OVERhang is the only indoor climbing gym in Prince George, tucked behind the Pine Centre Mall at 2601 Recplace Dr (in the same building as the curling rink and golf club). Coming from a city with much larger gyms, it was a tough sell for me to get a student membership and climb there regularly. But, because I love climbing (and my knee doesn’t let me do much running), it was one of my only choices. And I’m glad I did!
What Overhang lacks in size makes up for in character. Back in the big city, the gyms feel a little bit corporate. Overhang has an old school, local, and kind of gritty feeling that I miss, and I doubt it will change anytime soon. My favorite gym from my hometown used to have the same feel, but then they “renovated” and ruined it (especially the bouldering area). Another thing that’s nice is when the staff remember your full name and your membership status, so you don’t have to say it all the time.
In the big gyms, you can climb for months without seeing the same person twice. Here, I pretty much recognized everyone by my third visit. I found it easier to talk and meet new people, especially if you are climbing alone and need a belay partner. It’s also nice that if you want to have a chill climb alone, it’s not usually so busy that you can barely get on a climb.
Because the walls at Overhang aren’t very high, they had to make up for it with tough climbs. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of climbs for beginners. But when you get up to higher grades, they get hard. For context, grades at Overhang go from 5.6 (beginner) to 5.13 (expert) for top rope, and V0 to V13 for bouldering.
Even when famous climbers Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell visited the gym (back when they were cycling to Alaska), I heard from an employee that they said the gym was “sandbagged”. This means that people think a climb is harder than how it is graded. Other gyms tend to do the opposite of this (called “soft” climbs), so beginners don’t get too discouraged once they try harder climbs and keep coming back.
Personally, even though I get frustrated, I think the hard climbs with lower grades are way better in the long term. My goal with gym climbing is to climb outdoors, and outdoor climbs are always harder (a 5.11 climber indoors might climb 5.10 outdoors). I think it’s better not to get too confident on the grades you can climb indoors, then go outside and end up getting hurt.
All in all, I’m glad I found Overhang, and was able to keep up climbing strength while attending UNBC. The best thing is that when I travel back to my hometown, I’m always way stronger than my friends climbing at the big gyms.
