CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- On January 13, 2024, in a rock climbing gym in Yuzhong District, Chongqing Municipality, on the rock wall of less than 5 meters high, a group of persons were “climbing”. They can’t see, but they love sports. Organized by the Association of Persons with Visual Disabilities of Chongqing City Disabled Persons’ Federation, they experienced rock climbing for the first time by relying on hand touch and voice “guide”.

Yu Chun were touching the rock wall. He would experience bouldering which is a type of rock climbing. The colorful rock points were divided into different grades of routes according to different colors. At that moment, climbing upwards was his only route.

Rope is not required for bouldering. Putting on his climbing shoes, Yu Chun started challenging.

Yu Chun used his hands and feet, trying to catch and step steadily on every rock point of different shapes, even if his energy was exhausted. He landed on the soft cushion again and again, laughing like a child. He said: “It’s so amazing that I want to climb again!”

Dou Xiaowen (left) usually revolves around massage tables, and when there are no customers, he simply exercises in the room. Last year, accompanied by volunteers, he started running, completing 6 kilometers for the first time; and six months later he challenged 22 kilometers in 2.5 hours. Exercise gives him the “pleasure of making and calling friends”.

After going up and down the rock face several times, Dou Xiaowen decided to challenge the rock face with an elevation angle of 40°. Guided by the sound of a volunteer’s voice, the small and thin Dou Xiaowen, like a gibbon, stretched out his hands to grab rock points.

When a volunteer told Zhao Min that she had reached the top, she waved excitedly in the direction from which the sound came. As a post-90s lady, Zhao Min looked soft and weak, but she was one of the most active one, and she said: “I’m ready to fall down. My arms were tired and sore, but none of it mattered, because I succeeded.”

On the rock wall, the blind scrambled to experience climbing. Liu Yuxia, Chairman of the Association of Persons with Visual Disabilities of Chongqing City Disabled Persons’ Federation, said that many visually impaired person seldom went out because they can’t see, and they participated in sports and recreation in a relatively single way, and with the assistance of the Volunteer Rock Climbing Hall, the volunteers took more than 20 blind persons to experience rock climbing for the first time.

Rock climbing is known as the “ballet on rock face”. They can’t see, but they keep “climbing”. In the words of this group of blind persons, not being able to see “top” doesn’t stop them from “climbing” upwards. (Translated by Liu Hongyan, Fathom Language Limited)