De Groene Uilen-Moestasj

• 29 jul. 2023 11:00:00

TAC Prize: Groene Uilen Ladies 3 goes bouldering!

As a prize for being second in the Team Activity Challenge, ladies 3 chose to go bouldering at Apex Groningen. 

 

On Thursday 29th of June, instead of having our usual practice, we all (except for, sadly, Famke and Ilse) went to Apex Groningen to try bouldering for a couple of hours. When we got there, a very nice instructor welcomed us, explained a few things and gave us some shoes to try on. After finding our correct shoe size, which is not as easy as it sounds, and signing a slightly disturbing free release of liability waiver, we walked inside the climbing hall. 

 

Our instructor started by explaining some basic rules, the different routes and their difficulty levels and then she gave us a demonstration on one example route. Once we all finished that example easy one, we were free to go around and try as many as we wanted. Meanwhile, she was roaming around checking on us and helping with very useful tips on how to climb some more difficult routes. We even tried an upside down one!

 

We kept climbing various routes by ourselves for more than an hour, until we were all too tired and just sat all together on a bench. After a bit of rest, the instructor joined us again and offered us a last fun challenge. Obviously, we all wanted to try it.

 

The challenge consisted of an apparently easy route that we all had to do one by one. As soon as we all successfully completed it, she marked some of the holds with chalk, making those ‘forbidden’. Then, we all did the route again but without being able to stand on those.  She kept removing more and more holds every time we would all finish the route, until the last challenge, where only 4 holds remained. That is to say, the remaining ones were: the two holds where your hands and one foot had to start, one intermediate, and the final one where both hands had to be simultaneously to finish. 

 

This last route was especially challenging for Pien and Marina, our tiniest teammates, since reaching the intermediate one meant a big jump for them. Opposite, for example, Yara could literally reach it without even stretching. However, against the odds and with a lot of team support, we all were able to successfully reach the top and finish this evening on a good note. 

 

At the end, we returned the shoes, thanked our lovely instructor and left for a final stop at McDonalds to  celebrate with some nice ice cream, just like we do after our away games. A great end for a very fun evening :).

 

A big thanks to Apex Boulders and if you also want to go bouldering check out their website: apexboulders.nl