Nicole Gebriel (she/her)
Scholarship Recipient | 2022 Flash Foxy Climbing Festival - Bishop
Photo by Irene Yee (@ladylockoff)
Attending Flash Foxy’s 2022 Climbing Festival on scholarship was an honor. In addition to climbing with an incredibly diverse and welcoming community, I got the vocabulary needed to explain, share, and honor my experiences as a queer, Black climber with an invisible disability. This experience helped me find my voice in a sport that often sidelines people like me.
One of the weekend's highlights was participating in Azissa Singh’s BIPOC Intro to Trad Climbing Clinic. In addition to getting the opportunity to spend two days trad climbing, the ground school lessons on both days focused on risk management and the importance of trusting your gear and body put me on a path toward making peace with my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. This debilitating connective tissue disorder took away my ability to participate in many of my favorite sports. Being forced out of running and soccer, activities that helped me find community and manage day-to-day stress, left me feeling incredibly fragile and isolated. Getting involved in the climbing community helped and gave me a low-impact way to be active, but I struggled to explain why I balked when pushed out of my comfort zone to “get better.” These ground school lessons gave me the tools to define my levels of “acceptable risk better,” how to find spaces that let me test these limits, and the value of doing so at my own pace.
Photo by Irene Yee (@ladylockoff)
I firmly believe that learning to trad climb and experiencing this mindset shift without the support of both Singh and other participants would not have been possible. For the first time in any climbing clinic, I was not afraid to say I was scared or feeling out of my depth. Instead of pushing me aside in favor of “superstars,” people came together to make sure I felt supported. They cheered me on when I was on the wall. They gave me the chance to test belay devices and walked me through the pros and cons of each without judging me for never seeing some of them before. No one teased me for bailing on “easy” climbs or falling. Instead, I was encouraged to try and try again until I made it to the top.
I left Bishop excited to get back into the gym. Not just because I learned a new skill I wanted to practice or made new friends, but because I finally felt like I had a community. For the first time, I felt like I found people who cheered for our successes, encouraged our vulnerability, and guided us through challenges. I left knowing I could reach out to the folks I spent the weekend with for training tips, gear insights, or general advice in the future. I found a home in the Flash Foxy community. A home that values the unique perspectives each person, no matter their gender, race, age, or ability brings to the craig. I strongly encourage anyone who ever felt like an outsider outdoors to attend one of these events because you might finally understand what “outdoors for all” really means.
