Simon Griffin, And How He Entered the Kamloops Climbing Scene

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Simon Griffin, who along with his wife Sabrina own and operate the cliffside climbing gym. Simon grew up in Kamloops, and found the climbing gym, under the right ownership, could be a place for climbers to gather, learn from each other, and gain confidence. This brief interview tells the story of how they, Simon and Sabrina, came to own the gym as well as the response from the community.

M: Hello, my name is Madison McGuire, and this is a recording of my interview with Simon Griffin, the owner and operator of the Cliffside Climbing Gym. Today we discussed how he and his wife, Sabrina, came to own the gym and the support they found in the community. Hope you enjoy.

””””Musical intro fades in as Madison finishes introduction, fades out as Madison begins interview””””

M: All right, so when did you open your climbing gym and what made you want to open your climbing gym?

S: The climbing gym was owned by two other people before us.

M: Okay.

S: So it was started in 1993. There’s another gentleman who bought it in 1996. He sold it to a guy named Mark Hopkins in 2005. At that time, Sabrina and I were looking at buying it, but we were only kind of 18 and 19 years old, so we were a little young and still fresh in our relationship.

M: Yeah, It’s like that’d be such a cool thing to do…

S: But at the same time, you’re like, this is super freaking scary because this is like more of a marriage commitment than anything else you could ever think of, because we’re in a young relationship.

M: We’re now 2007ish.

S: 2008.

M: Yeah.

S: So it was his for two and a half years. So he bought it in July of 2005 and we bought it in February of 2008.

M: Okay.

S: So we’re the fourth owners, technically.

M: Okay, So you’ve just been climbing here for years?

S: Yeah, So Sabrina started climbing and then I started in March 99, And then so at that point, we’d been climbing here for a dozen years already, and that kind of stuff. And that was just kind of the thing, (owning the gym) and it was the next kind of step for the progression for us and the community. And not to speak too ill will of it, but Mark wasn’t the best climbing owner, so he only owned it for two years, and when Ropes End, was the name of the gym at the time, was slowly dwindling down to the point of not surviving. That when we picked it up, the community really jumped in and decided…

M: They needed somewhere to come together.

S: Yeah, exactly. And they knew who we were, so they instantly were coming in and just being like, oh my god thank you so much, It was a lot of real positive things the whole way through. And there’s just a ton of support from the actual community at that time just to have new, fresh blood. And then that’s where things just kind of took off. So that’s kind of like the passion idea behind it, it’s almost a little bit of like that slight feeling that you have a missed opportunity.

M: Yeah, right. Yeah.

S: But, you know, it was the right thing to not do it, but you still always feel like you should have

M: and then you got the chance.

S: and then we got the chance, So when it came around for the chance, the next time around, it was like, oh, no questions asked. It was like we’re doing it, and we jumped on it so fast. It took us like a week and a half have to buy the business.

“”””Musical intro fades in as Simon finishes speaking and continues until Madison has completed the outro””””

M: Thank you to Simon for taking the time to discuss how he, his wife Sabrina, and their gym have impacted the climbing community over the years. Thank you for listening everyone and happy climbing.