Best of 2009

New FiveTen assignment: blog entry on ‘best of 2009’: while several days late, I’ve been mulling the topic over in my mind. In relation to my climbing life, was the ‘best of 2009’ the comp victories, the personal bests, or the new places? The truth is that the best moments of any year come in the same unsuspecting package: moments in time where all things quiet to the simplicity of being outside focusing on the rock above. It’s not the comp days that we’ll dream about when our bodies give out, it is the moments up on a route where all you can hear is the wind and witnesses look on from the ground with their necks craned and their fingers twitching for their turn. This is why I climb: I can leave everything else on the ground.

A couple of days ago, my husband and I went to see Avatar- a lovely movie for anyone who has not yet seen it. In it, the aliens who inhabit the planet Pandora have nervous systems that extend out of the ends of their hair and they use it to physically connect with the forest that they live in. They plug into the trees to hear their ancestors’ voices and into the mane of the horse they ride to establish their connection. In the movie, the physical connection lets them understand the inter-connectedness of all things. While I don’t have a neural tube that comes out of my ponytail that I can just click to the things I want to connect to, I go climbing: my way of ‘plugging-in’ to the natural world that we are all a part of.

So the highlight of my year was not the Triple Crown. It was not onsighting 8a or sending my projects. It was not the sticky rubber on my shoes (although I still whole-heartedly think FiveTen makes the best shoes). The best part of 2009 was a Tuesday afternoon in Little River Canyon when my mind quieted and I could just climb.