02/26/2009
On Thursday February 26, 2009 twelve scouts and three adults made their way to the Boston Rock Gym in Woburn for our annual evening of fun climb. The scouts — Greg, Brodie, Derek, Tucker, Christian, Kevin, Jack T., Jack O., Adam, Andrew, Robbie and Hugh — were driven to BRG by Mrs. Berube and Mrs. Leighton.
At the Rock Gym we were greeted by a group of fairly young staff members who led us into the “preparation room” to get our climbing equipment, which consisted of shoes and harness. The staff then led us into the climbing area to explain climbing etiquette and to review safety guidelines. An important safety rule is “don’t stand directly underneath a climber no matter how interesting it is to watch him or her climb!
We all split up and climbed for almost 2 hours, from 7-9 pm. The Rock Gym has three kinds of walls for climbing. First, there was the free climbing “cave” where we could climb without ropes. This wall had bizarre angles and sections some of which looked like half of an oil drum had been attached to it. Second was a “regular” wall where you had a staff member belay you and finally, there was an advanced climbing area down a separate hallway from the main area. In the advanced area, all of the climbers were belayed because the walls were extremely tall and a fall from such a height would be very dangerous. The walls were very challenging because there was a backwards slant as you climbed higher so you had to really use your arms in order to climb. We spent most of our time in the free climbing cave or regular wall areas. All of the walls were extremely tall and physically challenging.
When we were climbing in cave area, one of the staff members placed a neckerchief on the free climbing wall for us to try to retrieve. Adam thought that this game was the most fun. Greg showed that he was a skilled climber by retrieving the flag several times. Some of us spent time watching several very experienced climbers climb up a wall where you have to reach the ceiling then climb across the ceiling till you reach a gap where you then need to throw yourself across it. Needless to say no one in our group tried this!
The Boston Rock Gym is an exciting place to climb, with many walls of various difficulties to climb atd it’s a great place for you to practice all of your techniques. Everyone who went enjoyed it. Even though we all were tired after two hours of climbing, we still didn’t want to leave when our time was up. The trip to the Boston Rock Gym is one of my favorite scout trips and I cannot wait to go on it again next year.
Respectfully submitted,
Derek Benson, Historian