One of the greatest joys in our life is to expose our friends and family to rock climbing outdoors. Many people automatically dismiss rock climbing as a daredevil pursuit...but that's not the way we pursue vertical terrain. We are cautious by nature and safety is always our first priority.
It's important to try new things. We remember what it was like to transition from hiking and backpacking to rock climbing all those years ago. Though, we remember our first day on the rock like it was yesterday. Jay Ewing took us to Alice Rock in Squamish, BC. It was there we began to learn from him about how to stay safe, climb with technique, and enjoy a new mode of transportation in mountain environments.
When we take people climbing our priorities are as follows:
Teach safety
Keep it achievable
Mitigate stress
Provide food
Another practice of ours is to not make climbing the focus. There are LOTS of ways to enjoy mountain environments and part of helping people fall in love with a place is to help them experience that place in many different ways.
Over the years we have taken many many dozens of people climbing for the first-time....it's a great joy for us.
Thanks Jay for taking us out all those years ago....staying so patient, so safety conscious, and setting us up to climb in such a way that we could not only benefit from climbing but also pass it's joy onto others.
These are good days.
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