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The Ver tical Adventure The Ver tical Adventure July 2015

Two Falls, Two Journeys, One Trust By Calvin Landrus

How did you get started into climbing?

Like most boys I climbed anything and everything—the tree in the backyard, the roof of our house, the brick wall at school. So rock climbing felt like a natural next step. I started with some buddies in high school and college, out in Joshua Tree – which back in the ‘70s wasn’t a National Park yet, and wasn’t really known outside climber communities and desert rats, so we often had the place to ourselves. We began, I suppose, like everybody does—we just started scrambling around, and discovered that we loved it; we

Continued on page 6

John Eldredge on Risk By Spencer Gordon, SRCFC Intern

Bouldering at Horse Pens 40 during Chandler Mountain Challenge

“Climbing with Asha was such a heal-ing experience. And just knowing how God saved us both for a greater purpose was so awesome,” Colleen wrote after she re-turned home from the National Conference at the Red River Gorge. Asha, from Wis-consin, and Colleen, from California, sur-vived significant falls before God brought them together in Kentucky. Through climb-ing together, the trust that was lost in their journeys had a reawakening.

Colleen’s fall occurred in January 2014 at Malibu Creek State Park in Southern California. She was cooling down on a “super chill” 5.10- when the unexpected happened. She wrote, “I was standing on a solid ledge, with the largest hand hold, poised to clip, completely confident in my-self and on the task at hand. The next thing I knew, I was dangling mid-air, feeling nothing, desperately trying to answer the question, “Can I wiggle my toes?’”

After being lowered to the ground, she was thankful she could Continued on page 8

El Capitan, Yosemite. The base of the Dawn Wall is just going in the shade.

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Our Mission: Solid Rock - Climbers for Christ’s mission is to encourage, equip & empow-er climbers to reach climbers for Christ through personal witness and group outreach!

Title: THE VERTICAL ADVENTURE Issue Date: June 30, 2015 Issue: VOLUME 15, NUMBER 1 Frequency: PUBLISHED WINTER, SUMMER & FALL Organization: SOLID ROCK-CLIMBERS FOR CHIRST PO Box 9831, BEND, OR 97708 The Vertical Adventure is sent free of charge to the friends and supporters of Solid Rock Climbers for Christ. SRCFC’s Headquarters mailing address is PO Box 9831, Bend, Oregon 97708. If you would like to send The Vertical Adventure FREE to a friend or wish to cancel your subscription, please reach us at the address above, at 541-408-5846 or office@srcfc.org. To learn more about Solid Rock-Climbers for Christ, visit www.srcfc.org. PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Calvin Landrus, President and Executive Director of SRCFC. All material is copyrighted.

Mark Your Calendars!!! 2015 National Conference

in Bishop, CA November 6th-11th

Overview: National Conferences are tradi-tionally our largest gatherings. You will have a chance to get to know more Solid Rockers and do ministry together with folks from many places.

Location: Bishop, CA offers world class bouldering on the granite of the Buttermilks and volcanic Tablelands (Happy/Sad Boul-ders). The rope-climbing is excellent with Owens River Gorge being the main attrac-tion. The area is high desert so nights will be cold but days pleasant with plenty of sunshine.

Special Presenter: Matt Fultz is one of the leading boulderers in the USA having done several V14s. He will be at the event to boulder, to give a presentation and to do a clinic.

Schedule: The schedule will include Even-ing Gatherings, On-mission Climbing, Out-reach, Climber's Church and more. While many will only be able to stay through the weekend, you are encouraged to stay long-er through Veteran’s Day (Nov. 11th).

Event Hosts: SRCFC Missionaries, Mat-thew and Bethany Herman, have been in the Bishop area for two years being a wit-ness to climbers and developing connec-tions.

Cragging Classic: The American Alpine Club will be holding their Cragging Classic,

November 6th to 8th. The schedule/cost hasn’t been released but participation in the event is an option. When more info is post-ed, you will be able to learn more at crag-ginclassic.com. We are working on some ways to have a sponsorship/volunteering presence at the event.

