Freeway Enlightenment

10/10/23

Englewood, CO

The day has finally come on this trip. The day where I grow tired enough from waiting for climbing partners that I resort to free soloing.

Without going into much detail, I spent the morning overwhelmed by having to decide between several different activities for the day, none of which really appealed to me. I sat on a lawn chair, soaking in the morning sun, putting off the decision as long as I could, when I realized that if I didn’t move, I could pass the whole day in this state. Or, I wondered, how long could I sit here before I forced myself to do something. And by then it might be too late, and my unsatisfactory list of options would be smaller.

So I made a decision, and tried to ignore the part of my brain that was trying to tell me that it was a bad decision.

For no real reason that I can point to, I was rapidly growing more and more frustrated. To the point where, when I reached my destination and saw that there is absolutely no free parking in Boulder, CO, and that all of the fees are paid through a website on your phone, I began cursing out loud to myself. To make it worse, the website asked for a zone number, completely missing from any of the signs I could find, and my phone was hardly working in the first place.

Now, as you probably know my thoughts on the cost of parking when recreating outdoors, you can understand my frustration. I left a note with four dollars on my windshield and hoped for the best.

This whole time, all I wanted to do was drive off a cliff, but I kept telling myself that I just needed to climb, and I’d feel better after that. After some more needlessly confusing route finding, I found myself at the base of Freeway (5.4) on the second Flatiron. Six pitches of incredibly fun climbing. Slabby with amazing jugs. I had to stop several times for fear management, water, and asking for directions. Luckily there were about 20 other people soloing the route at the same time.

Throughout the entire climb, I had exactly three thoughts:

• Select lyrics from the last song I was listening to before turning off the car (Tell Me Your Name Again)

• A lesson from Alex Honnold about free soloing, to think about the next move and nothing else about the route

• If I’m getting any more tan, which was quickly filed away under “doesn’t matter right now”

After about an hour of climbing, I reached the end of the route. I topped out, directly onto the hiking trail that lead back down to the base, and I felt considerably better. Having a clearer sense of what I wanted to do with my life (mostly in the short term, but somewhat in the long term).

The following is a series of photos from the rest of the day: