Elegance

Arapiles: I met the most inspiring woman yesterday. 

She must have been near her seventies, still climbing AUS 22/YDS 5.11a (for the non-climbers out there: sound skill and strength are both required). 

She seconded her leader up to a shaded nook aptly called Oasis, 215 ft up the wall, where my partner and I ate lunch mid-route under a massive boulder perched on the cliff. We were moving slowly: I'm coming off injury and my partner was on his first traditional multipitch, still learning to clean gear.

As she finished climbing and joined us on the ledge, I noticed her fingers fold into claws. Paper-like, translucent skin stretched over joints twisted and gnarled with age, and perhaps something else as well. 

She changed over belays and pulled on gloves with deliberate, measured movements. Golden earrings glinted from below her blue helmet as we relaxed, looking south through clear blue skies to the Grampians' silhouette. 

Her demeanor reminded me of Jane Goodall. 

As she cleared her belay, she turned to me. "Thank you for letting us pass," she told me. "Thirty five years ago, I was climbing on the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral in Yosemite, and a party passed me even though I asked them not to. They knocked down a rock. It hit my head, and then my hand. This is what happened:"

She extended her left hand for me to inspect, fingers crushed, twisted and bent, one folded backward, one completely gone. 

"The right side of my body was also paralyzed. But I still climb..."

Almost as an afterthought, she added: "...because I love to."

Then she moved up from the ledge and danced to the top of the route. 

I never learned her name.