up before he can lead the whole route for me.  Steven belays.  I've barely climbed with Steven since my last big fall.  He's heard about my new lead head but he's about to see it in action for the first time.

I manage the step across and climb up to the roof where I stuff in a #4 Camalot.  It sucks but there's something reassuring about a really big cam even in the worst of placements.  It says "I can hold you without even trying."  Then I add a nut above it.  The nut says "I'm a good nut." Despite this I make only a few half-hearted attempts at the first move over the roof before climbing back down to the stance and announcing that I don't want to lead the route after all.

"Hang first," Todd says.  His strategy is to have me hang to prove to myself that the piece will hold.  It works.  I pull the first move, reach a jug for my left hand, and quickly stuff in another cam.  I put my right hand on the next hold, move my feet up, and stop.  I can't convince myself that my right hand will hold, that my feet will stay on, if I let go of the jug with my left hand.  In a panic, I scurry back down and hang.  Over and over I try the move.  Again and again I refuse to let go with my left hand.

Todd leading Lichenbrau Dark (5.9)

"You're on toprope," they tell me.

"I won't be once I finish the move," I protest.

"The piece will be at your waist."

I'm unconvinced.

"Just take a short fall on it."

I try but I can't.  I tell myself, "this time I'll pull through and just take the fall," but it doesn't happen.  The best I can manage is a controlled swing onto the gear as I'm downclimbing.

"So put in a piece higher up."

It sounds stupid.  I've got good gear at my waist.  What can another piece do for me?  But it works.  I stand up, place a piece, clip it, and pull through the move almost in the same motion. 

By the time I finish the 80 foot pitch I've placed 16 pieces and Steven and Todd are taking bets as to whether I'll run out of runners before I hit the anchor.  But I've placed every piece myself and done every move under my own power and I'm glad I led the route.

"You did it!" some people we met earlier in the day congratulate me.  "How'd you like it?"

"I'm sure you heard the whining," I say, embarrassed now that I'm safely on the ground.

"Oh, I was whining on my lead too," Karen says (5.11, that is).

"She's been having lead head problems since she took a few big falls," Todd tells them, defending me from an accusation that hasn't been made.  But I know what he means.  Every time I'm whimpering on lead now I wish that I could explain to the imaginary audience below:  how I used to be a bold leader; how I used to fly up my leads; how gleefully I'd snicker when my partner recommended placing two pieces below the crux.  How much it has cost me.  But I know the condemnation is never really there, only empathy and understanding.  Still, I think about wearing a sign on my back:   "Objects on lead are tougher than they appear."

"It was good for her," I overhear Todd tell Steven as I drift off to sleep that night.  "She did something hard, she hung on gear, and she didn't die."  But I know that theory; I've heard it before.  Each time, since my fears started, that I've made it to the top of something, whether cleanly or not, I've thought of it as a victory - the beginning of the end of this dark and shameful chapter in my climbing biography.  And then the fear hits me again.

The next day we stand at the bottom of Pegasus (5.7+) on the lower Beer Wall and begin the same old story from page one.  I finger the starter holds, convinced that I cannot even safely do the move that will get me off the ground.  I place two pieces in six feet.  I stop below the crux and I want to come down.  And I hear, "hang from the piece", "put in a piece higher up".  And I know that it will work, that with time and patience and suffering and whining, I can lead this route.  And it's just too much.

"I'm coming down," I tell them.  I clean the gear, downclimb the moves I wasn't sure I could climb up.  I walk away from Pegasus. Todd leads a 9 and we toprope a 10+.  I have no trouble on these routes with their thin, delicate moves and without any fear to overcome.  Steven leads Clutch and Cruise (5.8) and Todd follows.  Steven suggests that we pull the rope so I can lead through his gear, but I'm not interested.

Todd leading Pats' Blue Ribbon (5.12)

"There's nothing wrong with my gear," I say for the umpteenth time.  Mentally, I know my gear will hold even though emotionally I know it would be easier to fall on Steven's gear.  Then, whether it's because the overhanging crack is too wide for my hands or because I've got the thought of leading it in my head, I can't pull through the overhang and come off.  Repeated attempts to get back on prove to be more draining than productive and eventually I sulkily ask to be lowered.

While a crowd gathers to watch Todd hang out at a rest stance between the second and third bolt of a 5.12, I disappear off on my own to have a good cry.  There are moments like this when I consider quitting, when I wonder if the bad days outnumber the good, if climbing will ever be purely fun again or if it will always, from now on, be tinged with this wretched mixture of fear and self-reproach.  I consider whether walking away from Pegasus might be just what I needed.  Despite the "you can quit at any time" pep talk I'd been giving myself before each lead I'd yet to actually back off one.  Maybe now, I think . . . 

But no.  I used to believe I'd find the magic bullet, that one day my lead head would snap back in as suddenly as it snapped out that day on Pink Laurel.  And when that happy day came I'd start leading 5.9, a smarter, safer leader but once again a bold and confident one.  Now I begin to understand that it's going to be a long process.  I run through all the advice I've gotten - practice downclimbing, try aiding to learn to trust your gear, put in a lot of mileage at an easy grade, practice falling.  And another one:  give it time.  It comes back, but it comes back slowly.  Perhaps that's the only answer.

I rejoin the gang, applaud Todd's success in clipping the third bolt on Pats' Blue Ribbon, take another stab at Clutch and Cruise, throw a little determination at it, and get it.  It's not a magic bullet, but it leaves me with a smile.