Adventures in Africa
Ok, I think I'm addicted to climbing! It is so fun and challenging! After going out on Saturday night to camp with a bunch of Mountain Club people- we got an early start Sunday morning. Elise (my best climbing buddy) and I were excited because we were promised more "intermediate" climbs and that we would get to learn a lot more today. We were kind of thrown in the deep end when Jason and Langdon (2 really experienced climbers - Langdon is actually the owner/instructor of a climbing gym & team-building enterprise here in Kenya) invited us to do a longer 2-stage climb early on Sunday morning. We head out at 7 and started up the mountain around 8. It was huge! The first part was fairly do-able and then we reached half-way about 55 metres up and were all standing on a 1 metre little ledge attached to some ropes while Landgon and Jason tried to figure out the best way to get the rest of the way up. After Jason lead climbed (basically just climbing with little protection - you put the nuts/bolts in the mountain as you climb it so that if you fall you have something to hold you up) and once he was up there and secured the rope at the top it was our turn. This was a really tough climb and I fell once (but that is what the person who is belaying you is for) and my arms were killing but I managed to get about a metre from the top before my arms started to cramp up and I went down. I wasn't even afraid of the heights and we were a good 100 metres up barely hanging onto anything!We climbed a bit more that day and I felt SO good! I really feel like I have improved a lot. It is such a fun sport and what a place to be doing it! Surrounded by giraffes, eland, impala, gazelles, baboons...
0 Responses to “Climb Every Mountain...”
Leave a Reply