My interest with nature started in high school. I lived in a cabin in Maine for four months when I was fifteen, plucked up off the streets of Manhattan to participate in an intensive environmental science program in Wiscasset. I learned how to feed a horse, drive a tractor (the first and only vehicle I knew how to drive for many, many years) and how to enjoy camping/boating/hiking/surviving in the wilderness.
One of the capstone experiences of the program was a two-night “solo camp”.
This meant the exhausted, well-intentioned staff dropped off all the students in the woods near the school and left us to our own survival devices. This was 1998, so “survival devices” were limited to a several layers of L.L. Bean fleece clothing, a silver Nikon Coolpix, a journal and a very large bag of trail mix (the wisdom of deploying 45 camping stoves into the Maine woods in the hands of inexperienced city kids must have been debated and shot down at some higher level. Whatever, I love trail mix!)
For me, this was the start of a long thread of interest in outdoor activities. During college spring break, my friends and I would go on drawn-out canoeing trips. I spent three years after college living in different ski towns. I’ve visited 35 of the 58 US National Parks. I worked briefly as a whitewater raft guide. And a kayaking instructor. And a “rock-climbing supervisor” (I’m definitely not experienced enough with rock climbing to be an instructor, more on that below).
The most important thing I learned in Maine was that I can do “wilderness stuff” alone and probably survive.
That realization has led to a great combination of adventure and questionable decision-making throughout the last few decades of my life. I’m constantly searching out wilderness experiences that I can undertake on my own with varying levels of dedicated preperation. Enter: “deepwater free-solo rock climbing”. For a very brief introduction, check out world-renown psicobloc climber Chris Sharma on Mallorca here.
Oh good, you’re back. Looks easy right? And something you can do totally alone! I’ve been obsessed with starting deep water climbing for almost a year now. I have exchanged several (more than three) e-mails with a Mallorcan climbing company, visited the climbing gym in Madrid various (more than two) times and dedicated myself to doing push-ups nightly (once every couple weeks, but if they’re always at night, it’s still nightly. Think about it.)
Finally, I got the push I needed to get going: my boyfriend’s mom came to visit and we planned a trip to Mallorca anyway. I packed my climbing shoes in my little Ryan Air-approved carry-on and told them I wanted to just sneak away before lunch one day to do this totally safe thing that I had read a lot about on the internet.
Turns out:
- I forgot my chalk bag.
- And my approach shoes.
- It’s probably super dangerous to do this particular iteration of rock-climbing alone.
- Especially when I don’t know anything about where I am.
- Or what I’m doing.
BUT after I adjusted my plan slightly, I spent a relatively safe and very enjoyable hour scrambling and bouldering about 30 feet away from the rocky cliffs at Soller. Picture of safe(r), improved plan area below. (I also forgot a hair tie.)
Banner photo credit: Fionn Claydon
You didn’t!