Nathanael Brookshire, 22, of Santa Maria has loved rock climbing for as long as he can remember—from climbing synthetic walls at carnivals as a kid to bouldering local destinations like Bishop Peak as an adult.
“There’s plenty of great bouldering on the Central Coast if you know where to look,” Brookshire told the Sun. “The mountains above Santa Barbara and the SLO peaks are a mainstay.”
The Central Coast has plenty of gyms to climb at as well, he added. Brookshire goes to The Pad in Santa Maria at least twice a week. But the first rock climbing gym Brookshire joined was Crux Climbing Center in SLO a few years ago, he said.
Brookshire was a student at Cal Poly at the time he joined his first gym, he explained.
“If I’m being honest, I was absolutely terrified the first time I went,” Brookshire said. “But there’s something addictive about that rush. Rock climbing is as mental as it is physical.”
Brookshire held on to that feeling all throughout college. He graduated in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in business Administration. Now, Brookshire works full time at Really Right Stuff in SLO as a marketing specialist.
Although he still visits Crux, Brookshire spends most of his climbing time at The Pad now, he said. The two types of climbing he currently does are bouldering and sport climbing.
“Bouldering is done without ropes. I mainly boulder, but I’m still coming into my own for sport climbing,” he said. “I’m trying to get on the ropes a lot more often.”
As for climbing on location, Brookshire has frequented Darwin Falls near Death Valley and Pinnacles National Park on more than one occasion.
But one of Brookshire’s most unshakable memories is of climbing Bishop Peak one cold windy afternoon in November.
“I was working on a route and I had fallen off more than a dozen times. Each time I reached and put weight on my left foot, I shifted too far and slipped off the rock,” he said. “In a moment of fear and trust, I pushed off and upward with a fully committed dyno. After a couple more quick moves, I was at the top.”
Brookshire’s advice for new and aspiring rock climbers is to “just go for it.”
“Odds are, you’ll be absolutely terrible. But that’s part of the fun,” he said. “Rock climbing is about challenging yourself. As you climb more and more, you will get better and you’ll be astounded by the progress you make.”
This article appears in Jun 1-8, 2017.