On Climbing (Everything in Sight)

I may have mentioned that my kids had to climb everything they saw while we traveled the country this summer.

They climbed ladders . . . 

 and rocks

Micah taught Evie how to love bouldering.

He repeated over and over as he helped her and held her and boosted her--

"You can do it! I'm here to help you. I'll hold you. You're Ninja Evie. You can do anything."

He was right. She made it.

After that first experience in Idaho, Eve was all about climbing rocks and having adventures. Here they are at Mesa Verde Park.

They found rock walls at parks, too.

They found fences to use as training areas for Heidi's kids, too.

Undoubtedly the coolest place they found to climb was under the chair lift's viewing platform at Snow King Mountain Ski Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Here's the viewing platform from below. To give you an idea of how high that was, each of those horizontal beams marked ten feet.

And here's the viewing platform from a different angle--underneath. If you use the beams to guess the height, then this little place the boys found . . . was about 30 feet off the ground.

I had the wrong lens on my camera to pull back far enough to show how high they were, but look at the view of Jackson behind them.

Micah, we discovered is as sure-footed as a mountain goat. He ran across these boards and beams like he was on solid ground.

And Hyrum was only a few moments behind, although he was much more careful.

People had hung ropes that could be used as handholds as the beams were navigated. It almost stopped my heart to think what would happen if they fell. They say that kids need to experience risk and danger so they learn to trust their abilities and recognize their limitations.

Notice that tree next to Micah. Cool, right?

Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and they took it in both hands.

Evie wanted to go out to the viewing platform so badly, but I would only let her walk to the first support beam. Still, the ground was a good 8-10 feet away, even from here.

This climb was just a blip on the whole trip's map, but my boys will remember it forever.

This whole climbing obsession on the trip has motivated me to find great bouldering and climbing areas around here. I know we have them, I've just never bothered to look.