Tag: chicago

  • Chicago’s First Big Rock Climbing Gym Set to Open This Winter

    Chicago’s First Big Rock Climbing Gym Set to Open This Winter

    Chicago’s skyline towers over any hill within a several-hour-radius- not the ideal terrain for rock climbers. Countless yoga studios, weight rooms and pools clutter the third largest city in the country, enough to satisfy any athlete, with the exception of climbers. Outside of a handful of rock walls thrown into gyms as afterthoughts, and one solid, yet tiny, bouldering room, Chicago lacks an indoor rock climbing facility. As soon as Winter 2014, this will all change when First Ascent comes to the Windy City.

     

    I had a conversation with three climbers who are spearheading the new gym’s launch to find out details about what we can expect from First Ascent. CFO Joe Zentmyer’s heading the gym’s financial needs, while Dan Bartz is taking charge of most of the gym’s groundwork. Jon Shepard runs general business oversight and the legal side of First Ascent. All three are heavily involved in the climbing community, along with majority of the investors backing Chicago’s first big rock gym.

    First Ascent will reside on the north side of Chicago, north of Logan Square, near Avondale, at 3500 N. Spaulding Avenue.  The new gym will offer climbers 26,000 square feet of climbing, including a main wall and 5,000 square feet of bouldering. Climbers will have the opportunities to lead, sport climb and top rope, and a fitness center featuring weights and cardio machines will be available for cross training. First Ascent will even save space for a yoga studio, where climbers can stretch and strengthen. An added café and locker rooms with showers will give work commuters somewhere to climb and freshen up before or after work.

    “There will be lots of climbing surface,” said Shepard. “With anything from beginner terrain to expert, overhanging and lead terrain.” Shepard said that it is especially exciting for all of those who head down to the Red River Gorge, the best close climbing to Chicago (and close, meaning 400 plus miles). Many at the Red encounter trouble sending new routes because of their lack of training space options. First Ascent will give those dedicated climbers a spot to train for their next big projects during the workweek.

    While First Ascent’s steep climbs and advanced bouldering will cater to the elite climbers, the First Ascent team also hopes to draw in beginners and everyone in between. Classes in safety, technique and outdoor climbing will be offered, as the First Ascent team, especially Bartz, a Teach for America alum, highly values education within the sport.

    The team behind First Ascent is also interested in expanding competition climbing in Chicago. While elite climbing competitions have gained more media hype in recent years, there aren’t as many competitive opportunities for average climbers. The opening of a large rock gym, like First Ascent, could bring attention to Chicago as a mecca for this type of climbing competition, with the potential to grow the climbing community in the Midwest.

    “The Chicago climbing community is extremely unique,” said Bartz. “Because we live so far away from real rock, you really have to be dedicated to the sport, so there’s a really supportive network here. Everyone’s down-to-earth. It’s kind of that Midwestern charm that you get a little bit too.” Bartz expects First Ascent to work with that community and grow it, giving climbing access to those who just don’t have it right now. He also hopes it will unite a currently fragmented community, divided between small gyms scattered throughout the city. “We’re excited to have a place where everyone can climb together and allow people from different climbing pockets to come together, meet each other and get psyched up for their next project,” said Bartz.

    So why has it taken so long for a solid rock gym to make it to Chicago? According to Zentmyer, it’s really tough to build one in the Chicago area. It’s challenging to find the right location and real estate situation for a building as big as a climbing gym requires, not to mention the funding to back it. A location change, moving First Ascent from the South Loop to the Logan Square/Avondale location also slowed down the project, but with the kinks worked out, the gym should be up and open this coming winter. The First Ascent team members attribute a large portion of their success to sourcing themselves directly from Chicago, the city they’re building in, surrounding themselves with the climbers for whom they’re building First Ascent.

    Rock climbers in the Windy City anxiously await the long overdue arrival of a large rock gym, like First Ascent, pulling with it the potential to put Chicago on the map in the rock climbing world.

