Rediscovering My Climbing Roots in Vernon, BC

When I was 21, I started rock climbing. It was not intentional. As a journalism student, I worked in a PR firm and ended up covering a hot air balloon championship. This opened up a whole new world, including the mountains, as many balloonists were also climbers and mountaineers. I started camping and hiking with them.

My fear of heights would often stop me from doing more, but my passion for nature and the mountains pushed me forward. To deal with this fear, I decided to enroll in a rock climbing course. Nothing like knowledge to keep fear at bay. Or so I thought…

For two decades, I rock climbed. I also summited high-altitude mountains. But rock climbing was the closest to my heart—the activity I would do every weekend, the bread-and-butter of my life in the mountains. I spent countless hours at the base of crags with friends, belaying them, preparing to climb a pitch, or simply hanging out.

I visited crags in many places around the world. I touched many different types of rocks, feeling on the tips of my fingers their peculiar texture and grip. I learned about various safety systems and discussed route graduations as if it were an exact science.

Then, one day, I got pregnant. In the last 18 years, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve climbed. Life changed, and I embraced these changes happily and comfortably, without noticing how much I was missing the vertical life I was so used to.

My sport became mountain biking and, most recently, downhill biking. I still go to the mountains to play—mostly going down instead of up. I stopped visiting crags but never stopped loving the outdoors. This year, I decided to start hiking again and began using an app to find trails around me.

Maybe it’s not a coincidence that I chose to live in a place that uses the tagline “the trail capital of BC.” Vernon has trails throughout its core—some inside the city, others just a few minutes’ drive from my home. I started hiking once a week two months ago, as soon as the ground was free of ice.

By mid-May, I spotted a promising trail on the app: “Cougar Canyon, climbing area” and decided to take a look. To my surprise, Vernon has a series of walls with established climbing routes, including an out-of-print guidebook the author is currently updating!

Top rope, bolted, trad routes. Overhanging, steep, not so steep faces. Shady base, with water running through the steep and narrow canyon. In other words, a climber’s paradise—and only 15 minutes away from my home, plus a beautiful 1.1 km walk from the parking lot!

I’m not back to climbing, just yet. But I do see ropes, carabiners, and even some trad gear in my future. Vernon keeps getting better and better, a hidden gem in BC, with all the sports I love and then some.