Rock Climbing

Today we went on a new type of adventure.  We went to a rock climbing gym.  We have a rock climbing wall on the side of our garage that we built a year ago.  I'm certain I took pictures of it to blog about it and just never actually wrote it down.  But trust me that it's cool.  It is 16 feet wide and 8 feet tall.  It's actually a traversing wall, though I didn't know that until our climbing gym lesson today.  Anyway.....

We set up a mom and kid homeschool lesson at the climbing gym to learn the details of what they have to offer and how to climb with ropes safely. The first action of business was to warm up and get an idea of what we'd be doing.  We learned about traversing, in basic terms: going across the wall rather than up it.

 Just a side note: CJ walked into the climbing gym and the first thing he said when he saw the 40 foot climbing walls was "I'm not doing that!"  However, the instructors were awesome and made it fun step by step.

 Next we learned about harnesses and how to put them on correctly.  At that point one of the instructors took the kids to an auto-belay and let them take turns climbing.  My friend K and I sat with the other instructor and learned how to tie all the ropes and belay correctly.

 It was very exciting then to have the opportunity to climb the wall next to CJ.  One of the instructors belayed me and CJ was on an auto-belay.  He made it pretty far and I was able to make it to the top.  Super fun and honestly very scary.  I hid all my fears because I didn't want to pass them to the kids.  I made myself keep going up and make it to the top, though I'm sure if it were just Mr. Steve and I, I would have been a little more vocal about my nervousness.

We had a wonderful time taking turns climbing and belaying the kids.  They LOVED the experience and even though CJ thought at first he wouldn't do it he discovered that it was an activity that he loved.

Actually, he loved it so much that he started asking to go back before we even left the gym.  I think we may have found a new favorite sport and way to get PE credits.  Climbing, here we come!