The Rock Club | The Premier Indoor Rock Climbing Gym for New York City and Westchester

Team Rock gives children a chance to compete, travel

Jane McManus
The Journal News

  NEW ROCHELLE - Christopher Reifsnyder checks to make sure his harness is snug and doubles back through a figure 8 knot for security. His teammate, Ian Gordon, holds the other end of the rope and Reifsnyder climbs on up the wall of The Rock Club in New Rochelle.

  “Finishing the climb is my favorite part,” said Reifsnyder, who lives in Rye. “Finishing the climb and feeling good about it.”

  While their classmates are out playing baseball or soccer, 13-year-old Reifsnyder and Gordon, 11, are climbing as part of TRC’s Team Rock, a coed group that is just finishing its first competitive season. Started in February, six of the 10 young climbers reached the divisional level.

  “Everywhere we go all the coaches and moms and dads are going crazy,” said Meghan McDonald, one of Team Rock’s two coaches. “They can’t beleive we got them up to speed so fast. These kids are incredibly motivated and love climbing.”

  Another reason might be the coaches. Both McDonald and Obe Carrion are experienced climbers, and Carrion was on the U.S. National team in 2001 and 2002. McDonald played soccer on a scholarship at Fordham University, which was the only time in the last 10 years when the Tennessee native wasn’t a rock climber first.

  “I started working in gyms so I could climb for free,” McDonald said.

  Rock climbing has never been up there with baseball, and it’s not really a team sport in nature. There aren’t school teams, and many of the kids who do it are involved in less conventional sports, such as sailing and skateboarding. Still, this team competes throughout the are with competitions in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

  “Rock climbing is sort of a hidden sport, not many people do it,” Gordon said. “It’s my own style.”

  Charlie Kelly, a 15-year-old from Fairfield Conn., said there is disagreement about whether competitive climbing, auch as the weekend events that Team Rock attends, are in the true spirit of the solitary sport. Kelly, though, really enjoys that part.

  “I think you have to be a competitive person, “Kelly said. “A lot of the climbing community doesn’t really like competitive climbing, but you get to meet other people and challenge yourself. ... It makes it seem a lot more official.”

  During the two-hour, twice-a-week practices, the climbers belay each other and cheer each other on. One night they watch as Kelly tries a difficult route up the wall by hooking his rope into a series of pins secured to the wall.

  Some of the kids have even taken the sport outside. Wen Barker, 15, of Greenwich, Conn., has favorite routes like Cathedral Ledge in North Conway, N.H. Gordon likes the Shawangunks, a rock climbing paradise in New Paltz.

  “Outdoor is a lot harder becuase you don’t have the holds,” Gordon said.

  That’s something the instructors know. Both put their own competitive climbing on hold for a while in order to devote more time to the team. And during that recent practice they got an indication that their work was noticed.

  At the end of the night, Carrion and McDonald got a little token of appreciation from one of the parents: a bag of silver and red M&Ms with the words “Team Rock” printed on each candy.

  “That’s so cool,” said McDonald, with a huge smile for her team.