Rock Climbing
T’was a gloomy and rainy morning. The sun was in his hiding spot behind the rain filled clouds. We were, without a doubt, going to be climbing in the Civic Center. Jock arrived with the. Polytech van, we were itching to start climbing. Mr S and the ten Ruma Kea students quickly sprinted out onto the court, hoping for a good seat in the van. Jock drove us to the Polytech HQ where we would begin our rock climbing adventure.
Once we arrived at the HQ, we stood in a circle and told everyone our name, favorite sport, and our favorite food. Our instructors’ names were Tom, Courtney, Olivia, and Anthony. I think that doing these icebreakers are good because we could learn something about our instructors and stuff they like to do. After this, we split up into groups of 2 and 3. I was in a group with Tom, Leo, and Brandon. Tom taught all three of us how to speedily tie a figure eight rethreaded which was extremely challenging. We also learned how to belay someone. Once we played some games and sorted our gear, we were ready to head down to the Civic Center for some entertainment in the form of rock climbing.
We started off by doing some stretching so we wouldn’t pull a muscle when climbing. Then we split into two groups to do some competitive bouldering. There aren’t any harnesses or ropes when you are bouldering, just you and the person spotting you. The goal of the game was to get to the middle of the rock wall where you were supposed to grab a sling which you carry back to your home base. If you have the sling and you get tagged, you have to put the sling on the ground and step off the wall swiftly so the next person in your group can get onto the wall and grab the sling. The group that I was in won once and the opposite team also won once. All of this was just a warm up for the main event.
I was first up on my group’s section of rock wall. Tom was our belayer and Leo was the backup belayer. The backup belayer’s job is to feed rope to the belayer and if I (the climber) slip, there is a special knot on the rope to make sure I don’t fall too far. I started climbing moderately, careful with all of my movements, making sure I didn’t fall. This experience was scary for me because I am scared of heights. I am fine with things like planes and ski lifts but climbing up on a wall was pretty scary for me. I climbed up to the top of zone one which was good enough for now.
I ran over to Anthony getting in the front of his line. I was geared up and ready to climb. The beginning of that section was easy but about a third of the way up the wall I had to make a couple of quick steps to a block that had multiple handholds. This was annoyingly tricky because my forearms were cramping up like crazy. Once I got to the block, I took a 15 second break and then continued on my journey of the century. I was flying up the second third of the wall when I came screeching to halt. I was about two meters away from the top of the wall but I was positioned in such a way that moving up felt difficult. I called down to Anthony, “Do you have me?” “I have you”, he called up to me. Then he started lowering me. I was really proud of my effort and my next climb was going to be even better.
After my forearms were feeling better and Anthony was ready for me, I hopped back onto the wall. I had memorized my path from the last climb and felt more confident about the climb. The only difficult part of the climb was at the very top. The handhold that would help me come within reaching distance of the top was hard to reach. I kept stretching my arm but my hand wasn’t fully on the hold. I would have to trust the strength in my fingertips. I successfully reached up with my left hand and pulled myself up the rest of the way. I completed my task! I was at the top of the rock wall. This was absolutely amazing. I was fizzing with excitement. The abseil down was relaxing for my forearms. Not everyone saw me but that didn’t matter, I was extremely pleased with myself.
My last climb of the day was on the diagonal wall. The bottom of the wall started farther out than the other ones and sloped in towards the actual wall. Olivia explained to me that this was easier than going straight up because you can kind of crawl up the wall instead of climbing the whole time. I rapidly sped up the wall, straight to the top and straight back down. I wish that I could have climbed a couple more times because I was finding my groove but alas, that would have to wait till next time.
This experience was magnificently fun and once I was at home, I told my parents about the whole ordeal in a fast paced blur. I loved this trip and I hope that I can do some more rock climbing later in my life.
-Chase
