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The coaches are already making plans for the spring,
designing SKS custom cycling jerseys, looking for jersey
sponsors, and outfitting our bike shop. The fever seems
to have caught on as our headmaster recently purchased a
mountain bike to be able to expand his passion for cycling
into new terrain. We invite any friends of SKS to visit us on
the mountain and join us for a ride some time. If you are
interested in joining us for a ride, or would like to support
the mountain-biking program in any capacity please contact
Taras Ferencevych (tferencevych@sks.org). Stay tuned for more
information about our expanding outdoor adventure program
in future issues of OTM and on our website (rock climbing
team, dog sledding, adventure travel).
SKS
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News
YOU DON’T NECESSARILY NEED
a tall mountain rock face to
practice rock climbing skills. The sport known as bouldering,
ascending or traversing rock faces and boulders usually no higher
than fifteen feet without using a rope or any other aid other than
hands and feet, has rapidly increased in popularity over the last ten
years. Originally it was seen as a way to train or warm up for longer
rock climbing routes, but today bouldering is a discipline in itself
practiced all around the world.
Unlike easy to moderate rock climbing, bouldering often
happens at steep overhanging angles and it demands some upper
body and finger strength but most importantly a strong core,
coordinated footwork and gymnastic movement. Climbers must
work out sequences to move though a route, or ‘problem,’ without
touching the ground, to get a ‘clean’ ascent or ‘send’. Beginning
climbers committed to improving are quick to realize how they can
improve with proper foot placements and body positioning. Often
‘
sending’ a boulder ‘problem’ is not necessarily a matter of strength.
This summer some of the Storm King faculty carved out a corner
of the new student center to construct an overhanging indoor
bouldering wall. With a hundred plus moveable hand holds bolted
to the wall, each made of a synthetic resin shaped to simulate rock
formations, the Storm King Bouldering wall is a great place to have
fun and train for outdoor objectives on real rock.
In late winter and early spring the Outdoor Adventure Climbing
Club plans to visit the Shawangunk Mountains thirty miles north.
Climbers from all over the world visit the ‘Gunks’ because of its high
quality quartzite conglomerate rock. Meanwhile students have been
training on the new bouldering wall and at the nearby Gravity Vault
climbing gym in Mahwah, New Jersey.
The Outdoor Adventure program hopes rock climbing and
bouldering will teach students how to get outside and interact with
the natural world in a fun and rewarding way. Climbing can
potentially be a tremendously rewarding lifetime sport. There are
hundreds of bouldering areas in outdoor locations on every
continent, and teaching young climbers proper ethics, such as “leave
no trace,” and respect for their climbing environments help foster
another generation of responsible land stewardship wherever our
graduates will go on to climb.
NEW BOULDERING WALL
AT SKS TEACHES STUDENTS
SKILLS AND ETHICS
By Jeremy Freeman
