Fear: It Can Cripple Or Save Your Life

In 1990 a friend and I were prematurely snowed off a back country hiking trip from a freak September storm. Drying out, we found ourselves in Yosemite Valley with a week to kill. The next day we stumbled upon the Yosemite Mountaineering School and decided to risk a one day beginners' rock climbing course. Our instructor, a soft spoken lion faced man in his mid-thirties, Peter Croft, I learned later was a climbing legend.

As it happened one day of lessons turned into five, and by the end of the week my life had changed forever. Climbing became a passion, one I pursued with the fervor of a new romance. That was nearly fifteen years ago. Today I don't climb nearly as much or quite as well as I used to. Life's weightier responsibilities tend to encroach. But the fire still burns. I felt it again this last weekend out at Joshua Tree.

I have to confess, though, that my love of the vertical world did not come easy. Fear, more to the point, fear of heights, did its best to defeat me. But what was once a source of emotional paralysis in time become one of the greatest pleasures of my life. Fear was transformed into joy! More importantly, climbing has taught me lessons that transcend the vertical world.

A number of years ago I wrote a story that was first published in Indoor Climber that relates to all this. It's mostely a climber's tale, but you might find it interesting: Click here for the whole story.