SUU offers climbing; students taking hold

By DAVID DeMILLE
UNIVERSITY JOURNAL

Fresh air, a feeling of power, health benefits and an opportunity to see nature in its greatest frame have made free climbing a huge activity in southern Utah.
The sport of free climbing, which means climbing rocks using equipment for safety only, has grown in popularity immensely in recent years; hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone are taking part, and southern Utah is no different.
For younger generations especially, the sport provides a physical and mental challenge with minimal danger. Because of the potential for serious injury in climbing, there have been great advances in specialized safety equipment to make the sport very safe in most cases.
Its popularity has grown in part because of advances in climbing equipment that make climbing safer.
The one thing to remember is that climbing takes a detailed knowledge of safety and equipment use. The required attention to detail, absent in many other sports, makes climbing a sport not easily learned by one person on his or her own. Help from an active climber is always suggested.
A great chance for SUU students who want to try the sport resides in the school’s Climbing Club, a group that operates as a sanctioned university club, who get together to climb the many different places around Cedar City and in the southwestern Utah area.
The club operates by having its members communicate through e-mail, meet at a particular place each week, depending on which group is going where, and setting off to climb together.
As club president Matt Barley said, the club also tries to meet each week and act as a forum for members to share their experiences.
“We get together and have slide shows and talk about whatever we did the last week.” Barley said. “We have bouldering competitions sometimes, and we also do club stuff, like fundraisers.”
Variety is a big component of the sport, and given that many guides currently list nearly 1000 climbing sites in southwest Utah alone, no two climbing experiences can be the same.
“Different climbers are good in different areas.” Barley said. “We give people a chance to climb a lot of different ways in a lot of different places.”
Climbing sites can be found all over Southern Utah, and not just at the national parks. There are plenty of areas just minutes out of Cedar City.
A lot of climbers like to head into the mountains during the summer to cool off, while sunnier places like Snow
Canyon or the Virgin River Gorge are popular during the colder months.
There is a plethora of safety equipment available, and most can be borrowed or rented. The only equipment that really needs to