Remy, a Studio Climbing front desk member, raised money to rappel for a good cause last month. Check out her trip report on this unique experience.
I rappelled off a building, hurray! I have so much to tell you about all of it! Where do I begin?
We – staff, members and guest climbers at the Studio in downtown San Jose – raised $500 for Shatterproof, a non-profit focused on helping families battle addiction. It’s fun to help out organizations when there’s a climbing niche involved. Actually, a different organization called Over-the-Edge handles the ropes and gear. In a nutshell, Over-the-Edge is a group of journeymen climber peeps that travel the country setting up rappel lines for fundraising events like the one I pledged for this year.
Speaking of pledging, I cannot stress enough how amazing the members and guests are at my gym. They did not hesitate to help me out with raising the funds. Like, for real a member dropped $20 in exchange for a couple of brownies at our bake sale. And another member turned her purse upside down on the counter and gave me every penny that fell out of it (like $5 total). She didn’t even take any bake goods in return! It’s astonishing that our member community could care so much about helping others. Shatterproof and Over-the-Edge want us to participate again next year. They raved and raved about how awesome we are as climbers and community members.
Now about the rappel: it was rad! I learned so much about cave rappel or BASIC ascender gear, like the Petzl STOP and CROLL. Basically, the STOP is a long, slender self-braking belay device that runs on the descending line; I grip it to descend and unclench it to stop. Leading along the descending line is the belay line with the CROLL; it basically just acts like a seatbelt, halting my descent if I jerk around or begin to descend too fast. All the while I’m hooked in to both via a full-body harness, and they made me wear a helmet and gloves because apparently it’s like safer (wink wink – wear safety gear, guys!). The rappel only took about two minutes to complete, and onlooker said I looked like I was dancing on the way down. It was more relaxing than anything, and I would have done it again if they let me. It was actually my first manual rappel outside of a gym. And stepping over the edge was super easy.
All in all, the Over-the-Edge guys said I was among the easiest to coach on the lines, and they invited me to volunteer/rappel with them at an event in San Francisco in March. Hurray!
