There was no local climbing gym with a bouldering area to stretch in and spray everyone’s ears off about how your project was going down “next try.” And there was no Google Maps to lead you to the nearest Whole Foods, which would have been in Palo Alto, California, 1,110 miles away. There were no decent laptops to play games or work on (and besides, with no email, who would you send the work to anyway?). There were no tablets to download movies onto or Air Buds to listen to them with. There were no smartphones, no internet, and no Wi-Fi hotspots. There were no Sprinter vans with deluxe, sunlit interiors, perfect for listening to Eat Pray Love on audio and taking thirst-trap thong-underwear selfies-if you were lucky, you had a Vanagon that broke down every five miles or a hot, windowless Toyota cargo van with a lumpy futon in the back. Rest days back then were endless and boring and horrible-we all dreaded them, even when we were dog-ass tired from climbing. Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!īack in the early 1990s at the start of every rest day at Rifle Mountain Park, Colorado, my friend Charley would turn to me with a straight face and say, “I’ll give you a dollar to hit me in the back of the head with a 2-by-4-I want to be unconscious until bedtime.” Though I never took him up on the offer, fearing I might kill him given my overdeveloped shoulders courtesy of my terrible footwork and Rifle’s steep compression climbing, I could feel the vibe.
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