Having recently read a story in the New York Times about the resurgence of roller blading acrobatics, I wanted to share a personal tale about the roller blading experience of a 45-year-old fellow, so long ago, while living abroad in Norway, so far away.

Norway, a remarkably beautiful country, and here I stand again at the bottom of a medium steep road, contemplating beauty. A left turn on a tiny dead-end road runs 50 yards to where I lived for three years with a wonderful Norwegian family in their beautiful chalet. A deep forest lay in wait if I continued past the chalet. To the right it was a 20-yard walk to the waters of the fjord, passing along a grassy area and then stepping among some large rocks. There is a delightful view from the chalet porch looking towards the fjord. Our home is on the outskirts of Stavanger, a beautiful city in the South of Norway. It’s a fifteen-minute drive up the hill and then along the main two-lane road leading into Stavanger. In summer, cruise ships abound in Stavanger harbor. Walks in the hilly traffic free shopping zone provide wonderful views of the North Sea and waters all around as well as terrific cafes, restaurants and museums. The air is stunningly clean and tasty. The people are helpful, friendly and it’s clear that their reputation for enjoying the out of doors and being fit is accurate. Stavanger is located in proximity to the mighty fjord country containing some of the most awesome scenery in the world.

But I digress. We are plunging into the story of a risk-taking 45-year-old schoolteacher who doesn’t know better. I should simply enjoy the scenery and leave the rollerblading to the kids.

One day, in a paroxysm of boldness and over-confidence, I decide to try walking to the top of the steep hill on the asphalt road with my roller blades in hand and tennis shoes on my feet. Nice houses to each side of the road. Very little traffic except for locals in this residential area. Some cars parked here and there along the side of the two-lane road. At the bottom of the road are two large boulders to prevent cars from slip – sliding farther than the bottom of the road in the winter snows. They’d end up going across a grass and dirt area and into the waters of the fjord. Or they’d hit a tree if they veered sideways.

I put on my roller blades as I sit down on the curb at the top of the hill which is about 400 yards long to the bottom. My thinking is clear. I want to point my blades down the hill and work on quick, strong turns to control speed. This is part of practicing, simulating skiing. Enjoying the feel of the swaying turns and also learning to master my blades, as in master coming to a stop and master controlling speed. My blades are laced up. I am confident. Looking forward to this. No car is coming from behind nor is any car coming uphill.

I point my blades downhill. Gravity now pays me a visit whilst teaching me a mighty lesson. Instantly I am bolting forward on the blades at a speed not anticipated to occur so immediately, as in within five seconds. I sense that I am hurtling downhill rather than gradually picking up speed. This is asphalt not snow. My mind races; so do the roller blades, faster. I begin to wonder if these blades have a mind of their own. It is all I can do to maintain balance. Being of sound mind and awareness – I panic. I put pressure on my right foot blade to try to make a ski-like turn to reduce speed. If I can repeat several big round turns, I can slow down and even come to a stop. Forget it. The attempt leads to a slight turn but I already am going far too fast to risk putting extremely strong, necessary force into the blade to force a turn. I am picking up speed. I feel as if I am traveling downhill like a racer in a downhill ski race at 60 mph. I try doing small gentle turns but it has no effect on the speed. Are my blades enjoying themselves? I am not.

Now thoughts of plunging onto asphalt and skidding across it skim through my mind only to be eliminated by worse thoughts as I am swaying to and fro, forwards and backwards, trying desperately to maintain my balance instead of falling backwards onto my back and head. I am not wearing a helmet. My only safety apparatus are wrist protectors.

All of this is happening within about 90 seconds as my roller wheels enjoy speeding their way towards the bottom and the boulders.

In my panic I realize I must resort to finding a way to fall whilst causing minimum injury. Time is running out. The boulders are rushing up at me. It seems as if they are reaching out with arms wide. If I miss them, I shall hit the dirt and immediately do a face plant into the ground. At the last instant, I choose, as my inglorious escape, to make a mild push towards the side of the road and into the bushes, including thorn bushes just as I reach the bottom. I throw myself down sideways towards the bushes and roll through a couple of them as I am out of control. I come to a stop suspended halfway off the ground in the midst of the groping branches. Is all intact? This is my thought. Indeed, scratched but intact. Relief swirls across my essence, relief that I did not churn across the asphalt or plant my face into the ground, or break my neck in a backwards fall. Now there arrives a tidal wave of humiliation. It’s mingled with self-deprecation and shame for my stupidity.

I manage to roll out of the shrubbery and lie on my side. I do not get up. I do not arise. No way, not on the roller blades.

