Climbnasium Conquest

 

Me climbing a V7 at Climbnasium

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of taking the climbing club to a rock gym off campus. I was the only one in the group who had been there before, so I was excited to show everyone around. Climbnasium is not your typical climbing gym; it was built inside an old barn. The layout of the place is also very interesting.

We met at the gym around 1:00 PM on Sunday and departed in Andrew's car. One of our club members has their license registered with the campus so they can drive campus vehicles, but they could not come, so we had to take one of our cars. We made it to the gym, and there were already about 10 people there. Everyone filled out their waivers and did their gym orientation. Then we all sat in a circle on the mats, where I led a team stretch. After we stretched, we went to a small portion of the boulder wall, which is elevated from the entrance. We each did a warm-up boulder and were feeling good. 

Main Boulder Wall (Credit: Shane Gleason)

During my last visit,  I had noted that the climbing holds (plastic rocks) were particularly old and polished, so they had less grip to them. This time, it seemed that the walls had been reset more recently, so there was as much chalk on them, which gave them more texture.

We spent the bulk of our time at the main boulder wall, just hopping on climbs that look cool. I challenged myself to some harder climbing on the center vertical portion of the wall. The three hardest climbs on that section of the wall were two V7s and a V7+ (which means it's a little harder than V7). By the end of our session at the gym, I was able to complete all three of those climbs. One of the V7s, I surprised myself and flashed it (completed it on my first try). I felt very good about my climbing at the gym and had a great time with the Climbing Club.