Bouldering On
A guide to getting stuck between a rock and a hard place— on purpose.
BY CARRIE KARNES-FANNIN
My treadmill is developing an attitude. About halfway through yet another cardio session, as sweat seeps through my T-shirt, the soft whoosh of the treadmill’ s belt starts to sound like a sigh. The machine seems to ask,“ Why are we doing this?”
Honestly, I’ m questioning it myself as my mind wanders away from the straight line I’ m trudging under the glare of my gym’ s fluorescent lights. I’ m about ready to climb the walls. I don’ t want to spend another day counting 10,000 steps. I want … a problem.
Good Problems
Problems aren’ t just flat tires, missed work deadlines, and exercise routines that bore you out of your mind. I’ m talking about rock-climbing, where problems refer to sequences of holds that you puzzle out while ascending along an invisible line leading to the top of a wonderfully large rock.
More specifically, I’ m talking about bouldering, a type of climbing where there’ s no ropes, no harnesses, and no carabiners. Bouldering takes climbing
22 | NW GEORGIA LIVING MARCH / APRIL 2026
and strips it down to just you, your mind, and a rock with a series of puzzles to be solved.
Solving the Puzzle of Me
Don’ t get me wrong— I’ m no elite athlete. Until recently, my exercise wardrobe was mostly yoga pants chosen for their stretchiness, and my peak climbing achievement was getting about halfway up a loblolly pine tree growing in my family’ s backyard back in 1982.
A couple of years ago, though, a casual Northwest Georgia hike with my husband and our dog through the Rocktown trailhead sparked something in me, setting me on the path back to that tree-climbing girl from so long ago. Rounding a bend on the trail, the trees gave way to a labyrinth of sandstone giants. It felt like I’ d stumbled into a lost world formed from a prehistoric beach. I scrambled up an easy one. Then another. And another.
Those boulders were hardly Yosemite’ s Half Dome, but they were still enough to scuff my sneakers while putting a smile on my face. Suddenly, I wasn’ t just worrying about burning
It turns out the best way to feel lighter is to pull yourself up.
The author celebrating a successful climb.
calories or looking good in a swimsuit. I was a kid on the playground again and utterly hooked.
It turns out the best way to feel lighter is to pull yourself up.
The Prehistoric Gym
Long before a forest covered this region, it was a sandy beach at the edge of a prehistoric sea.
An unimaginable number of years’ worth of crushing pressure forged the dunes into sandstone. Wind and water