Inhale, exhale. Deep, cleansing breaths that rush through his body like a calming storm. He feels his heart thudding tirelessly against his chest, pressing against his ribs, and rising into his ears. He dips his hands into the soft white powder, rubbing it between his fingers, feeling each grain of chalk disintegrate with the applied pressure and mold into his skin. He reaches out and grabs the rough, sandpaper-like plastic rocks. He feels the coarse texture dig into his skin as he lifts himself onto the wall. Suddenly, the world around him melts away, and he is alone in space and time. He floats up the wall, each body movement effortless and graceful, yet at the same time powerful and strong. Like a ballerina, he dances higher and higher, …show more content…
It is also one of the few sports that are still continuously evolving. Other sports, such as soccer, have had the same rules for hundreds of years that have, for the most part, not been altered. The difference between the mindset of a climber and that of other athletes is that climbers view nothing as impossible. For example, in soccer the players view grabbing the ball with their hands as impossible because it would result in a penalty. But climbing in and of itself is derived from the impossible. Previous to the birth of climbing, one would look at a sheer cliff and the thought of someone going up it was just not plausible. Yet, one day someone did, and the sport bloomed from there. Climbers have been shattering hypothesis and expectations every since. The El Capitan rock face in Yosemite had been thought of as an impossibility until 1957 when Warren Harding obtained the first ascent of it (Fimrite 1). The 5.0 and V scale, which are used to rate the difficulty of a climb, have had to be adjusted to compensate for the routes people are now completing that had before been regarded as purely fantasy. One of the most recent feats in climbing was in 2008, Dean Potters freeBASE ascent of the Eiger, which is located in Switzerland (Thomasma 1). FreeBASE means that he climbed it without a rope, and instead had a light parachute attached to his back. So in the event of a fall, he would deploy the parachute and float back to earth. This new style of climbing opened the door to many more “impossible” cliffs thought the
Both Saturday Climbing and mirror image are stories of dealing with changes in life. In Saturday Climbing an overprotective father struggles to let her daughter make decisions for herself as she grows up and in Mirror Image a teenage girl with a recent brain transplant surgery struggles with sudden change in identity. The protagonists have different kinds of attitudes about change: in The two stories have similarities and differences between how the protagonists approach these differences.
He digs in and puts all of his effort into it, but it shows that it truly is time consuming. Never the less, he doesn’t give up. He’s very persistent, and eventually, he finally makes it to the top. Painful to the reader, he is faced with a wall of concrete that he must scale and land over to finally make it to the level ground of the highway. He’s gotten this far that he put his last into it, and stumbled over it only to be bitten by ants on the softest, most sensitive part of his skin. Upon sucking his limbs in, he crushed the insects between the scrunched up skin and popped back out. He was now on the clear land, and showed
...you can read in the quotes above, Wald has selected exciting information, rather than dangerous information, to talk about in this essay. This is her selection of details. Last, Wald has arranged her detail chronologically. She begins by expressing, “I can’t find enough handholds and footholds to keep climbing,” and ends with, “After catching my breath, I start moving again, and the rest of the climb flows upward like a vertical dance” (488).
My body is struggling to push, step after step and my lungs are filling rapidly, desperately clinging to any amount of oxygen they can receive amidst the altitude. My heart is pounding faster than it ever has, as if it could jump from my chest at any moment. My mouth is so dry that I could eat a spoonful of the powdered dirt and taste no difference in the texture. Yet the trees suddenly stop as I escalate further up the mountain. As I climb the side of the mountain the stellar blue in the sky grows in size slowly dominating what the trees covered just moments
“A trancelike state settles over your efforts; the climb becomes a clear-eyed dream. The lapses of conscience, the unpaid bills, the bungled opportunities, the dust under the couch, the inescapable prison of your genes—all of it is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overpowering clarity of purpose and by the seriousness of the task at hand.”
