Bouldering Through Joshua Tree
An interest in rock climbing feels like a Silicon Valley staple, not so dissimilar from the long distance running crowd in Boston. Here, as in many places around the world, the growing demand for the sport has engendered awe-inspiring books, podcasts, and even movies. My particular favorite follows legendary climber Alex Hannold in National Geographic’s Free Solo. (AKA the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.) A fascinating scene in the film shows Alex undergoing an fMRI scan, revealing the physiology of his brain may partly explain his success with the sport: his complete lack of fear.
Funny enough, a few years ago I worked on an fMRI study — paying my dues by lying for hours on the imaging scanner bed to beta test the protocol’s alignment. My reward? Video and images of my own brain, which happen to confirm an amygdala in tip-top shape. If the (other) Alex is any lesson, I may be limited in how far I can push myself free-climbing. But I think that’s alright. My palms sweat just watching him on the screen.
Free-climbing ruled out, I decided to try its less intense cousin. Bouldering also rejects safety equipment but decidedly limits itself to safe-heights. As a relatively new sport, its modern incarnation wasn’t recognizable until the 1980s. In the absence of climbing gyms, at steep $100/month memberships, the sport used to be entirely DIY. Boulders (required), climbing shoes (maybe), crash pad (definitely not). If you wanted to climb, you had to be good — or get good fast!
Problems are numerically graded on difficulty, either by those setting the routes or by preceding climbers. I ran into a few supposedly easy V0 problems in Joshua Tree that caused me to just shake my head. Maybe someday! If a leaping pull-up is required, sadly, I’m not going to make it. (Something, in addition to my functioning amygdala, that may be capping my climbing potential.)
In the end, I managed to “top out” two V0s and pulled off a brief “bat hang” from a rock cave. I watched my friend successfully complete a V4, dangling upside down for hours in the 80-degree, desert evening. And I did get in my preferred mix of rock climbing and mountaineering: an adrenaline-inducing, leg-powered, scramble into what turned out to be an owl eyrie. Thankfully, it had a way out.
There’s plenty of bouldering in Joshua Tree. Just don’t expect to crush it. Gym-set V3s and 4s are closer to V0s and V1s outdoors. Go with a group, have fun, and enjoy the Martian-like landscape of the Mojave and Sonoran high desert. Oh, and be prepared to tear up your fingers. That granite rock in Joshua Tree is rough.
