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“Addictions can be very, very bad but addiction itself is not bad.
It’s a case of what you’re addicted to.
You better live each day like it’s your last, ‘cos one day you’re going to be right”.
Ray Charles.
Link tip a friend
Worst climbing job for a child:
A Guillemot Egg Collector who collects eggs from this avian scumbag’s nests but the nests are located on very high cliff ledges and are protected by angry crew who swarm around the intruders, peck at their eyes and repeatedly and accurately poop on the hapless guano-enslimed collectors.
Worst holiday camp experience for a child of 2009:
Rachel Nevers is a Florida 12 year old was at a camp in Georgia where she and 60 others caught the H1N1 Swine Flu virus which manifested itself in headaches, fevers and exhaustion and where she also got infections in both ears and something alarmingly called “Pink Eye”.
The moral of the story?
Make sure junior is privately health insured and before you hand over the family Guillemot Egg Collection business to your kid, give them some real training and skills at Yo! Basecamp in California’s High Sierras.
We reckon this is worth looking at for a couple of reasons, one of which is to consider the progress these kids achieve in just a couple of weeks. Lots of them go there with previous climbing time under their belt but after experiencing the enthusiasm, the location and calibre of instruction, their time at Yo! often shapes lives in an absurdly positive way.
There are plenty of ways that kids get into doing these activities and this is just one pathway but we’re giving them a spiel because it’s just such a good thing on every level.
It’s like what the Jesuits have long maintained, put a child into their hands before it’s reached the age of 7 and they’ll give you a Catholic for life. Send a child on a Yo! Basecamp climbing experience and you’ll likely to have a climber for life. (That’s perhaps enough on the analogy front ….. here we go on what they do).
What kids do at Yo! Basecamp is from sunrise to sunset do what all climbers dream of, namely on Yosemite - like rock learn about something really important which is how to climb.
Based in the spectacular High Sierras, Yo! Basecamp Rock Climbing Camp was founded in ‘98 by husband and wife team Andy Puhvel and Lisa Coleman who had the aim to get kids properly grounded in the basics of climbing on real rock.
Indoor climbing gyms are of course and rightly a huge part of our sport but these two long-time climbers saw the need for a summer camp where kids who love climbing could experience outdoor rock climbing in one a fantastic outdoor setting.
The choices they offer are to go on a bouldering camp, a Sharma camp or an all-around rock camp where the focus of the instruction is on guiding each climber toward the climbs, boulder problems and activities that make them feel good about themselves and give them the best rock climbing experience possible.
The climbing and safety techniques that kids are taught become the building blocks of their foundation as safe and responsible climbers and what’s covered goes right down to conscientiously getting to the crags on established trails, evaluating a boulder problem's landing zone to staying hydrated while being active and a lot more.
They take kids from 11 to 18 (bound to take crew in their 30’s if you make a donation to ”the special fund” and don’t want a receipt) and run their programmes on no more than a 4:1 student/staff ratio.
They’ll even pick up your aspiring Fred Nicole from San Francisco’s Mission Cliffs Climbing Gym or the San Jose REI store and one significant feature is their philosophy which is to downplay the notion of competition; fun and challenge, yes, but not to ever pressure the kids to outperform each other.
What do they need from you? True, a few bucks but the prices seem bloody reasonable and it seems they even provide real food too. Nowhere was there spotted: “At the end of each day your child will undertake a challenging personal survival experience to re-connect with their primitive roots”.
Which is code for: “Each night we’ll sling them out in the bush to scavenge for scraps; it’ll be like Lord Of The Flies … only worse”.
They don’t even need your spawn to have previous climbing experience, the High Sierra Rock Camps are suitable for beginners and those who are new to outdoor climbing but who have some gym experience. Andy and Lisa do recommend that your kid go at least once to an indoor climbing gym ….. in other words they do need to have a genuine interest in rock climbing before coming along.
On the bouldering camps though, young crew should attend who have already shown a strong interest and solid foundation in bouldering, since the areas they go to are genuinely technical. Put simply; boulderers should be motivated enough to boulder for many hours a day, several days in a row.
Any level climbing ability is catered and if anyone’s ever been to this area, it’s genuinely fair to say that it is world-class and unbeatable with the technical bouldering areas they go to being either Castle Rock or numerous areas on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The location depends on which camp is attended, are all quite challenging and technical and the countless problems range from moderate to the hardest routes (this side of Dai Koyamada's V16 The Wheel of Life in the Hollow Mountain cave in the Grampians, Australia …. ha ha).
Where do the camps take place you ask? The High Sierra Rock Camp and High Sierra Bouldering Camp take place at Courtright Reservoir, an amazing climbing area in the High Sierra and is located east of the town of FresnoAnd the East Side Mega-Crankin' Bouldering Camp takes place at a number of different bouldering areas on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, near Bishop, California.
They’ll provide all the climbing gear including helmet, harness and belay device, all you need to provide for the offspring are their climbing shoes.
So there you have it, a bit of a run-down on a great business, combined with a great philosophy; if it’s archery you’re after for junior, it looks like forget this outfit but if not, where else are you going to read the line:“On our bouldering camps, we also provide crash pads”.
How good is that …..
PS. One more thing, someone who has been working with Andy and Lisa since 1998 is Simon Sharma, the English art historian, professor at Columbia University and cultural critic for The New Yorker magazine.
Hang on, this can’t be right. Anyway it’s some Sharma guy; he’s still a staff member for at least one camp every year and your kid may be able to hang out with him and discuss how Goya did the first ever dead point.
