Dating: Am I Doing This Right?

No stress here, just beautiful fall views of SLC

This moment in time is a lot. I won't list all the sources of stress because it could send me into a spiral and I've developed a tick to the phrase, 'In these unprecedented times.' So here's a rant completely unrelated to larger events and simply relevant to me.

Dating is hard. Sometimes I think about how I never expected to spend my thirties dating, but honestly, I never really imagined being in my thirties. Once I started college and got my own apartment I'd achieved all my childhood dreams and everything past that was new, un-imagined territory. One day, when I was 27, I started dating a man I stayed with for eight years. When we broke up it was 2019 and I was suddenly in my mid-thirties wondering how adults date. Most everyone I know got married in their early twenties, so I have to no close examples of what to do and 'Sex and the City' is not all that relevant to my life (gosh, I wish dating was that funny).

A few months into my wondering about dating I met a New Person at a place and we had things in common and hung out and then talked about dating and then dated. Remember when we could go to places? Places where we could meet new people? When shaking hands and hugging were acceptable forms of greetings and goodbyes? Ah. Simpler times. Anyways, New Person and I dated for several months and broke up during the first week of Utah's 2020 quarantine. So I still had all my questions about dating but now I wasn't meeting new people; I wasn't even allowed to see the people I love. I even miss my nemesis. And going places isn't an option.

Homeless, living my desert dream

My saga over the spring is a story for another time, it involves earthquakes, homelessness, and buying a home. I have faced my mortality and while I have accepted that I may die alone, I won't die alone in a crumbling apartment. It will be in a crumbling house.

After some stuttering starts, I have engaged with the world of online dating and IT STRESSES ME OUT! I have so many questions! And here are some of them: 

In the app:

• How many conversations should I be engaged in? I could spend all day chatting with people who have liked my photos but the prospect of that literally makes me curl up in the fetal position.
• How quickly should I respond to chats? If let things pile up I'm going to confuse the conversations I'm in, but I can only emerge from my anxious fetal position twice a day, max. Do I seem too eager if I respond in the amount of time I would respond to a text message? Do I seem uninterested if I only respond weekly?
• How many 'LOLs' are acceptable before I write someone off? I can only tolerate one per message and probably two per week. Should I work on that?
• OK. I know the answer to this. No. They should work on it. You can use the words "that's funny" or a wide range of emojis.
• What amount of exclamation marks is appropriate? 
• Is it okay to be dismissive of people if I hate their chin or the angle they've chosen for all their selfies?

Too much monkey? 

• Should I take down this picture ↑ ? I was deliberately hanging on those vines like Tarzan, but only old men have made the reference to Tarzan and I am hurt when Hinge folks comment about me being a monkey.
• This monkey thing is a long term issue for me. My mom noticed that as an infant I looked like a rhesus monkey and I can't move past it. Plus in kindergarten my field trip group left me behind while I was viewing the gorillas, but made sure to let me know they remembered me when they spotted the orangutan.
• Why is everyone named Scott?

In person:

• Is meeting up for a hike a date? Are we dating?
• How much internet stalking is too much internet stalking?
• How proactive should I be? Is this the time revise my 20-year-old pattern of letting men taking the lead?

I have so much anxiety in this photo, but it's still an adventure

• It seems that every guy out there is looking for "easy going" "adventure partners." Will they give me a shot? I'm not going to pretend I'm easy going. Plus adding an anxiety disorder into an adventure can really spice it up. Just try guessing what will trigger a panic attack AND how to deal with me if I'm panicking.
• Dudes looking for ambitious/driven + easy going ladies are asking for a pizza that doesn't exist! And there are so many of them. The outdoor community is full of Type A women, just admit you like us!
• When, exactly, am I supposed to talk about all the emotional damage 20 years of dating and 10 years of graduate school has done to me? When do I bring up the anxiety disorder?
• Where can we meet to guarantee that I won't be groped*, but that also won't expose us or employees to COVID-19?
• Am I being a jerk because I think A LOT about it before I give someone my phone number or home address? Am I over-thinking this?
• Given all the questions about using the app, is there supposed to be a conversation about no longer chatting with folks on the app?

