There's a lot of different ways to scale the massive wall at Springfield's Zenith Climbing Center. Audrey and Everett Pauls have a versatile set-up with a lot of options for beginners.
"Beginners typically do pretty well," Everett says. "We have a lot of difficulty options for problems and routes."
Each color of rocks is its own path, rated on a numeric difficulty scale. Once you get up a certain height there's no denying the mental component of this sport.
"This sport is highly mental especially when you're getting higher on the walls," Pauls says. "It gets harder and harder to commit to the next move. It's about 50-percent mental."
There are several climbing styles offered at Zenith.
"Top-roping is where you'll have a climber climbing up and a belayer holding the rope on the other side," Pauls says. "Lead climbing is where the climber starts on the ground with the rope. The belayer's on the ground, and the rope is on the ground. They'll climb up and clip in with their rope. Each one of those is their safety point. Bouldering is where you climb without ropes. You climb 14 or 17 feet high. the trick is it's really gymnastics-y. It's really tough. It's a strong, powerful movement."
So with all those choices of climbing styles and climbing objects at your disposal, Pauls has one suggestion,
"Just try it, there's lots of options for you."
Who knows – you might surprise yourself.
