Rock Climbing by Grace

 Last Saturday we had a long-awaited treat: a free Climbing For All event at the rock gym! Jasmin and I were eager to go and this time, we could bring Aiden as well. Although we had to get up early and take an hour-long Mula drive to get there and we had to wear masks the whole time because of COVID restrictions, everyone had good fun!

Aiden quickly took to rock climbing and spent most of his time climbing every route he possibly could. Jasmin and I didn't see him most of the time. This is us bouldering on the short section of the walls, which you can climb without a safety harness (there's mats below):

The real challenge, though, is the tall wall, where you have a belayer (a person who holds the rope you're fastened to) to hold you while you climb to the top. I spent most of my time on the tall wall and tried to climb various harder routes. (It's Jasmin and Aiden on the wall here, though)

At first, you can just climb the wall, using any handhold available, but when you're used to it, you can start to climb using handholds of only one color. On the tall wall, I managed to do a level 1 and almost a level 2 (at the top I couldn't quite make it and used some other handholds). On the bouldering walls, Aiden and I managed to complete a level 2 but not quite a level 3. According to the poster, that means we're still rock climbing babies, unfortunately, but there's only six levels to begin with. We got stuck on level three because we couldn't figure out how to get to the small, sparse handholds.

We climbed for several hours and had lots of fun. Unfortunately Jasmin has been having the beginnings of carpal tunnel syndrome from too much typing and drawing, and her arms hurt so she couldn't climb as much. At the end, the leaders announced that there would be a competition: whoever could climb to the top of the tall wall, using any hand- or foothold, in under a minute and thirty seconds would get a free ice cream. Jasmin decided to make a go for it despite her arms, and so did Aiden and I. Mom did get a video of each of us. Here's mine:

The file size is too big to show Jasmin's or Aiden's too.

I reached the top in 36 seconds. Jasmin would have climbed faster than me if her arms weren't hurting, — usually she's much faster than me — but she took 52 seconds since her arms couldn't pull her up. Despite being significantly smaller and shorter (harder to reach the handholds!), Aiden managed to finish in 49 seconds. Most of the others who tried took forty seconds or longer, but one tall blond guy got to the top in less than 16 seconds! Later he told me he was aiming for 9.

After the competition, we went to claim our ice cream and eat our provided lunch. It was soy ice cream and not as good as I'd hoped, but the point for me was to climb anyway, not get the prize. The ride home was very quiet as we were all exhausted (maybe we're out of shape), but the fun was worth it!