Childhood Memories; Part 1

Yosemite for the first time.  

“I am going to climb that one day,” the young girl unknowingly stated.  Her father stood by her side.  Both their toes mushed into the sandy banks of the Merced River.  Her big brown eyes gazed upwards, frame dwarfed by the 3000 foot monolith filling much of the foreground.  

Fifteen years passed before her cheeks felt the gentle twirling of wind as it exhaled throughout the same narrow valley.  The same brown eyes twinkled.   

The girl, with 4 male dirt-bag friends, nestled into their Eco-line van.  Brimming with bikes, a futon mattress, cases of New Belgium beer, climbing gear and food, had finally arrived early one morning.  Dew clung effortlessly to blades of grass.  Rock consumed their visions.  The tingling hearts of the five valley virgins added to the electricity of the crisp October air.

The gang on Washington Column

The girl climbed.  Her swollen hands littered with small scabs from each days work, fuddled the zipper to her shared tent space night after night. 

The next morning she climbed again.    

The whole gang climbed their first big wall together, family style.  

She slept on the side of a granite face for the first time.  Thousands of feet of air between her and the ground.  A little nest in the sky.  




She learned. Her smile grew.  Her mind calmed in the oddest of moments.  She cried.  She tried hard.  She laughed.  She found true joy, passion and forged unforgettable bonds. 

Twenty-six days in a row she flung herself repeatedly at the overwhelming granite jutting vertically from the sunburnt horizontal valley floor.  She hadn’t showered in equally as many days.  Stoke was high, ‘finding’ the showers proved less exciting then finding the next days route.  

The 27th day she phoned her father.  Her toes dangling into the ever constant waters of the Merced River.  “I climbed it!” she exclaimed.  The clear waters iced her battered body, tiredness seeped in.  Brown eyes closed, the girls head nestled into the familiar sandy banks where consciousness melted in the warm afternoon sun.  

She day-dreamed of the possibilities…