Camping/Lodging: There is first come, first serve camping at BLM Pleasant Valley Pit Campground for $2 per car per night. We will have Solid Rockers arriving early to lay claim to enough sites for all who regis-ter. Also, the Hermans will be providing some indoor lodging at their home

Carpooling/Rides: Bishop is not close to major airports. That said, we will work to arrange rides for those who are flying into locations in California and Nevada.

Record Your Interest: If interested, please show it by filling out the form at srcfc.org/Events/National-Conference-Registration/.

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Three Ways Sharing the Good News Is Like the “Dawn Wall” By Calvin Landrus, SRCFC Director

Perhaps “The Dawn Wall” has been overdone but as I reflected on the process of bring-ing the Good News to climbers, I saw several parallels with how it came together for Cald-well and Jorgeson on El Cap and how being witness to climbers goes or should go for us.

The first parallel is seeing a vision to do the improbable. After some initial forays onto the wall, Caldwell felt it could be done but success would only come with great cost and effort. Each moment spent on the project was a possible “fool’s errand” because the out-come was always in doubt until the very end.

It’s so easy to begin doubting if any our climbing friends will ever come to Christ. But our vision must not be clouded by the difficultly of the task but stand in the truth of God’s prom-ises. The Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 2:3-6a wrote, “This is good (prayers), and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.” (NIV) God is still in the business of saving people!

The next parallel is doing specific training. The Dawn Wall had one crux that was a ridiculous dyno. (1) To train for this, Caldwell measured the dyno and set up the same dyno on a system’s wall. He did the practice leap hundreds of times and then went on to send that crux section.

The Apostle Paul exhorted in 1 Timothy 4:7-8, “Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” As climbers, we understand how much better we climb when we train. Imagine how much better we could be a witness if we trained ourselves in “doing the work of an evange-

list” (2) and being a “messenger of reconciliation!” (3)

The last parallel is finding/waiting for the right conditions to climb. Caldwell and Jorgeson learned that the conditions had to be cold and crisp for them to navigate the hard-est pitches. They mostly climbed on the Dawn Wall after it went into the shade in the after-noon. On top of that, they decided to brave the frigid temps by doing a mid-winter ascent of the route.

Jesus’s parable of the soils in Matthew 13 shows the various conditions a heart can be in in regards to their receptivity to the message of the Kingdom. The hard soil can be taken as the defensive heart. The shallow soil is the impulsive heart. The soil with weeds being the distracted heart. And finally, the receptive heart is the good soil. A possible take away from this parable is that it’s wise to ask the question, “How open are they to the Good News?”

With this recognition comes the freedom not to scatter seeds where they won’t be re-ceived well but still looking for ways to cultivate their soil making it closer to receiving the seed. We do this by loving and caring for them in a genuine way, being ready to share at the right moment, and by praying for an open door and clear proclamation of the Good News. (4) We need to be on the lookout for hearts in the right condition and then go for it!

NOTES: 1. On the actual ascent, the crux dyno was avoided as new variation was discovered

at the last moment. It involved climbing down, around and back up, doing 150 feet of climbing to net 10 feet. 2. See 2 Timothy 4:5; 3. See 2 Corinthians 5:19-21; 4. See Colossians 4:3-4

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Rockfest Outreach Report By Spencer Gordon, SRCFC Intern

Over the second weekend in June, I had the opportunity to travel to Leavenworth, Washington for the American Alpine Club Rockfest with Solid Rock. The main purpose of the trip was creating relation-ships and sharing about Jesus whenever we had a chance, but over the weekend I gained so much more than I had thought I would.

On the trip with me was, Calvin Landrus, SRCFC’s Director, and Rick Krause, the Vice President of the SRCFC’s Board of Directors. We met up with Jessie, a Solid Rock member from the Seattle area, who I had the pleasure of doing a fair amount of climbing with over the weekend. This being my first time of doing outreach at a climbing festival, I really didn’t know what to expect and how the majority of the climbers there would take our message or even our presence at the festival.

We all arrived before the event started on Friday so we went out to sample the fine granite of the Leavenworth area. When we had finished our climbing for the day, we headed back to camp to start prepping for the next morning when we would be serving breakfast to the climbers who had arrived. After getting most of the gear ready for the morning, we headed off to bed. Many questions remained in my mind about how it would go.

