I have my eyes set on Devils Tower.  The next great adventure of my life.  For some, scaling this mesa is no big deal, hundreds, maybe even thousands have scrambled their way up the cliffs and crags.  But even so, it holds itself firm in my mind, the time has come for me to be one of the ones who can say, “I have climbed the Devils Tower.”

            I have been a rock climber for nearly two years now, that is to say I took some classes two years ago and bought half my gear before running out of money.  Until two weeks ago, I haven’t climbed since.  It started on a family vacation at Lake Tahoe, the Californian side.  The weather was spotty, and as a result we weren’t able to spend any time on the lake; we desperately needed something to do.  We found rock climbing.

            We went to a gym called High Altitude Fitness which was in Incline Village on the Nevada side of the line.  We rented climbing gear and bought a day pass.  Quickly I passed the knots test and the belay test, the techniques coming back to me after only a couple moments, and a bit of practice with a lamp cord back at our room.  I slipped in to the tight shoes, the soles wrapped around your feet like a second skin.  I reached the wall and was the first to tie in with my figure eight and a bite.  I stuck my hands in the chalk bag and rubbed them together, the powder smell of chalk rose like a puff of smoke without the smell.  My finger tips touched the wall, my eyes analyzed my course. 

The climb was a 5.7; this may not mean much for many of you, but it’s a fairly easy climb.  I knew this from my training two years ago which I had bragged about in the car.  All of a sudden it hit me, here I am, the one bragging about his past climbs standing untested and ripe for humiliation. 

I placed a hand against a hand hold, placed a foot in a small outcropping and called out, “On Belay.”  My wife’s brother Stephen, called back, “Belay on.”  “Climbing.” “Climb on.”  I pulled my self up, I felt sure of my self, my confidence raced back into my chest, and I knew why I had started climbing those two years ago.

Lucky for me, the gym was having a 50% off sale on their equipment, so I bought everything I was missing.  My first big obstacle had finally been dealt with; money.  Having finally climbed that high rise, I needed a goal.  I needed something to set my eyes upon.  I picked up a Rock and Ice magazine and inside they had an article on climbing Devils Tower, a place I had visited years ago, back when I was fourteen.  The encounter had romanticized the iconic hill, Devils Tower.  “That’s what I have to do,” I said to myself.  The pictures of cliff faces and the climbers conquering them, many hanging on by mere fingertips jumped out at me.  Soon, that will be me.  Soon, I too will set out to conquer the Devils Tower.