Rock Climbing In Michigan

Rock Climbing In Michigan

Or Giving A Groan From Scraping A Bone On A Lansing Ledge Of Stone

by Charles M. Rousseaux

Publication Date: March 1998

I am a flatlander. The ground looks very far away, and very, very hard. I am about to do a digger, and I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!

Cut back seven hours. Late as usual, I am driving somewhat frantically through Grand Ledge (just outside Lansing, MI) looking for something, anything, that looks like a ledge. The directions I received from a sleepy mechanic have landed me in the middle of a subdivision. A small park opens in front of me, with a couple of cars and a beat-up pickup in the parking lot. Since the truck has a Vertical Ventures logo on the door, I assume that I am in the right place. If this is the right place, than why is the park called Oak Park, why is it so appallingly green, and where are the cliffs?

It is only after walking down a wood-chipped track, past trees and some brush, to an overlook, that I actually see the cliffs below me. At the overlook I meet up with the other six men and two women in our group. Most of them are in their twenties and thirties, and are either career professionals or professional students. Our trainer, Mike, a nervous, slightly balding man in his mid-thirties, has us sign a series of release forms before getting started.

Mike first gives us a brief history of the cliffs as we walk to our first climb. He says that the sandstone cliffs were formed from a beach about 300 million years ago and were used by Native Americans long before the first European set a Nike Cross-Trainer on them. People actually began climbing the cliffs about forty years ago, although they were carving their names in the rock long before then. As he talks, Mike takes us along the bottom of the cliffs, pointing out routes and giving instructions.

The dirty beige-colored cliffs average thirty-five to forty feet tall, and run no more than a quarter mile along the Grand River. Mike tells us that there are about seventy different climbs on the Ledge, ranging from the easy to the extremely difficult. To my inexperienced eye, most of the routes that he points out look fairly easy.

Mike finishes his talk in front of a boulder. A boulder? This boulder is diamond shaped, about eight feet tall, and pitched at what looks like a fifty degree angle. Mike first pulls off his boots and then, with his palms and the balls of his feet firmly pressed against the boulder, seems to just slide up. After two quick demonstrations, he asks for volunteers. Although several of the members of our group have gym and/or outside climbing experience, we wait until a completely inexperienced short brunette named Laura goes first. Once she is successful, the rest of us are either confident enough to try, or we realize that we will look even worse for not trying.

When my time comes, I crawl crab-wise onto the boulder. "WHERE DID ALL THIS GRAVITY COME FROM?" I almost scream. I glue my torso to the rock so that I won't fall off for at least a few seconds. Virtually spread-eagled, I attempt to force my way up with my arms, torso still stuck tightly to the rock. As are most first instincts in climbing, this is a bad idea. Mike calls, "Legs; push up with your legs. Use your arms only for balance." Pulling my arms back into my chest, I cautiously lift my left leg up, searching for a hold. To my surprise, my boot sticks. I do the same with my right leg, and that also sticks. Now, after pushing my torso up a few inches, I do the same thing again. I am up, although some of those "easy" climbs now look deadly.

After a lunch break, Mike gives us a few more lessons on safety before setting up ropes on the east side of the cliffs where the climbs average between twenty and twenty-five feet. Alice's Corner looks possible, Over Extension looks difficult, and The Nose looks impossible.

I was surprised by how little time was spent on actual climbing technique. Beyond the rigorously enforced safety training (including the wearing of plastic bump helmets, tastefully done in pastel blue, which not only scream, "FLATLANDER," but also make you feel like a preppy German infantryman from W.W. II), the rest of the class is either learn by example or learn as you go. The basic idea is to go for bombers, trying not to grab the vine too often. Yeah, right: You spend most of your time losing holds and swinging off the rock like an uncoordinated spider with a Tarzan complex.

Our group pairs off into climber-belayer teams. I pair up with the person closest to my skill level - a highschooler named Gabe. Impossibly, we have gotten stuck with the rope for climbing The Nose, which sticks out of the face like the debris from Michael Jackson's last plastic surgery.

After a check to insure that I am actually attached to mother, I begin to climb. Climbing seems vaguely like attempting to scale a ladder designed by Dr. Kevorkian - the footholds and handholds are never where you want them to be, and any misstep results in burying yourself in the ground. To my surprise, the sandstone seems somewhat stickier than I thought it would be, although that could be due to my panicked grip on the rock. I reach up for a ledge and push up to another foothold. It almost seems natural...for about ten seconds.

Suddenly, I am stuck. There are no other handholds to react to. With frantic intensity, I scan the expressionless face of rock in front of me. Nothing. My body tenses up, as my fingers and calves begin to shake with anxiety and strain.

