On the Rocks

I have always had a love of precarious perches. If there was any altitude to be gained, I went for it. So last month I took my middle-age self and my 14-year-old daughter, Meera, to the desert to learn how to safely climb rocks.

We started out on Interstate 10 late on a Saturday morning, car pointed eastward toward the tiny town of Joshua Tree and the Joshua Tree Inn, about three hours from Los Angeles, near the western entrance to Joshua Tree National Park.

“Who’s Gram Parsons?” Meera asked at the inn.

“A rock ‘n’ roller,” I replied, distracted by the business of checking in. “Why?”

“There are lots of posters about him on the walls.”

According to the desk clerk, the inn was where influential singer-songwriter Gram Parsons spent his last hours on Sept. 19, 1973, slipping into a coma, then succumbing to a drug overdose. That happened in Room 8, right next to ours.

Undaunted, we dropped our one bag in our room, taking note of a wonderful scent in the air and the cute hand-sewn stuffed animals, with clothes, in various corners. Another door opened up into a serene sand-raked courtyard, with Japanese-style statues, and the back side of the low-slung adobe-style inn. Small glass tables were placed beside each door. In warmer weather it would be a great place to have breakfast.

Back in the car, we zipped to Palm Springs, about 30 miles west, where we had a 1 1/2-hour lesson scheduled at Uprising, an outdoor climbing gym on the grounds of the Oasis Water Park. Uprising has several vertical walls, with various footholds and handholds bolted into the surface. A white tarp shaded us from the sun, which was harsh even though it was late February.

We signed the requisite forms informing us that climbing is a risky sport and that injuries can happen, and releasing the company from liability in case of accidents. It gave me a moment’s pause. What was I leading my kid into? Nevertheless, we put on climbing shoes, which are slim, lace-up sneakers with smooth, molded rubber soles.

Instructor Ed Grayes showed how to get into our waist harnesses and taught us how to use a carabiner, an oblong metal ring that locks the ropes to the harness and the climber. Then we got lessons in tying figure-eight follow-through knots and belaying. Belaying is a way of protecting climbers in case of a fall by tying them through a system of ropes, pulleys and carabiners to a person on the ground. It acts to stop a fall but not to lift the climber.

A figure-eight knot is one of the basic safety knots used in rock climbing, but try as I did I could not master one.

For the next hour we climbed the walls using bolted-in holds and learned to lower each other through belaying. Meera shimmied up routes of varying difficulty. I managed a few too, and then my muscles gave out. Meera finished up as the sun was beginning to set over the San Jacinto Mountains. Before we left, Ed tossed me a piece of rope. Homework: Practice my figure-eight knots.

We went back to the inn, where a cozy fire was set in the living room fireplace, and rested before dinner.

We dined at the Royal Siam, a Thai spot on Twentynine Palms Highway. It was crowded, a good sign that turned out to be accurate.

Sunday I woke early to an alarm of birds. Larry Gillette, the inn’s cook, and his son served us steaming spice muffins, scrambled eggs, turkey “ham”, a thick slice of French toast with a cream-cheesy filling and fresh-cut fruit.

Larry gave us the bag lunches we had ordered the night before, and out we went for our really big adventure. At 9 a.m. we met our guide, Theresa Walsh, who is with a climbing guide service called First Ascent. I had arranged her services through Uprising. For $95 each, Theresa took us out into Joshua Tree National Park to help us put into practice what we had learned.

Theresa outfitted us with rented climbing shoes, we signed those waivers and medical forms (my heart skipped a beat again), and off we went to an area in the park called Indian Cove. We walked another half-mile from the parking lot to a deserted jumble of ochre rocks a few hundred feet high. Morbid Mound, Theresa called it, but it was macabre in name only.

Theresa vanished behind the mound to set up the gear. We would be top-roping--protected in our climbs by ropes tied to boulders above us.

She set up ropes that followed two vertical cracks in the rock face and told us to give it a try. Meera was first. The route was rated 5/6 for difficulty (all climbs requiring ropes are rated 5, and the second number denotes the degree of technical skill required, ranging from 0 to 14).

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The beginning was the toughest. Handholds and footholds seemed nonexistent--at least until Theresa pointed them out to us. She told Meera where and how to place her hands, feet and body, and up she scrambled in no time flat. I belayed her down, and it was my turn to hook into the rope. And with only a little bit of fumbling I tied a figure-eight follow-through. Yes!

I laid my hands on the rock, feeling for nubs and outcrops that I could grab on to. I launched myself, clinging by the tips of my fingers and toes, and inched my way up.

It was a meditation: I was totally absorbed in the moment, in the grainy texture of the granite rock and the balance of my body. Then I squeezed through the crack, and I was on top, peering over the edge at Meera, Theresa and the coil of rope on the ground. If I hadn’t been atop a sheer cliff, I would have jumped for joy.

Surprisingly, rock climbing didn’t require massive upper body strength. We learned to use our feet to get up the vertical face. We tried three more routes that day, one of them rated 5/7. Theresa was always conscious of our safety, always checking and double checking the ropes, our knots. Her vigilance was reassuring.

The day came to an end too soon. Morbid Mound was casting long shadows, and we had a three-hour drive home.

We paused for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Yucca Valley, west of Joshua Tree. While we were waiting for our enchiladas and tacos, Meera glanced at the nubby, plaster walls.

“Hey, Mom,” she said grinning, “I can climb up this now.”

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Budget for Two

Uprising class: 70.00

Joshua Tree Inn, 1 night, with AAA discount: 98.10

Bag lunches, 2 days: 25.55

Thai dinner, plus tip: 22.37

First Ascent guiding: 190.00

Shoes rental: 12.00

Dinner, Edchadas: 16.11

Gasoline: 14.47

FINAL TAB: $448.60

Joshua Tree Inn, P.O. 340, Joshua Tree, 92252; telephone (800) 366-1444; Uprising, 1500 S. Gene Autry Trail, Palm Springs 92264; tel. (619) 320-6630. First Ascent, P.O. Box 325, Joshua Tree, CA 92252; tel. (800) 325-5462.