Roberto Raimundez // Contributing Writer
Leading the charge in the competitive collegiate rock-climbing scene of Miami and the Tri-County South Florida area is the University’s Rock Climbing team.
The Collegiate Climbing Series is under the USA Climbing organization that hosts competitions at the youth, collegiate and professional levels. Held throughout the academic year, CCS starts with the bouldering discipline in fall, following with the two roped climbing disciplines, sport and speed, in spring.
There are four local competitions before regionals in March and nationals in April. The FIU Rock Climbing Club participated in both bouldering competitions held in October, traveling to Tampa and Melbourne to compete against schools from across the state: USF, UCF, UF, UNF.
Miami Dade College doesn’t have a club or team, even though many climbers from the gym attend the college, and the University of Miami has a climbing club, but there is no team that participates in these competitions.
Whether it’s from a lack of competitive interest or not enough climbers to formulate a team, Miami has never had a collegiate team representing the area in the competitions throughout Florida. Luckily, FIU is picking up the slack and representing Miami.
FIU Rock Climbing Club President Juan Riveros, an electrical engineer major who has been climbing for a year and a half, relaunched the club after a lack of activity from its initial launch. Riveros started recruiting members by word of mouth and reached out to climbers in the local rock gym with FIU shirts.
Struggling to keep the club alive, he finally reeled in some longtime climbers from the Miami climbing community.
“Established climbers made me feel more confident in the club’s future with it being a group of people who are passionate about rock climbing and want to share it,” said Riveros.
One of the members Riveros recruited is current vice president of the club, Juan(cho) Vasquez, a double-major in international relations and economy.
Before the creation of the club, Vasquez was a part of a group of climbers who did this activity together at a local rock gym. Now, there is a core group of climbers who have been climbing from a young age and are now attending FIU at the same time.
There are currently seven gyms throughout the state and talk of a new location opening up in Gainesville. These indoor climbing facilities allow climbers to train for their projects outside and give a taste of what climbing is for those with no experience. Bouldering is the most pure form of climbing with just the climber, their shoes and the rock; plus a crash pad for landing zone protection.
While Vasquez is primarily devoted to coaching the youth team, he still finds time to create training regiments for the club and brings a “climber’s mindset” to his vice president role.
“I want to solidify the club and create a team that will be around for years to come; this gives the local climbing youth something to look forward to when it comes attending university in rock-less Miami,” said Vasquez.
This is especially important to Vasquez because, his little brother, a climber on the X-Treme youth team, is now looking at FIU for his collegiate career — rather than moving up to Orlando to climb for the University of Central Florida, the largest Floridian team and a strong team with a history of winning Nationals.
Roped climbing requires a degree of safety knowledge and technique. To learn more about the local gyms, visit Miami’s X-Treme Rock Climbing website or Fort Lauderdale’s Coral Cliffs website.
For more information about the club, visit FIU Rock Climbing on Facebook and fiurockclimbing on Instagram. The club can also be contacted through email at fiurockclimbing@gmail.com.
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