This new Utah gym specializes in both rock and ice climbing — one of few mixed venues nationwide

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The indoor wall is steep, the holds difficult to reach.

But that doesn’t deter Landers Gaydosh. The Salt Lake City 12-year-old simply lifts his ice axes, contorts himself like a monkey and climbs.

Gaydosh is a member of the U.S. National Ice Climbing Team’s youth division. For three days in late December, the 26-member team — 10 men, 10 women and six youths — trained indoors at The Scratch Pad gym in Orem and outdoors in Provo Canyon.

The Scratch Pad was ideal for training because it’s one of a limited number of indoor locations in the country that specialize in mixed climbing: a combination of rock climbing and ice climbing, where people use ice climbing tools. In an indoor setting, this means climbers use axes and other tools to scale the holds.

And while ice climbing is not officially an Olympic sport, coach Marcus Garcia believes it will be soon. In 2016, he helped give an exhibition during the Junior Olympics in Houston, he said, and now it’s just a matter of getting the sport into the consideration pool through an adult exhibition.

“I think all the criteria are there,” he said.

Rock climbing vs. ice climbing

Garcia, who is from Colorado, said he’s been climbing for over 25 years.

Besides the obvious one, the biggest difference between rock climbing and ice climbing is that ice is a changing medium, he said. Temperatures are constantly fluctuating, and climbers can’t necessarily use the same holds as the people before them.

However, he said, competitive ice climbing involves more dry tooling — in which ice picks are used to climb rock not covered in ice — because scoring involves hitting predetermined points, so the upward trail must be kept consistent.

[Read more: Olympic climber Nathaniel Coleman’s path to Tokyo started in Utah’s canyons — places he hopes to protect as his sport’s popularity grows]

Another difference is the ice axes climbers use, rather than their own hands, like they would when rock climbing. Garcia said when rock climbers transition to ice, they have to learn how to push and pull not with their biceps, but from their hips, while using tools.

“I think by most standards, people would call [ice climbing] an extreme sport,” Garcia said. “Because you’ve got to think while flying around with a lot of sharp objects.”

As a coach, he said, he focuses on instilling safety principles in his team. “You’re really not going to get injured unless you’re doing something wrong,” he said.

Garcia began the U.S. National Ice Climbing Team’s youth division in 2015 after noticing at international competitions that other countries had young, talented climbers. At the World Cup, his team took third place overall in 2017, fourth in 2018 and second place in 2019. Some of these kids now compete on the adult team, he said.

During their recent Orem training, the national team climbers were preparing to compete at the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation Ice Climbing World Cup youth division this month in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, and at the adult division in February in Cheongsong, Korea.

Garcia said for him, this month’s youth competition is about mentoring the next generation of climbers. “It’s more [about] just passing the torch and letting these younger kids start developing their skill set,” he said.

The Utah climbers

One of those younger kids is 10-year-old Conner Bailey. The Utah boy is too young to compete in this month’s international competition, but he previously placed in three smaller events and trained with the national team during its Orem stint. He hopes to participate in the World Cup down the road.

Conner said he began rock climbing over seven years ago to help manage his scoliosis and recently branched into ice climbing.

“Be faithful in it and commit to it,” he said, as advice to prospective climbers. “Set a strict schedule.”

Conner’s mom, Tessie Bailey, said she’s also a rock and ice climber. Scratch Pad has “a very methodical approach to the training,” she said. “It made me feel comfortable with all the rules.”

Landers Gaydosh’s dad, Jonathan Gaydosh, said his son also has been climbing from a young age — since he was 4 and 5, when Jonathan worked at a climbing gym and regularly brought Landers with him.

“He really figured out his body movements quick,” Jonathan said. “I had a feeling that he was good at [climbing].”

This isn’t Landers’ first stint competing; like Conner, he’s participated in several smaller competitions. He transitioned to ice climbing about four months ago, he said.

Now, Landers said he’s feeling nervous but ready to show off his skills in Switzerland. “I’m dying to get experience,” he said.

A safe place to practice

Susan Simms, one of the co-owners of The Scratch Pad, said Landers and Conner both have good baselines of strength and technique from their rock climbing experience, and have “taken to [ice climbing] really well.”

Simms and her partner Dustin Lyons are the founders of The Scratch Pad, which opened in October 2021.

Lyons said there are several other gyms across the U.S. that include dry tooling, but as far as he’s aware, they’re the only indoor roped climbing facility in the country that’s dedicated completely to the technique, and one of only several that offers mixed climbing training.

They felt it was important to start a gym exclusive to dry tooling so that climbers could have a safe place to practice, he said.

“When you’re climbing, if you’re 40 feet up and you drop a tool, it could fall on anybody,” he said. “So you really need to have a facility that’s dedicated to the sport to make it as safe as you can.”

Lyons said he’s been climbing since the late 1990s, while Simms got into the sport several years ago.

The idea for The Scratch Pad came to them earlier in 2021 while they were climbing Denali in Alaska, he said, and were talking about ways to train for the upcoming season. Lyons said he already had the climbing wall from a fitness facility he’d previously run, but it hadn’t been used much.

They brought Garcia in for a dry tooling clinic and the local climbing community’s response was far bigger than expected, he said. “Everybody started asking, ‘Well, when’s the gym going to be open?’” Lyons said.

Now, they’re ready for everyone from elite athletes training every day to beginners who have never climbed before. Lyons said newcomers can even take a private lesson at The Scratch Pad to get their feet wet.

“Don’t hesitate. … Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Just come and try it.”

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