Everest Mountaineer Opens School Climbing Wall and Inspires Children to Use Superpower

Local, high-altitude mountaineer Garth Miller officially opened the new Rupert House climbing wall in the school grounds on Monday morning.

Before he went outside to open the wall, Garth shared some amazing photos from his recent successful Everest climb and talked about the key themes of courage and resilience. Garth discussed the special kind of courage required to try things that you haven’t done before, especially if you don’t know if you will be able to succeed at first. He said, “You might not be able to do it – yet, but you all have a ‘superpower’. If you can just remember the words ‘Don’t Quit!” then everyone can be a superhero.”

The new climbing wall has four levels of difficulty and the foot and handholds can be moved to create a new challenge for the children. The money for the wall was raised through fundraising efforts from Friends of Rupert House School. FORH Chair, Georgina Lamb said, “We worked hard with the support of all parents to raise money for the climbing wall. We wanted to raise money for something that would benefit all the children at Rupert House to be active and challenging. The fundraising came from a range of activities and events from our Summer Ball to sponsorship at the Little Welly adventure course. We thought it would be popular, but it has been so popular that the school have had to introduce a rota for each class to use the wall.”

Before taking the opportunity to climb on the wall with children across all year groups, Garth commented “My climbing adventures started on a wall just like this one when I was your age.”

Garth said afterwards, “It was an absolute pleasure to come back to Rupert House and help everyone to see how important the values of courage and resilience are. My message is that being brave and trying new things can lead to an exciting journey. This wall is perfect, with 4 different levels of difficulty it really can be enjoyed by all. I loved seeing children who initially were too scared to climb get involved – using their new superpower!”

Chalotte Guyan, Year 5 said, “I love the climbing wall because it’s fun and allows you to be creative. You can go wherever you like and try different ways to get across.” Mille Judah, Year 5 added, “The climbing wall is great because it is challenging. It challenges me because I find it difficult to get across from one end to the other, but I always get there in the end. It’s fun!”

If you want to learn more about Garth’s adventures you can follow him @be_more_garth on Instagram.