We awoke the next morning to see a few more cars had pulled up and this gave me some encouragement to see we were going to have a good number of mouths to feed. The breakfast at the camping area was a success but we had more work to do to fulfill Solid Rock’s sponsor-ship responsibilities.

Rick and I headed up Icicle Creek Canyon where the registration for the boulder competition and the clinics was being held. We scurried to set up a table to hand out coffee and snacks and chat with climbers that passed by.

I have to say that manning the Solid Rock table solo was definitely a test of heart. As climbers would pass by, they would roll their eyes or they would purposely avoid conversation by staying a distance away. Having this sort of reaction was what I expected to a point but when it actually happens it can make you feel a bit hopeless. Instead of tossing in the towel, I saw this reaction as a way of God showing me just how much the climbing community needs Christ.

Later that afternoon, all the vendors, including Solid Rock, would have booth time while dinner and other festivities were going on. In this time, we had the opportunity to talk with climb-ers and share who we are and what we are all about as climbers for Christ. A lot of the encoun-ters we had were not deep conversations, due to some of the climbers getting uncomfortable when we would bring up faith and ask about their story as this kind of talk being very foreign to

Spencer Gordon is a Colorado Christian University Outdoor Leadership Major who decided to intern with SRCFC during June 2015. He grew up in Southern California, with two older brothers and a dad who loved the outdoors. His mom knew that her three boys could only be true to themselves when running around, wrestling, being cowboys and climbing everything they could.

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them. Even though we didn’t have as many of those desired conversations, we planted many seeds that will continue to grow as God has begun to work in them.

Pray for them as they start to look at their lives and the void that only God can fill. I spent a lot of time over the weekend in prayer asking God to move in ways that would shake these climbers’ eyes open and that His will would be done. I can say that God meant for us to be there as I felt Him working through us all.

Going back a day, there was one guy I met who was a great climber and we had a hand-ful of humorous conversations about climbing and the adventures we had done in our lives. It was this guy specifically that I felt God calling me to make a relationship with over the weekend, to dig deeper into his life and find where he stands in his faith. Late on our last night there, he and I had stayed up when everyone else had decided to call it a night and we got to talking about Christ.

This guy comes from a “religious background” with a sense of who God might be and the life He calls us to live, but he did not fully trust that our God is One who calls us to be in a deep and loving relationship with Him and truly does have a plan for each one of us. It was very interesting to hear that he believed living a life of good morals and being a giving person is all we have to do to gain salvation. (Not knowing if salvation was even real, as he shared).

To be able to share my relationship with Christ with him and how my view completely differed from his was quite the conversation. When you have someone who does live a good life, loves others and they are completely content (so he thinks), it is quite hard to tell them that it will never be completely satisfying until he recognizes Christ as his Savior, the one who has given him the heart he has to live the way he does.

As Christians, we have been given the most incredible understanding of life and what it means to not live for yourself and be completely filled with God. But this has to be one of the hardest messages to share with non-Christians. Being in this community of climbers over the weekend was an incredible time of sharing life but also quite hard as I didn’t want to scare away those who were easily spooked when I said anything about God.

As for the climber I was talking with, I believe the interaction we had has begun to clear the fog from his eyes. He has begun to recognize the role he plays in the bigger picture and that by fulfilling that role is how he will be filled himself.

As climbers we are called to a difficult field to reach those who think they can climb the mountain of life themselves. We as sons and daughters of Christ have been given the incred-ible and life giving opportunity to share the love of Christ even in the hardest situations and know that we can never fail with God leading the climb.

Have you been to WHERECLIMBERSGATHER.COM?

There are hundreds of forum posts and over 1,400 climbers that you can search by

climbing information, city & state. You can connect with all users via a private messag-

ing system. If you are email-connected to SRCFC, visit srcfc.org/lost-information to gain

access. If you are not, visit srcfc.org/register to set-up an account! It’s not Facebook

but is still pretty amazing.

Our SRCFC Outreach Media Director, Dan Davies, has been working on a series of

tutorial videos to help you learn how to best use this resource. These videos can be

accessed at srcfc.org/WCGhelp.

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picked up some gear for protection, and mostly did top-rope stuff at first. My big “ah hah” moment came when we did the multi-pitch climb on Saddle

Rock. We underestimated the time it would take, and got started way too late in the day, and basically had to do an emergency rappel off after dark. It was totally hairy—and I was hooked.

