The following excerpt comes from the chapter "Fear of Heights" in my forthcoming book of climbing adventure stories tentatively entitled Life on the Edge.

The late afternoon sun slanted across the Garden of the Gods as I rappelled down the west face of Montezuma Tower, a tall, skinny fin ascended by a classic route up its north ridge. My partner, already on the ground, had gone to retrieve the packs at the ridge base. Below the west face, I pulled the double rappel ropes and began coiling them. A beer-gutted Texan in a tight western shirt, the plaid kind with pearl button snaps, and a yellow, sweat-stained Caterpillar cap sauntered over and asked, “How ju fellas get yer grappling hook up that mountain?”

I looked at him, the half-coiled red rope hanging from my left hand. “Well sir,” I said seriously, “we don’t use grappling hooks.”

He looked at me with incredulous eyes. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Well then how ju get the rope up then?” An honest, logical question, which required an honest, logical answer.

“Well sir,” I replied. “We climbed the rock, with our hands and feet.”

Rock climbing is a mystery, a complete and total mystery to most of the American public. The average tourist can watch climbers, see the foot and hand techniques, the rope work, the gear, and still not have an elementary grasp of climbing. To flatlanders, those land-locked folks from Kansas, Texas, Missouri, Florida, and Illinois that I encounter at the Garden of the Gods, climbing is a mystery. A complete and total mystery. A group can be standing on the paved foot path that encircles the central Garden zone, watching climbers edging up the vertical sandstone faces, clipping the rope into fixed pitons, anchoring into bolts on tiny ledges, and still not understand how climbing is done, let alone know the answer to that enigmatic question: Why?

How do they get the rope up? That’s the usual question. That’s the central mystery of climbing: How do they (whoever they is) get the rope up? Rather than launch into detailed explanations about ropes and carabiners and leading and belaying, I usually look them straight in the eye, wag my finger, and straight-faced say, “Trained pigeons.” After an incredulous pause they reply, just like the Texan, “No. Really?”