     

    Photo courtesy of Walltopia

  • Kayaking in Chicago: Rain, Shine and Snow

    Kayaking in Chicago: Rain, Shine and Snow

    kayak chicago

    A line of kayakers bobbed like baby ducklings in the University of Illinois, Chicago pool, where just an hour earlier 10-year-old swimmers had raced each other, running laps through the lanes. The smell of chlorine was pungent in the humid air. Brian Westrick herded a group of five into the far corner of a pool. There, he demonstrated the lesson for the evening: slap, drop and roll.

    He smacked the water with his yellow paddle, sending drops flying onto his red, long-sleeved T-shirt and light brown hair. Next, he tilted his head away from the paddle in the water in a slow, dramatic movement. Finally, he rolled his hips, moving his weight away from his paddle and righting his tipped boat.

    The students, each sporting a life preserver and sea skirt, were there to master their kayaking skills. In Chicago, where Lake Michigan freezes during the long, winter months, kayakers head to the indoor pool to splash around. Some go to perfect techniques, while others just want to keep paddling. Dave Olson’s company, Kayak Chicago, has spent chilly months in the UIC pool for the last 15 years.

    On that April evening while rain poured outside, three separate organizations of kayak enthusiasts crowded the pool swarming together. Because all three were heavily involved in Chicago’s kayak community, many members from different groups spotted familiar faces across the pool. Olson’s Kayak Chicago students were there to learn the beginning moves of Eskimo Rolls. His instructors were also teaching Wounded Warrior kayakers, an organization that helps wounded members of the U.S. Armed Forces. Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, a petite woman with big, blonde curls, helped lead the final group in the pool: the Chicago Area Sea Kayakers Association, a group dedicated to promoting safe paddling and protecting the waterways of the Chicago area.

    Chicago Area Sea Kayakers Association member Michael Taylor sat on the sidelines, watching members sign paperwork and zip into life jackets with a constant smile. Taylor, originally a boater, got hooked on paddling when he stumbled upon a kayaking magazine on a long plane ride seven years ago. “Girl, I couldn’t put it down,” said Taylor flashing his bright white teeth. “It was like a bug that bit me.”

    Since it was mid-October, a chilly time to launch a boat onto the Chicago rivers or lake, Taylor searched the web for indoor options. He came across Olson’s company and signed up for lessons at the UIC pool. In November, he bought the most expensive kayak the outdoor gear store Cabela’s sold, knocked down from $1,000 to $600 in the off-season.

    He never stopped kayaking. Today, he’s president of Calumet Waterway Stewards, a group dedicated to promoting Southland paddling and keeping waters clean for kayaking and canoeing enthusiasts. For his first time back to paddle the pool waters, he dressed in a bright blue shirt in thick black pants. He remembered how cold it was his first season in the chlorinated water seven years earlier.

    While Taylor’s fellow Chicago Area Sea Kayakers Association members exchanged greetings on the other side of the pool, Olson’s staff instructed Kayak Chicago and Wounded Warrior students. It was time for them to try the techniques Westrick demonstrated earlier. No one smiled or spoke for at least 10 minutes. One by one, they teetered back and forth, the sides of their boats barely dipping into the water.

    After several timid tips, one kayaker, a muscular man with a blue shirt, paddled to the center of the pool. His tattooed arms moved furiously. When he had as much space as he could find, a 10-foot circle of empty water around his yellow kayak, he began to tilt his boat with as much enthusiasm as he’d paddled. Swaying right and left, he dunked his yellow paddle into the pool over and over again. With a loud splash, he flipped his boat all the way over, forgetting to roll his hips away from his paddle as Westrick had demonstrated. Students around him stopped for a moment, watching as his bald head popped up from the pool lane. He glared at his up-side-down boat bobbing next to him.

    The onlookers returned to their cautious swaying, but Olson stayed still, watching. His lean body towered out of his bright yellow boat, his dark head of hair growing taller as he strained to see the bold captain of the overturned boat. A smile softened his angular features before he turned his boat and attention back to a middle-aged man splashing, on the verge of tipping himself.

    With summer finally here, the rivers and Lake Michigan have warmed up enough for kayakers to hit the outdoor waters. For tours, rentals and lessons check out kayakchicago.com.