Over two decades of climbing have left me neurotic about the weather. The first few years of climbing, Brian and I climbed every weekend regardless of weather. But, even then, we checked the forecast constantly during the days between the weekends just to know what we were in for. After a few years of that, we started getting sick of going to the New River Gorge when it rained, finding dry routes to climb on but still getting soaked while we hiked and camped. We kept going though. It was better than staying at home and cleaning the house. And it was the only way we knew how to be. Plus, even when we checked the forecast, the weather remained unpredictable. Maybe it really wouldn’t rain...

For a while, climbing seasons meant fall, spring, summer. We took a little breather in the winter, though on some nice days we would still try to get on rock, frozen fingers and toes be damned. As the years went by, climbing seasons became more than just fall, winter, spring and summer. Whole chapters in my life became different climbing seasons. When we had babies, I thought climbing would end for me indefinitely. But it didn’t. I could not give it up even in that new season of life. So far, life has not taken away any of my climbing seasons. Not pregnancy. Not life with a newborn. Not injury. These times in my life just became a season of climbing inside, climbing with new and different purpose, climbing for sanity, climbing for rehabilitation and healing. And these seasons of only climbing inside taught me something. They taught me that I love climbing no matter what, no matter when, and mostly no matter where. If I could only climb inside for the rest of my life, so be it. And this, even in the days before ASCEND showed up on the radar.

Climbing seasons change all the time with kids in the mix. The Season of Newborns: we were too afraid to take them outside too young. The Season of Toddlers: we took them outside knowing we wouldn't be out long when naps couldn't be had, and we wondered if we were crazy for even trying. We always had to find friends who were willing to join us. The Season of Big Kids was bliss, for a while. We chose to homeschool in part so we could travel and climb any time of the year. So while the happy parents climbed and took turns hovering around them to fend off danger and wild beasts in places like Hueco Tanks, TX, Maple Canyon, UT, and the New River Gorge, WV, the kids played in the dirt. They loved going outside all the time and camping. They actually asked to go sometimes. We climbed outside a lot during this season. Then came the Season of the Tween. It was a season that seemed to me to come a little too early, when our oldest turned nine. Should he really be getting an attitude that young? This was the season when our strong-willed kiddo hated climbing and thought it was stupid. It was a season of forced This-Is-What-We-Do-As-A-Family! climbing. It was a season of Who-Could-Hate-This-Sport!-You're-Crazy! climbing. It was almost a season to end all seasons of climbing outside forever for all of us. There was great turmoil. Currently, we await our now 14-year-old going to high school in a few weeks. The season of homeschooling has come to an end. We are confined to taking climbing trips in the summer. Who knows what will come of this season?

As our kids grow older, and, as we get older too, we move in and out of these types of seasons. Inside climbing, though, has always been there, and I can go by myself. When I'm feeling down about not having time to go climbing outside, or I start to think that climbing outside is the only real climbing, I have to remind myself of something: it's just a season. When it passes, the outdoors will be there waiting for me. This love that I have of my body and mind melded in movement will have to take precedence, for now, over the love of engaging this movement in nature. For now, plastic will have to do.

And it’s not just parents who experience wild changes in their seasons of climbing: everyone does, if they stick with it long enough. There will be seasons of injury, illness, busy-ness; seasons when Real Life intrudes on Climbing Life; seasons when family or friends who don’t climb need to take priority; seasons of work taking front and center.  In those seasons, we just need to think, “Bring on the plastic. I'm off to ASCEND.” There, it doesn’t matter what the weather’s like outside. In fact, Ascend is so good and beautiful in its own way (read: air conditioning; read: short drive from my house), I find myself in danger of choosing to go there even when we have the opportunity to go outside to climb. But no matter what, I will always be checking the forecast.

What climbing season are you in?

Jen Hemphill

Photo credit goes to Jen Hemphill, Brian Janaszek, Chaz Ott