Has climbing had an effect on your role as an author? You’ve probably had a lot of climbing adventures over the years; has God used any of those as a way to strengthen your faith and your courage?

That’s kind of like asking, “Does reading the Bible help you grow?” I believe the core search of every man is a search for validation, an answer to the question, “Do I have what it takes?” For centuries before ours, cultures knew that men needed rituals to help them address their need for masculine validation. We have totally abandoned those in the postmodern world, but climbing provides nearly the same essential ingredients. You have to face your fears, you have to overcome, it hurts, and the victories are very concrete and very real. So yes—climbing has shaped me profoundly as a man, and it has worked its way (I think) into every book I’ve written, but especially Wild at Heart, Fathered by God, and the new films we put out last year, Killing Lions.

In Matthew 4 after Satan told him to jump off the Temple, Jesus answered, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Have you ever been confronted by Christians who view climbing as too dangerous and you shouldn’t take part as a Chris-tian?

I’ve met Christians who believed all kinds of wacky things. There are two questions to that question. One is, “What sorts of activities are ‘appropriate’ for a Christian?,” and the other is, “When are you pushing the boundaries of godly decision making?” I’ll take a crack at both. Back when we started climbing in the ‘70s, we were also part of a movement trying to bring drama into the church. There were a lot of folks with raised eyebrows back then, who felt that the arts don’t really have a place in Christianity. There was a much narrow conception of what makes something “Christian” or not. But nowadays, most churches have arts programs, and many use drama in their services. We came to realize that the arts belong to God. In the same way, I think the Christian community has realized what a crucial role Creation plays in the de-velopment of our souls, how deeply we find God in Nature, and so there is a great deal more openness now for outdoor ministry. I’m really glad for that, because God is out there, in the world we love. Most of the stories in the Bible take place outdoors, by the way, and so it opens up for us new horizons on what makes something “Christian.” “Does this bring you closer to God?” is a really good way to find out.

But I think you were mostly asking more about risk, right—about good decisions and bad ones, and should Christians be involved in dangerous sports?

Right. Is acceptable risk different for each Christian in the sense that risk is only risk when we feel fear versus when we feel confident in our own abilities?

After the birth of our first child, Sam, I was leading a climb on Taquitz (San Jacinto). I came to this overhanging move and suddenly my worldview shifted—I realized, “I can’t be taking these kinds of risks anymore because I’m a dad now; I have people who depend on me to come home.” It was a really good moment, because it pushed into the issue of motives. To evaluate risk, you first have to evaluate motive—why are you attempting that 5.13? Is it to impress? Is there some peer pressure involved? Are you trying to make a name for yourself? To be honest, it often takes a lot more courage to say, “I’m not going to try that today.” That takes humility, and courage. “Acceptable” risk is based on the fact that your life matters—it

Risk continued

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matters to God, and it matters to other people. This isn’t just a question for soldiers and fire-fighters—your life matters and you have to base your decisions on that. Dean Potter speed climbing El Capitan in half a day is very impressive. I also think it’s mighty stupid, because it is way outside the bounds of acceptable risk. When you climb like that, you’re saying, “Whether I die today doesn’t really matter.” But it does matter, and rescuing someone from a burning build-ing is a far better reason to take those chances than sending some new route.

So…do you think a Christian should free solo?

Hmmm. Free solo what? You see, the answer to that lies partly in what I said about ac-ceptable risk, about your life mattering to other people. But part of it is in why we climb at all. I think we climb for thrill, and challenge, to grow, to experience Nature in a raw way; in other words, for joy. To play with God in the world he made. If you can’t find joy without pushing the bounds all the time, you’ve got to step back and reevaluate what is really pushing you. I love riding motorcycles. I think everybody can agree that there are rides fit for beginners, and rides fit only for really experienced riders. But then there is the Isle of Man TT race, where those guys push the outer bounds of reality, riding bikes at 160mph on farm roads made for herding sheep. I think to myself, really—you can’t find joy as a rider without doing that? You should see a counselor.

So, you would say that is risk misinterpreted. What should a Believer keep in mind to have a better understanding of God’s view of risk?