I lie on my side and remove each of the blades. I have my shoes in a small back pack. I have assessed the scene and have noted that no spectator seemed to have taken in my Olympic performance. This is a relief. Now I am pleased to limp in my tennis shoes along the narrow access road to my wonderful rooms in the wonderful chalet at Hafrsfjord. I am a lucky fellow to be there. Luckier still to be there with the incredible , delightful family with whom I reside. I count my “lucky stars,” lucky to be alive.

I also put my roller blades into the storage closet.

They remain there for the rest of my years in Norway.

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Breathtaking. Mind-boggling. I am reading about Alex Honnold’s free climb of El Capitan in Yosemite but my mind cannot gain a firm foothold on what Alex does and how he ticks. However, reading the story of his El Cap climb rekindled memories of my first experience dipping my toes into the dimensions of what he does. Welcome to a story set among the magnificent beauty and outdoor spirited, playful people of the Tirol, Austria. I first saw images of Innsbruck on television from the 1976 Winter Olympic Games. Thus, was planted the seed of passion.

While spending a few summers in Innsbruck, I was fortunate to become buddies with some of my professors there. Through them, I was introduced to some joyful, young, local climbers. (As well as being introduced to far too much local schnapps!) I then got to do my best to keep from peeing my pants when these climbers took me along on a few “hikes”/ climbs. These are called “klettersteig” in Austria. It means they are not necessarily vertical climbs but are also horizontal along ledges (4 inches or 3 feet wide) with, in many places, metal cables drilled into the mountain side for you to clamp your climbing belt onto for safety. They took me to t beautiful, fantastic, scenic views amid wondrous areas. I am forever grateful that they tolerated me as the silly newbie. I was extremely keen. This must have helped. Or it provided them plenty of laughs.

We took cable cars up halfway and then had to do plenty of climbing and scrambling up and up along steep crags usually with wide footholds. We inched our way along the mini-ledges.

One day is particularly memorable…. We had climbed up and up there in the Karwendel Range above Innsbruck. We paused to enjoy great views down to the city 7,000 feet below. Then we went up and over a crag to the side away from the city to where nothing but deep valleys and mighty snowcapped mountains stood before us as far as one could see. At this point we proceeded along a narrow ledge. The drop down to the valley below was steep, not vertical but about 75 degrees. It was about 6,000 feet to the valley bottom. My stomach was sick. My brain screamed at me and I froze. But I had asked these dudes to take me along and they had grown to tolerate me from earlier slightly less exposed and frightening climbs so they said yes, come along. I forced myself to stare into the cliff face, not look down! I glanced only at the place to put my boot in the next moment as we slid along this ledge. We were roped in together. I was in the middle of 4 experienced climbers to whom this was a walk in the park. They had no fear of the exposure and height.

As jovial Tiroleans they were joking around as they proceeded but they were also speaking to each other in serious, technical terms. They were encouraging me and telling me that I was roped in with them and entirely safe. On numerous occasions, despite trying not to look down, of course I would look down by accident as I glanced down between my feet and then saw the vertical drop! My bowels wanted to empty. I wanted to not move ever again.

We stopped every couple of minutes to stare at the wonderful panorama. After we had been edging along for about 20 minutes the guy in front of me, let’s call him Anton, suddenly became alarmed as he looked back at me – he told me “stop, don’t move !” He inched back along the edge closer to me and fiddled with my climbing belt. Then he said, “Oh my, your climbing belt was unhooked from our safety line somehow and so you had no safety if you slipped.” Argh. This precipitated a huge moment of enlightenment as I then instinctively took a good look at the precipitous drop of 6,000 feet down and imagined having slipped and how I would have been thinking, in the first instant, that I was perfectly safe and attached to those guys…. And then my confused mind would have briefly realized I was hurtling off the side looking up at them above just before meeting some jutting rocks. The next reaction was to then feel a surge of far less fear! This was due to the knowledge that I now realized how supremely safe it felt to be firmly attached. Despite numerous panic attacks for the next hours I made it all the way with these guys. What choice did I have? No retreating on my own. They were patient with me during my frozen moments of “meditation” to calm down.

At the end I was exultant! There was an overwhelming, deep sense of a truly significant life moment – a breakthrough. A humbling new perspective on self, world, life.

Alex Honnold speaks of feeling only peace and tranquility as he chills his way vertically upward without safety devices. For this more vertigo prone athlete, peace and tranquility arrived back at the bottom, at Innsbruck, in a chair at a café’ next to the glorious, rushing Inn River whilst filled with gratitude to my fun, tolerant Tyrolean guides.

The post Above Innsbruck: Climbing Karwendel appeared first on Traveling Archive.