So, I spiral through all these questions nearly every day. It's exhausting. But my therapist has encouraged me to get out there and meet people and I think she's right about that. The time I spend obsessing on how to properly use the Hinge app feels more productive than the time I spend worrying about dying a death that could have been prevented simply by my not doing it alone (for example, if I had gotten stuck while crawling under my house the other day, a dating person might know and care that I was missing and maybe look under my house before I died).

Let this image of aspens, the best fall tree, soothe you. 

*Tinder is a garbage app. Don't use the Tinder app. And if you must use Tinder, don't grope people whom you've just met.

All By Myself

(I hope you sang the title in your head)

Solo adventure - December 2008

The other day a friend who is plotting a big solo trip asked how you deal with fear on solitary adventures? Such a great question! In the last couple years my anxiety has spiraled out of control with many things, but with solo trips it’s been alright. Anxiety aside, I think fear plays an important role in safe adventuring because it keeps you aware of potential dangers and allows you to determine if you have the skills to address them. Fear, unfortunately, can easily keep you from stepping out the door at all, but in the best case scenario, a healthy level of fear lets you leave the house with a Plan B for when things go wrong. See an abridged list of my fears below.

Helpful Fears

• Wind – the worst at foiling plans
• Lightning – the second worst
• Dumb deer – seriously, why don’t they run away from headlights? Why would headlights ever be an ok thing?
• Cliff edges – everyone trips, I trip all the time, so be careful
• Driving accidents – people are the worst
• Contaminated water – fecal coliforms, Giardia, brain-melting amoeba… choose your water carefully
• Bears
• Drowning

Unhelpful Fears

• Murder deer in the woods – not a thing, but I still worry about them
• Vagina bugs in the water – also not a thing, go ahead and skinny dip
• People creeping through your camp to murder you in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere – if someone wanted to murder you they would do it faster than that (direct quote from my mom, who is probably right)

Since I could use a good laugh, here’s a list of some of the things that have gone wrong on my solo adventures.

Should have used that time to develop my artistic side

1. I had to be rescued by the Park Service on my first solo vacation. Thirty minutes into a kayaking excursion on Lake Powell the wind started blowing hard and never stopped, so I spent 5 hours alone on a beach I couldn’t paddle away from. I through the guide book I packed several times (Birds of Western North America) before I swallowed my pride, called 911 (the only way to get hold of the park service in that primitive area) and was rescued by a boat with flashing lights. I can still taste that humble pie.

   

   Big ole sunglasses hiding my tears

2. Hit a deer and totaled my car. Driving back from a solo trip to Capitol Reef, where I went to just cry for a while, I hit and killed a deer and it disabled my car. I was stuck in Bicknell, UT in November for an extra 24 hours and it felt like I had to ask everyone in Wayne County for help. I couldn’t have gotten to my rental car without the help of a whole fleet of people and am eternally grateful for their help. It restored my faith in humanity, but I maintain that driving is the most dangerous thing we do on any adventure. And mule deer are the worst.

   

   It's hard to capture fear in a landscape picture

3. Cried and ran away from lightning in the Uinta’s. Thunder-snow is terrifying. Everything around you is shaking and electrified. Running for my life was not an appropriate response to lightning (should have squatted on the balls of my feet, being as small as possible) and slipping on slick rocks while crying (literally) made me feel like a spazzy dumbass. Something like that seems to happen every time I get a little cocky. Monsoon-seasonal thunderstorms are expected at high elevations and I’m really glad I bagged King’s Peak before it came in. The next night it snowed enough to collapse my tent. 