Let’s take climbing totally out of the picture. Let’s talk about career, or relationships, or sharing your faith on the street or in a Muslim country. God asks us to take risks—it’s part of what it means to be a Christian. Really. In the Parable of the Talents, the guy who gets the hammer is the guy who refused to take risks. And why does God want us to risk? Because he wants us to be in situations where we have to trust Him; he wants us to learn to live by faith. So risk is a HUGE part of the Christian life. Now, what is good risk and bad risk? That brings us back to your question about Jesus jumping off the roof of the temple. Jesus didn’t bite at that temptation because he knew his Father wasn’t in it. This is the bottom line: Is God in it? I will ask that, all the time, whether I’m about to talk to someone about an issue in their life (a big risk) or if I’m headed overseas to share the Gospel. The first question I always ask is, “Jesus-are you in this? Is this what you are asking me to do?” Because if he’s not in it, I don’t care how brave or noble it might be, it’s bad risk. Risk is about walking with God, not just doing hairy stuff.

What are some reasons why a Christian should climb? Beyond the Sunday school an-swer of for the glory of God.

Why surf? Why ski? Why play the guitar? Because God has made the world we love, and he loves it like we do, and he loves to enjoy it with us. We do it for joy. Yes—I think there are other reasons too: we do it to be challenged, to face down fears, to grow. We do it for commu-nity (it’s always better together). But the bottom line is, God loves play. He loves to play, and he loves it when we play. He made this world for us, by the way. Back in Genesis, after he made the world, God gave it to us. To explore it, love it, play in it, take care of it brings him joy. It brings us joy, too. And as C.S. Lewis said, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”

BACKSTORY: Spencer Gordon here. One of my responsibility as an intern was to write for SRCFC’s newsletter. My uncle, John Eldredge, among other things is the author of the well-known book, Wild at Heart, He is also an experienced climber so I thought this was a perfect opportunity to do an interview. I hope you enjoyed the questions I posed to him.

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still walk. Thank goodness for helmets! Things hurt, but she assumed things would hurt after she had battled the rock.

She thought that was the end of the story. She went back to her everyday Silicon Valley life but as the days passed, it became apparent that something else was wrong, very wrong. She went to see the doctor, was given some pills and was sent back to work. The doctor prescribed a “precautionary” x-ray; it showed shadows.

She wrote, “I had to leave a work meeting to be rushed to the emergency room where I was told that my femur may be fractured, her spinal column may be damaged, possible shattering of pelvis and that I might need immedi-ate, lengthy orthopedic surgery. Need-less to say, I was a little scared.”

After nine hours of diagnostic test-ing, she left the emergency room with a 90% chance she was fine. However, over the next weeks and months of seeing doctors and specialists, Colleen learned that she did damage her spine, to the point that it may or may not ever heal -- only time would tell. She was told that if she took a climbing fall over the next few months, she could make whatever existing damage permanent.

Fast forward through months of being grounded -- no running, no climbing, no activity period; all she wanted to do was to climb. But when the time came for her to climb again, with the doctor’s go ahead, she couldn’t.

Colleen shared, “The fear I felt upon going back was debilitating. I couldn’t make it half way up a 5.6. I contemplated never climbing again. It was awful to live everyday waiting to do some-thing I loved and realizing that I was the only thing stopping myself from doing it. I gave myself two weeks to overcome this fear or I would walk away from climbing forever. After a week and a half, I really hadn’t gotten very far. Then there was the climb that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I froze three stories off the ground, unable to move up or down. I couldn’t trust my feet. I couldn’t trust my hands. I couldn’t trust my abilities. I couldn’t trust the gear. I could-n’t trust my belay partner. I trusted nothing.”

She continued, “I broke down and cried. In that moment, I cried out to God and asked Him to show me I could trust Him with all these fears; that if I was going to climb again, He would need to meet me in this place.”

It was August 23, 2014 that Asha should have died. She heard herself scream and saw her rope falling below her. It’s estimated that it took her 1.93 seconds to fall more than 60 feet, reaching speeds of about 54 miles per hour.

