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Three weeks after having my second baby, I’m toproping with my husband Casey at a nearby sport climbing area called Echo Canyon. A locomotive chugs by 30 feet behind us, drowning out the otherwise omnipresent sound of the highway not far from the tracks.
But it’s not the bad rock or these particular acoustic disturbances that are getting to me at the moment. It’s our infant son Conrad, lying on his back in a pop-up shelter under the shade of a small tree, screaming. A few moments ago, he was peacefully sleeping. But now, something is bothering him—a wet diaper, hunger, or perhaps an insatiable desire to be cuddled.
“Just finish the climb,” Casey says. And I should be able to. After all, it’s only a 5.10 that I’ve climbed at least once or twice before and I’m on toprope. But my balance is still whack, I’m out of shape, and try as I might, I cannot tune out the sound of Conrad crying.
To make matters worse, two girls are now flaking their rope for a route to our left and I am suddenly intensely self-conscious about polluting the crag with the sounds of my screaming child.
“Do you want to come down?” Casey asks helpfully. “I could run up and finish it.”
I am frozen against the wall, my sweaty fingertips gripping small pebbles trapped in the umber mudstone. The sound of the crying has infiltrated my soul—there is no going back.
“Lower me!” I demand. On the ground, I tell my husband we are leaving now. A mixture of shame, anger, and infant wailing-induced panic well up inside me. We leave two lockers at the anchor and flee the scene.
To be honest, there are many times when I’ve wanted to quickly disappear during our countless excursions to the crag with infants, babies, toddlers, and now little kids in tow. You see, I’m a mom—but I wouldn’t say I’m a “kid person.” When we’re in public, I am embarrassingly beholden to a Victorian-era vision of how my kids should behave. In other words, crag kids shouldn’t be seen or heard—any more so than the grown-up climbers, that is.
The other problem is that usually, crag families roll deep. It’s much easier to set up a couple ropes when you have more than two adults available. This allows you to divide and conquer: one climber, one belayer, two crag kid sitters—then swap.
When we arrive at a climbing area, we try to get the kids stationed in a safe spot as we set up a route for them and a route for the grown-ups to project. Helmets on. Bouldering pads or blankets arranged. Snacks out. Ground rules established.
This works very well for six or seven minutes. But soon after, the chaos begins to build. One wandering four-year-old soul decides to hike up a talus field. The oldest crag kids scramble up a boulder with their dolls and toss their helmets to the ground. Two toddlers exchange words—then tears—over the snack situation. Next thing you know, we are blowing up the crag with our noise, disorder, snack packaging (don’t worry, we pick it all up before we leave), and general pandemonium.
That’s when my established parenting philosophy hits the deck. As I chase around unruly members of the next generation of climbers, I throw out apologies left and right to the other parties among us. Most of them smile and look like they feel sorry for me. I feel sorry for me.
On the flipside of these harrowing and exhausting days of “teaching our kids to climb” are the compliments non-climbing friends and family offer when they hear about our determination to impart our favorite hobbies to our children. “That’s so amazing,” they’ll say when we tell them what we did over the weekend. “Wow!” or “adorable!” they’ll comment on an Instagram photo of our kids climbing up five feet before demanding the ground. What the fawning audience to our “family adventure lifestyle” doesn’t often see are the dirt-crusted snot, tears, tantrums, and collective shame that unfurled during our day out climbing.
Are we exposing our kids to cool experiences and priming them to be not only our future rope guns, but competitors in the 2036 Games? Yes. Is the process of doing so often pure agony? Also yes. Is it all worth it? I’m not sure.
While we also teach our kids to ski, bike, and camp, for some reason, it’s the climbing that feels the most soul-crushing. We can’t sequester ourselves to a remote campsite where no one can hear our kids cry. We can’t stick to the easy ski terrain or the corner of the lodge closest to the hot chocolate and chips. At the crag, we never know who will show up, whether we’ll be thrown into the mix with another family, a couple of crusty Boomers, or some project-driven twenty-somethings who want nothing to do with our noise and havoc.
Perhaps it’s time to set up some family designated climbing areas where childless or child-averse climbers know to avoid. Or maybe some seasonal designations, like raptor closures, but for small humans. Until then, I apologize in advance if my crag kids disrupt your otherwise chill day of climbing—it’s an imperfect science, and we’re still working on the formula.
