Day 22

Best Part of My Day: Belaying Porter at RoKC before his shift.  I was practicing with the GriGri, so when we go to the Red (Red River Gorge in KY), I am ready to catch him on the crazy hard routes he has picked out to project.  I had already belayed one route.  This was Porter's second route, and he said he was going to take a victory whipper so I could practice catching him.  Well, our communication got a little mixed up.  I saw that he had one more draw to clip so gave him slack.  He was saying he was jumping and he did!  I jumped to soften his landing, and we ended up face to face, both hanging in the air.  I just started laughing and apologizing.  Good thing he likes those big whippers!  I practiced one more route, short roping him the entire time.  It will take a little practice.  It's probably my favorite experience with Porter; belaying him on his adventures, not fully confident in my skills but, learning on the fly, muddling through.

*Belaying for the very first time at Cliff Drive and getting the part of my hand between the thumb and forefinger stuck in the ATC hanging 4 feet off the ground repeating, "Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow my hand is stuck."  Porter climbed as quickly as he could to take tension off the rope and lower me to the ground.

*Belaying for the 2nd time ever up Rock Canyon short roping him in fear of him falling and me not catching him.  He loved telling everyone about my lack of belaying skills.  However, he keeps using me because more often than not I am the only one available.

*Belaying for the 3rd time in Mayhem Cove (Lake Tahoe, CA).  I almost started crying.  My mother instincts kicked in like crazy.  I am not a great belayer.  At this point, I had only belayed 2 other times.  Luckily, Rebekah was with us and helped calm my nerves.  

*Big Chief (Lake Tahoe, CA) was an adventure finding the place.  Long story short, our 20-minute drive to the crag ended up being close to 2 hours.  But we finally arrived thanks to a little divine intervention.

Rock climbing isn't something I would have gotten into.  But it is something I love watching Porter experience.  He loves it and is obsessed with it.  Climbing has given us something to talk and laugh about.  It's brought some really cool blessings for both of us.