When you are 20 feet off the ground and the only thing keeping you from falling is your grip, the thing that helps you get to the top is the fear of falling.

At least that’s how Akins students who participate in a sport called bouldering describe the experience.

A group of climbers, including seniors Jana Cordero, Madison Round, and Jorge Sepulveda, have quickly fallen in love with the sport. They go to a gym called Austin Bouldering Project in East Austin regularly, which features a safe environment for the activity.

“In rock climbing, you have this high, tall walls that go over 30 feet, 40 feet high. Bouldering is just that without the harness and it’s way less of height,” Sepulveda said.

Bouldering has been around for as long as rock climbing has, but it didn’t become its own category of rock climbing until about the 1900s. Around this time, boulderers began to develop ways to make the sport safer to perform.

“At the bouldering project they have these crash pads,” Sepulveda said. “They’re there, so that way, if you fall, they’ll absorb most of the shock.”

The crash pads are one of the ways that boulderers make their passion safer, and the Austin Bouldering Project, they implement two to 2’ ½” thick  impact foam as the crash pads for flooring. This makes bouldering a great activity for just about any person interested in a new take on rock climbing.

“My cousin introduced me and Bryan to it,” Sepulveda said. “We’ve always loved rock climbing before, and with this new gym that opened, it was a good opening experience bouldering.”

There are also some local competitive events among climbers. Unfortunately, the sport isn’t “really a spectator friendly sport,” as junior Boulder Sheffield said, and has yet to make itself a well known sport.

“Usually (bouldering competitions) are measured by speed and difficulty: who did the hardest route the fastest. It’s a time based sport,” Sheffield said.

Despite this, people enjoy bouldering, for it’s a good way to work out and hang out with friends.

“It was fun because we all went with a group of friends,” Cordero said.

“I’ve only done it once, but I would definitely go again,” Round said.