Decking?

I learned first-hand what two little bits of climbing jargon mean when I was at the Red River Gorge a couple of weeks ago: “decking,” and “hanging the draws.” I already knew what these words mean, but at the Red, I learned what they mean.

Let’s start with decking.  If you’re not a climber: “decking” is the term used for falling to the ground when lead climbing.  So now you know how this story is going to end. (You also might want to read my last post, the one with the stick figures).

Then again, here I am telling the story, so you know it wasn’t too bad.  So really?  Decking?  Yeah, I guess that’s the point.

Looking up the rock face I was about to climb, I saw a heavily chalked area full of little pockets, right around the second bolt.  At the Red, we learned that you can’t necessarily “follow the chalk highway:”  chalky hands often slap all over an area without finding a good hold.  The remaining white dust is easily mistaken for crumbs marking a trail.  When I reached into this particular chalk mark of doom, I fiddled around for a couple of minutes, feeling for a solid stance to hang my quickdraw on the bolt to the right.  I found a sharp pocket to squeeze 2 left fingers into, and a desperately tiny rift to edge onto with my right toe.  I wagged my left foot around, but found nothing solid to jam it onto.  “Breathe, Parrish!” my belayer Amber reminded me, and I did: in…

…and whwhwhwhwhfffff…

Finally I flagged my left foot out tentatively, balancing long enough to hang the draw.  Clawing the pocket with my left fingers, I reached down with my right hand and pulled the rope, eyes squinting at the draw I had just hung.  

Then, once I’d pulled an arm’s length of rope out, something blew, and I went down.  20 or 30 feet.  I brushed Amber’s helmet with my hip and landed squarely on a boulder.

Amber and I looked at each other, wide-eyed.  “Whoa,” I said flatly, cutting the still air between us.  “So, that was not a solid clipping stance,” and sat down on the rock.

“Dude, are you ok?” Amber asked, alarm masked behind a thick west Texas accent.

“Yeah, I’m fine.  Good catch!”

“Ha! Thanks!  I mean, you sure you’re ok?  You just decked.”

I waited a second before responding.  “No I didn’t!  I didn’t deck…I just landed on the ground.  On my feet. That’s not decking!” I had always imagined decking to be a much messier situation, with lots of crunching and cracking and screaming and sirens.  “Dude, you kept me from decking!” And I reached out my hand to meet Amber’s in a fist bump.  (Amber and I both have a lot of guy friends, and big brothers).

“I mean, I could tell you were coming down.  You were totally shaking.  I ducked.  I kinda broke your fall too…” She tapped her helmet with the palm of her hand, and I remembered brushing it with my hip.

“Ha! You totally did!  Dude, are you ok?!  I just landed on your head!”

“Yeah, I’m fine!” she laughed.  “Wow.  Girl, you just decked.”

I sat down on the rock, and draped my elbows over my knees.  Turning my palms up, I shook my head at my flaking, caloused hands, and watched them quiver a bit.  Then I looked up at Amber.  I remembered that moment when I was standing at the bolt, fingers clutching a pocket, right toe edging on a hairline, left foot poised precariously.  Looking at her face now, I could imagine her at that same instant, head and eyebrows raised at attention, knees bent like a tennis player awaiting a serve.  With quick hands she had fed out slack as I was pulling, but not so much that she couldn’t back up, duck, and pull to keep me from crunching and cracking.

“Yeah, I guess I did deck.  But girl, good catch.  That could have been really bad…”

I don’t remember if I even said “thank you.”