My cousin, her boyfriend, and I spent a recent afternoon at The Rock Oasis, a rock climbing gym in Toronto. After a lesson on how to belay, we were turned loose in the gym.
We headed first to the auto-belay wall. The initial goal for us was simply to feel a little more confident and comfortable being 20+ feet up in the air and then careening back and zipping back down to the ground. With the auto-belay, you attach the auto-belay rope to your harness, and then start climbing.
Then climb to the top!
To come back down? Just let go of the wall and lean back!
Once we felt comfortable with the height and coming down, we had a blast exploring all of the other available climbing walls.
One of the more challenging walls in particular caught my eye. It had a fantastic little nook that I was eager to try wedging myself into. It was a total group effort for me to make it up this far as I needed Carolyn and Joey's ground level perspective to figure out which holds I should aim for since they were few and far between. Climbing is not unlike a vertical game of Twister!
From now on, I'll have to keep my eyes open for climbing gyms on my travels!