Squamish’s Ground Up Closer to Opening
Squamish’s newest climbing gym, Ground Up, is one step closer to opening their doors.
By Drew Copeland
Squamish’s climbing community came out in full-force to check out the Ground Up Climbing Centre’s unveiling on April 10th. Lauren Watson and her business partner, Adrian Blachut, hosted the event at the Squamish Academy of Music where they presented a digital walk-through of the gym, conceptual drawings, a silent auction and some free eats.
“We wanted to show the community what we were doing and share the vision face to face,” says Watson.
Up for sale were yearlong, lifetime, passes for enthusiastic families and individuals looking to get a good deal on a pass for Squamish’s new gym.
Lauren notes that although the lifetime memberships are expensive upfront, they help support Ground Up and are a great deal in the long run.
“The family-lifetime memberships offer a great deal for families who have their roots set in Squamish. It is a good return, if you are a climbing enthusiastic family and offers discounts and special pre-opening access to the gym, as a thank you for your support,” she says.
The evening’s events also included a few talks outlining the design of the gym and some of the intended programming, as well as, some Q & A for those curious climbers.
“Having the gym open early mornings and offering yearly family memberships where big mentions,” says Watson, “I wrote down everything I heard and plan to take it to heart in our next planning stages. We want to make this work for everyone and we will continue looking for feedback through out the process.”
Ground up Climbing Centre is on track to open Fall, 2015.
Without all of your support, this wouldn’t be possible. It is a huge project, takes tons of energy, tons of motivation and tons of support. We feel incredibly luckily to have all those things here in Squamish.
It was great to open up a dialogue and really figure out what the community wants out of our space and services. Please know that everything we heard was taken to heart and we plan to move forward with these things in mind. Thanks for sharing your inspiration and thanks for letting us share our vision with you.
There are still a few passes left, please email or message us if you missed the opportunity last night and would still like to grab one before they are gone.
Love, Ground Up.
– Drew Copeland is West Coast-based climber and writer and regular contributor to Gripped, you can reach him at copelandwords@gmail.com.
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