BUTTE — I’m at the latest Butte "hangout;" it’s a gym that has a large rock-climbing facility. The sport is getting more and more popular in Butte and around the world since it recently became an Olympic sport.
“You want to train, it’s hard to climb outside if you don’t have the training and so this just gets you ready. When I lived in Missoula, it was just a dime a dozen, you just had the hubs that would bring people together and that’s something we want to create in Butte,” said Jen DeLong of Recreate Climbing and Fitness Gym in Butte.
Jen and her husband Matthew, who came to Butte from Missoula, with others, started Recreate Climbing and Fitness Gym in Butte late last year to give outdoor enthusiasts a place to train. Along with a fitness center, the gym includes a large rock wall facility. Rockwall climbing has an interesting history.
“It started out as an off-season training. Guys would throw up plywood, originally guys were picking up rocks, drilling holes in them and screwing them into the wall, I mean, whatever they could do. It’s turned into its own sport, you know, there’s people that have never climbed outside, but climb in a gym every day,” said Matthew DeLong.
The climbing gym is gaining in popularity, including over 40 children taking classes.
“So we want to build it from the ground up, really invest in the youth so that it actually becomes part of our culture,” said Jen DeLong. “Butte has some of the most spectacular outdoors, you know, we have just in every direction we have incredible mountains and how do you get the training, meet the people and have the community do those things."
