Ole Miss Outdoors hosted an event called Rockin’ at the Lock-In at the climbing gym inside the South Campus Recreation Center on Tuesday, Feb. 20. Participants climbed the 40-foot bouldering wall and the 36-foot rope wall after hours, enjoyed s’mores and watched a climbing documentary before sleeping in tents inside South Campus Rec.
“(Tuesday) night was a bit of an experiment,” Daniel Lawrence, director of Campus Rec Outdoors, said. “We’ve never done overnight programming during the week before and wanted to see if the students would engage with it.”
About 10 students participated in the event. There were a few first-timers, but many were veteran climbers. One such veteran, junior geology major Brandon Reaves, has been climbing for more than five years and was on a competitive climbing team. He was particularly excited about the lock-in.
“I just like climbing after hours when the gym isn’t as crowded,” Reaves said.
Climbing is Reaves’ favorite thing to do, and the sport played a role in his college decision. The Southaven native was torn between two schools, and South Campus Rec’s climbing wall swayed him.
“It’s the reason I came here instead of Mississippi State,” Reaves said. “I knew I wanted to climb, and they don’t have that over there.”
Reaves brought his friend Rocky Marcel with him to the lock-in. Marcel, also a junior geology major, has been climbing for about a month and said that Reaves got him interested in the sport. During that time, the pair has regularly climbed the indoor walls at South Campus Rec and participated in climbing trips put on by Campus Rec Outdoors.
“We’re both studying to be geologists, and outdoor climbing last weekend was really cool to get to look closely at the rocks we were climbing,” Marcel said.
There is a strong, tight-knit climbing community at UM, and Marcel was hoping to meet some of the regulars at the lock-in and become one himself.
“This seemed like a good chance to meet more people and try to become a regular,” Marcel said.
One of the regulars, freshman public policy leadership major Clayton Wilhorn, has been climbing for just over a semester. Being from Biloxi, Miss., he had never climbed before coming to UM.
“I climb a lot now,” Wilhorn said, “I really fell in love with it when I came here.”
Rockin’ the Lock-in was the second climbing event Wilhorn attended. In October 2023, he placed third in the novice division at the Rocktober Climbing Competition put on by Campus Rec Outdoors. Wilhorn plans to continue climbing throughout his time at UM and hopefully after he graduates, too. He loves the mental challenge of the sport.
“The bouldering wall is like a puzzle,” Wilhorn said.
Bouldering is a type of rock climbing that does not use a rope and harness system. Climbers must start at preset points with both hands and both feet touching the wall and climb to the top while only touching one color hold for any given route, called a boulder.
Zahara Bruun, a senior anthropology major, creates these puzzles. She is the climbing wall programming director, the head route setter and president of the Rebel Climbing Club. As head route setter, it is her job to design the climbing routes on the rope wall and the boulders on the bouldering wall.
“I may like setting more than climbing,” Bruun said. “I think it makes me a better climber.”
Bruun started climbing three years ago and was immediately hooked. She loved the mental and physical stimulation climbing provided her. As soon as her first climb ended, she applied for a job.
“Before coming to Ole Miss, I had not climbed a rock wall since I was a kid, and I did not realize it was really a sport,” Bruun said. “It’s actually a real sport, like, people do it in the Olympics now.”
Bruun, Marcel, Lawrence and Reaves said their favorite part about climbing at Ole Miss is the community around it. Wilhorn, though, had a different take.
“My favorite part is the pump I get in my forearms,” he said
