$8 to climb?

I recently moved back to my hometown crag from a near three year “sabbatical.” During that time I was lucky enough to climb on some of the best rock from the Gunks in New York to Bishop in California. For the last year and a half of that time I have been blessed with SoCal weather and access to tons of great rock and route diversity.

I definitely feel like the different styles I climbed and different rock types, ethics, partners, etc. all helped me improve. However, the move from Cali to Texas definitely didn’t help my endurance. I don’t think I have climbed more than a handful of times in the past three months. I don’t even want to talk about my diet.

Regardless, being back at my hometown crag, where I started climbing, has been great. Not only because I have great local climbing partners and tons of limestone to crawl, but because I get to come back to the rock that I have plateau-ed on so many times with a new skill set and a new, diversified background.

The only bad thing is I think the NY and CA prices followed me back. My once $3 entry fee at the local crag is now a whopping $8. But, it was still worth it.