After putting in a full six hours of rock climbing, the group Asha was with was close to leaving the Tan Corridor located in Staunton State Park, Colorado. Her friend, Doug, had left up a 5.10- called Reef On It for Asha to top-rope. Since she was going to be the last one to climb it, she knew she had to break down the anchor and rappel off (with this being the first time outside do-ing so).

When she got to the top, she clipped into the anchor and sat back in her harness to test her system. She shouted "Off Belay!" to her belayer, Julie. Her anchor system was one alpine sling

Two Falls continued

Asha and Colleen at the RRG Conference

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that supported her full weight from above. She leaned back, and focused on getting ready to rappel.

Everything happened so fast. Asha wrote, “As I was threading the rope back through the anchor, I felt myself falling and my stomach was sick as I watched my rope drop below. Mere seconds separated me from the sharp rocks on the trail beneath. I tensed as my body attempted to brace itself for the inevitable. Panic. The distance between death and myself was rapidly clos-ing. I experienced the rawest form of terror as the air whipped past, the wind carrying my scream to the ground.”

Startled by the scream, Doug, a strapping 6’4”stud, stepped up courageously and attempted to catch Asha as he placed himself underneath her. Eyes focused upwards, with arms open, he braced himself for the impact. Witnesses said that Doug absorbed the full force of her fall-ing body as she first hit his chest and then his arms before she bounced out onto the boulders and rolled a few feet.

Asha wrote, “I was flat on the ground, my back pressed against the rocks. My friends' voices came from above me and the questions rolled from their lips, ‘Are you okay? What happened?” Doug used his Wilderness First Responder skills to check for signs of trauma. ‘Where are you? What is your name? Can you tell me what day it is?’ I stared past the trees up at the 60 foot sharp rock face that I had been atop just moments before. I could not believe that I was on the ground and alive!”

Her belayer dialed 911 while another climber in their party ran down the mountain to guide rescuers up. Minutes later, Elk Creek Fire and EMS arrived on scene with a large rescue party. With her adrenaline draining and blood pressure dropping fast, her body was headed towards shock. Time was critical. They loaded her onto a stretcher and weaved in and out of the trees as they carried her down the stone steps carved into the trail. At the base, she was loaded into a helicopter and air lifted to a Level One trauma center.

Seven hours later, a miracle was confirmed. No internal bleeding, concussion or broken bones-every scan, test and x-ray had come back as "negative." The doctor told Asha, "A fall three times your height is fatal and here you fell eleven times your height." Everyone was in awe. When her nurse heard what Doug had done she shook her head in disbelief, "That is un-heard of…if he had not broken your fall you could have died or at best ended up paralyzed for life." Asha could only shiver.

The doctor, nurses and first responders couldn’t medically explain what happened. They said an angel caught her. She walked out of the ER late that night with only bruises and scratches to show for a six story free fall.

When Doug was asked how he reacted with such speed and how he was able to remain standing after the impact, he gives all the credit to God and states, “God is good.”

Fast forward to SRCFC’s National Conference at the Red in November of 2014. Colleen had taken some baby steps back into climbing before the trip but was hoping to regain the full trust she needed to be a solid climber once again. Asha hadn’t climbed at all before the Nation-al Conference as her accident was still very fresh. For both, the climbing process would need to be treaded on lightly until they were ready to fully trust it again.

Have you ever been in the same boat about climbing or perhaps another area of your life? It seems that this condition was being experienced by David when he wrote Psalm 18. He be-gins with a declaration of the mightiness of God in verses 1-3: “I love you, Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I called to the Lord, Continued on page 10

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who is worthy of praise, and I have been saved from my enemies.” (NIV)

David quickly slides into a position of doubt in verses 4-5: “The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.” (NIV)

Asha and Colleen felt that juxtaposition as they headed to the Red. Before her fall to the ground, Asha had only acknowledged the truth that God had a plan for her life. Afterwards, it came to life an incredible way. She said, “There is no reason to live in fear. I can totally trust that God is in control. God’s plan for us will be done whether we like it or not.” This caused a huge uptick in her excitement for life and for living on purpose. She often recalls the accident and proclaims, “Wow, I am alive!”

Arriving with that confidence in the Lord, Asha was ready to start climbing fresh with friends by her side. But then the “what ifs” took control of her mind as she began to climb the rock. She was surprised by her snail pace of movement and waited for her trust to return. She was truly grateful to have heard Colleen’s story and felt the safest with her belaying because she understood what Asha was going through.

