I had a great day at Stone Gardens today, climbing until I was thoroughly trashed. I missed my stop on the way back and ended up walking through UW on the way home. I of course took an interesting way back with some wall passes and balancing work like normal, but a great thing happened that inspired me to spend an additional hour or two on a tricky balance problem in the dark.

A Passerby

While I was walking atop a railing on the way back, an older gentleman on a bike stopped and said something to the effect of “That’s great to see nowadays, keep it up.” Encouraging me to stay fit by jumping around and balancing on random railings in the middle of the night, just like he was doing by taking a bike ride around the campus late at night. The thing I liked the most though, is that there was no question to what I was doing, he just noticed that I wasn’t drunk or crazy and commended me on trying to improve myself no matter what the time was.

The Challenge

So in his honor, I spent the next hour (possibly two) working to complete a section of the balance portion of the traversal line (the longest and worst-lit portion). I decided to stay and get at least one complete section done, with my backpack on, in the dark. If you haven’t tried training in the dark, definitely give it a shot. It is an order of magnitude more difficult but it is an important skill and makes daytime challenges seem so much easier.

Redemption

It took around 60 tries and a lot of time, but I did eventually do it without falling, and I could tell that my technique was slowly getting better despite not having the ability to see much at all. I didn’t have the mental fortitude to attempt much more after that, but I’m quite sure now that the entire thing is possible in one continuous run (figuratively, not actually while running!)

Thanks random bicycle guy!