   

   I spend a lot of time looking for cool poops. This bear poop is the coolest I've found

4. Carried around a bear-bonking stick while hiking in the Abajo Mountains; kept losing my bear-bonking stick. Situational awareness (noticing important elements of your environment and what they mean for your safety) is as important as starting with a good plan. Noticing both the bear warnings at my campground and the bear poop on the trail helped me be alert to the potential to find a bear. I can’t verify that bonking sticks are useful, but it made me feel safe. Unfortunately, I lost my stick every time I bent down to take a picture of flowers. Not the most peaceful hike I’ve taken. 

   

   Top of the Henry Mountains - home to the scariest deer in the world

5. Cuddled with a hatchet or pepper spray in my sleeping bag more than once. I once had to sleep in a rest stop in rural Washington because I was going to fall asleep in a snow storm if I didn’t pull over, so I slept in the cab of my truck snuggling a keychain pepper spray. A year later I threatened a bunch of deer outside my tent in the Henry Mountains with a gun; I had no weapon and they did not understand the threat. After I caught a deer licking my car in the LaSal mountains I spent the rest of the night with a hatchet next to my pillow, just in case. 

   

   Pretty. Not great camping conditions though

6. I visited Bryce Canyon around Christmas instead of going to St. George as planned. Bryce Canyon is at 7,000 feet and was under a foot of snow. I couldn’t get a fire started so fed myself by warming up Clif Bars on the electric heaters in the bathroom. An ice crust formed on the outside of my sleeping bag and crunched every time I moved, which I interpreted to be someone creeping across the snow outside to murder me. I did not sleep.  

Hopefully it’s clear that the fear never leaves, but is sometimes helpful. After more than a decade of solo adventuring, I do have some advice in addition to my anecdotes.

• Make a plan for what you will do with each day but also expect things to go wrong.
• While planning be explicit about the risks that are present and if they are acceptable. Getting lost is an acceptable (probable) risk for me. Free solo climbing is not.
• Have a check-in person who knows where you’ll be and when to expect you back in cell service.
• Check the weather and understand the effects of elevation on temperature and precipitation. We live in a magical time of smart phones with radar apps. Use them when possible.
• Pack carefully. I like to bring reading and writing materials for long, cold nights or days I am stranded. Having something comforting, like a hatchet, when I am scared is a bonus.
• Develop deer-eyes that check for deer on the side of roadways. And don’t drive through Wayne/Sevier Counties at night.

Solo trips give you the chance to peep wetlands without any mockery or impatience.

I’m a big believer in the solo vacation if it’s something that has ever piqued your curiosity (but it’s not for everyone). It definitely requires an honest assessment of you capabilities, but really, you’re more capable than you give yourself credit for. I tend to feel all the things very strongly, from elation to regret, while I’m out alone, but I think that’s one of the best parts of solo adventures. I guess what I’m saying with all of this is to expect a least one thing to go wrong when out of solo trips, but it will be alright.

I read this quote in a Banff Film Festival magazine years ago and I’ve put it in several blogs because it’s still the best summation of solo adventuring I’ve read:

The line between badass and dumbass is not only fine, it is a grey, wavy line, and in a different place for each individual. It’s hard to recognise, easy to miss, and painfully clear when overstepped. It’s the concept of pushing hard and not giving up, balanced against blind ambition and getting in too deep. Basically, when you start to get really scared, you are probably approaching your line.
-Leo Holding

Wild and Precious

Le Sigh. I've reached the end of another year feeling the same conflict as in years past. How do I appropriately celebrate all the awesome that has happened without bragging? How do I acknowledge we all have struggles without being a bummer? I guess the only thing to do is try to be brief and hope it's clear the struggle is real. We all have something we're dealing with.  The video below captures how things go pretty well: we're rappelling down the Weasel in the dark with a few snowflakes after climbing a pretty great route, getting a little lost, and watching a gorgeous sunset. Adventure is always a mixed bag of good and not-so-good.

