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Adrenaline Climbing gym, based in Sewanee, Ga., took the $1,000 grand prize after recording 941 volunteer hours dedicated to maintaining trails, picking up trash and improving land around crags in the area.
Also in the top five were teams from Experiential Life’s Urban Core climbing program in Atlanta, in third place; Tennessee Bouldering Authority gym in Chattanooga in fourth; and the Franklin, Tenn.-based Crag at Cool Springs in fifth place. A team from Vertical Endeavors gym of St. Paul, Minn., took second place.
Participation in Adrenaline’s trail days has tripled since TeamWorks began in 2008, said gym owner Trey Johanson-Smith. Last year more than 300 volunteers turned out at trail days, including events at Boat Rock, Ga., Sand Rock, Ala., Rocktown, Ga., and the Obed.
“I really love how the Access Fund has created this program for kids. This has created another hook for them to get involved in stewardship,” she said.
In the Southeast, the leadership of the Southeastern Climbers Coalition, the largest local climbing organization in the nation, has played a central role in garnering such enthusiastic support for trail days and TeamWorks, said Amy Ansari, grassroots coordinator for the Access Fund, a nonprofit based in Boulder, Colo. The conservation group launched TeamWorks in 2008.
“The Southeast has a really strong climbing community, where they’re all interconnected,” she said.
“Nationally 36 teams participated in TeamWorks in 2009, 70 percent more than the year before. I’m just super proud of all the competitors. We couldn’t do it without them,” Ansari said.
For young climbers, many of whom were introduced to the sport on plastic, participating in a trail day can foster a sense of investment in the land, said Paul Morley, president of the Southeastern Climbers Coalition, a nonprofit devoted preserving climbing access in the region.
By promoting trail days among their teams, climbing coaches “are positioned in such a good area to begin teaching these newer climbers not only climbing skills, but also land stewardship and the need to be cognizant of conservation,” he said.
The passion for preservation among Southeastern climbers is, in part, rooted in necessity, veteran climbers say.
Because many climbing areas in the Southeast are on privately owned land, losing access to a favorite crag is an ever-present possibility, said Luis Rodriguez, owner of the Tennessee Bouldering Authority, which organized well-attended rail days at Castle Rock in Jasper, Tenn., and Chattanooga’s Sunset Rock in 2009.
Popular events like the Triple Crown bouldering competition have also brought more traffic to the region’s climbing spots, heightening the need for responsible climbing, Rodriguez said.
“If we’re not proactive, we’re going to overrun these areas,” he said. “This TeamWorks project is an effort to get more people to see it as their responsibility. Climbing is a privilege and the best way to keep that privilege is to be involved.”
Work done on trail days this year ranged from spreading mulch and gathering trash, to heavy labor such as constructing watersheds to counteract erosion and repairing flagstone steps, Morley said.
“It’s backbreaking work and the fact that these kids just come out in full force and get the job done, that really is not only showing character as a climber but it just shows integrity,” he said.
Last year the Crag at Cool Springs hosted a trail day at King’s Bluff near Clarksville, Tenn., where dozens of novice climbers worked alongside some of the climbers who first developed the crag and have almost single-handedly maintained the area for years, said gym owner Newton Dominey.
“It’s not every day you get to hang out and work with the guy that put the routes up,” Dominey said. “To get to be around these climbers that could give them stories about, ‘Hey, this is how this route went up,’ or ‘Twenty years ago you had to climb a ladder, there weren’t stairs,’ … it got the kids (not only) psyched to climb outside, but psyched to climb there,” at King’s Bluff.
Climbers with the Urban Core climbing program donated half the team’s $400 winnings to Haiti earthquake relief efforts, said organizer and climbing coach Emily Taylor. She owns Experiential Life, whose climbing program focuses on involving metro Atlanta youth in climbing.
“The program focus in general is about always paying it forward and always giving it back,” Taylor said.
Note: Special thanks to all of the youth climbing teams that worked so hard on Access Fund's TeamWorks!
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