SUU Outdoors treated eight climbers to a day of sunny rock climbing at the Green Valley Gap on Saturday, Feb. 12 as their fourth free adventure trip of the semester.
The Green Valley Gap, a boulder-laced sandstone ravine mere minutes west of St. George, is an immensely popular recreation area for locals and travelers alike for its abundance of outdoors sporting opportunities such as biking, hiking and rock climbing for all difficulties.
This crevasse’s many easily accessible crags provided the largely beginner group of student adventurers with an excellent morning of climbing across three separate pitches of up to 15 meters, each offering unique challenges and characteristics.
“It was just about perfect,” said climber Daniil Kiselev, an exchange student from Russia. “It was just about as difficult as I was hoping.”
Following a quick but comprehensive ground school on the basics of climbing, each student had the opportunity to climb, belay and backup belay. For many of the beginners, this trip served as a great exercise in overcoming fear and self-doubt.
“I just had to learn to not talk myself down like ‘I can’t do this’ because I really could,” said Malin Sender. “But I really enjoyed it overall. I would go again.”
With the encouragement of the group, each climber managed to complete at least one pitch where they could then enjoy both a sense of accomplishment and the view from atop the cliff—an outstretched Red Cliffs National Conservation Area across a backdrop of snow-capped Pine Valley peaks.
While this marked the only planned climbing trip of the semester, SUU Outdoors offers many more exciting opportunities to get outside and enjoy all that nature has to offer. For more information on local events and adventure trips, visit Basecamp in the Sharwan Smith Student Center.
Photos and Story by: Jared Clawson
outdoors@suunews.net
