Youth Covid Procedures

Youth Procedures

As our schools and the world are finding a way forward through this pandemic, so is Vertical Rock. We are excited to getting closer to our previous normal as our youth teams start back up! As we all face what it will take to get somewhere back to normal, we are addressing how we will be handling our upcoming indoor activities. In order to run our programming, we will be following the CDC’s and the State of Virginia’s COVID-19 guidelines.

 We want to assure you that Vertical Rock and Vertical Rock Outdoor School will be doing our part to help keep everyone as safe as possible while participating in our indoor activities! Below is a breakdown of how and what we are asking everyone including our Staff to adhere to:

Everyone must sign a New Waiver

Please take a moment to sign our new waiver.

ALL members and guests are required to sign this waiver in order to participate in VR activities. Minors under the age of 18 must have a waiver signed by their parent or legal guardian.

Health

Please take the time to consider the well being of your participant as well as others. If he/she feels unwell at the time of practice, please do not attend and reassess once your participant is feeling better.

Upon entry to the gym, we will prompt your participant to wash their hands and/or use hand sanitizer before participating in any activity.  

Temperature checks

We will be screening everyone attending upon entry for an elevated temperature. If anyone has a temperature reading over 99.9 degrees, we will politely ask you to not participate.

Masks

Masks or a face covering must be worn at all times during team practices as well as the entire VR facility. Please encourage and educate your participant on how to utilize their face covering. You must supply your own face mask/face covering. You will determine the type of mask/ face covering and fitment you want them to utilize. The main focus of wearing masks/face coverings are for the protection of other participants below while climbing. (i.e. belayers) This should also help reduce any respiratory droplets from coming in contact with the hand holds, ropes, or anyone below. Exceptions will be made for eating and drinking or if someone feels like they are getting overheated.

Distance Guidelines

We will be keeping participants at a 6 ft distance indoors and outdoors while practicing. Although we know this is not entirely possible during these sessions, we urge all that participate to do their part in helping us with these social distancing guidelines and help adhere to keeping safe distance. In addition, we will have specific areas in the gym where team activities will take place and labeled for appropriate distances apart. This one sucks, but please no hi -fives, handshakes, hugs, etc. for the time being either. 

Hand Sanitizers

We encourage you to supply your participant with their own hand sanitizer, or sanitizing wipes, or anything that you will want them to use during this time. We will also have hand sanitizers on hand and will be making everyone use this every time we switch out belays/climbs and before and after we start activities. Team coaches will be carrying a spray bottle of hand sanitizer in which they will spray on all the participants hands after switching out belays or climbs.

Personal Gear

Please make sure to pack all of your participant’s gear in a portable container (egg crate, storage box, etc.) as we will not be allowing the use of VR lockers or cubbies at this moment. We encourage you to Lysol or wipe down personal gear before and after attending practice. If using street shoes for climbing, we will wipe them down with a disinfectant before use to help protect the climbing holds.

Gym

We are required to update our waiver. with new insurance regulations.  A new participant agreement must be signed again before attending. (If possible, please do this from your phone, tablet or computer.) 

Bathrooms

Please do not wear climbing shoes or walk with bare feet in the bathrooms. 

Cleaning

In addition, the gym will be cleaned and sanitized daily with scheduled hourly cleanings. We also want to bring to your attention we unfortunately will not be able to sanitize climbing routes and ropes as easily daily. Please make sure to use caution when handling the ropes and make sure to continue to wash and sanitize your hands before and after you switch out belays. 

Contact-less Payment

Also, to make payments less contact we will suspend the use of cash at the register and utilize only credit cards and email receipts. 

Most importantly, we feel it’s our moral responsibility to make sure we are able to do everything in our power to keep our campers, members, guests and employees as safe as possible when in our facility or attending any of our programs. Please reach out to us directly if you have something you feel we need to add to help with this.

Let’s hope we can start removing these rules from the list soon. But until then, this is VR’s normal, and what it will take to keep up with our social responsibility. 

Vertical Rock will be sending out more updates and team information as our policies update

Be well

The procedures above may be modified at any time to reflect the CDC’s guidelines.