Terra Ludis: Play Ground | Meet Jenny Allen & Ryan Beasley

Owning an outfitter and guiding service is hard work, something Jenny Allen & Ryan Beasley, owners of Rock Dimensions in Boone, NC, know all too well. But there are also those times of reflection when you realize the work you are doing is important brings value to peoples lives. We asked Ryan Beasley to share one such memory with us.

"We work with a group called Catalyst Sports, so there's a lady here in town, Dee Thomas, that helps organize the Boone chapter, and there's a Charlotte chapter. These are people with physical disabilities. I think we had maybe eight or nine people there. I got to work with this 7 or 8-year-old and he was born blind. So I got partnered up with this kid and it was really neat to see how excited he was about getting to rock climb and just how well he climbed on this wall, and I just watched him and I would coach him, he would just feel around and find a handhold, and he could climb that wall and he was just so excited about it, he got back down, he was just so happy he could do that. That's the first time in a long time I felt, “Man that's just cool, that kids really diggin’ this and having a good time,” and I really feel good that I’m helping him be able to climb this. 

So then he would go take a break and he would come find me and he would be like “I’m ready to do another one Ryan!” I would have to hold his hand and walk him up to the cliff and put his hands up to the wall, and he would just start climbing. I mean he really climbed better than other people that had sight that were beginning climbers. He was just so gung-ho and so excited about it, so I thought that was pretty cool to see that. So I would say that's the most satisfying thing is just seeing how people enjoy it."

Read their full interview at blowingrockmuseum.org/play

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