Climbing at Foster Falls

Foster Falls is said to be a climbing heaven in Southeast. It's got all sorts of routes there, great camp sites, and nice view of the falls (as can be seen below). I didn't know it's such a popular sport until I saw dozens of climbers on site with us, middle-aged, young; male, female, all geared up and climbed as they were walking. It all looks so simple and easy, but I was so wrong.

A friend set up a simplest route for me, the first climber, and taught me all the safety instructions, I thought, "well, that's easy, just get hold of some holes with my hands, move up a little bit with my feet, and grab some other holes and move up still, keep doing that, I should be on top nice and easy in no more than 5 minutes." But after 5 minutes, I was only 1 meter higher than where I started and couldn't move up any further, besides, I felt no energy in my arms and hands, that's when I realized the difficulty of climbing.

Later they told me that the point in climbing is do NOT use your hands to hold your body on the wall, use your feet, otherwise you could easily be exhausted. Relax your hands every now and then when you are able to stand on your feet. Following that, I managed to finish another route, though with the help of my shoulder, back and face, anything I could think of to keep myself on that rock. It feels so good to conquer something difficult to you. I think that's one of the reasons why so many people love climbing

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