Boy, the news is bad lately, huh?

I have never been so ashamed to be an American.

I thought now would be a good time to go back and write about a few climbs or adventures I kept to myself over the years.

This particular climb we did in 2021, just as the Covid-19 vaccines were becoming available, and we were beginning to feel a little hope about a bad time coming to an end. After a year of paranoia and discouragement, I was dating again. The most important factor, of course, was that she had to like climbing.

I met Madi on a dating app; her outdoorsy photos and genuine joy in nature made it an easy match. She was a relative novice in climbing, but no biggie. I had the skills to drive, and knew enough to impress—at least in this arena. Things went quick and smooth. One lunch date to feel each other out, some climbing afterwards. A second day out on the Bastille Crack, an easy multipitch near Boulder which I had wired to the point of disregard. She loved it, and surprisingly, so did I. We kissed goodbye in the parking lot, full of hope for the future.

I had the perfect next step: Rocky Mountain National Park. I’d been climbing there a lot the past two summers, and would impress her with a moderate route up an impressive and seldom-climbed feature. “Wham” it was called. A bulbous tower of granite, it sat right next to a popular climb, Zowie, which I’d done a couple of times already. Plenty of people climb Zowie; no one climbs Wham. Nonetheless, the route was in the book, and on Mountain Project. At an elementary grade of 5.7, it would be the perfect date climb. I imagined summit beers, making out on the belay ledges, and a fairy-tale haze of summer sun and optimism.

Years later, Madi tells me she remembers the sun and the optimism. I remember fear, engagement, and my heartbeat in my throat, not as I pulled in to kiss a beautiful woman, but instead as I unexpectedly ripped a microwave-sized block off the wall, 30-foot runout, with a belayer I barely knew.

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