Part One: Mental Struggles on the Wall
Two weeks before my flight back to the US in April 2017, a small crew of awesome women and I walked up to one of the walls above our camp to get on a route called Daddy Cool. For all of us, the first goes went superbly well. Later in the week, I received two mediocre catches from two different belayers when falling from the middle of the crux, landing hard on the slab. Around the same time, my relationship with my Turkish climbing partner slash Significant Other took a nasty turn, leaving me distraught. On moves where I had once felt so powerful, in situations where I used to feel so confident, I felt utterly timid and tiny. Logically, I knew the route was within my abilities, having one-hung it several times. Yet, I couldn’t pull myself together and make it happen. What’s worse, I stopped believing I could do it. In the evening on my last day, I tried again. It was drizzling, but I still managed to highpoint. For the first time in my life, I shed tears while cleaning my draws off the wall.
The rest of this story can be found on the Climb Cleveland Blog. Thanks Chick for the support!
