Untitled 02
The ice glitters under the sun.
The California girl in me can’t understand how it can be so clear and so damn sunny but still below freezing. Weather like this should mean daisy dukes and tank tops.
Instead I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt topped with a down jacket and a fleece, all under a giant neon green parka that effectively doubles my volume. Not to mention the three layers of pants I’m wearing.
As far as the eye can see in every direction—mountains, mountains, mountains. Each one of them covered in snow and lined with frozen waterfalls of every shape and size.
It’s breathtaking.
Majestic really.
But the only waterfall I’m interested in is the one right before me.
Three years.
The memories come flooding in.
It’s been three years since I’d last touched ice tools.
It’s almost overwhelming, the feelings and images that fill me in that moment.
I remember training in the gym alone for all those hours, all those days, all those weeks.
I remember the exhilaration I felt when I reached the top of Pandae, an artificial ice wall in Korea.
I remember the absolute emptiness I felt when the season ended.
I remember crying so many times that winter.
It’s been three years since then.
Today is my first time ice climbing in three years.
I’d toproped the first climb. I felt so unbalanced. Over and over again, I said to myself, the flow is off. The rhythm of tools and crampons – swing, kick, kick, swing, kick, kick, swing, kick, kick – was not quite right.
Even so, it felt so good to be on ice again.
And here I was, staring at the second climb of the day. Second climb of the season.
My partner looks at me. Asks me what I want to do.
I look back, embarrassment twisting the corners of my mouth into some sort of awkward grimace.
I’m asking him permission because I’m not sure if what I’m going to say is crazy.
I’m embarrassed because I don’t think what I’m asking is reasonable.
But I have to ask it anyway. The words come out.
“Do you think I could lead it?”
I spent all my time indoors as a child, raised by a large black box known as a TV.
My parents, fearful of the dangers of the world, never let me play outside.
There was no money for toys, activities or classes.
And so, I spent a lot of time reading and drawing within the confines of the house.
Every day. Day after day. Always inside.
Somehow, I never felt lonely.
And somehow, I never felt poor.
Even though, I remember in the 3rd grade, for journal, we were supposed to write about the last movie we’d seen in theaters.
I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been to the theater.
I struggled to finish my assignment.
Even so, I never felt poor and I never felt that I was lacking anything in life.
I simply accepted things as is.
My other friends in class and the people on TV could do exotic things like travel. Go camping. Play soccer. Take art classes. Ride bikes.
And I would stay at home.
And that was that.
“Do you think I could lead it?”
I can see a moment’s hesitation flash across his face.
I imagine he’s thinking of a way to say “no” without actually saying the word.
I forget his actual answer, but it isn’t exactly “no.”
Which I take to mean “yes.”
He goes up the route first. Climbs it with ease. I marvels at his technique and the satisfying, deep “thunk” that resounds every time he swings his axes into the ice.
In Korea, Gyeson had told me I needed to work on my swinging. My technique was good, she said, thanks to all the indoor drytooling I’d been doing. But in drytooling, you’re gingerly placing your tools on holds—it’s delicate because the slightest shift in balance causes your metal tools to scrape off the rock, sending you flying. Actual ice climbing is quite the opposite—you swing your axes and kick your crampons with force, hoping to lodge the sharp tips deep into the ice. During my entire season of training in Korea, I only climbed on actual ice twice, and had no idea how to use any power in my movements.
He finishes the climb, sets an anchor, and rappels back down the rope, taking out the screws that he’d placed along the way. I ask him to keep the first screw—the one lowest to the ground—in, so that I can clip it. He obliges.
I maybe had lied to him before this trip. I told him I’d trained before for ice climbing, neglecting to clarify that really I’d really trained for drytooling. I didn’t tell him I’d only been on actual ice twice. I also had just confessed the day before that I’d never led ice, had never touched an ice screw in my life, and honestly didn’t really know what an ice screw looked like.
But here I am.
Racking up with ice screws hanging from either side of my harness.
In those early years, even going over to a friend’s house required special effort.
I could never go out to play with friends more than once a month.
Sleepovers were absolutely out of the question.
For an elementary school girl, not being able to attend a sleepover is the worst feeling in the world. Knowing that all your friends were spending an entire day together, playing and giggling, while you were stuck in your dreary old home—it’s the original FOMO—Fear of Missing Out.
Every time a friend would host a sleepover, I’d beg to be let out.
The answer was always no.
The years passed. I learned to stop asking.
I understood-- the world was not meant for me.
The route begins on a free-hanging pillar of ice which cascades down into the very top of a snowy hill.
I briefly imagine what would happen if I fell off before I could clip my rope in.
