DOYLESTOWN – Walking into the Doylestown Rock Gym, Adventure Ed students were immediately impressed by the rock walls that dominated the space. From easy walls only one story high to rocks on the ceiling, the senior climbers got to challenge themselves in many different ways on a field trip on January 16^th.

A climbing technique the students did not have much experience in, bouldering proved a great warm up as climbers could ascend the wall only as high as eight feet without a rope. Moving side to side across the walls, students got a feel for the differences in how the rocks felt and how they were placed as compared to the wall in NPHS.

After passing a required belay test, students could belay and climb any wall in the gym to the very top – which was much higher than they were used to. While many chose to climb the wall any way they liked, some took on the challenge of sticking to a specific color. To add another element to a climb, every rock is tagged with one or more colored pieces of tape, each color signifying a route up the wall. Every color has a number, and as the numbers go up, so does the difficulty.

Instead of following the color paths, other students took advantage of a unique aspect of the gym – walls in which the climber is essentially upside-down and must climb at a steep, inverted angle. Many students tried, but none could climb over the angle to reach the easier vertical part of the wall.

Senior Sarah Wittman got a great deal out of the field trip: “I really like rock climbing. It was fun to experience it outside of school, but with the same skills that I learned in class… I learned how to keep up the stamina to [climb larger walls].”

At the end of the day that will surely bring about many sore muscles, the staff members and NP gym teachers strongly encouraged the students to consider climbing recreationally.

“Try to find a part of climbing that you really love, whether it is top-roping or lead climbing – focus on that, build strength and climbing technique, and you can enjoy all of those things,” commented Dave Muller, a staff member at the Doylestown Rock Gym.

Adventure Ed students were able to have fun climbing walls while getting more challenging experience with rock-climbing.