southern crags

The heat in the south is oppressive, despite the afternoon squalls. It’s cooler in the mountain’s shade, and on the wall, where I’m ready to cut my teeth and skin.

The crags of North Wall and Chong Pli in Krabi are a five minute drive from our morning coffee, so it isn’t hard to show up days in a row. I’m (slowly) making sense of the routes. Sometimes spending more time staring up at the rock face than climbing it.

The rock isn’t like the sea or the hills. Where the waves are fickle and oscillate between their desire to humble or play, and the hills undulating and sometimes capricious, the rock is stoic and unchanging. It demands that we be the ones to change and understand the shape it has taken.

So I’m forced to slow down. And in doing so, my mind settles. The things that clog the system lose their form and hold on me. For the half hour I’m on the wall.

And I recognise that this is the real challenge.

Making it stick.