Lila Neahring '11
Turning Fear Into Fun
Lila Neahring has some advice for any would-be rock climbers out there: “Don’t look down.”
That mantra has turned her fear of heights into a passion for climbing. She learned to ignore the ground 60 feet below her by focusing on the six square feet she’s occupying. It wasn’t just fear of heights she conquered but also the fear of falling.
“In competition you’re expected to fall and you pretty much always do,” she said. Every heat ends with the climber plunging up to 15 feet and being brought up short by a rope.
Lila has a reputation for being obsessed with safety, but that hasn’t stopped her from becoming a nationally ranked climber, in the top six in her age group for both bouldering and sport climbing. Maybe it’s the adrenaline, but climbing gives her a more solid sense of accomplishment than schoolwork does.
“It’s definitely an amazing feeling when you get to the top of a route,” she said. “Your progress is much more tangible than when you are, say, working on an essay.”
Not that she minds writing essays. She savors her homework, even reading textbooks during summer break. She is one of just a handful of students in recent Upper School history to achieve straight A’s, which gave her a wide choice of colleges to attend. She is attending Stanford, where she is planning to study international relations.
