Climbing Past Gayaza

I'm pretty sure I defied gravity this weekend while mountain climbing. Looking up at a vertical face, I got my first few footholds and climbed up several feet only to realize I didn't have anywhere left to stand. But, through the magic of friction-enhanced climbing shoes and "smearing," I kept putting one foot above the other until I was looking out over a beautiful panorama of rural Uganda from the top of a mountain, surrounded by about 20 curious kids and dogs from a nearby village.

I was climbing with Emmanuel, who speaks with the kind of French accent that inspires imitation, and Luke, who speaks with the kind of British accent that tells you he will probably have at least a thing or two to say about the guy with the French accent. Both are seasoned climbing vets who cringe at the idea of anything besides lead climbing. More at my level were Dan, Nick, and Emily. And then there was Lynn, always the queen of sass (her spirit animal is definitely a cat), constantly reminding us that we were crazy and that she would stick to DJing on the bluetooth speaker Nick brought instead of breaking her neck. Given her general lack of interest in rock climbing, I was pretty nervous when Emmanuel decided to have her belay me on my first run. Nothing like him yelling up to just "lean back ova ze edge" of the mountain and repel, knowing Lynn's propensity for sporadic selfies. But have no fear! After I reminded her about 10 times that my life was literally in her hands, I made it down alive!

One of the easier faces we climbed.
(This is not the smearing one I talked about. Forgot to take a picture of that one!)

Watching Emmanuel and Luke climb was amazing. They could make it up and down the rock face lead climbing faster than I could get halfway up with the top rope (did I try to race... yes. Futile.). But arguably the most amazing (or at least hilarious) part was watching Lynn move up the rock face once we finally convinced her to give it a go. She got to about 4 feet off the ground and declared she was done. Some more coaxing got her about another 10 feet higher, and after about an hour of high-quality emotional support, she had made it just about to the top, but was then refusing to come down. In the end, she did repel (though it was like watching a women lead a man while dancing... Lynn was not going to let that rope tell her what to do). Because a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll leave the rest of the story to this amazing shot of Lynn.

Badass
(though not quite repelling)