Last week during Spring Break, we took our Girl Scout Troop to the Stone Gardens Indoor Rock Climbing Gym in Bellevue, Washington. The Girl Scout Troop loves to go to this place and play for two solid hours. And I enjoy allowing them to challenge themselves in the safety of indoor climbing gym wearing the appropriate safety gear.
The only person to get hurt was yours truly. In my misguided notion that I have superpowers, I fell attempting to leap from one climbing handhold to the other on the free climbing wall. I realized that my arms don’t quite stretch as far as an orangutan as I fell backwards towards the floor.
Sure, the fall was only onto my back from a good ten feet up (maybe higher but we won’t tell my wife that) and I almost gave myself a concussion, but it was fun. At least that is what I kept telling myself. My friend Mark (the other dad to attend this event) got a really good laugh that I hurt myself. He showed me pictures of me doing a really good job of climbing and a picture of the rock face where I had been before I fell. He wasn’t quick enough to capture my rapid descent to the matt and the aftermath.
Luckily, I was able to hold back the tears and keep up my macho appearance in front of my daughter and her fellow Girl Scouts.
One worthy tip to note is if you have a Boy Scout or Girl Scout Troop is to inquire with different venues if they offer a non-profit rate. We saved about $5 per climber since we were a non-profit group.
Thanks for reading! Your comments are always welcome!
Kevin Hellriegel's Blog of Worthless Advice 
Yeouch!!! When you tell your story, tell everyone you were attempting a two handed dyanamo! They’ll be super impressed.
Thanks for the rock climbing lingo tip!
Egads. Great example though, that you can fall and get hurt. Caution and equipment are a must. Did you use safety equipment? 🙂
Safety equipment? What’s that? Just kidding, I was in the free climb section where I know better. Luckily the matt is very thing. On the taller sections we were roped up and the belay was on! Thanks for your comment and for taking the time to comment!