When she looked for her first handhold, she spotted a patch of white—chalk from previous climbers. She had chosen correctly.

Lila had no cadence to her climb. She pressed her chest into the stone and made slow yet deliberate moves. She had never gone out for sports in high school, but she could keep up with the best of them in her PE classes. Still, this climb was putting her to the test, and she hadn’t gone more than thirty feet.

Andi called out encouragement, things like “Rely on your feet!” and “Your legs are stronger than your arms!” Lila looked for the chalk remains of those who had climbed before her, and even when the hold seemed too small, she put her faith in the chalk—her yellow brick road to the top.

A little over halfway, she came to a ledge where she could rest. It was the first time she’d had a chance to look down, and when she did, her stomach turned to jelly. Lila had never been afraid of heights, but she had never clung to the side of a cliff sixty feet off the ground before. Her lungs began to heave, pumping more breath through than she needed, making her dizzy.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “What am I doing? This is stupid.”

“What’d you say?” Andi called up.

“I’m dizzy. I don’t think…”

“Breathe like you’re standing on the ground. It’s the same air up there as down here.”

“You sure about that? It seems thin.”

“Take a moment. Look around. Find your next hold. Focus on the climb.”

Next to her, Lila could see chalk on both sides of a crevice. She tried to figure out how those two smudges could possibly work together.

“You’re going to have to do a lay-back,” Andi hollered.

“A what?”

“That edge of rock nearest to you is called a flake. Grip it like you want to pull it toward you. Then put a foot on the wall on the other side of the gap. Pull yourself toward the wall with your hands while pushing away with your legs. The tension will let you walk up the wall to that next hold.”

“I can’t…I—”

“Grip the flake!”

Lila put her hands where the chalk dictated. Then she put one foot on the chalk smear beyond.

“Once you start the maneuver, don’t hesitate,” Andi yelled. “If you stall, you’ll drain out. Just three steps and you can rest on that ledge above you.”

Lila would have stopped there, demanded to be lowered back to the ground, had Andi not seemed so certain that Lila would make it to that next ledge.

Lila patted her hands with chalk, and then dusted the soles of her shoes in case they had gotten damp along the way. She gripped the edge of the flake with both hands, took a calming breath, and pressed her foot into the wall.

Just like Andi promised, the tension lifted her off the tiny ledge. She slipped one hand higher along the flake and took another step. A third step took her to where the next hold was within reach. Her fingers shook with exhaustion as she swung her left leg up to the next ledge and pulled herself onto the eight-inch shelf.