Where did you start?

[jennie]

quote:

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Originally posted by David Parker:

You guys who learned from your Dad should thank him! Let him know how much it means to you. It's the nicest compliment you can give him!

Cheers, David

[/b]

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I definatly owe a huge thanks to my parents for exposing me to climbing. I believe climbing is a passion your born with , luckily my parents helped me find it.

It started when I couldn't even walk. My parents would take me up to the crags and I would just watch them climb for hours. Our family vacations were to yosemite, gunks,tietons,ect... or where ever they were climbing. It was great! All throughout my childhood we had climbers from all over crashing on our couch and telling amazing stories of their climbs. Every slide show of my fathers would drive me to want to get out and climb what he did.

In high school we moved to SLC, I rebeled and become a sport climber for a few years.... After taking a few years off I came back to my senses and have returned back to more alpine/ mountaineering climbs.

SO if you have kids , let them into your crazy climbing world. It was great climbing with my dad when I was 5 and it is still great climbing with him in my 20's. It has created a amazing bond.

Jennie

[michaeljosephnozel]

I know that I cannot be the only one who started climbing at the UW practice rock. I remember thinking, "Damn, everybody around here sure is good."

Overhearing their weekend adventures kept me coming back, even though my climbing sucked.

Eventually (years after graduating, that is), I had the opportunity to learn glacier travel/basic mountaineering; then climbed Mt. Hood. Shortly thereafter, I set a goal to climb all the Cascade volcanoes. Since some of them required rock climbing, I re-awakened my early days at the practice rock (only this time I had some mentors).

Mountaineering fed into rock climbing; rock climbing fed into ice climbing; rock and ice climbing fed back into mountaineering. Funny how that works. . . .

And now climbing is a very central part of my life.

[Backcountry]

As a teenager my then new friend SeanHalling told me stories of rapping off the roof of his parents house with 550 cord and I knew then I had to strive for his level of greatness....

Went to L-dub quiet a few times til all of us got spread to the four corners in the military. I got out in '95 but then I was torn between a psycho girlfriend in Fla or moving back here....while sitting on top of a nice route in L-dub I had a profound moment and said the hell with her, I'm coming back. It's been the best decision I have made. I owe all my climbing bug and experience to SeanHalling...

[Pencil_Pusher]

Pretty much the same as everyone else. Started out as a kid, did the stupid stuff as an adult.

Took climbing class and kept on doing more stupid stuff, just now in a different format ...Experience. And fun.

Mt Sopris is best viewed from CMC in Glenwood Springs or Carbondale, if my memory serves me right.

 

[slaphappy]

Up the ladder onto the roof, age 3. Age 12, my dad bought me a 40 ft. chunk of braided nylon rope and a snap ring. Did laps with friends hand over hand on 30 ft. midwestern sandstone mank, using trees as anchors. Moved to the mountains as soon as possible.

[miker]

Well I have always climbed shit. All over the cupboards of the house, and any tree that I saw. The first time I used a rope and all that fancy stuff was in high school when my uncle, a climber since the olden days, took me up to Windy Point north of Tucson on Mount Lemmon and taught me some stuff. The scariest thing was belaying him for the first time up a 5.10 something which looked way harder than any tree and then he falls at the bulgy crux a little runout and swings down and into the wall and seriously tweaks his ankle. I lifted up about 6 feet and was seriously thinking I and or he was gonna die.

So anyway, that was my first experience and the next time I got around to it at CalTech in Pasadena I started hanging out at there little climbing gym and then went outside with a climbing class and from then on I was hooked and have worked my way from sport to trad and I did my first aid climb last week (City Park) and in the next month or two I will move on to the big walls.

It's all about progress, be it up or down, in or out, as long as you are moving you are alive.

mike r