Kids Climbing the Walls? That's a Good Thing.
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Friday, April 4, 2008
An indoor climbing wall can be a great equalizer for families. What children new to the sport might lack in technical skills or strategic thinking, they make up in agility and daring. And if mom and dad also are novices, the younger set will love seeing their parents struggling to hoist their bodies in the air by grasping at handholds and footholds that often seem just out of reach.
Suburban Washington has many climbing walls where youngsters can try the adventure sport: outdoor equipment stores such as REI, summer camps and private schools. But the best way for a family to learn is at one of the area's full-fledged climbing gyms, where experienced instructors offer introductory climbs and lessons and youngsters can attend skills camps, join climbing teams or throw birthday parties.
For those who want to scale rocks and cliffs rather than synthetic walls, the gyms also offer training in outdoor climbing and ice-climbing and lead local and faraway expeditions.
Earth Treks of Maryland has cavernous climbing gyms in Rockville, Columbia and Timonium (near Baltimore), each spanning about 15,000 square feet with multiple walls that range from 20 to 50 feet tall.
Families can show up on weekends during "open gym," when $15 a person gets you a harness and an instructor to guide a family through three climbs. Kids ages 6 to 13 can attend a 2 1/2 -hour weekly instruction program called Friday Night Rox ($25, members $20). One weekend afternoon a month, the gyms offer a family introduction to climbing: Adults ($30 each) learn to climb and belay (work the rope harness while someone else climbs), and kids age 6 and older practice climbing. Once parents qualify to belay their own children, family members can choose to climb with one another or keep working with an instructor.
To get started, all you need is clothing that is comfortable but not too baggy.
The gym provides special climbing shoes, which should fit snugly, as well as instruction and other equipment.
At a recent open gym in Rockville, about one-fifth of the climbers were families. Some parents worked side-by-side with their children in the bouldering caverns, where the walls are low but with challenging overhangs. Thick mats on the floor mean no harness or belaying are necessary. Howard Wallack belayed his 13-year-old son, Alec, a member of the center's climbing team, in a series of difficult climbs. It's their Sunday morning ritual. Several families worked with instructors, who suggested which climbing routes (color-coded and numbered according to difficulty) would be challenging but not overwhelming.
Andie McAuliff, a stay-at-home mom who took up climbing last year, knows how to belay her daughter, Jordan, 5, but prefers to have an instructor do it while she practices her own holds. Climbing, she says, is "something I always wanted to do. . . . It's like full-body chess." Jordan is relatively young to climb and tiny, weighing only about 30 pounds. She was somewhat fearful at first but took to the sport quickly, her mother says.
"The moment when I knew this was something she would keep doing was when she told me to keep quiet and stop cheering her on because she was concentrating," McAuliff says. "It had stopped being something she was doing for me. It was something she was doing for herself."
EARTH TREKS CLIMBING CENTERShttp:/
