Article contributed by Judy Cerovski
Our backs were aching, our clothing drenched with sweat and our hands were throbbing from rope burn. At the end of the day, though, it was worth it. Just under 20 JETAA members and friends met up on Saturday April 12th at Joe Rockhead’s Indoor Rock Climbing in Liberty Village to give it a go and climb to new heights.
The day started off with some warm-up exercises by bouldering along the gym walls. For those who are not aware of what bouldering is, it is basically climbing up a wall without any ropes or harness, where you grab onto little nooks and holdings with your fingers and feet, pushing yourself up. At first it was a bit difficult trying to grasp the small holds but after awhile many were able to reach the goals at the top of the walls. Think of bouldering like climbing up monkey bars. It even has the same effects of building little calluses along the underside of your palms.
As many of us were beginners, the next lesson of the day was on how to wear our harness and how to belay (tie knots through the harness to secure to the rope). It was a bit tedious to continually practice number eight knots and work on pulling and pushing, but when it comes to rock climbing, safety is very important and double-checking your partner’s knots and belts can make the difference between safety and fatal injuries.
Once everyone was comfortable in securing their partners and knots, the fun bit begun where we could climb up the wall. Of course, we started off on some of the easier walls, but as the afternoon progressed many people were acing these and moving on to challenging climbs; ones with less holds, ones requiring cross-over techniques, or even ones slanting upwards. Everyone was so engrossed with breaking the challenges that the three hours passed quickly, and it was time to go. That was when we all realized how tired we actually were and that our muscles felt somewhat like jello jigglies.
Having burned off all our energy from a hard day’s work of climbing, a bunch of us decided to grab some delicious sushi and steak at Koto Sushi, nearby at Dufferin. The food was most welcome, but the difficulty lay in the fact that many of our hands hurt from rope burns and calluses, that holding chopsticks was no easy task. Eventually everyone dispersed home, tired from the day, but we would probably all agree that it was pretty awesome!
