The Women's Climbing Auxiliary and Shoe Fetish Club has not yet been thrown out of PetraCliffs for being too loud. Certain of us have however, been thrown out.

Some of us have been meeting up on Sundays to practice our newfound climbing and falling skills. Weekends at PetraCliffs unfortunately usually involve birthday parties or youth group trips: 10-16 children running at high speed near, over and under adult climbers, with parents and other interested parties standing around capturing it all on memory cards for posterity. Each Sunday it all ends the same way: eventually they are herded upstairs (children and snap-happy chaperones) for cake and possibly a pinata. The pinatas are my favorite. You'll be halfway up a route, trying to figure out how to grow an extra arm when you hear *BAM!* followed immediately by frenzied screaming.

The first time? It took me a minute to figure out that the children were not actually being shot.

BAM!
"Aiieeeeeeeeeeeee!"
BAM!
"Aiieeeeeeeeeeeee!"
BAM!

on and on until someone pukes. Because seriously, what other possible ending is there for mass amounts of children eating party food, getting overstimulated and being swung on ropes?

BAM!
"Aiieeeeeeeeeeee!"
*MMMMMBLRRRRRP!*
"Eewwwwwwwwwwwwww."

A few Sundays ago, the puking took place at the top of this tunnel that connects the ground floor of the gym with the bouldering room upstairs. Inside, the ceiling of the tunnel is lined with hand- and footholds so that climbers can work on crawling around upsidedown. It's a hard project that I've been working on for several weeks now, with the inevitable tragic results. Luckily the floor of the tunnel consists of soft gymnastics-type mats with slick plastic slipcovers. And those slipcovers sure came in handy.

We were climbing a route just outside the tunnel, along a wall whose top adjoined the head of the tunnel when we noticed that many employees were gathered at the tunnel's lower end, garbed in oh-so-fashionable yellow plastic gloves. Also, as I got closer to the top of the route, the smell became unbearable. We surmised that the puke had done what any liquid in its place would do, and was now pooling at the end with all the gloved teenage employees. Weekends at the PC, baby.

But usually by about five o'clock the last of the cake-smeared youth has been wiped down and carried out to waiting vehicles, and the gym fairly empties out. This is a huge bonus for those of us who like smaller audiences to our humiliation, or who harbor a rational fear that they are going to get knocked off a bouldering route and either seriously injured or puked on by a small sugar-fueled hellion.

This past Sunday though, there was a staff retreat scheduled for six, which is technically when the gym closes. By six o'clock, it was down to me and Claire, an enthusiastic member of our ladies' group and mother/chauffeur of one of the staff people, so you know she couldn't really be going anywhere. On normal Sundays, the route-setters come in and, well, set routes. They're all really good climbers and some are incredibly nice about showing you how to work on bouldering projects, like the upsidedown tunnel climb.

So yes, technically the staff retreat had started and the various staff members (minus one route-setter) were occupying the middle of the ground floor by tying each other up with neon-colored bungee cords in the name of Teamwork and Attention to Detail or Customer Service. I have no idea. I was upsidedown in the tunnel, slowly working my way up the ceiling handholds. Part of the slow progress was attributable to the toughness of the task, part of the slowness was my complete lack of abdominal muscles and part of the slowness was that each time I fell off, there'd be this *WHOOMPF* into the mat followed by a brisk slide to the bottom tunnel entrance. Much like the puke from a few Sundays back.

Eventually of course, our evil misdeeds caught up with us and a PetraCliffs staffer who had broken free of her bonds came running up. She was shocked, just shocked to find us there and did we not know that--yes, yes we knew, we knew, yes we're going, thanks for the extra time, thanks for letting us borrow a routesetter for assistance.

So yes, I can now say my pernicious ladies' climbing activities have gotten me thrown out of PetraCliffs. But at least I haven't puked on anyone.