I was about halfway up the cliff when the fear stopped me cold. I had been doing just fine until I reached this overhang. My right foot was on the edge of a wide crack in the rock; my left foot was lower, resting on a tiny nodule of stone; my hands were flat against the granite wall. Up to this point handholds and footholds had been plentiful and I’d been climbing fairly quickly, thinking fast, letting momentum take me from one move into the next. But now, about 50 feet up from the base of the cliff, I was stuck. I stood there looking for my next move and saw nothing within reach.
     Craig, the Outward Bound instructor down there on the ground, couldn’t know precisely what I was seeing; he couldn’t know on which small bumps in the rock my eyes fell, but he was familiar with the shelf that was blocking my path and the routes across it. He also knew something I didn’t: he knew the nature of the decision I was going to have to make to finish this climb.
     The shelf was several feet above my head; it stuck out of the rock like a skewed mantelpiece, wider on the left, protruding further from the cliff-face on that side. I’d have to cover less distance to get over the top if I chose the right side, but I saw nothing above the shelf except smooth rock, nothing to grab hold of, nothing to keep me up there. I might be able to push myself over the right side from where I stood, but then I’d be scratching frantically for handholds before falling backward into space. (I could see myself falling when I looked up there.) If I went to the left, the initial effort would have to be greater, but I could see potential handholds above the shelf on that side; if I could get onto the top of it, I might be able to stand there for a moment and grab something.