And yet, a couple months ago I heard Claire from Girls Gone WOD first talking about and then posting pictures of, going ice climbing, and my immediate response was THAT IS SO COOL I HAVE TO DO IT. Of course, that was in Colorado, where there are many mountains covered in ice, and I’m in super flat Michigan where there is…not. So I put that thought out of my head until a friend I met (in Colorado actually) posted some Facebook pictures of a day spent out at Peabody’s Ice Climbing Club in Fenton. The general story of my life is I reply to something like that with, “Oh my gosh, can we go do that together??” Tentative plans are made (with a fierce sense of absolute determination that it WILL happen) and then never followed through on, and I pout endlessly as those plans drift off into the endless void of possibilities that is social media.
But this time, my friend texted me a couple weeks later to tell me that she and a group of friends were going to go up to Peabody’s for the last climbing day of the season this past Sunday and that I should meet them there. I was actually kind of hesitant at first – these ladies & gentlemen are all skilled climbers/belayers, and here’s me, literally no experience at all, looking at climbing these enormous (awesome) rickety looking structures with about 2% skill and 98% sheer willpower. I didn’t want to drag the group down, or fail miserably, or just look like a total idiot – BUT, 2015 is my year of doing things that scare you, doing hard things, unquestionably taking opportunities and just plain being badass. One of the best experiences of my life was that harrowing hard as hell ropes course a while back – and armed with that knowledge, I drove to Fenton Sunday morning to scale some ice.
Background – Peabody’s is the COOLEST place ever. It’s located in what used to be an apple orchard & now is just a big retired lot, but it still retains a lot of the old rickety buildings. The first thing I noticed when I walked into the “lodge” – where you dress, rent gear, drink coffee and sit by the fire when your fingers get numb from clutching axes and soaked through gloves – smelled JUST like the inside of so many of the old wooden structures on the farm my family used to own & operate. The place has this amazing rustic feeling while at the same time managing to feel completely safe, and the owner, who was out climbing with us for a bit, basically created Peabody’s as a way for ice climbers in Michigan to train despite the extremely short (and far away) outdoor ice climbing season in Michigan. The giant towers are constructed out of a bunch of fencing, rigging, giant wood poles, and a huge crane stuck right through the center of them.
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| Giant boot death spikes AKA crampons. |
As expected, with zero climbing background I was NOT the most skilled ice climber on the lot – but there was a big group of people out when we first got there who were struggling at least as much as I did to figure out how to make all these sharp objects attached to us help us scale sheets of ice. Thanks to my fabulous “instructors,” Kristine and her friend Lana, I learned the basics of belaying (which I did NOT try), got myself to the top of the small tower at least, and made it about midway up the big tower before the day was over. Not that shabby! Also cool: one of our other friends had not only a really fancy camera, but a drone that he flew around the property as well, taking some seriously cool aerial shots.
The first few times up were slightly terrifying, since I had exactly NO experience with “falling” when climbing, or with how you can take rests – so I just kept pushing, kicking in with my one size too small boots and hauling myself up (rather than doing the smart thing and using my legs) with the ice axes I had basically a death grip on (ask me how my triceps feel today). Weirdest thing: looking down, not so bad at all. Looking up, semi-blinding and full of falling snow, but also not too bad. Looking straight out in front of you? Frozen in a panic of where can I possibly put my axes or my feet or my ANYTHING I’m stuck clinging for dear life to the side of this rock please tell my cats that I love them! At that point I think it became more of a mental thing – stare at the same problem for too long and you can’t see the solution even when it’s right in front of you.
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| What happens when you try to do a headstand in a helmet on the snow. |
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| Me & my belay-dies ;) |
Unfortunately being so inefficient meant I burnt out early – if I hadn’t made such a brutal mess of my upper body strength early on, I think I would have been able to get much higher up the big wall. Even so, what an AMAZING experience. So many wonderful people, a little bit of post-climbing snow-yoga (snow-ga?), and lots of invites to come climb with my new buddies at Planet Rock. Cross ice climbing off the bucket list – can’t WAIT to go again when Peabody’s opens back up next year – and maybe have a little better clue of what I’m doing…
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