By Hunter Hine

The Eppley climbing wall has started hosting a weekly disability affinity space that welcomes members of the disability community to rock climb.

The disability affinity space, which is hosted every Friday from 2 to 4 p.m. as of Sept.17, recognizes rock climbing as a sport that’s historically inaccessible to many people and aims to broaden its accessibility, coordinator for the climbing wall and challenge climbing course Meghan Loughry said. 

Loughry works as part of the adventure center within Recreation and Wellness at University of Maryland, managing the climbing wall’s daily operations and its 35 staff members. She also manages the challenge course and its 15 staff. 

“There have been a lot of barriers for people of different identities to get involved in outdoor recreation, so I feel committed to helping as many people feel comfortable in this space as possible,” Loughry said.

Only two or three participants typically attend the event, Loughry said. This past Friday, Oct. 22, drew three participants, and two regulars were the first ones to arrive.

Zach McKay has visited the affinity space for the past three weeks with Katie Rees, his partner and mentor. McKay is a freshman in the first ever class of the TerpsEXCEED program, which helps introduce students with intellectual and developmental disabilities into higher education, Rees said.

Rees, a junior government and politics and theater double major, is also pursuing a disabilities studies minor. As part of a class for her minor, Rees works with McKay in and out of classes and participates in activities with him, such as attending clubs or going climbing together.

“I feel like climbing in general is a really fun experience but also makes you feel very strong,” Rees said. “Like Zach was saying, it makes you feel accomplished when you get to the top and everyone deserves to feel that way no matter what their ability is, and this program allows for that.”

Slideshow: McKay and Rees complete their climb at the RecWell rock wall. Photos by Kyle Heflinger.

Chris Berry, a fifth year computer science and math double major, is spending his last semester supervising for the adaptive climbing shift and working as a trip leader for the adventure program. Berry and other staff are trained in implementing adaptive climbing equipment

Paradox Sports, an organization that promotes adaptive climbing, trained the staff of the disability affinity space to use adaptive climbing equipment, Loughry said. 

The Paradox trainers also taught staff a “Show us what you got?” method, meaning that staff make no assumptions about a participant’s climbing ability and only provide adaptations to someone’s climbing equipment as needed, Loughry said.

Everyone’s climb looks different, and staff members can use their equipment to adapt a climb to fit almost any person’s ability level, Loughry said.

Equipment available to participants can range from standard harnesses, ropes and belay devices to a chair harness and a rope ascender system, Berry said. The ascender system uses pulleys and a bar that pushes easily up the rope, then locks in place as the user pulls themselves up.

By adjusting the rope and pulleys, the ascender system has four adjustable strength levels. It can be set so the user can pull approximately 100%, 50%, 33% or 25% of their own body weight, and it can be used with or without the chair harness.

Since starting the affinity space, the staff has not had a participant who required the chair harness, Berry said.

The disability affinity space is one of three climbing affinity spaces including women’s climb night and ascend in color, a climb open to members of the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities, according to RecWell’s Facebook page.

Isabella “Izzy” Hatfield, a junior environmental technology and soil science major, is part of climbing staff and a route setter at the adventure program. Hatfield also works at women’s climb night.

“Historically, climbing is a very white male-dominated sport,” said Hatfield. “I want to share my love of climbing with other individuals who may not otherwise have access to it.” 

Berry had a personal inspiration for working on the adaptive space.

“One of the reasons why I wanted to do this is because my father is paralyzed from … the chest down, and I started getting into rock climbing after his accident,” Berry said. “So I never got a chance to climb with him … I think that it’s important for people like him to be able to do the things that I like to do like climbing.” 

Featured image: McKay and Rees climb to the top of the RecWell rock wall at the disability affinity space on Friday, Oct. 22. Photo by Kyle Heflinger.