I climbed Devil's Tower in Wy. back in 1993, did not make a career out of it just had some fun for about a year. I find climbing trees less taxing and yes you use the rope alot more. Both are fun, but I have not rock climbed in quite awhile.
LT...
I've been up and down Highway 212 dozens of times going to Seattle or Montana from Kansas City but never had time to go down to Devils Tower. Last Winter I took my son up to Mt. Rushmore (another place never had time to see) and one day we went out to Devils Tower which happened to be my Birthday. It was great. As a kid I always would look at the National Geographic magazines and dream about seeing places like that. It was neat and I'm glad I got to share that dream with my son, on my Birthday.
To the OP. I didn't start out rock climbing, but did a bit of rappeling using figure 8's, ATC, or a couple carbiners, and ascending using just one cord with a pursik and one cord with a shunt. I mostly rappeled or assended ropes from buildings when I use to live downtown and sometimes off the bluffs of the Missouri River, or one time I went backcountry near Rocky Mountian National Park and completely stayed off the trail so a couple times I would rappel down a cliff face instead of walking around, kinda like that Bear Grill guy only with good equipment and solid attachment points.
The only times I feel uncomfortable rappeling from a cliff is because sometimes the rock face can be pretty sharp, rocks fall off, and sometimes I'm not 100% sure my rope goes all the way to the bottom until I'm well over the side. Other then that going down has never bothered me. Going up is a different story. First off, I'll admit I'm afraid of heights to certian degree. I never have liked assending a rope off a face cliff because I always worry that the rope might be slowly cutting on the edge as I'm causing the rope to stretch up and down from slowly moving the pursik up the rope.
I like doing tree work because the equipment is so much more robust then the rappeling stuff I have and I never question the equipment after giving a quick inspection. Sometimes tree work is little more scarier because some trees you climb are not strong, and sometimes you have to tie in and work off of parts of a tree that your not a 100% sure it's able to support you. Also once you begin a tree job and start making cuts, your commited. Now I'm sure rock climbing is the same, that once you start your pretty much commited, but I'm just comparing to rappeling.
I could never do rock climbing. I never could see the point. Likewise with rappeling off of buildings or even off of some cliffs, I don't really do it much anymore. Maybe because I have a kid and I worry about him all the time. Were real close and he doesn't have any other brothers or sisters and I'm like his best friend so if something happened to me, he would be crushed. Not that anybody else's kids wouldn't be, I'm just saying the thought stops me from doing things I otherwise would do. I'm glad I know how to do some of these things just in case I ever needed to, and yes when I stay at a high rise hotel I bring my harness & rope. However, for the most part I only like dealing with heights if it serves a purpose. Tree work I get paid to do. I love hikeing and sometimes in the past I found it easier to rappel down a small cliff or a loose scree slope, but for the most part I try walking around it. Those are just my thougts, but yea, the harness/saddle thing was hard for me to grasp at first.
