Climbing the Wall

There are few things that all three of my children enjoy doing, but one of our favorite hobbies is Wall Climbing. Down at the YMCA where we have a family membership (ok, dysfunctional family membership -- 1 adult, 3 kids), they have a Wall Climbing room. The walls go up 2-3 stories, I'd judge almost 50', and there various pieces of wall mount attached into them -- square blocks of wood, metal rings, smooth and rough shaped objects.

The kids all had to take a 2-hour rock climbers training class, and there is a supervisor on-duty at all times. Each kid needs to tie his own harness (there's a special name for the knot you have to tie your harness with, but I never took the class, so I can't tell you what it is). They then need to call out special "codes" to the supervisor who is holding their rope -- indicating when they are "ready", "climbing" and "descending".

All of them really love it, and it's really fun to watch how "brave" they are. I don't think I'd climb 50' up a sheer (and sometimes even reverse incline!) wall.