Seeing my stranded kitten behavior, Mike calls from below, "There is a foothold just to your left, above your left knee." Thrusting, I manage to stick a boot into the hold. Now what? Mike calls again, "Now, a handhold to your right and above." Scraping my arm up against the rock, I manage to make it.

"Good." "Now bring your left hand over." Seeing the hold this time, I grab it and push myself up. Shockingly, I have made it to the top.

Once we have had our chance to do (or at least attempt) the other two climbs, life becomes more difficult. Mike takes us to the other end of the cliffs, where the walls are even steeper, the overhangs are more severe, and the cliffs are higher. We are formally introduced to the Root Route, the Ultimate Bushwhack, the Mossy Gully, the Breackeater, and Chips.

The Ultimate Bushwhack has a tricky overhang. Once that is past, the rest of the route is fairly easy. I fail to start the Root Route. The Breackeater is clearly impossible, at least for my skills. It requires leaning out from under an overhang to grasp a tiny handhold, and then finding another handhold to pull over it. I get carved on Chips: I simply am unable to pull myself over a ledge.

Climbing requires much more than raw strength; Hanz and Franz would get crushed, since big muscles (not that I have them) tend to limit flexibility. Climbing requires agility, patience, endurance, and an acute sense of the rock: Where the holds are and how to reach them with minimum effort. Perhaps most importantly, climbing requires balance. Paradoxically, the most balanced stances are usually those which leave a climber the most exposed; with only small parts of the body pressed against the rock. When done right, climbing becomes almost a vertical ballet, with coordinated and seemingly effortless motions propelling someone to the top.

When done wrong, that is to say, when done by someone who lacks all the above requirements (me), rock-climbing looks more like the make-out scene from Prom Night III: Mad, frantic thrusting with a lot of blood and very little joy to scream about.

Part of the problem is that if you are slightly scared of heights, as I am, you tend to attempt to stay as close to the rock as possible. This is exactly wrong, since such a stance shifts your center of gravity from over your feet to somewhere behind your back, causing you to move in that direction. You compensate, shoving yourself more tightly to the rock, and the overbalance problem is quickly corrected when you fall completely off the rock.

The difficulty in using holds is greatly compounded by the fact that you can't see many of them. When tight against the rock, range of sight is extremely limited and most of the holds used are found by touch. You search around with a loose limb while the others grip the rock. If one appendage does not find a hold, you search with another. However, as you feel for the holds, the strain on the other appendages increases a rate directly proportional to how high you are, how scared you are, and how many experienced climbers are watching you. Since normally at least one of the other holds you are using is not that secure either, you quickly lose it and fall.

Watching the strain and break happen to someone else has a distinctive charm: Kind of like watching a Hollywood marriage in fast forward. A gentle shaking is followed by a few angry curses, a few deep breaths, some frantic searching. There is then a pause as the person gathers himself or herself. This is followed by greater shaking, usually in a couple of limbs, frantic searching, and more angry curses. In the grand finale, the person makes a complete break from the rock, only to start the climb all over, and get stuck in exactly the same place.

The Mossy Gully, the hardest route I can even think about climbing, is an easy eight feet up to a broad ledge, followed by a climb up a corner with almost sheer walls. After one try, I abandon my big heavy hiking boots with the hope that my bare feet will allow me to find and stick to toeholds easier. I quickly go up to the ledge I was on before. A small handhold beckons about a foot above, and I grab it, thrusting my foot into a hold my boot could have never made. I find a crack for my left foot, and then another small ledge for my right. I pull up, look around, and find...nothing. Deja vu all over again.

I settle the shakes and reach again: There is a hold well above me, but it is too large for my hand to stick in. I twist my hand into a fist, and even try to bend my wrist up. Nothing sticks.

Deep breath. Try again.

This time, my fist sticks, but my right leg is vibrating with the strain.

I try to push it up to another hold, but my fist slips. My left leg is now vibrating with the strain.

Push...Push...

And miss. The rope catches me as I swing out from the rock face, dejected, angry and exhausted. Gravity plays a last joke. Since having pushed like a pendulum away from the face, I now complete the swing, face-first into the rock!

My belayer, a blond named Paula calls to me, "You almost had it!" "Do you want another try?" I desperately want to, but at this point, I couldn't make it. As I am hanging on the vine, one hand holding my head, legs splayed to prevent me from banging my head again, I begin to feel other aches. There is blood on my right knee, a growing, greening bruise on my right arm, at least three scraped fingers on each hand, and...why am I bleeding from my left elbow?

"Thanks Paula, but I've had enough." As Paula lets me to the ground, I know that I will beat the Gully. Not today. No, today I rest and grow stronger. I haven't had enough though. Even in my terminated state, I know that I'll be back.