It was an action packed year. Brent and I have fallen into the practice of going out of town most weekends, which gave us the opportunity to see our favorite places and visit entirely new locations.

Before diving into highlights from the year that has passed, some personal achievements that are un-photogenic.

• I went to the dentist and physical therapy. Going to the doctor when I'm not really sick feels like a very grown up thing to do. Like registering my car. 
• I made progress on one of my pet peeves - I worked on not saying how busy I am when people ask how I'm doing. That's not very descriptive and if I'm busy all the time it's not noteworthy.
• I have developed exceedingly strong feelings for the Oxford comma (it's completely necessary) after reading through 80+ water quality standards.
• I experience regular feelings of rebelliousness when not using two spaces after the end of my sentences. Even more so because I use one or two spaces according to whims.
• My quest to gather more hobbies continues: I now sew a little, enjoy building stuff with my power tools, like to look for fossils, and am better at kayaking.

But, of course, I took lots of pictures of the very cool things that happened this year. Below are highlights. 

• Didn't run much, but did run great stuff: the Moab Red Hot 33k and the Rim Rock Marathon

Moab Red Hot 33K

Big climb at the beginning of the Rim Rock Marathon

• Worked hard to become a bad ass mountain biker, attained some new levels of skill (bad-assery is a difficult benchmark to know), including surviving a 6-hour trail race

Finishing El Doce after 3 laps and 41 miles

Blissful riding on the Wasatch Crest

• Finally got to Costa Rica, a childhood dream of mine. Searched for bugs, snorkeled, saw volcanoes

Brent holding a tail-less whip scorpion during our nighttime bug tour in Drake Bay

Hiked through 5 miles of jungle to snorkel on an isolated beach

Listening to birds in the cloud forest

• Went on our annual backpacking trip, this time to the Sawtooth Mountains, which were spectacular

Camped and swam at this lake below the Finger of Fate

The Finger of Fate

• Dove into backcountry skiing, it's a lot more work but also quite wonderful

First time touring to Dog Lake

• My family came to the San Rafael Swell - my favorite people in my favorite place!

K's at the Wedge

Little Wild Horse Canyon with my people

Niblings learned how to stem canyons

• Solo vacation took me to Great Basin National Park, tagged Wheeler Peak

I hugged a bristle cone pine

• Built the platform for the back of my truck I've been dreaming about for years

• The book! The book! The Great Salt Lake wetland plant book is real!

• Spent more time on my road bike than I expected, rode it to the top of Big Cottonwood and around the Wellsville mountains for the 5th time.

Almost 4,000 feet of climbing done, ready for the downhill

• Sister's trip to San Diego with Brent's sisters (my sisters-in-spirit) included bonding, building terrariums, and riding segways

Segways are really fun

• Lots of opportunity for family bonding. Courtney lived with me for a bit, having a roommate was great and I enjoy getting to know my baby sister better. Took my sister-in-law rappelling, watching her overcome a fear was wonderful. Got another nibling. Mountain biked with family. Enjoyed many family get together's

Biking Wire Mesa

• One of Brent's dreams (and what I worried would be my nightmare, but it wasn't) came true: we did big wall climbing in Zion! On the fall equinox! It was gorgeous! And stressful!

What a morning view

A line from one of my favorite poems, "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver,  captures how I tried to live 2018 and hope to continue into 2019:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?  

So wild!

Big Wall Climbing: How lucky am I?

Or, Big Wall Climbing: What am I doing with my life?

I don’t know that a blog about climbing is the place to address this, but it’s what I’m writing about now. I worry that my social media posts paint an overly rosy picture of my life. I don’t have pictures to show how often I ride the struggle bus, but I’m a frequent passenger. So how do I write a blog about how grateful I am to have climbed in Zion without bragging? Big wall climbing in Zion was amazing, but it was also stressful and hard work. Things aren’t good all the time, but when they’re good they’re really, really good. Does that fly?

