Summer Camp Guide

ROCK CLIMBING CLUB: Story & Photos by Noah Caldwell and Elizabeth Escobar

In Boulder County, you won’t be asked, “Do you climb,” but rather “Where do you climb?” For a population hooked on all outdoor antics, rock climbing is a ubiquitous interest, its pursuit the marker of a true adventure devotee.

It’s no surprise, then, that kids are initiated into climbing early on. We at YS stopped in to Boulder Rock Club to see (and partake in) a kid-centered session. The BRC boasts the full gamut of indoor climbing options, from hazardous overhangs to those wooden finger holds that make you hurt just looking at them.

This spectrum makes youth programs viable, since kids need to progress safely from one wall to the next. For over 15 years, BRC has been doing camps designed to endow kids with the safety skills to best navigate the obvious dangers associated with ascending a sheer wall made of hard earth.

“We teach them how to put their harnesses on, and make sure they know what a double-back harness is, so that they can check their partner and keep each other safe,” says Program Supervisor Jen Herling.

From there, kids learn commands—“up rope,” “slack,” “on rappel”—so they can communicate well. Going over how to pull off a safe bouldering fall is also thrown in for good measure. Only then, after all of this “practical stuff,” as Herling puts it, are they ready for the big time.

The emphasis on safety has sunk in.

“I got my extra knot done!” yells one of the kids. He ties the figure-eight and the safety knot above it with graceful motions, suavely completing the complex mechanism like a pro.

We begin to boulder, looking goofily lanky next to the miniscule but energetic youngsters. It’s no easy task—although you’re straying no higher than 15 feet, a fall could still easily ruin your week. But they’re not deterred; the girl next to me doesn’t miss a beat when I ask her why she likes to climb: “I like feeling strong.”

It’s clear, though, that kids prefer the outdoors.

“We climb at Eldo [Eldorado] Canyon, which is really kid-friendly,” explains Herling. “It’s a pretty short, low-angled climbing area.”

Groups also go to Boulder Canyon, and older kids get the full monty: a week in Estes Park. With the BRC’s sister company, the Colorado Mountain School, kids in this lucky crew are outside every day. They even try the Tyrolean traverse. As Herling describes it, “Kids have their harness on and they’re clipped safely into a rope which goes across a river.”

Climbing at an early age, it turns out, does more than simply perpetuate a cycle of Front Range thrillseekers. “There’s been a lot of research done on bilateral movement,” says Herling. “Alternating between the left and right sides of their body helps kids with reading.”

If there’s one thing to dispel parental fears about Johnny rappelling down a rock wall, it’s that he’s simultaneously bettering his reading, writing and ‘rithmetic.