Born Climbers

Even though Chase was a butterball until he was 1 1/2, he did start walking at 10 1/2 months old. Sidney showed how competitive she was at an early age by walking when she was 8 1/2 months old. When Chase was 7 and Sidney was 5, they would climb on top of playgrounds as high as 8 or 9 feet and jump into my arms. That freaked out quite a few parents. It was Sidney climbing all over the playground with ease that got us to check out the Little Rockers program at the Redmond Vertical World (http://verticalworld.com/content/view/18/36/). Chase initially did not show any interest in climbing, he just wanted to board. So we enrolled Sidney in the program and after the first class the instructors, Josie and none other than B-Hops, said she was already good enough to climb for the team. That definitely gave Sidney an ego boost and she was hooked. She would climb in Little Rockers off and on for a while but we pretty much stuck to skateparking. When she was 8, Vertical World opened up in Everett and it became feasible for her to climb more often. We put her in a summer rock camp there and after the first day, Joe, the manager at the time, introduced himself and said he really wanted her to climb team. Of course, Sidney was excited and it was all she could talk about. I contacted the coach, Tyson, and he said he would love her to come and try out. I brought her down, dropped her off and left until the end of practice. When I came back, I asked Tyson if she was good enough to climb with the team. He smiled and said she was good enough and that he would love to have her on the team. I think he was pleasantly surprised. At that time, there were only a couple of climbers her age on the team. It's not like it is now where it seems like half the team is 11 or younger. Sidney was ecstatic and a climber was born. Chase would take a little while longer to come around.