8/7/2011 Posting

A couple of weeks ago I met up with a friend at a climbing gym to attend a beginning bouldering class. If you’re not familiar with bouldering in a gym, it’s using handholds and footholds screwed into walls to figure out the best route to free climb up the wall. No wall protection or climbing harnesses are used and thick pads are placed on the floor to protect from falling.

I had a lot of fun doing it but discovered I have very poor upper body strength. My legs and lungs can climb any hill, but my arms, legs, and shoulders are pretty weak and I couldn’t hang onto the handholds for as long as I needed to in order to complete some of the climbing problems. My plan is to start working on building my upper body strength and continue working out at the climbing gym. I am interested in doing some rock climbing in the future and need to build up my climbing skills and desensitize myself to being higher up on a vertical wall.

Perhaps you are also looking into taking that next step in your outdoors education. If you enjoy hiking, but think that you would eventually enjoy doing trips that require route-finding, walking on snow, and some rock climbing, then I would encourage you to look into some of the other courses that The Mountaineers offers. Many folks take the Scrambling course to increase their skills and confidence when traveling off-trail on rock and in snow. As part of the course, you learn navigation and ice axe arrest skills, and the ability to walk over steep icy/snowy areas in crampons. Unlike climbing, you don’t need to carry ropes and special devices to climb, but you do learn how to rock climb using your hands and feet up to summits and other destinations without trails. I’ve learned some of these scrambling skills through hiking with friends and can say that it has increased my hiking confidence and opens up all sorts of new trips to me. You can also just take the Navigation course by itself and improve your ability to route-find off-trail.

I would encourage you to keep pushing your limits in your outdoors activities. Whether it’s trying new and harder trails or signing up to learn new outdoor skills. You’ll keep your passion for the outdoors fresh and exciting.