Halfway up the rock face was a nasty outcropping of hard stone. As my climbing partner and I set up the rope and gear we agreed there would be no way around it. We ended up flipping a coin, and I led off. It felt good to stretch out the cold morning kinks. Past the first fifty feet it almost seemed as if I were dancing up the rock instead of climbing it. I reveled in the easy grace of my trained muscles and felt supremely confident as I approached the bulging limestone above me.

Resting for a moment beneath the seven feet of roof-like stone to catch my concentration I suddenly noticed my hands were sweating so badly they were leaving wet prints on the rock face. Sweaty hands were slick on already slippery rock and were certainly unwelcome in a difficult situation like this. In climbing parlance, what I faced is called a “crux move”, and adeptly defines a climb that overall may not be that difficult, except for that one critical maneuver. I was under the crux feeling my confidence slowly drain away with the sweat on my hands.

I would be committed to hanging from my hands and arms for the entire journey over that hump, and completely exposed while on it. Every climber knows that your hands are the weakest thing you employ in a climb and that only the most difficult moves rely solely upon them. Muscles in the fingers and wrists tire quickly and hesitation is the surest defeat. If I lost my grip while completely exposed on that treacherous knob I would come off completely.

I leaned out and looked backward above me searching every detail in the fossilized calcium. A hair-width crack, a tiny gouge or even a knurl no bigger than a hemorrhoid was enough to hold for a few seconds. Nothing within the arc of my reach. Leaning dangerously out now I noticed a hand sized pocket about five feet above me and I was suddenly struck by two emotions. Half of me knew I would have to leap, not just upward but backward in order to follow the contour of the face; I also knew that I was eighty-five feet above our belay point.

A part of my mind toyed with permutations of reaching and contorting, anticipating the grasp while my body swung outward over the void. Minutes of endurance ticked away. I couldn’t commit myself to the lunge. I couldn’t arrange my body in anyway that helped, though I tried dozens of positions. I felt my will to continue stagnate with doubt. The laws of climbing are somewhat different than those of physics; bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, yes, but bodies (in climbing) that stop for too long is soon too tired to do anything.

I knew I was wasting precious time and energy. I could feel the impatience of my partner through the rope. I would soon simply lock up from the overburden of lactic acid in my hands and arms, and eventually I would simply fall. The rope twitched like a cat’s tail and from below I heard my partner ask what the problem was. I didn’t know how to answer because I had always before been fearless on the climb. Numerous times in the past we had practiced moves like this, telling and retelling each other our mistakes and technical triumphs. I couldn’t get past my own stasis.

Finally, after ten minutes of indecision, my muscles cramped and shaking, I knew that even if I found the courage there was no way I could make that lunge. My partner was no longer shouting encouragement. He understood too, and was now simply waiting for me to descend, defeated. I could feel his silence like a cold-water bath during the long down-climb. Upon reaching the bottom there wouldn’t be any “you’ll get it next time” pat on the back. I had compromised the climb for both of us, yet he never said a word as we changed positions. I was now the anchor - he, the leader.

He tried the overhang three times and failed each, and I knew he longed for my height and reach.

We’d been climbing together for over two years, and had been best friends for a decade. Our skills were roughly even but our physical talents couldn’t have been much different. I was taller, stronger and yet much heavier. He, more graceful and less affected by gravity yet without the long reach I took for granted. It was rough on my ego knowing that we would have to wait weeks or months until our schedules aligned, and the weather was decent and we could afford the trip to try it again.

The whole reason we had started rock climbing in the first place was to meet and exceed our own limitations: his the fear of heights and my own constant indecision, which is to say lack of confidence. We had agreed to challenge ourselves. If we weren’t going to give it 100%, or more, it simply wouldn’t be worth it. I had cheated on that agreement and we both knew it.

We left that last climb in a cold rain that never stopped until it became snow. I would now have all winter to contemplate and regret leaving my integrity hanging under that cold, dripping knob of rock. Spring, and redemption, were right then a very long way off - a promise of nothing. On the ride home I made an unspoken promise to my friend that I would never leave either him or myself down like that again…

… and I meant it.