Anchorage Heats Up And I Get Myself To The Rock Climbing Gym

We had a bit of snow that seemed to have waited to fall until after we got back in town.  Our street stayed white and sidewalks did too.  It looked like it was going to stick.  I biked to the University library to see how my mountain bike would do.  No problems.

But today it was 47˚F when I checked this morning, with lots of wind.  Sidewalks looking better, our street looking better (from a cyclist's perspective.)  So off to my meeting by bike.

You can see how blustery it was.  The flags waved north, west, and south at different times.





At the meeting I realized that my route home could easily take me by the year old rock climbing gym that I'd never been in, but had decided, watching climbers on El Capitan last week, to check out when I got back.  So here's a look at the Anchorage Rock Climbing Gym.



 


It started with Aaron who told me about their intro class that meets M,W,F 7-9pm and S 1-3.  For $20 you get rental equipment and two hours of introduction to how to use things at the gym.  He suggested bringing a partner, and there was another guy at my meeting who just been at Yosemite too and was interested.





Here's the big room.  Not exactly El Cap, but still very impressive.  I asked Aaron how this gym ranked nationally.  He said it's not in the top 10, but probably in the top 20.  I also asked about nearby places to climb.  I know people climb ice along the Seward Highway in the winter, but he said that's a very different activity.  Rocks face near Anchorage tend to break a lot.

Still in the big room.














Then I went up stairs where they have smaller walls.

And there were lots of kids climbing here.











And there is lots of equipment to rent.

Here's a close up of part of the wall and some of the climbing holds.  Skyaboveus identifies a number of these ways to stay up on a wall.  They list:

• Jugs
• Mini-jugs and incuts
• Slopers
• Pockets
• Pinches
• Crimps and Chips
• Edges
• Side Pulls, underclings, and gascons

You can get specific descriptions of each at the Skyaboveus link.

A nearby eating and drinking establishment even has a sign directed at people walking out of the climbing gym.   If you can't read it, you can click on the picture to enlarge and focus.  

And later today I saw it was 50˚F on our backyard thermometer.  The record high for October 25 is 50˚F in 2002.  So I looked on line to see if our backyard was just a hotspot.  But there it was.  We'll see tomorrow if that's the official high.