Climbing Wall

Twice a week for nearly a decade, Sarah Pickerall has headed to the great indoors–to scale 25-foot cliffs at Atlanta Rocks, one of the city’s oldest climbing gyms. Rock climbing is no solitary sport; the climber always works with a belayer, who holds the rope at the base of the cliff and prevents the climber from falling. Then the two switch roles. Fellow climbers at the gym have become Pickerall’s partners on outdoor climbs, too–and more than that, friends. “It’s definitely a community,” she says. “And it’s super fun.”