Between trust and fear

And announcing an adventure I'd love for you to join me on

In this issue:
A rumination on fear

An invitation to an adventure

Links

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I trace my fear of heights to bridges in the Florida Keys. We drove there from Michigan when I was in first grade. My parents, three brothers and I were in a van pulling a trailer. In my perhaps slightly inaccurate memory, semi-trailers going 475 mph in the other direction missed us by less than an inch.

            For hours and hours and hours …

            … And hours and hours and hours …

            … I was sure one of them was going to hit us and send us hurtling into the sea.

            That evolved into a general fear of heights. For the next 20-plus years, I co-existed with that fear because I rarely had to face it. I almost never flew. I white-knuckled on bridges, never even glancing over the edge, but that was always over soon enough.

            Starting in the early 2000s, my job required constant travel, and flying became a nightmare. I frequently thought, right before getting on a plane, I’m just going to leave the airport, not get on this plane, then this plane is going to crash, and this fear will have saved me. I always got on the plane, and it never crashed, mostly, I believe, because I have an incredible ability to keep planes aloft by squeezing the armrest and digging my toes into the floorboard.

            It is an unfortunate quirk of human memory that I can’t recall any of the hundreds of normal flights I’ve taken but can recount in great detail the time the plane I was in dropped so fast that I hit my head on the overhead bin or the time we were seconds from touch down during a blizzard when the airport suddenly shut off its runway lights, we aborted the landing and found another airport 30 miles away.

            Eventually I became OK with flying, mostly because freaking myself out at every gate in every airport in the country was exhausting. I still don’t like flying in small planes. Every air pocket sends my stomach into convulsions, and every quick twitch flick of the yoke shoots my heart rate into the stratosphere.

            In the last few years, I have become an adventure writer, and I’ve had to confront my fear of heights anew. From zip lining to tree climbing to ice climbing, rock climbing and more, I have faced that fear repeatedly. I have yet conquer it. But I’m getting there.

            I had an epiphany while on an ice-climbing assignment in Ouray, Colorado, two years ago. I had ropes wrapped over my shoulder, a helmet on my head and crampons on my feet. We arrived at the climbing area. Imagine a sheer cliff face with a spigot on top. Someone turned on the spigot, creating, essentially, a waterfall. The waterfall froze into a wall of ice. And under the tutelage of a guide, my friend Andy and I were going to climb up it.

            As I looked up, I was excited not to be afraid … and a little confused. It was like part of me was missing. As the guide tied me in (and in the weeks to come), I tried to sort through why I wasn’t freaking out. I realized I had misidentified the fear all along. I was not afraid of heights so much as I didn’t trust the system that was supposed to prevent me from falling.

            A combination of experience and this particular ice-climbing guide’s explanation of the rope/carabiner/belay system allowed me to understand it in a way that I trusted it. I scaled the ice wall three times without hesitation.

            Since then, I’ve been strapped into numerous ropes systems and trusted them in situations that normally would have induced fear … except once.

            Standing on the edge of a cliff during a via ferrata adventure near Rocky Mountain National Park last summer, my guide and I planned to rappel down. But every time the guide threw the ropes down from the top, wind blew them back onto the cliff face. With every unsuccessful throw, my heart rate, already elevated, inched higher.

            Finally, I told him to forget it, I’d rather walk down. I didn’t trust that I could be safe in such high wind. I don’t know if that was fear or wisdom. A little of both, I guess.

You’re invited to The 50-50-50 Adventure

            I turn 50 in October, and to celebrate, I am planning an adventure in which I will hike 50 miles, bike 50 miles and canoe 50 miles all in one epic trip. Want to join me?

          The 50-50-50 Adventure will be the inaugural trip of an adventure travel business my friend John (F3: Sheldon) and I are launching. That’s us below during a kayaking trip on the Mississippi River. We have planned and executed several trips together and are passionate about sharing our love for adventure. We are thrilled to announce 50-50-50 and excited to invite you to join us. The trip will be in southern Wisconsin and run September 15-September 19. If you’re interested, email me at mcrossman98@gmail.com.

Links

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Twitter: @MattCrossman_

Recent travel/adventure stories:
Good assignments require me to either a) sign a waiver b) use carabiners or c) wear a helmet, and the very best require all three. I had one such assignment last summer … with my daughters. Signing the waivers, clipping the carabiners, strapping on the helmets for them was so much harder.

Pro tip: If your 14-year-old daughter asks to road trip with you, you say yes. We went to Serpent Mounds (among other places), one of the most serene, thought-provoking and mystical places I’ve ever been.

What I learned when I spent three days kayaking the river of delights—the mysterious, foreboding, enormous Mississippi River. The aforementioned Sheldon was on this trip with me. He took the pictures in the story. This was one of many trips we’ve taken together.

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