Rock Climbing

               My parents came here to my school this past weekend and they dropped of my rock climbing gear, my roommate immediately asked me what the stuff was so I thought that it would be kind of cool to talk about climbing for a little bit.  

                Personally, I have been climbing since the fifth grade.  I was introduced to it through Boy Scouts when my troop and I went for the Rock Climbing Merit Badge.  My troop set up for counselors to teach us the sport, half at their indoor gym in Rockford IL and half at the Mississippi palisades state park.

                When I arrived at the gym it was like throwing a little kid in a free candy shop.  The floor was chipped rubber, and… I could climb on the walls.  The instructors took about 3 hours to teach all of us to belay (belaying is when there is a person on the ground controlling how much rope the climber is allowed while they are climbing up the rock.  I have inserted a picture of it below) and from there one of my closest friends and I were off to the walls.  We climbed all night; we thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread.  From that night on I have been hooked on the sport.  The next outing we went to the Mississippi palisades to complete a 200’ rappel (I have had multiple people ask me where there are 200’ of cliff to rappel from in the palisades and I honestly don’t remember, just incase you were about to ask).  It was soooo cool, hanging there 200 feet above the Mississippi river, I could see absolutely everything.  I looked down and the people below me looked the size of those little army men. 

                From there my friend and I joined a rock climbing class at the Y.M.C.A. near my town.  Every Wednesday night we would go climb, pushing ourselves and competing with each other every night.  Each one of us drove the other to be better.  We have both competed in cock climbing competitions hosted by the “Y” and we have both placed 1^st and 2^nd (we took top 2 places in both competitions).  Then in high school we both set records on the wall in our gym, the records are still there today.