The Move I Didn’t Make: First Place in the June Writing Contest

The June 2025 Writing Contest asked writers to describe the most important move of their lives in 500 words or less. The following submission won first place, a $350 cash prize, and a one-year Outside Digital subscription. It was read aloud at the International Climbers Festival on July 12, 2025.

The Move I Didn’t Make

I had never unroped before, especially not at 13,000 feet.

Zach and Jameson had both been here before. Same granite. Same summit, denied. But this time, we were close. Just three specks on a spine of rock, tucked deep into the jagged heart of the High Sierra. Minutes from the top.

We’d already pushed through the crux. Through an exhausting glacier traverse. Through pitches of steep, exposed climbing with frozen fingers. Then someone said, “Let’s unrope, it’ll be faster.” Someone else agreed. I nodded. I didn’t want to be the weak link.

Zach peeled left. Jameson right. I followed a slabby ramp into a grainy granite gully. No rope. No beta. Just alpine improvisation, choose your own adventure, but the wrong choice could kill you.

The day before, my girlfriend had dropped me off in Bishop with a kiss and a “have fun.” I was 27 and felt untouchable.

Now, I felt exposed.

I followed the gully into a clean crack, then latched a grainy vertical flake and followed it upward.

It curved left, then vanished into a smooth, featureless face. I paused.

My right foot perched on a pebble the size of two matchboxes.

My right hand latched on the sun-bleached flake.

My left hand grazed the wall, reading tiny bumps like Braille.

Thirteen thousand feet up, alone and ropeless, searching for something, anything, to hold onto.

I found a sidepull, no bigger than a quarter width of my finger pad. I pulled. It held.

Two feet higher: a shallow divot, the size of a flattened souvenir penny. But no footholds.

Just vertical emptiness. To reach the pocket, I’d have to smear my left foot, press rubber onto crystal and hope my shoe didn’t slip. Trust the friction, and go.

I breathed in. Committed.

My left foot flattened on the wall. My right leg began to shake. I’d have to commit: lift from the security of my right foot, weight the sidepull, reach up and exhale.

And that’s when something in me whispered: Think.

What if I miss?

What if this is the last move I ever make?

Not a fall to a twisted ankle. A fall through the air. Down thousands of feet of granite. Body bouncing off ledges, ragdolling into the snow below.

I backed off. Downclimbed. Found another way.

Minutes later, we all stood on the summit, tired and alive.

I still think about that move. Not because I made it, but because I didn’t.

Would I have stuck it? Maybe.

Or maybe that would’ve been it.

No road trips. No morning coffee with the woman who’s now my fiancée. No campfires with friends. No more climbing. No more life.

Sometimes the most important move isn’t bold or wild.

Sometimes it’s knowing when to stop.

That smear, that tiny pocket, that moment of doubt, it gave me everything that came after.

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