Brent and I have been climbing together since 2010 and in that time we’ve visited some amazing places. I haven’t been dealing with anxiety well in the last two years and it has negatively impacted climbing in particular. It’s gotten to the point that I feel like a real turd any time I post a smiling climbing picture because it doesn’t even hint at the flip side: that I have cried on a lot of rocks. So know that, as I proceed with a glowing review of our weekend in Zion, climbing is a real mixed bag and things aren’t all adventure all the time.

From our very first tower trip - screaming and flailing up the Penguins. Technique has improved since then, fear has not subsided.

Big walls. They’re very tall (>1,000 feet) and technical, requiring specialized climbing gear and more than one day to climb. Think of the towering cliffs of Zion National Park, where this adventure occurred, or Yosemite National Park (it’s no coincidence so many big walls are in national parks, they are spectacular and inspired the first conservationists). We have climbed some tall stuff and some stuff in national parks, but acquiring the skills and gear to scale a big wall has taken years. 

Brent under Disco Inferno, not dying under the weight of the haul bag

That's a stuck haul bag

We’ve practiced these skills for the last year and my fate was sealed when Brent purchased a port-a-ledge this summer. Having no escape to the ground after several hours of climbing made me worry I’d implode from the stress, but who in their right mind would turn down the chance to sleep on a cliff in Zion? I did not sleep well in the week before our trip, and then I cried as we left my apartment complex and as we hiked to the cliff and as we racked up on Day 2 and when I was climbing…  But between the tears, truly wonderful things happened.

Can you believe this sunrise?

We climbed the Disco Inferno route (5.8, C2, Grade V) on the Desert Shield. It’s approximately 1,000 feet of climbing, broken into 8 sections (called pitches). Our plan was to climb at least three pitches the first day so we could spend the night on a part of the cliff with a natural ledge. Then we would climb as far as we could the second day before rappelling down and heading back to work. My Type-A personality has struggled to adapt to the fact that success is not guaranteed in the mountains. Plenty could disrupt a successful ascent, from weather to health. I figured we could easily get eight pitches in two days because we often get in 4-5 per day and once we climbed seven. But time passes differently when you’re aid climbing and we got four pitches in.

Getting our gear to the base of Disco Inferno was a challenge in itself. The Zion Shuttle Bus driver was kind enough to drop us off right where we needed to go, but the haul bag was packed to a crushing weight and the steep trail to the cliff was a little treacherous with the extra wobble our loaded packs gave us. Once we were climbing most of the route-finding was simple enough: follow the biggest, straightest crack. However, the route had some odd pendulum swings (just like it sounds), unexpected traverses (sideways climbing that is scary), and a brutal chimney to squeeze through. Anywhere we climbed we also had to get the haul bag up, which meant I got to karate kick the bag out of the chimney, a satisfying way to let some aggression out. It’s difficult to express in words the brutality of chimney climbing. Instead of pulling and stepping on rocks with your hands and feet like most climbing, or wedging your hands and feet in cracks like crack climbing, in chimneys you push out against the rocks with your feet, knees, butt, back, shoulders, elbows and helmet. Chimney climbing draws blood and leaves bruises. The skinnier the chimney (and this one got pretty skinny) the more body contact is required to climb it. Plus I kept running into that haul bag.

The beginning of a truly 'sustained chimney'

The climbing was physically difficult, but also reasonably fun. In between puzzling, it was easy to remember we were doing this because it’s fun. We were climbing on the Autumn Equinox and the fall light in the canyon was stunning. I watched a buck stroll down the Virgin River and a heron fishing. We had a great view of Angel’s Landing where I could watch hikers summit through the day and families bike down the canyon.

