First off, I must issue an apology for not getting a Tuesday newsletter out this week, but the reasons will soon be clear. Ultimately, I didn’t plan well enough ahead of time to have one dialed up for your inboxes. I aim to be better about that in the future when I am undoubtedly on other travels, but here is a special Friday version. We’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming next week.
From Saturday through Thursday, we were on a rock climbing trip to Arkansas. The location was Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, where a legendary competition takes places each fall and where you are liable to come across sights like the one above multiple times throughout every day.
It is a functioning ranch replete with goats, horses, working dogs, a gnarly 300-year-old pig, and one hard-charging skunk. It also happens to have wonderfully plentiful sandstone walls and owners who welcome climbers to have free reign of themselves for a small fee. A delightful place, really.
The rest of this piece may sound specifically tailored to a climbing trip, but I hope it will be applicable to any sort of recreational vacation you might want to take. I have attempted too many to count throughout the years and feel like I finally got the hang of it (not to be too brash, perhaps we just finally got lucky).
Steps to take to have a successful trip
1. Go to ONE place
This might not seem like the most natural one to lead with, but it is so important that I feel I must. I needed to learn this lesson about a dozen times before actually implementing it. Particularly regarding road trips, I’ve always been a person who says “well since we’re going THERE, we might as well stop at this other cool place on the way.” But all this amounts to is experiencing every stop too little and none enough. Also far too much coordination and constant adjustments.
Choose a spot. Go there. Be there. On this trip, we rolled out of the tent and were a ten-minute walk from the walls. Efficient and uncomplicated. Down time arose, but it was spent relaxing rather than trying to cram something else in.
2. Set goals
Particularly for something athletically recreational like climbing, but just in general. If your aim for a trip is to decompress or try something new, lay that out clearly and make sure you are working toward it instead of just trying to slot it in when convenient. As with all of life, be intentional.
I also find it important to have primary achievable goals in addition to lofty “everything goes perfectly” goals. Perhaps I am in such a good mood following this trip because I hit those too. I developed a lot of comfort leading sport routes AND I managed to lead a really fun 5.10a, the hardest route I have ever climbed outdoors. I know many of you won’t know exactly what that means, but essentially I climbed something 1-2 levels harder than anything I had previously and in a more difficult style.
Even if I hadn’t, one of my primary goals was familiarizing myself with the location, so we can go into the September competition (that’s right) with some confidence. Check. It’s important that just that would have been enough for me.
3. Plan and back-up plan
One struggle at popular climbing areas is walking up to the wall and seeing that people have beaten you to all the routes you had in mind. All the pre-planning in the world can’t prevent that, unless you want to show up at 3 a.m. And many climbers don’t share well with others.
I try my best to have contingencies in place for when my main objective is occupied. This actually caused some momentary tension with my gf/climbing partner early in the trip, but we audibled and moved past it in a collected manner.
Shit will not always go according to plan, and it might make it feel like you wasted all that time and effort. But if you are able to put in just a smidge more ahead of time to have plans B and C, it can ease all the frustration immensely.
4. Slow down
This relates in many ways to number one, and it is particularly essential in regards to outdoors trips. With very few exceptions, the mountains and the forests aren’t going anywhere. If you don’t manage to see all of them this time around, you can always come back, and you will if it means enough.
This recent trip was a quick one, and it’s tempting to always be moving to get the most out of those. But you will never regret slowing down and soaking it in. I remember on our 2016 family trip to New Zealand, I explicitly stated my desire to never stop moving and exploring. While that was loads of fun, I definitely could have absorbed he place even more with some leisurely mindfulness.
A trip is not simply a list of tasks to accomplish.
5. It’s nobody else’s trip
Including me. It’s yours, do what you want, including disregarding all of this “advice” if you so choose. Lessons are better learned than read, after all.
I know this whole thing reads like a gross listicle, and I promise not to resort to that convention too often. So thanks for indulging. I wanted to hopefully share some value with what I’ve been doing for the past week. My phone was mostly dead, the way I like it, so didn’t get many pictures besides the one up top. But here is someone else’s pic of the 10a I led called Season of the Storm. Imagine that’s me. And the hardest move is right above my head.
OH! I also took my first real outdoor lead fall, from a point higher than this on a different route. That “failure” was one of my favorite moments of the trip. Instilled a lot of confidence. You know the gear works but never quiiiite fully trust it until the experience.
Stay climbing and falling, people.