Hi fellow Hiveians,
Today I wanted to appreciate the hobby that I've picked up: indoor rock climbing!
Rock Climbing Hobby
Rock climbing, or climbing things in general, has been something that I've enjoyed doing for most of my life. As a kid we had this spot near my parents house where it was a really giant boulder that we would climb up. I got so good at it that I didn't need to use my hands to climb it, I would just climb with my feet lol. I think that's likely where I got the interest of doing rock climbing things, it's a lot of fun!
Fast forward many years and several years ago before the little man was born, my wife and I went to an indoor rock gym to have some alternative fun. It's a different environment for sure but one that you can really get into! I'm hoping to one day be as good as these crazy ass people here lol but one step at a time!
The rock gym we go to is the biggest one in the local area and it's got all kinds of different options as you can see here. It's tall as shit as well! I think this wall here is maybe 80 feet tall or more, hard to say but you can get a scale of the wall with how short that guy looks up there!
What that guy is doing, and what a lot of the other really good climbers is called Top Rope climbing, where you bring your own rope and free climb the bottom 8 feet or so until you get to a clip. Then you clip your safety rope in and then start climbing, clipping in the rope every so often to secure yourself to the wall. This is incredible but it is the most challenging of the rope kind indoors, because you don't get to just let go and relax for a minute if you're close to your next clip in spot!
I don't know any of these people but figured I'd blur their faces out a little bit out of respect.
The lady here is securing her climbing partner with top rope, you can see the rope as it goes through her hand and clips into the 2 clips on the wall as they are going up. The really challenging part about these routes is that some of the holds are so damn small it's crazy! It's not just strength to climb these things, it's a lot of strategy so that you can get to the next hold without a huge hassle or figure out how you can do it without falling or letting go.
The most challenging ones are these ones here, where you are climbing inverted for a little while! That's intense, as I've climbed partially inverted on some of the routes that I've been doing and it's really tricky. You end up using a lot of upper body strength and energy to do this type of stuff but holy crap is it an insane workout! That's what I enjoy the most of it all, is the incredible workout I get while doing it. I wish I could go more frequently than I am able to lol
The guy on the wall below though had to climb up to that first clip that's a little below his feet without falling or letting go. That doesn't seem too hard but on some of these climbs, they make the bottom the worst lol and as you go up it gets better.
I'm working on these automatic ropes here, with what's called an autobelay device. It allows you to climb up without someone holding onto you and if you let go, the device lowers you down slowly enough that you don't get hurt unless you hit the wall. The autobelay routes are great because you are independent but the best routes are the ones that are set up for belay ropes. Belay ropes are ones where someone is standing on the ground and using the rope to secure you in. You can see below on either side of me the ropes hanging down from the ceiling. Those are the belay ropes. You get to tie into the rope with your harness and your climbing partner is below and keeping you from falling. Because this is quite a difficult thing to do, only people who weigh enough and are trained can be a belay for someone else.
I'm able to belay the little man but he won't be able to belay me until he gets to be about 15 or so, when he will weigh enough to secure me and not get hurt if I have to let go. I'm hoping to get my wife to belay me while I wait for the little man to get a little older but not sure how likely that is going to happen lol she isn't as interested in the climbing as I am. One day she may though!
The important part about belaying is you need to tie the right knots. The knots took me a while to master but once you get the hang of it and have a pretty good instructor to show you the tricks to get it done every time, you actually end up learning it pretty easily. I had a guy try to show me this one way and it was a little too difficult with his method and I kept messing it up. The other dude comes over, says do this and this and I immediately understood that and have gone with that since.
Tying the knots is good because it also helps expose us to different things in life that we normally wouldn't be doing. I don't know if I'd be tying knots for things besides my shoe laces but learning to tie a pretty strong and universal knot like this was great. Now if I need to lower my son down or something in a precarious situation, I know that if I have some decent rope I can tie a halfway decent knot to keep him secure!
What I didn't realize but it makes sense, is that like any sport though, this one has a really competitive side to it! There are teams who practice and meet routinely to learn and try different routes. The gym we go to has had a few competitions at it which was cool. We didn't want to stay and watch, as we were more interested in climbing but one of these days when they have a competition we may just hang out to watch for a little bit!
-CmplXty. Real human written content, never AI.
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