Since Colleen was further down the road from her accident, she had already returned to climbing and was climbing well due to the encouragement and care of some “amazing friends.” With that framework she took up a missionary’s mindset and headed to Kentucky, without prior knowledge of who her climbing partner would be and how the climbing would feel.

Prior to going she wrote friends, “In climbing, your partner is everything; they hold your life in their hands. There is an incredible amount of trust that is needed in order to climb with some-one. So, for me to go on a climbing trip to a place I’ve never been, with no promise of a partner, is really saying, ‘God, I trust you completely and I place my life in Your hands. That no matter what, You will come through.’ It’s one thing to say that you love and trust, but until you put that into action, it doesn’t really mean anything.”

Little did Colleen know that God had arranged for Asha to be there so she could support her and that she would receive that same blessing from Asha. They had an opportunity to live out the admonition in 1 Peter 3:8 “Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one anoth-er, be compassionate and humble.”

In the end, they found that trust’s foundation is in the One who can be trusted. Or as the Apostle Paul put in it 2 Cor. 3:4-6, “We are con-fident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.”

Or as Asha puts it, “I hope that others, after hearing my story, get more excited about what God is doing!”

Two Falls continued

Asha’s Accident & Analysis As climbers, we always want the “rest of the story.” In Asha’s case, the alpine sling she used to attach to the anchor had a carabiner held in place with climbing tape. Essentially, when she first weighted the anchor, the tape on the alpine draw was the only thing holding her. Asha is not a large person and the climbing tape is fairly strong so it could have easily felt secure for a moment. As she be-gan to feed the rope through the chains to rap and thus weighting the sling more, the tape broke, leaving the carabiner on the anchor, the alpine sling girth hitched to her harness and broken tape stuck on the sling. How can this happen? This most likely occurred as a result of her accidentally clipping behind the tape into the open area of sling before clipping the anchor. One can see how this happens in a warning video called The Danger Of Open Quickdraws at vimeo.com/29836772. Anoth-er couple of lessons can be summed up in what Doug posted after the accident, “So remember to be careful with new people and be redundant…ALWAYS!”

UPCOMING SRCFC EVENTS

July 8-12: International Climbers Festival, Lander, WY

July 18: Wasatch Range Meet and Greet

Aug. 8: Sportrock Beat the Heat in Alexandria, VA

Sep. 4-6: Southern Adirondack Rock Climbers' Fest

Sep. 4-7: Smith Rock Outreach at ACC Craggin Classic

SRCFC is a sponsor of many of these!

Sep. 17-20: Idaho Mountain Festival at City of Rocks

Sep. 24-27: 9th Annual 24 Hours of Horse-shoe Hell, AR

Oct. 9-11: Rocktberfest Breakfast & Out-reach, Red River Gorge, KY

Nov. 6-11: National Conference and Out-reach in Bishop, CA

Feb. 2016: Climbing Mission Trip to Cuba and Mexico.

Visit srcfc.org/event for more events & info!

D O N A T I O N L E V E L & T H A N KD O N A T I O N L E V E L & T H A N K -- Y 0 U SY 0 U S

Annual “Member” Donation ($30-$99) Carabineer

Annual “Supporter” Donation ($100-$249) Quickdraw or Wings T-shirt

“Grade VI Donor” ($250 or more yearly). Logo Hydro Flask or Superclip Write “no thanks” on response form if you would like your whole donation to go to work!

Page 11

Handmade Chalk Bag from Mongolia

$17

(Most of the purchase price goes back to the

micro-business.) Great conversation starter.

Get Logo Gear @ CafePress Several logos are available and they can be ordered on hoodies, other clothing items, metal water bottles, mugs, caps and more. These items are a great way to give a witness. Order today! The prices are reasonable and SRCFC receives a small royalty from each purchase.

Visit cafepress.com/srcfc!

"WINGS" T-shirt Design

$18 Original design by sponsored climber & SRCFC member, Gordon MacArthur! They are available in Men's XL, L, M, S & Women's L, M, S.

O U T R E A C H R E S O U R C E S O U T R E A C H R E S O U R C E S

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