By Jonathan Sager, Staff Writer
On Friday, October 24th, the climbing club conducted its interest meeting in room 148 to gauge interest in this new club. The club aims to be a place for avid rock climbers and boulderers to meet and to be able to form a welcoming community of climbers within River Hill. The club is also open to new climbers and people who know nothing about climbing.
The club will allow members to participate in two activities, rock climbing and bouldering. For those who might not know, there is a difference between rock climbing and bouldering. Junior Aiden Jordan explains the two activities. “Rock climbing is where you climb taller structures that require a harness to scale, while bouldering entails climbing on shorter structures with no harness and spotters to keep you safe.”
Co-founder and president of the club, junior Luke Abraham, describes how meetings will be conducted. Because rock climbing is not an activity that can be done at school, Abraham explains how meetings will be held to “discuss climbing techniques and what to do in certain spots in a climb.” In addition to the meetings at school to discuss climbing techniques and strategies, the group will climb at Movement Columbia, a rock climbing gym located in Snowden.
Abraham is an extremely experienced rock climber. He has been climbing with many of his friends for multiple years. Over this period of time, he developed a keen interest in rock climbing and bouldering. He wanted to create a place for other people who enjoyed climbing as much as he did, so he decided to co-found the River Hill climbing club.
Typically there are many challenges presented to new clubs starting for the first time such as finding a teacher to sponsor. Gaining new members poses one of the toughest challenges to any new club hoping to start up, however Abraham claims he found a lot of other students at River Hill with a keen interest in learning how to rock climb. Junior Aiden Jordan corroborates by stating, “I frequently climb with my friends at the gym.” Instead Abraham claims that the inability to rock climb at River Hill High school was one of the most challenging aspects of planning and founding the climbing club. Specifically, “the real challenge is getting people there… just carpooling and getting people there.”
Not a lot of people know how to rock climb either, so meetings and climbs will also focus on climbing basics to help newcomers learn how to climb, because rock climbing can be a difficult experience if the person attempting to climb is inexperienced. Abraham recalls when he was climbing and had to “go through a wrist injury that lasted multiple months, and I kept reinjuring it.” This injury made climbing more painful and dangerous, and the climbing club hopes to guide new climbers to avoid common mistakes that climbers have made in the past.
Overall rock climbing aims to be a place for climbing enthusiasts to share their passion and improve their skills through learning from more experienced climbers and from collaborating with other climbers to learn and grow.