Up, up, up the 30-foot rock wall at the rock-climbing venue in Island Rock in Plainview went Sara Glasser, reaching about the halfway point before allowing the strong ropes to bring her back to the foamy cushion floor. She breathed a big sigh once on the ground.
Glasser is 65.
She is part of a growing number of climbers — on Long Island and across the country — who are helping to boost a growing sports business — indoor rock-climbing.
Like Glasser, many of the climbers are people who participate in the sport for the exercise, or their physical health. But many are also younger, some as young as six.
Glasser, of Searingtown, was diagnosed with Parkinsons, a neurological disorder, in 2018. Indoor rock climbing is a big help in her treatment, she said. An organization specifically advocating rock-climbing for Parkinsons patients has sprung up in Virgina.
“It makes me feel empowered,” Glasser said as she climbed at the Island Rock facility in Plainview, one of several such venues on Long Island,
“I would say I feel pretty good,” she added. “I’m able to do nearly everything I want to do.”
Rock-climbing is an outgrowth of outdoor climbing, which is usually perceived as a sport for rugged outdoor types. Indoor rock climbing seems safer to many, and can of course, be done in any kind of weather.
As a business, it is growing, according to insiders and those who study the sports industry.
A decade ago, there were no such facilities on Long Island, Now, there are two, and more are coming, In addition to Island Rock in Plainview, there is Gravity Vault in Melville. Gravity Vault plans to open another facility, in Westbury, soon. Gravity Vault, headquartered in New Jersey, has 12 locations across the country.
Yet another facility is to be opened in Westbury, in January, by Erik Cline, a long-time rock-climber, and his wife, Kristin.
Jake Byk, content manager for the Climbing Wall Association, a trade organization in Colorado, told the Press that the first indoor rock-climbing place in the U.S. opened in the late 1980s, in the West. Over the past 10 years, the number of rock-climbing facilities has doubled, to about 662, according to IBIS World, a New York-based investment research firm.
“The unprecedented growth has continued, ” said Byk “People see this as something they thought they couldn’t do before and then they see that they can. This makes them confront things they didn’t think they could confront.”
On a weekend morning in late summer, Island Rock in Plainview is a busy place. Families with young children are waiting their turn to scale the rocks, which are dotted with different colored foot and hand holds. A climber is supposed to choose one color and stick with it to the top.
There are two types of climbing: bouldering, which is done without a rope , and climbing, using a rope..
Chad Skidmore, 33, of Great Neck, is getting ready to climb. He is originally from Utah, and got involved in the sport through his older brother.
“I like the physical challenge,” said Skidmore. “It’s a good workout.”
Brian Conlon, 45, of Garden City, showed up at Island Rock with his 16-year-old son, Henry. Father and son go rock climbing about twice a month.
“We like trying new things,” said Conlon, who began taking part in the sport fairly recently. ”It’s all fun,” he added. “But it is a bit of a challenge,”
Rock-climbing has become a sport for Parkinsons patients. Molly Cupka, , who has been working at rock climbing centers since 2008, has started an organization, Up ENDing Parkinsons, in Virginia, in 2012.
Cupka said her organization started with one Parkinsons patent “who noticed a difference and it grew from there.”
She said rock climbers “all have the similar goal of staying on top of their symptoms and mitigating them as much as possible through overall healthy lifestyles. The other common goal is to learn something new and to be successful at it. I hear it over and over again, ‘I can’t believe I am doin this,’ which is extremely overpowering.”
Addressing the business aspects of the sport, IBIS said in a recent report to clients that revenue in the rock climbing industry has grown`1.8 percent between 2019 and this year.
“Marked size is projected to grow over the next five years,” the firm said. It estimates the size of the industry at $728 million.
The rise in popularity of the sport, the firm says, is internet advertising and the fact rock climbing is now an Olympic sport, for the first time in 2020 and again this year in Paris.
Liam Bellow, 32, trained as a musician but had to quit playing the viola after a hand accident a few years ago. He became an assistant general manager at Gravity Fault, a job he said he loves.
“It’s personal for me,” Bellow said. “Every climb is different. I was a scrawny, non-athletic kid, but I learned how to climb. Everyone wants some physical and mental challenge. And this is just fun. You return to that childhood mentality.”