Calvin Climbing Club Celebrates Winter Session

February 13, 2006

The Calvin Climbing Club has just launched its Winter Climbing Session, a
six-week, unlimited-climbing experience for the entire Calvin community. The
session runs from February 4 to March 16 at Inside Moves, a climbing gym on
76th Street in Grand Rapids.

A modest $40 fee gives participants a pass for unlimited use of Inside Moves
for the entire six weeks.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, beginning at 4:30 p.m., Calvin senior Mike
Tolsma and other climbing club leaders will be on hand to give beginners free
instruction in climbing basics (a service that typically costs $16). The club
will also rent equipment to climbers for a reduced fee.

Tolsma and fellow climbing club leader Bob Tipton, a Calvin sophomore, hope
that the event will draw Calvin students, faculty and staff - both experienced
climbers and novices - to what they think is an amazing sport, while keeping
costs reasonable.

The two-year-old Calvin club has given climbers plenty of opportunities,
offering climbing events around and outside the state. Climbing, both leaders
insist, is not a daunting sport.

The big risk for first-time climbers, claims Tipton, who did his first climb
in Jacks Canyon in Arizona, is the addictive nature of the sport.

"It's called the climbing bug," he says. "It's like catching a fever."

The sport also builds something beyond muscles says Tolsma.

"Camaraderie has a lot to do with it," he says. "It's kind of like a really
big trust that is built between a climber and the person that belays for them.
I didn't even meet Bob until last year."

Says Tipton: "And Mike is going to be standing up in my wedding."

For the full story see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2005_06/climbing_club.htm

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Received on Mon Feb 13 10:32:19 2006