Let's Go Climbing! {at Project Rock}

A rock climbing, or more specifically, "bouldering," gym opened up here last year. I'd wanted to go try it out...but was not in the right "shape" when they opened their doors. ;)

Now that my sister has arrived back in town, and since I knew that Project Rock was running a "Buy One Get One Free" special on Friday afternoons, I decided it was the perfect time to visit the gym with my family!

Eleven weeks post-partum with little athletic activity in the entire past year means I should totally be able to rock climb, right?

Guys. Clinging to handholds while climbing up and down and across angled walls is no joke. I made it up to the very top of the easiest climbing wall a couple times...and to the middle of the wall on some of the more difficult tracks...and definitely felt like I was using every muscle in my body to do so!

This "bouldering gym" is a bit different from the rock climbing walls I've been to in the past with harnesses and belaying--here, there are no ropes or harnesses, and it's not so much about climbing up, up, and up--but more about finding your way around the wall and various obstacles.

My dad may have recently reached the half-century milestone, but he was making climbing look easy!

Anna was probably the best of all of us, scrambling up the rock walls with ease. Jet lag? What jet lag?

I was especially proud of MaryGrace and Sarah--both were much stronger and much more confident than last time they had visited a rock climbing wall. Sarah was trying out all of the different walls and had a great time! To answer the mystery "Where is Cyrus?"...he was being held by Grandma as she sat just outside the gym and watched all of her loved ones attempt athletic feats just a bit outside of our comfort zone and/or ability level.

We had the gym pretty much to ourselves most of the first hour we were there, which is what allowed us to ham it up for some of these photos, but was also really nice because we had the space to try out all of the different walls to the greatest extent that we could. Towards the end, when most of us had collapsed and were stretching our aching fingers, some climbers showed up who clearly had a lot of experience climbing. It was fun to sit back for a while and watch climbers who knew what they were doing!

Sometimes, living on a small island, it can feel a bit like you "run out of" new places to go, so it's especially fun when a new interesting activity pops up. We enjoyed our visit to Project Rock--and the fact that we got a good deal makes this budget-conscious girl even happier! "Buy One Get One Free" deals are definitely what you want to look out for when you have a big family! Fun to explore and try out a new kind of exercise, and, though I doubt I have any future in serious rock climbing, it really is awesome to climb to the top and look down to see how far you've climbed. I'm glad we took the time to go and try something new instead of merely assuming that we probably wouldn't be terribly good at it.
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Done anything extra fun lately? Have you done any exploring in  your own town, or tried out a new type of exercise in order to get active? Regular exercise is one of my goals this summer--this was definitely a bit more thrilling than a walk with the stroller or a pilates youtube video. :)