My first ever rock-climbing adventure

Author: Kari Jackson

Recently, I went on my first-ever rock-climbing experience. I went with two friends, and at first, we were going to go to a place that only offered bouldering climbing. I didn’t know any of the terminology, so this seemed great. One of my friends suggested a different place that offered repelling as well as bouldering. For those who don’t know, bouldering is a free-style version of rock climbing, while repelling is where you have a harness and a rope attached. Once we got to the gym, we got the rundown of how to rock climb, and got straight to it.  

 I started out in the beginner area of the repelling section and was quickly humbled. Rock climbing turned out to be a lot more difficult than I was anticipating and proved to be a great workout. I tried to go along with the correct rock paths initially, but it was pretty challenging. I eventually made it to the top of the wall and got to repel back down. I hooked up to a more advanced section and gave it a go. The rope helped ease the difficulty level, and I made it to the top, but my forearms were burning by this point. I was shocked at how quickly the climbing fatigued my muscles. I regularly lift weights, so I thought it would take a while for me to tire out, but I was very wrong. I had originally been planning on going to the gym later that day, but after about ten minutes of climbing, I knew that wouldn’t be necessary.

After my friends and I conquered repelling, we made our way over to the bouldering wall. There were many different areas and difficulty levels within this section. There was a kid’s section that looked to be about our pace, so we started there. Immediately, I could tell how much harder free climbing was compared to repelling. There was no assistance from the rope, so upper body strength was the main source of power. We all made it past the first two sections with ease, but the third section proved to be much harder. This wall was very frustrating, and I couldn’t seem to get past one spot. I tried many times, but I kept falling. We eventually moved on and tried more challenging areas. There are different color rocks that are meant to be used for different difficulty levels. We had initially begun with following the colors, but at the end we did what they call “rainbow climbing”. This is where you use any of the rocks to get up the wall. We enjoyed seeing how far we could get, but it was still very difficult.

At the end, I returned to the wall that I hadn’t yet conquered. My friends were cheering me, on and eventually, I made it up the wall. A few other seasoned climbers were climbing at the same time as us.  Watching them was fascinating because I knew how challenging the walls they were climbing were. Parts of the wall were horizontal, and they were climbing at insane angles. I have immense respect for rock climbers because it is much harder than it looks. After one hour of climbing, I was exhausted. It was a great workout and proved to be much harder than I had initially expected. The day after, I was sore all over. My back and forearms were understandably sore, but a part that surprised me was that my abs were also sore. Climbing is a great total body workout, and it works the upper body in an all-encompassing way. I can’t wait to go back and improve my climbing skills!