Today I made plans to climb the Ginat on the North Face of Les Droites on Sunday. It is the route that I most want to get done while here in Chamonix, and I have no doubt that I will do it. I also know that I will obsess about it until it is done, and over think every little section of the climb and the descent until it is complete. It is an interesting mental process that I put myself through. There is not a part of the route which will be any more challenging than what I have done before, but it is difficult to bring confidence to this obsessive pondering.
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The North Face of Les Droites is at the far right of the picture.
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I recently petitioned a friend who is a psychologist for some literature on fear. It is, as you might imagine, a commonly discussed subject in the climbing world. I think that a major reason most climbers climb (maybe outside the sport climbing world) is to explore fear. And yet relatively few do so in a deliberate manner. The mainstream opinion is to 'man-up' and climb, but is that really a solution? On route, when you are afraid, it is of course important to learn to focus through your fear and produce. Better yet would be to learn to be confident in your abilities and to spend less time afraid.
The '(wo)man-up' approach also completely fails to address the apprehension felt in anticipation of a climb. Before a route you have lots of little details to consider, and it is much easier to do so when you are not distracted. My hope is that a deliberate study in my apprehension will mean that I don't have to carry such a mental burden in anticipation of a route, that I will actually be able to look forward to it. I love to climb, and plan to do so forever, so it seems a very worthwhile investment of my time.
