Made it to the top! iPhone documentation available

If you follow this blog at all, and thank you if you do, you know that I wrote this post about my biggest, scariest, New Year’s Resolution.  I have a fear of heights that I would classify as both mild and irrational.  I also go to a climbing gym.  I know that sounds nuts, but you see, everyone else in my family is really into climbing.

As I said in my New Year’s post.  This is what I am trying to climb:

ISO 250 4mm f/2.8 1/15

This is the point where any climber would roll their eyes a bit because it doesn’t get any easier than a V0- on the Hueco scale.

Well, I’m happy to say that yesterday, I MADE IT! and I have iPhone documentation:

ISO 100 4mm f/2.8 1/15

I also tweeted about it.  As of the New Year, I am on Twitter @marantophoto  I have to say though that I “get” climbing more than I “get” Twitter, but what are you going to do?

So, I made it to the top.  I needed some help though.  The same person that took the photo was also at the top of the boulder when I was climbing, because I need some help when the panic sort of set in at the top.  That is such a crazy feeling, the panic I mean.  One minute I’m fine, the next, not so much.

As I mentioned in my original post, here is the gym shirt that I promised I would buy myself if I made it to the top:

ISO 250 11mm 0ev f/5 1/60

So one resolution off this year’s list.  A few more mundane ones to go!

Cheers!

 

New Year’s Resolution?

Ah, the New Year’s Resolutions, they’re everywhere these days.  Just to be like the cool kids, I am writing about mine.  When I say cool kids, I mean the folks at WordPress who have issued this writing challenge about New Year’s resolutions and the fact that apparently there is a huge meteor coming.  My take on reading the challenge is that since a meteor is coming soon I need to pick three things to resolve to do and get them done. Pronto!, the end is near after all.

Three resolutions is two too many for me to write about.  Take my word for it that I have made some pedestrian resolutions.  I am going to be writing about the Big One.  It is this:

ISO 250 4mm f/2.8 1/15

That is a photo of the starting point of a bouldering problem at the gym where I climb.  Or attempt to climb anyway.  I’m not so good at it.  I am afraid of heights.  All bouldering problems at the gym have a grade level marking using the Hueco system.  If you would like an overview of the different systems including Hueco, here is a good place to start.  Basically the way it works is that a V0 is the easiest, as the numbers go up, the problem is harder.  Notice that this is a V0-.  It doesn’t really get any easier than this.

For me though, this is a huge challenge.  I get part of the way up and have to remind myself to start breathing again.  My vision dims a bit and the panic starts to set in, so I scramble back down.  Here is the really nutty part, it would actually be technically easier to keep going up and finish.  I am so close to the top but can’t quite seem to make it.

So, this is my New Year’s Resolution, make it to the top.  I have three things to help me make it there.  One is I promised myself a gym t-shirt if I make it.  Second, the staff redoes the bouldering rock all the time, so at some point soon this problem will be gone.  The third is this meteor that I hear is getting closer…

Leave me words of encouragement and other thoughts in the comments section.

Cheers!