Mountain Zone Home
Back to the Pub



Check Out:
Marketplace
Climbing Home
Contest
Auctions
Expedition News










It's in the Rappel

I've rappelled exactly twice — and that was about twenty years ago. I've always been tres sportif, as French people might say. J'aime les sports — both playing and watching. When I descended the face of a rock two times, it made me realize the fact that whatever I chose to do in this life, as far as sports went, would truly be a labor of love.

I was a dealer in Lake Tahoe at the time, and went up to Sonora Pass in the Northern part of California with a group of friends. I'd just recently quit my (college) summer job working for the California State Department of Parks and Recreation (I was a park aide — I didn't wear the Smokey-the-Bear hats, those belong to National Park folks), so the chance to go camping again was just what the doctor ordered.

Plus, we were all going to be under the "care and supervision" of an ex-marine. He'd teach us how to clean the fish we'd catch in a stream of running water. He'd teach us how to cook — really cook — for outdoor living/eating. He'd teach us to camp not like transplanted city folks, but like sorta, kinda outdoors types. And...he'd teach us to go down the face of a couple of rocks.

The rappelling was fun. "Don't look down." I don't remember if that was our "teacher's" motto, but it sure was mine. Concentrate on what you're doing right now. Plant your feet and equipment correctly — and enjoy the action of the movement, the muscles that keep you close to that rock.

I am a runner now, and I do a lot of weight and resistance training. Since July of 1998, I've run in seven races. My last race was on May 31, 1999, in Southern California. While I was running in that half-marathon, I wasn't thinking, "Oh, I'm sure glad I went rappelling with that bunch of folks over 20 years ago." But the race was so enjoyable because the things that I learned at that time stayed with me: the action of the movement, the sun above me, the sweat on my face and body, the true realization of my (what I call) "3-D" self, inhabiting space and. . .well, you know — the joy of being alive. This is, as the cliche goes, "what it's all about," as far as I'm concerned. And that is why sports are, for me, both a reason to live, and a reason for living.

April Renee Lynch, MountainZone.com Pubster

[Submit A Story] [Climbing Home] [MountainZone.com Home]