As a climber, you need to know how to rappel. Sometimes you can walk off the back of a mountain or wall, but often you have to rappel back down the route.
So, after several outdoor climbing trips together, my climbing “tribe” decides it’s time, and they take me to an area called Cosumnes River Gorge (CRG), where Mark, one of my climbing mentors, is going to show us newbies how to rappel. I’m jazzed. I have mental images of me gliding easily down a big wall somewhere, one hand controlling my rope, the other waving to the camera. CRG is a beautiful gorge cut by the Cosumnes River, about an hour from Sacramento, Calif. A gigantic jumble of white granite boulders line the river there, creating pools and waterfalls…
