Free Climbing

Free Climbing just means you are climbing without ropes which I did a lot before I was 21 and started using ropes for climbs to stay alive. At about 21 I met a friend that I first climbed the wire up Half Dome with one summer. He was going to UCLA. But now I hear you have to make a reservation to even go up the wire because so many people want to do this.

Another thing is that if you get vertigo you don't want to go up the wire because you are going to experience thousands of feet exposure (not completely vertical but up to a 35% angle looking down thousands of feet and not everyone can handle this. My wife then in 1985 got vertigo trying to go down and I almost couldn't get her off Half Dome. I had to stand in front of her holding the wires all the way down off half dome to get her down after she climbed to the top. Not everyone can look down that far and not get dizzy from the thousands of feet of exposure. So, even if you have a reservation be sure to know what you can deal with and survive.

I remember lots of times climbing something and not being able to get back down and having to do something really scary to make it back down. This happened a lot between age 6 and 18.  I was always hiking, climbing trees, crashing on bicycles, being a boy growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s. I even remember a friend shooting me with a BB gun when I was 6 and having a 50 cent size purple mark on my leg. Luckily, I was wearing jeans so the injury wasn't worse. Because a BB gun will kill a bird.

So, using ropes made sense to me at age 21 with my climbing friend from UCLA because by 21 staying alive sort of made more sense than it did when I was younger. But, when my girlfriend got pregnant I gave up rock climbing all together so I could be alive to raise my son. About a year later a friend of mine died free climbing and his best friend had to watch him fall and die while free climbing.

So, I realized I had made the right decision stopping climbing so I could raise my son and it also helped me stay alive to 70 like I am now so I can also be here for not only my children but also for my wife and grandchildren as well.