STARTING HOLD - #17 > JUNE/JULY 2007

The Strangest Thing

Last weekend, during a feel-good lap on a 5.8 “aggro” offwidth somethin’ or other (and of course, keeping true to boulderer code, locking off somewhere mid- route on shitty crimps just right of the ginormous jug) in the Peter’s Kill area of the Gunks, my fingers went numb, signaling the anticipated sure thing - I was going to have to quit climbing, again. It was the first time I tried to climb since February, when a chronic hand injury flared up and shut me down.

Back then I figured, ‘It’s OK: I held it down so far, till this thing decided it was time to creep up and shackle me down to the MRI table. Time off will be good. I’ll start running or something.’ 

But now?

‘Now I’m just flat out pissed off,’ I thought. ‘I can only run so much. I need rock. I need vertical movement like my basil plant, Louie, needs me to keep cooking. This whole thing is just wrong. Beyond wrong. It’s sick even.’

And then something strange happened. Earlier in the day I recommended that this crew check out Dwarf Toss, a stellar problem just across the Peter’s Kill parking lot, not far from where they were climbing at the Outbreak boulder. Then later, as I headed back into comforting territory, immediately following my offwidth-ical 15 minutes of pain, I ran back into them on the trail; they were heading straight for the line I’d suggested. Of course, I had to tag along. Which, by the way, isn’t the strange thing, yet.

When we arrived at the boulder my friend Brian, who met us along the way, immediately prepared for an off-the-couch go at Giant Steps, a highball variation of Dwarf Toss. It’s a problem that put him and me in an uncompromising position a few years earlier when his hands blew, almost 20 feet up, after attempting a bogus heel - which stayed. The head-first fall threw him into a handstand on my shoulders. We were sent flipping and rolling like acrobats to the ground, safely. Barely.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s been a while.”
“Well at least you can try,” I said.
“True.”

Four minutes later, he sat atop the block, breathing harder and heavier than the time he decked, and the pads went into shuffle mode. All the shoes went on.  Everyone’s but mine. I, my friends, would choreograph the spots.

This was game on. These guys weren’t just going through the motions. After Brian’s spark, they fired up, and the energy only increased with each attempt and with each and every climax that ended in a “So close!” throw from the mail-slot. Amped. Psyched. Brutally committed.

Man, it brought me back to some of my crew’s first sessions, some of our best sessions, right there in that spot.

I could hear the pads whirl like frisbees beneath me as I held on for one...last...crimp. I could feel the falls. I could hear my bros shouting, “Do it!” The rollercoaster picked me up for a flashback to my butterflies-in-the-stomach send. It was perfect. I was right there with them - the whole time - broken, but happy as a clam. Some sent. Some didn’t. In the end, I got the vibe that it didn’t really matter. Right on.

And with the last few rays of sunlight, a soft spring breeze, and cheers from all around, Beth, who’d been working her very first V4 just yards away, found herself atop the world, penning the last words to a great story, and closing the book on a perfect day. {Nice send, girl.}

So the strange thing is this: I had another incredible session, and I wasn’t even climbing. Bringing this crew to an area that I loved, introducing them to a line that was special to me, and sharing the experience was beyond rewarding -- it was magical. It brought me back to life. I realized my mental diaries of pain and suffering and my rampant woe-is-me attitude, due to a minor injury, were nothing more than a self-pityfest. The crag’s the crag. And any day at the crag is better than a day away from it - whether you’re climbing, or not.

See you out there,
Joe Iurato