In W. D. Valgardson’s short story, “Saturday Climbing”, the author uses the cliff that Barry and Moira are climbing as a metaphor for the relationship between father and daughter. The real meaning of the story is encased in the description of the problems they face as they ascend the cliff. When Barry describes the chosen cliff, he tells us it is at first easy with many handholds but that later on it becomes smooth and difficult to climb. This can also be said about his current situation. During Moira’s childhood everything was simple and easy but now that she is a teenager, it is becoming harder to hold on to her and protect her. “Then, unexpectedly,
Everest is an unbelievable mountain that has taken the lives of a number of the greatest climbers in history. It was my job to ensure that clients make it up that treacherous mountain safely. My name is Rob Hall. I was the main guide and cofounder of a climbing company called Adventure Consultants. My friend, Gary Ball, and I used to be professional climbers. Together we succeeded in climbing to the highest summit on each of the seven continents in seven months. This was our greatest achievement. After this, we decided to start our own company guiding clients up large mountains. In May 1992, we successfully led six clients to the summit of Everest. Unfortunately, Gary died of cerebral edema in October 1993 during an attempt on the world’s sixth-tallest mountain. He died in my arms and the next day I buried him in a crevasse. Despite the pain that his death had caused me, I continued guiding for our company and eventually led thirty-nine climbers to the summit of Everest.
I am adventurous. No I don't sky dive, wrestle crocodiles, or swim with sharks, but when asked by a group of friends to go cliff diving last summer, my best response was, “Sounds like fun!” I had never been afraid of heights yet have never experienced the thrill of cliff diving. All I could ask myself was, “What could go wrong?”
As I inched my way toward the cliff, my legs were shaking uncontrollably. I could feel the coldness of the rock beneath my feet when my toes curled around the edge in one last futile attempt at survival. My heart was racing like a trapped bird, desperate to escape. Gazing down the sheer drop, I nearly fainted; my entire life flashed before my eyes. I could hear stones breaking free and fiercely tumbling down the hillside, plummeting into the dark abyss of the forbidding black water. The trees began to rapidly close in around me in a suffocating clench, and the piercing screams from my friends did little to ease the pain. The cool breeze felt like needles upon my bare skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps. The threatening mountains surrounding me seemed to grow more sinister with each passing moment, I felt myself fighting for air. The hot summer sun began to blacken while misty clouds loomed overhead. Trembling with anxiety, I shut my eyes, murmuring one last pathetic prayer. I gathered my last breath, hoping it would last a lifetime, took a step back and plun...
At last the top of the hill was nearing, in his vision. A few steps more and he would be over it. His calf muscles had started cramping, but ignoring the pain, he reconditioned his mind, to only concentrate on the hill top and willed himself to make an extra effort to go over it.
Wrestling holds the title of the oldest sport in known history. The legends of Greek mythology tell the tale of Greek God Zeus defeating Cronus in a wrestling match for the possession of the universe at the beginning of time. Wrestling appeared all over the ancient world, from France to Mongolia, in artwork, writing, and even cave carvings, wrestling appears everywhere.
Outdoor recreation has been around for more than 80 centuries. Throughout the years, outdoor recreation has evolved in many different aspects. Outdoor recreation began as a tool for survival strategies, such as hunting and fishing. As the years have passed, people went on to hunt and fish as a form of recreation. As a population, we can concur that outdoor recreation has many positive attributes such as personal satisfaction and enjoyment, as well as negative aspects that could amount to the costly engagement in outdoor recreation activity.
After just two hours, our very large friend said he’d had enough for the day and was heading for the surface. We told him we’d be out in a few more minutes and to hang around so we could discuss what we’d found. As we began our ascent toward the entrance, we became acutely aware of the complete absence of light the entrance usually emanated. When our flashlights finally found the source of the unusual darkness we were horrified; the big guy was stuck in the cave’s opening again. This time Scott’s head and shoulders were outside, so instead of being able to pull him through, we would have to try to push him out of the opening. We pushed in every combination of ways possible, and needless to say it did not work this time. The paramount problem was that the cave floods from the interior out, so we would all drown if we couldn’t get Scott unstuck, and unstuck quickly.
there collect liana vines and wind them into long cords. The men then scale six