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Rampage Rocks: Bouldering and acroyoga

Festival holds third annual climbing extravaganza
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Alexis Vergalla works on a boulding problem at the Rampage Festival.

Climbers and acroyogis united last weekend in Ƶappto hang out, climb on the rocks and move among each other. 

In its third year, the Rampage Festival is a place for like-minded people to meet and get involved in the yoga and climbing communities.

“There’s a nice community of people trying to do something all together and it’s pretty relaxed and enjoyable,” said Alexis Vergalla, who came up from Seattle along with 20 of her female friends to get a feel for Ƶappbouldering. 

The women made their way from problem to problem, testing out the granite and seeing how climbing varies here compared with their home crags.

 Vergalla is an organizer of She Rocks, a group of female climbers from Washington. 

“This is a celebration of climbing outside. We can all get to boulder and talk more than at a roped festival. It seems like a really nice community that’s pulled together,” she said. 

Though her foremost passion in climbing is to get out in the alpine, Vergalla appreciated the structure and atmosphere of the Rampage Festival.

 While it is structured as a competition – with open, intermediate and advanced categories and winners for each – the underlying intention is to get people out climbing and to build up the community. 

“It’s amazing the amount of prep that went into it as far as marking out trails, and signing up volunteers to show people around,” noted Vergalla.

 Leading up to the event, there were some concerns raised by the ƵappAccess Society with regard to maintaining a no-trace ethic and overcrowding of the boulders for other climbers. The society set up a table during the day to help address these concerns.

Rampage organizer Jeff Yoo said that they mitigate potential negative impacts of climbers on the forest and greater community by keeping participants informed and by having volunteers act as tour guides to help new climbers learn the etiquette.  

 The event was supported by many other organizations from Vancouver and Ƶappincluding: Blurr Design, Climb On, Counterpart Coffee, the Hive Bouldering and Arc’teryx.

When things wound down at the base of the Chief, participants, volunteers and the community at-large headed to Ground Up Climbing Centre for a barbecue, beer and a high-flying dyno competition. 

Climbers competed to see who could make the biggest, most improbable movements on the plastic holds at the gym. 

The festivities continued later into the night at Kinsmen Campground where many people camped out. 

All said and done 167 participants signed up to climb at Rampage, with hundreds more taking acroyoga courses, participating as volunteers and stopping by to check it out. People came from as far off as Portland to participate and enjoy the community. 

“It’s great to see everyone come out and support the community,” said Yoo. “We’re just excited to get people out there climbing.” 

The Rampage Festival is a volunteer-run event, with proceeds going to Climb and Conquer Society – a Vancouver-based charity with a mandate to provide climbing to disadvantaged youth. 

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