A competitive climbing club is soon to be approved by the Sports Club Council. The team will be open to all students, regardless of their previous experiences.

Isabele Gourley ’19, a competitive climber for more than ten years and a climbing coach of four years, is the founder of the club. She has put together a team of climbers who will practice and compete as an official intramural team at Dickinson.

“I really just want to take this passion that I have and introduce it to as many people as I can,” Gourley said.  “It took a lot of organization but hopefully at the next Sports Club Council meeting, they will vote it in and it will be an official club.”

Gourley said she started the club because of growing interest toward climbing.

“There are a lot of people on campus who are interested in starting climbing but don’t know how to get into it…this is a way they can learn to climb in an organized setting, and Dickinson doesn’t have anything like that yet.”

There are currently 35 people signed up to the email list. The team is open to any student who is interested in climbing, regardless of skill level.

“I really want it to be something that’s not intimidating to new climbers, but also benefits seasoned climbers,” Gourley said. “A lot of them are first years,” she continued, “but there are students from every grade who want to be involved, which is awesome.”

According to Sports Council member Jack Marcus ’17, sports clubs on campus can only be established with the approval of the council members.

“A student may go to the council, which consists of representatives from all the club sports teams at Dickinson, to present an idea and then the council will hold a vote on the topic,” maintained Marcus.

The team will participate in both collegiate and open level climbing tournaments.  Gourley said that there will be many opportunities for the team to compete and climb against other schools.

“Lots of colleges have some sort of climbing team or club…colleges will sometimes host competitions if they have a local gym or climbing wall at their school,” she said.

According to Gourley, climbing competitions are usually split into divisions by age and gender, and teams are awarded points by how high they climb on their assigned course. USA Climbing is the governing body of most of these tournaments.

There is no official website for the organization yet, but to get more information about the club or competitive climbing, contact Gourley at [email protected].