DAY 325: The summer before I left for this trip, my friends (and Blogreaders) Cheryl and da Rzz had started to get into indoor rock climbing, going practically every weekend to an indoor rock gym in northern New Jersey, somewhere between an industrial factory and a mafia safe house. They had invited me several times to join them so that I too could experience the hard-earned endorphin rushes of accomplishment after reaching the top of a completely fabricated rock face with colorful fake rock holds bolted up to them.

I didn't really get too into their newfound hobby -- mainly because I didn't want to get hooked right before leaving the country for sixteen months (or until money runs out, whichever comes first), and besides, rock climbing used up every muscle in my body and it made me feel like I had been run over by an eighteen-wheeler for the next couple of days. Don't get me wrong, I liked going rock climbing with them, especially the part when we descended down the wall, took off our harnesses and went down the road to the Tex-Mex place down the road to get some beer and sizzling fajitas.

ONE OF THE MANY THINGS TO DO in and around the Yangshou area is (you guessed it) rock climbing. With the fair amount of tourists in Guilin and Yangshou and a virtually endless amount of surrounding limestone rock mounds in the Guangxi province, the rock-climbing scene was inevitable. A few climbing companies had sprouted in Yangshou over the years and choosing one was a no brainer for me; I booked an excursion with the one whose tagline was "the name you can trust": Spider Man Climbing, found on a busy street off the main drag across from the Hotel California. The proprietor of the company was a local guy named Paul who had earned the nickname "Spider-Man" in the local rock climbing community for his speedy ascents up rock faces like a certain comic book superhero.

I met Paul and three other clients at the Spider Man Climbing office -- the one with the toy Spider-Man doll in the window -- and we took a van ten minutes away to Jiu Ping Shan, otherwise known as the Wine Bottle Crag, named for the wine bottle shape on one of its peaks. The Wine Bottle Crag wasn't as crowded as some of the other climbing sites used by the other companies -- in fact, when we got there, a previous group was just getting out of there, leaving us the whole area to ourselves. A shady-looking local loitered around soon after, eyeing our bags, but Paul paid him off and he left.

I WAS THE ONLY MALE CLIENT in the group of four, not that that gave me any physical advantage over the three female Chinese clients. As I learned in that summer of 2003 before I left the States, girls in the rock-climbing scene, can -- and often do -- kick my ass. I was the heaviest of the clients though, plus I had some indoor experience, which was probably why Paul picked me to harness up so that I could belay him as he free-climbed up the rock face to install the guide safety rope. Just as his nickname implied, he climbed on up like it was no big deal, like that superhero bitten by a radioactive spider, and latched the rope to pre-existing rings installed into the mountain. He rappelled down (picture above) and prepared to belay me. I curled my toes and put on my climbing shoes and stood at the base for my first climb outside of a rock gym.

The first of two different trails was about as high as a six story building up a relatively easy section of the rock wall -- I heard it classified as a 5.8, whatever that is -- with its big nooks and crannies that made it easy as climbing up a monstrous stale English muffin standing on its side. That's not to say the ascent wasn't simple for a guy like me who didn't have exactly a superhero physique like Paul the Chinese Spider-Man. (My physique was starting to look like I had been bitten by a radioactive walrus.) Rock climbing involves every ounce of energy in every muscle in your body -- even ones you didn't even know you had -- so that you can lift your body higher and higher to new levels and avoid the embarrassment of being called a "girl" -- by a bunch of girls who are most likely better than you.

The one thing I enjoyed about real outdoor climbing was that whenever you found a place to grab onto, you could use it -- any nook or cranny was fair play. I often hated the rules in the indoor rock gym where you had to reach out and grab specific holds on your designated trail, regardless if an easier one was closer to you. In the real world, anything goes, as long as it prevents you from falling off and pulling a Wile E. Coyote.

I climbed as best I could and managed to make it up to the top of my guide rope with all the energy in my body. Looking down from the top was a great feeling because it's only at those perfect times that you realize how high you had climbed with your own four limbs, and it's such a feeling of accomplishment. Feeling of accomplishment in the mind that is, but not in the body. I rappelled on down, bouncing down the wall with my feet to the wall and landing back on earth. My forearms were sore and tight and I couldn't make a fist. "I can't even take off my shoes," I whined, trying to get my climber shoes off.

The three other girls, Karen (from Shanghai), Angel and Cherry (from Chongqing) went after me one at a time. While Angel and Karen could only climb about two-thirds of the way up before getting too discouraged to go on, it was Cherry who, without any previous climbing experience, zipped up like a Chinese Spider-Woman. Apparently some people just have a natural knack for climbing, and everyone applauded when she made it to the top in a much faster time than me.

I BELAYED PAUL AGAIN when he used his superhuman talent to climb higher than the first rope to set up our second one, a class 5.9 (whatever that means) on a section of the wall without so many nooks and crannies. The surface was like sharp coral that at times just went straight up, without many places to grab onto. I harnessed up, tied in and started the second climb -- a much more difficult one than the one before. I climbed up to an area where I didn't know which way to go because I couldn't find a hold.

"Okay, left," Paul directed me from below.

"Left?" I beared left. "Okay now what?"

"Okay, just go up," he said. Just go up? In front of me was a flat wall with hardly anything to hold on to.

"It's okay take a rest."

Rock climbing is amazing; it teaches you that if there's a will there's a way, that if you just wait and think, a solution usually presents itself. The key is not to give up. As much as I wanted to give up right then and there, with my arms like putty and my inability to produce a fist, I stuck to it, and amazed myself that, given time, I managed to make it up myself. I rewarded myself at the top with a couple of photos of myself in action poses.

OUR GROUP WAS SOON JOINED by another group from another company (not named after a superhero) that set up a line near ours. "Which way to I go?" came the British-voice of a girl who had started her ascent and didn't know where to grab onto next.

"Up," her guide at the base joked.

"I bet you say that all the time," I said to him. He smiled.

Meanwhile back on our ropes, Cherry the Spider-Woman zipped up the second rope with ease. Karen and Angel attempted the first climb again and had finally succeeded. The three of them had came down to earth with similar expressions of tired, but hard-earned happiness and it was clear that rock climbing doesn't just get you all buff, it makes you feel good inside too.

"Do you want to climb again?" Paul asked me.

"I know if I try again and I don't make it, I'll just be pissed off," I told him. "Let's end on a high note."

At the end of the day, I came out with a new persective on rock climbing. Rock climbing definitely has its redeeming qualities, not only physically but also mentally. And even outdoors in the Chinese countryside, it comes with beer and sizzling fajitas right afterwards.

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