A look inside one old barn tucked among the hills near Guilderland’s Tawasentha Park won’t reveal the expected animal inhabitants, but there is still plenty of activity brimming beneath its roof.
The Guilderland Rock Adventure Barn, or GRAB, reopened to the public last month after closing its doors several years ago following waning interest. The historic 1800s barn, located on Route 146 across from Tawasentha Park, hasn’t held farm livestock and supplies for many years. The red barn features more than 3,000 square feet of rock wall climbing surface and is suited for first-time to advanced climbers. All of the necessary gear is offered in-house.
Public use of GRAB is limited to Friday from noon to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. until the end of August. The town started this trial period in July to gauge public interest. The cost is $5 per person, which includes necessary gear.
“We thought we would give it another try,” town Parks and Recreation Director Dennis Moore said, who indicated the response has been moderate. “There weren’t enough people using it — not enough customers to make it worthwhile.”
Moore said the rock climbing is “challenging,” “fun” and offers a different form of fitness. Along each wall are typically two routes, with one route being easier than the other. Some of the more strenuous climbs take you all the way up and onto the underbelly of the barn’s roof.
Once someone learns how to properly climb and belay, which is protecting a climber from falling, they can participate without the help of trained town employees.
Moore said declining interest in the facility could have been from people not wanting to climb during hot summer days. The facility isn’t heated, so it can’t be used during the colder months. Active rock climbers will also be outside when the facility is usually open.
“People who want to really rock climb, they will go outside now,” he said. “They will climb on the real rock outdoors. They would use this to train on more.”
Moore said the town “likes to break even” on its cost to keep the facility open to the public. He said it isn’t seen as a way to make money.
Even though the facility hasn’t been open to the public it was still being actively used through the town’s youth summer camp.
“We use this as fitness for the kids,” Moore said. “We have around 250 kids in camp that we bring over here every day. We bus them over from right across the street at Tawasentha, and they come and climb as one of their activities.”
Stepping into the facility you’ll notice the spongy floor, which is made from the rubber of ground up tires and has been in the barn since it opened. One of the workers will likely greet you if they aren’t already belaying someone and can teach you climbing basics.
Taylor Treadgold, an Altamont resident and University at Albany senior, was running the facility on Friday, Aug. 2. Treadgold became interested in rock climbing as a college freshman through a weeklong outdoor exploration program.
“I went and I did the trip, and I pretty much got hooked on climbing from there,” Treadgold said. “Since then I have been climbing three or four times a week.”
Treadgold said he enjoyed climbing because of the sense of adventure it offered along with the “sports sense” of it.
“It’s nice because it has the dichotomy between an activity and a sport, so you can be really serious about it but you can also just go in and have a good time,” he said. “It is kind of for the love of it as opposed to for sport or anything else.”
He enjoys working at GRAB so he can teach kids and share his passion.
“It is really fun to work with the kids,” he said. “They all seem to really enjoy climbing, so it is nice to see other people being exposed to climbing and getting into the sport.”
Around 15 years ago Moore, with help from others, actually built the interior rock walls. The idea was spurred by outdoor climbers wanting somewhere to train during the off-season.
“I had been familiar with rock climbing,” Moore said. “We had done some climbing a little bit and my family had done some.”
As Moore and fellow workers were building the facility inside he said naming ideas kept bouncing around, but dubbing it GRAB for short seemed “perfect.”
The town purchased the property from the Houck’s, which had used the land as a dairy farm.
“It didn’t harm the barn at all,” Moore said. “It was an old dairy barn at one time that the cows were in.”
Acquiring the land essentially expanded Tawasentha Park. There are trails located on the property along with the town’s community gardens that residents can rent plots to grow produce.
“If you add this land, the Tawasentha land and the Western Turnpike Golf Course, which is all connected, it is probably 500 acres,” Moore said.