My Little Climbers

Went to Vertical Extreme last Friday night with the girls to do some climbing with some friends.

We all went (Mom, Dad, Abigail, Lauren). Last time I tried going with just the girls, Lauren wasn’t very happy without Mom around. Not sure if it was Mom’s presence or what, but Lauren gets the highest monkey award for the night.

That’s her about 25′ in the air all on her own.

What’s crazier (at least for me), is that she’s on the auto belay device all by herself. It’s basically a self retracting rope mounted to the ceiling. As she climbs up it coils up into the device at the ceiling (40′ up). She’s completely out of my hands/control. I find using the device myself to be kind of scary, but watching/trusting my child on it is a little over the top. If she comes off the wall, it simply lowers her back down automatically. Technically speaking it’s probably statistically safer than a human belayer, but still…

That aside, everyone had a fun time. Something I imagine we’ll be doing again soon.

To see the rest of the pictures, check the gallery here.

– b