Why I climb

Climbing is my therapy, physical and otherwise. Although one might make the case that some of my aches and pains are actually caused by climbing, everything works better when I climb. If I have to go for a couple of weeks without climbing I get twinges. My forearm tendons hurt, my neck aches, my rotator cuff twinges.
Climbing clears out my mental cobwebs. I can head out for a day of climbing with doubts and tensions, but I inevitably end with clarity and peace, and a pleasant physical glow of exhaustion.
Climbing has introduced me to some of my dearest friends. Climbers tend toward the intellectual; the quiet sort who craves competition with the self rather than the crowd. Deep waters.
Climbing is my yoga, my meditation. Climbing is a mental and physical training, a way of stretching the limits of both, of learning new things about yourself and how much you are really capable of.
I need climbing.