Seriously, this was our view for two days. It's awesome

We made the bivy ledge just in time to set up for dinner and sleep. Being leashed to a rope all night long took some getting used to, but I’m so happy previous climbers had set up all the ropes and bolts for us to move around on. We brought enough water and food to keep us happy and comfortable, but regret not bringing some hot dogs because someone hauled a grill and charcoal up there and we really should have used it. Eating dinner at dusk with our view of the canyon made me realize just how lucky I was that we had the opportunity to climb in a national park and the skill to make it happen. 

Not to get too mushy, but I'm pretty smitten

Sleeping on a port-a-ledge was not as stressful as I expected. The ledge was big enough for the both of us and stable. I woke up when the remarkably bright full moon came out, but otherwise slept pretty well. Peeing was the biggest complication of our overnight stay. I had to stay in my harness the whole time (thankfully there are buckles to disconnect the leg loops from the waist band), and pulling up the harness while pulling down my pants, a move that had to be made as I dangled my butt as far off the rock as possible, required exceptional coordination. It would have been easy to pee in the protected area we were camping and cooking in, but it would have also been wrong. Peeing in cracks and ledges on rock climbing routes makes them reek of urine and the stench would have remained after we left. So I got to lean, bare butt, off the cliff, where the rain would wash away my pee, hoping to complete my work before a shuttle bus rounded the bend.

Port-a-ledge is all packed up, bivy is much less inviting

Racking up on our second day was unexpectedly stressful and teary. We had put the ledge away and after a spending all night making sure everything was secure, I was scared about dropping a critical piece of gear off the cliff (I’m still having waking dreams about securing all my stuff with carabiners) and scared about everything else. My tears dried once I had belaying to focus on and with the tour buses stopping below to point us out, I could again appreciate just how cool it was. Climbing had lost some of its shiny, coolness. I’m not an adrenaline junky, but climbing is exhilarating in other ways. Getting to the top of a big route under your power is great and the views also tend to be rewarding. Since climbing has become so stressful for me, the moments of victory are broken up by long periods of anxiety about what could go wrong and insecurity about my skills. Lately it has felt like I couldn’t do anything cool and I seriously questioned why we climb. But those busloads of tourists stopping (and one cheering) were so great. Climbing is really cool and not everyone gets to do it and that’s both a reason to do it and cause to be grateful.

Ready to head down

I didn’t find true Zen though. A couple hours later, when I followed up the fourth pitch I cried my most ferocious tears. It’s possible I was just hot, dehydrated, and hungry, I was definitely furious. I couldn’t get the gear that Brent had used out of the crack in the rock and that was my only job. One piece of stuck gear is expected, but I left five pieces. Brent was trying to give me tips to free the gear and I yelled, “You’re wrong!” Not my best moment. By the time I was within speaking distance I was cursing and crying. A lot. Brent tried soothing me by telling me he wasn’t angry about leaving gear behind, and in true bonking fashion I said, “But I’M angry!” (It will be added after “Everything is terrible!” to my list of unhelpful, childish things to say while climbing.) Of course Brent was able to free four of the five pieces. Thankfully he waited until our drive home to suggest we practice freeing tricky gear before the next trip.

You can't see the tears, but they're there. It's clear, though, that I have trouble keeping my helmet on straight. Picture by Brent

Rappelling down is my least favorite part of climbing. It’s a simple process, but when you’re tired or going long distances there are several places where things could go wrong and small missteps can be fatal. I’ve adapted to this by triple-checking everything and telling my partners, “I love you, be safe” every time they rap. On this trip down one of the stopper knots got stuck in a crack, the rope almost didn’t come down because a knot got stuck on a ledge, I had trouble tying the rope off so I could fix the stuck knot, and I ended up with dozens of spines in my hand from pulling the rope through a cactus. But we got down safely and another kind shuttle bus driver picked us up from the middle of the road.

That time we woke up on Disco Inferno

And now I have the memory of having my morning coffee 400 feet above the canyon at sunrise and that’s enough to convince me we might do something like this again next year. 

Morning view. Picture by Brent.