Rock Climbing!

Tess, my friend/rock climbing instructor, showing Annikki and me how it's done.

Last week while prepping to watch a movie with my friends Annikki and Tess, rock climbing came up.

A few days earlier, Annikki had told me how much she wanted to learn how to rock climb, but didn't really know anyone who could teach her.

A couple of weeks prior to that conversation, I had talked with Tess who told me about a type of rock climbing she had done that tears up your hands because you insert your hands into slots in the wall (mountain) and twist in order to pull yourself up, doing a similar thing with your feet - so I knew she was hardcore.

Knowing that this could be a match made in heaven (in case you don't understand the math -> teacher+student=heaven), I brought up this topic of conversation on Friday. Little did I know that I would be dragged into coming invited to come along.

I was a little scared of the idea, but excited too.

I got there a bit after they had started the lesson/demonstration, and then they didn't have their phones with them when I tried letting them know I was there, so I waited around for a bit and watched crazy-rock-climbing-people do crazy-rock-climbing-things.

It was pretty cool.

And then it got even cooler.

They came out when they were ready to try the 'real' wall - they had been bouldering in the back to practice. Tess gave us a run-down on the harnesses, ropes, protocol, etc. (because she's certified and can do that kind of thing), and up we went.

Well, up Annikki went.

And when she got down,

Up I went.

So much fun. I love it. I didn't quite make it to the top, but the distance I did go up had my arms and legs shaking.

After that, we went back to bouldering because Tess had to leave, and bouldering is something that Annikki and I could do without supervision.

And that was a bunch of fun too.