A rare sunny Seattle Sunday in December, I get the afternoon off and bike down to "The Rock".

The Rock is a local outdoor climbing structure. It was built by the UW back in the 70's (?) in a pleasant greenbelt just South of Husky Stadium. It was justified by its proponents as a method to reduce the on-campus buildering. It's comprised primarily of large foot-thick concrete slabs jammed endwise into the Earth at various angles. The tallest slab, "the Tower", is stuck in dead vertical and is 30 feet high. Rocks of various sizes are embedded in the slabs to act as the main holds and the whole thing lies in a bed of cushy pea gravel.

After a half-hour ride I get there, and am greeted by two of the regulars. Cool. Lately, this place has been deserted. There's a fairly large bunch of regulars at The Rock. I've been coming out here pretty regularly for about 10 years now (my office is walking distance), and though I don't know many of the other regulars' names, I know their faces. Sometimes I'll spot 'em out at the crags and we'll do that "hey", "hey" thing.

After too much bullshitting I get started on a warm-up traverse. The pea-gravel is soaked, but the wall is bone dry and grippy. Turning the corner away from the sunny south-facing side I find the east-facing walls to be a little slimy, and past that the north-facing side is just plain wet. I get to the lowest angle slab and it's almost dripping. I friction randomly about the dripping slab, no rocks for feet. I figure this is probably a good way to really hone my slab technique. It doesn't turn out to be very rubber-efficient though. After zinging down the wet slab a couple of times, I abort the new training routine and head back to the dry side to boulder.

I set my towel below the south face of the Tower, just below the "flag crack". It's a crack that splits the middle of the Tower from the base to about halfway up. It starts fist size and tapers down to perfect fingerlocks near its top at 15 feet. I call it the flag crack because there's a flat rectangular rock right at the top that looks like, you got it, a flag, blowing to the west. Today I launch up crack-only for feet and it's going well. I'm feeling strong. Maybe it's because I cut the warm-up traverse short. On the three locks at the top I'm totally confident even as the feet get small.

Lock, lock lock. Latch onto the incut top of the flag. It's here that I usually exit left, hugging around a big sloping block to the top of an adjacent wall that leans in from the left. Lately though I've gotten into the habit of first fingering this good but small hold out to the right. It's the first hold on the continuation to the top of the Tower. Many times I've reached out and played with this gateway hold but only once have I felt confident enough to climb through.

Today the hold feels good. It's weird, the way this hold seems to be able to change character from day to day. One day it's a greasy unfamiliar speck, the next day it's a rest. Today, right now, it's a very positive incut with good texture. The depth, almost to the first knuckle, is more than adequate to hold me should my feet blow. Impulsively I step up to the next footholds, a hairs breadth from committing to the top.

Impulsively is the only way I seem to be able to do a move like this. It's a committing move from a secure stance, and there's no baggage involved in backing off. It's one of those moves where you know...that once ten seconds has passed, if you ain't movin', it ain't happenin'. After that ten seconds you might hem around for another minute. You might hem around for another half-hour. You might mime a sequence or two in your head, bob up and down a little, go through the motions. But, you KNOW, that if you haven't made upward progress in that crucial ten seconds, then that's as far as you're gonna go that day. The lump sum of falling probabilities, injury estimates, and uncertainty fears that are rapidly estimated in that brief initial contemplation, become insurmountable. No matter how long you engage in rational inner monologue, that sum will not be rebutted. Further analysis can lead only to paralysis.

But today, right now, impulsively, I beat the clock. I weight the incut with my right hand, lean way out under it, and cross my left hand over to the jug further out right. Latch it and swing the feet over to some holds. OK, there I go. I am now committed.

It's a big jug, the feet are good, but the next couple of moves are less secure and only once practiced. I don't have 'em totally wired like so many of the problems out here. My feet are now above any of the other walls, and though that pea-gravel is amazing stuff, I've never empirically tested the stuff from this height. Now it seems, just after I've barged through a sequence I do not want to reverse, comes the paralytic analysis.

The facts that I'm not gonna jump from here, and that I'm not gonna downclimb help me resist the inertia and I tentatively climb up. Pulling on two weird holds, I move the feet up, both to the right, resulting in an off-balance, scrunched-up stance.

Uh-oh. I remember this move. Last time I had to deadpoint from this weird stance. I've mentally replayed this spot many times since then and I'd convinced myself there was a static way to pull this. Now, becoming personally reacquainted with the terrain I see that I can be persuasive but not always accurate. The deadpoint does appear necessary.

I know the target is a great hold, but it's still not easy to go for the stab when I'm up this high. I chicken out and climb back down to the good stance. Now I'm starting to think bad thoughts. I'm starting to get The Fear.

Can't go down. Rather not go up. After a minute or two of vacillation, maybe five, various limbs start to alternate getting the shakes. I check over my shoulder, down at my two friends. They're BS'ing in the sun, oblivious to my peril. Either that or they're laughing at me when I'm not looking. Anyway, after lots of stalling, and a couple of misfires, my reasoning side figures I'd better pull this thing before many limbs start shaking at once.

Yard up. Scrunch up. Get the rhythm. Let go with the left hand. One millisecond, maybe ten, my hand slaps onto the big jug and I know it's good. Whew!

As I'm pulling up into the notch at the top, elated to be done with that, I remember...my downclimb is on the north, aka SLIMEY, side! A split second expands as a lengthy scenario races through my head:

The best laid plans...pulling through that cruxy spot only to realize I've put myself in a worse, rather than better, position.

Denial...sitting on top for half an hour watching for slime to dry.

Acceptance...me, whimpering to my buddies, "Hey guys, uh, can you get me a, uh, rope".

Consequences...them, "HAW HAW! Just jump dude!!! HAW HAW HAW!" Through their laughter I can just hear a yuppy couple scoffing, "What was he thinking?" as they drive by in their shiny SUV.

But wait! Once I pull over the top, I see the north side doesn't actually look as wet as I pictured. I guess I got a little carried away in my split-second time-expansion nightmare. Nevermind.

It actually turns out to be such an easy downclimb that I end up doing two more laps on the north side. So, well, maybe I was a little melodramatic there, but the humiliating rescue situation really did all go through my head (well, except the part about the SUV yuppies). I just thought, well y'know, that this'd be a lot more interesting to write about than my last trip to the grocery store (It's rainy outside, but no problem for me as I know to park in the garage underneath the store. I have a pretty doable list today. I'll be out of here in less than an hour...)

Thank you for your indulgence.