Rock Climbing - Wyatt

             My interest in climbing started after I watched Free Solo. It is a movie where a guy named Alex Honnold climbs El Capitan (a mountain in Yosemite National Park) without any ropes to save him if he falls. So, pretty much ever since I watched that show I’ve liked climbing a lot more. What I like about climbing is that you have to play it very slow and plan your next move very carefully because if you don’t, you can find yourself in hard situations. I like to Boulder (bouldering means to climb on something short without using ropes) more than anything because you don’t have big ropes in your way and you don’t swing back and forth.     

    My first experience climbing on this trip was at OVERhang in Prince George. At OVERhang you could do different types of climbing. There was an area where you could do bouldering, and other areas where you could climb with a partner or use an auto belay. I thought that it was very fun and I hope that we can go there next time we visit PG.  

    Another climbing gym we went to on this trip was in Portland and it was called Movement Portland. At the Portland gym we could only boulder. There, they had a spot where you could climb upside down. When you were climbing upside down, there was a big slide under you so that if you were to fall, you would land on the mat and slide down it all the way to the bottom. I enjoyed sliding down it when I fell. While at the gym, Gibson and I played a speed climbing game. It was where dad had his timer out and Gibson and I would take turns doing the same climb to see who was faster at it, it was surprisingly very close.

The most recent climbing gym I went to was called The Front Climbing Club in Salt Lake City. At the Salt Lake gym I could only boulder, just like at the Portland gym. At the climbing gym my hands kept slipping on one of the routes. The route that I kept slipping on wasn’t hard, but the reason I kept slipping was that every time I tried I just didn’t have long enough arms to reach the next hand hold. I did lots of other routes too. If you’ve ever been to a climbing gym you’ve probably seen the different coloured hand holds, those are meant to be routes so that you know which route you are doing.  

After we finished at the Salt Lake gym, we went to a place called The Gear Room, which had all sorts of used climbing, snow boarding, and skiing gear. At the store we searched the bins of used climbing shoes to see if we could find a pair for me. I ended up with a set of Black Diamonds. We also got a chalk bag and some chalk too.

Last week we visited Arches National Park. I got to climb on real rocks for the first time in my life. It was scary because there were no pads under you at all, so you had to be very cautious about where you put your feet and hands. What I’ve learned so far is to keep calm in hard situations and to use your legs more because if you don’t, you can get sore wrists and blisters. I’ve been learning so much about climbing and I hope to go climbing again on this trip. To be honest, the rocks are way different and I enjoy them more than climbing gyms.