{"id":30688,"date":"2023-11-11T11:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-11T18:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/youth-climbers-ascend-on-durango-for-first-gravity-lab-competition\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:23:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:23:42","slug":"youth-climbers-ascend-on-durango-for-first-gravity-lab-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/youth-climbers-ascend-on-durango-for-first-gravity-lab-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth climbers ascend on Durango for first Gravity Lab competition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"AJ
AJ Constan, 17, a member of Gravity Lab's Youth Competition Team, works on a boulder problem at Monday's practice. The gym will host its first USA Climbing competition Saturday. (Reuben Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Cameron Nimetz stands with two of his teammates gazing up at one of Gravity Lab\u2019s 16-foot bouldering walls as the three young men try to solve \u201cthe problem\u201d \u2013 a series of small green plastic holds on an overhung surface pitched back over the climbing gym\u2019s padded floor.<\/p>\n

He saunters away from the two and starts up the series of holds in a familiar pattern of movements before he slips, hurtling a few feet back to the ground.<\/p>\n

It is Monday afternoon \u2013 one of the last opportunities for Nimetz and his 16 teammates to train before Saturday, when Gravity Lab will host its first USA Climbing competition. The organization is the nation\u2019s governing body for climbing competitions and manages the American Olympic team.<\/p>\n

Competitive climbing sprawled onto the international stage after the sport made its Olympic debut in 2021. Indoor climbing has existed since the late 1980s and competitions began around the same time. But, following the release of hit climbing movies such as \u201cDawn Wall\u201d and \u201cFree Solo\u201d in the 2010s, the historically countercultural sport has become increasingly mainstream and the interest in competition has grown.<\/p>\n

In Durango, a town with ample rock climbing scattered within a half-hour drive of downtown, opportunities to compete are scarce. Almost as soon as the gym opened last year, Gravity Lab Co-owner Sebastiaan Zuidweg said parents and kids alike were asking when it would start a competition team.<\/p>\n

\"Head
Head Coach and Routesetter Charlie Malone works with one of the climbers on the Gravity Lab Youth Competition Team at Monday's practice. (Reuben Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThe need was there,\u201d he said. Now, the gym has an 18-climber team with competitors from ages 8 to 18.<\/p>\n

Although Nimetz, 18, has been a climber since he was 7, he had never competed before Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m psyched,\u201d he said, expressing excitement in common climber lingo at practice Monday afternoon. \u201c\u2026 I\u2019m not into climbing to be better than other people, it\u2019s more to push myself. But it\u2019s cool to be out in the community climbing with these kids. You get a lot better when you have a little competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cameron
Cameron Nimetz, 18, will compete in his first climbing competition at Gravity Lab on Saturday. \u201cI\u2019m not into climbing to be better than other people, it\u2019s more to push myself,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s cool to be out in the community climbing with these kids. You get a lot better when you have a little competition.\u201d (Reuben Schafir\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Indeed, Zuidweg and the Gravity Lab Coach and Head Routesetter Charlie Malone say the youth competition team is much more about providing an opportunity to the community than it is about winning.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of what I secretly love about climbing is that it caters to kids who typically don\u2019t fit so well with big sports teams,\u201d Zuidweg said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a team sport in the sense that your team is all playing on a field. In one sense, it\u2019s a very individualized sport. But the camaraderie and cheering and support is so communal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Registration for the event topped 70 climbers, who will travel from across USAC Region 41, which includes southern Colorado, most of Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle.<\/p>\n

The Durango competition is one of 10 leading up to the regional throwdown, which will take place in Boulder on Jan. 13.<\/p>\n

Gravity Lab\u2019s team could be at a disadvantage when the spring climbing season rolls around. The climbing shifts from bouldering, which involves a short series of difficult moves with no ropes, to sport climbing, which consists of climbing much taller walls with ropes. Gravity Lab\u2019s limited roped real estate mean the team has to get creative to train for the more endurance-focused season.<\/p>\n

But not for long, Zuidweg says.<\/p>\n

The gym has a pending planning application for an expansion that would double the size of the climbing area and include 45-foot high lead climbing walls, communal work space and kid-specific climbing areas.<\/p>\n

\"Gravity
Gravity Lab Co-owner Sebastiaan Zuidweg has plans to build a second facility next to the existing gym, doubling the amount of available climbing. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIf things go well, we\u2019d be breaking ground sometime in 2024,\u201d Zuidweg said.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the current challenge, Malone, the team\u2019s coach, says medals are perhaps a secondary goal to most of the climbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the pressure that the kids feel, they put on themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when it really comes down to it, all the team kids are climbing with each other, they\u2019re all having fun. It really just turns into a session of working rock climbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malone sees climbing as a personal endeavor and an exercise in self-growth. The development that accompanies the process of becoming a better climber has applications far beyond the gym\u2019s walls \u2013 and Malone sees it as one of his job duties to encourage that development in the team\u2019s climbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimbing is unique in the sense that it becomes a personal journey pretty quickly,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 When it really comes down to it, it doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re sending, it doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re falling. It matters how you are approaching the whole problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A personal journey buoyed by camaraderie and cheering<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2748,950,28,430,3465,2505],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-climbing","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-recreational-and-sporting-goods","tag-sport-climbing","tag-summer-olympics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81164,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30688\/revisions\/81164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30688"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}