I imagine myself peeling off the ice and sliding down the snow, some 25 feet.
I reckon that the fall wouldn’t really injure me.
Swing, swing, kick, kick. Swing kick, kick. Swing, kick, kick.
I slowly make my way up the pillar and to the screw he’d left behind for me.
I clip it.
I continue up. A few feet above, I move to place my first piece of protection. I unclip it from my harness and try to screw it into the ice.
He had explained the technique to me the night before.
“You shove it into the ice and twist it a few times. Then, once it’s an inch or so in, you can pop out the lever and screw it the rest of the way in. Make sure to pop the lever back in though, because it can cut your rope.”
My first thought on seeing the screws is that they looked awfully phallic with those orange caps on.
Maybe I should’ve practiced this at least once while I had still been on the ground.
I eventually get the screw in and clip it.
The next piece gets placed a bit higher up. But it hits rock before I can screw it in entirely—not a good position for an ice screw. I consider taking it out and trying to place it again, but get nervous. Instead I clip it, and just add another screw a few inches higher to the left. This one goes all the way into the ice. I clip this one too.
I don’t think I’ll fall.
But I’m scared anyway.
I shout down for Greg, another climber we’d met up with, to take in the rope tightly. I sit on the rope running through the two screws, staring at them, daring them both to pop.
They hold.
What am I trying to prove?
No one would think any less of me if I just toproped this route. It’s been three years since I’d last touched ice—so who would judge me?
So why am I so desperate to do this?
8th grade.
I’m at a friend’s house.
I’m really lucky.
My dad has become BFFs with my friend’s dad. As a result, he’s gotten more lax about letting me go over to her house to play.
Now I get to leave the house two, maybe even three times a month.
It’s a luxury I’ve never experienced before.
During our play date, she asks me if I want to go snowboarding with her family sometime.
Without a second’s delay—
No, I don’t think so.
“Why not?”
My parents would never let me.
“How do you know? You haven’t even asked them yet.”
Hanging from the screw, I think about my options.
Easy.
I go up. Or I go down.
I look up.
I’m barely 1/3 of the way through the route.
I look down. I can’t see Greg or my partner’s faces from where I am. They’re hiding from the horrendous wind and snowdrift in the comforts of the cave behind the waterfall.
They wouldn’t judge me if I bailed.
In fact, they would probably be relieved.
I imagine they’re just as terrified as I am if not more so.
After all, if I fall and get injured, are they guilty for letting me do this?
I’m sure this is something they’re thinking.
I gnaw on my lower lip.
“Can you lower me?”
“How do you know? You haven’t even asked them yet.”
It’s like I’d been smacked in the face with a sledgehammer.
Over the years, the answer had always been “no.”
No. Never. You can’t. I don’t care. No. Stop asking. No.
It turns out, there’s only so much rejection a heart can take.
And so, before I knew it, rather than hearing the “no”s being spoken out loud, I simply stopped asking.
Instead, the “no”s came from within myself.
“Can you lower me?”
The words tumble out of my mouth weakly before I even realize it.
A minute passes but the rope stays tight and I’m still hanging at the same point.
They didn’t hear me over the wind.
But somehow, hearing the weakness in my voice irritates me.
I look back up.
There is just one short steep section left, but I’m already past the worst of it.
I’m being irrationally nervous.
I kick my toes back into the ice and swing the tools over my head.
“I’m climbing!”
That night, I sit down at the dinner table as usual.
I keep my eyes down as I eat.
How do I say the words?
I could never even go over to a friend’s house for a sleepover. And here I was—trying to go snowboarding!
There’s no snow in Vietnam. Do they even know what snowboarding is?
The cost of lift tickets with rentals would be nearly $100.
I’d never had that much money in my life and I surely had never owned anything even half that value.
I dread the inevitable argument that will ensue.
The words spill out.
I stare intently at my bowl of rice, ready for the harsh reprimanding to begin.
“Okay, sure!”
What?
“That should be fun! When are you going?”
I still haven’t quite got the right rhythm and balance. I still feel somewhat awkward as I navigate up the ice.
But I make it.
I thread the rope through the anchor, shout down for Greg to take the rope tight, and he lowers me. I unscrew the protection as I'm lowered.
The two of them look relieved when I make it safely back down to the snow. They congratulate me on finishing, but I know I made a mess of it. I finished, but not well.
Even so, I’m happy. There’s a sense of relief—not for being back on the ground, safe and sound.
But because I know that, finally, the world is meant for me.
I can travel. I can go camping. I can ride my bike.
I can go outside.
Finally, the “no”s have turned into “yes.”