Climbing the walls

Matthew on the climbing rock at

Marymoor Park

Winter can be a bit long in the Pacific Northwest, with the shorter days and lots and lots of rain we look for indoor distractions. This winter we have been exploring the indoor climbing gym. This new interest started for us just after Christmas when Nathan and Matthew - both of whom had been climbing for several months - headed out to do some bouldering at the Marymoor Park climbing wall. It was a rare sunny day so Becky and I decided to tag along.

When bouldering they don't use ropes, instead they have a "crash" pad made of foam to fall onto. This limits how high they can safely climb so the challenge in bouldering is more about strategy (a.k.a., Beta) and technique than about how high the climb is.

Nathan on the inner-wall
at Marymoor

The days of winter are short so headlamps were needed before the fun was over.

We were back again the next weekend and this time I borrowed a pair of climbing shoes from Matthew so I could play as well. It was cold, snow was on the ground, but we still managed to have a great time - of course we had the place to our selves which made it that much better, but not warmer.

Matthew with the
help of a headlamp

Before we finished for the day Becky had seen enough to decide it was something she wanted to try as well. So the next step was to get shoes and a gym punch card so we could get a slightly more serious about this.

With a little practice, not much actually, Becky was clinging to the walls with the rest of us.

Nathan and I holding
up the wall