Luskville’s Venturing Hills Farm, known foremost as an equestrian facility but also for its annual classical music festival and its yoga retreats, will add a new activity to the roster of adventures it offers at the foot of the Gatineau Hills this summer – rock climbing.

It’s something Rae Becke, the general manager and head coach of Venturing Hills Farm, also the daughter of the farm’s owners, believes the farm is uniquely positioned to do.

Becke has been offering horseback riding camps on the farm since she was 14 years old.

She fell in love with the animals when her parents bought what was previously the Laframboise farm only a few years earlier. When she was looking for a summer job, she decided to start her own camp, to share this passion with others.

As a young adult, increasing involvement in international competitions drew Becke and her students away from the farm for periods throughout the summer, and so the farm scaled back the camps it offered.

But since the COVID-19 pandemic, Becke has returned to spending more time on farm, regrowing the summer camp programs and farm offerings so that it can be a place for everybody to enjoy horses and the great outdoors.

This year, that mission will include new rock climbing lessons on some faces of the Lusk escarpment that rises directly behind the Becke family’s property.

Becke said the sport, which she first tried in 2021, is in many ways similar to horse back riding.

“Both [sports] help people become more aware of their bodies. These little micromovements happening with your body can make all the difference in what you’re doing,” Becke explained, noting that in her experience, skills developed in one sport are transferable to the other.

“It’s about connecting with your body and with nature.”

When Becke returned from a stint of rock climbing in British Columbia, it hit her that her own farm had an incredible resource right in its backyard.

While several of the rock faces on the eastern side of the farm have been deemed off-limits by the National Capital Commission for conservation reasons, three climbs on the western side of the farm are open for use.

“It’s a pretty rare thing to be able to do both of those things, horseback riding and climbing, in one spot. That is not your average farm.”

First of its kind

The rock climbing camp to be offered this summer at Venturing Hills Farm will be the first outdoor rock climbing camp in the entire Outaouais region, according to Becke.

To make it possible on the farm, she joined forces with her friend Alexandre Sauvé, a fully certified climbing instructor who last year started a climbing school in the Outaouais, L’ École d’escalade de l’Outaouais.

Sauvé said that while there is a thriving indoor rock climbing community in the area, as well as several camps hosted by the various climbing gyms in the region, there are no summer camps dedicated to getting beginners out climbing a real rock.

For Becke, being outside is critical to her mission.

“Climbing is about being outside, touching rocks, being in nature, and appreciating nature,” she emphasized. “The more you appreciate nature, the more you want to save nature and preserve the park that we have behind us.”

The farm is offering two separate weeks of rock climbing summer camp this year for kids five to 17 years old: July 29-Aug. 2, and Aug. 5-9.

Each week will offer kids a mix of horseback riding and rock climbing activities. Sauvé and another guide from his company will lead the way when it comes to the rock climbing portion of the camp, while Becke will take the lead on horse back riding instruction.

“Every morning we’ll start with the basics – how to tie a knot, and get them comfortable sitting in a harness, only six feet in the air,” Sauvé said.

Sauvé used to be a very shy teenager. He would stay indoors playing video games, and did not have many friends. When his parents signed him up for a canoe tripping camp, he was forced to spend a month in the woods with people he didn’t know.

“I can still see the impact today of the trajectory change that happened with that camp,” Sauvé saud. “Being away from technology, and nudging me strongly out of my comfort zone, had a great therapeutic impact.”

Sharing that experience with other kids is at the core of what Becke and Sauvé hope to do.

“I’m a strong believer in the benefits of voluntarily stepping out of your comfort zone. We never put any kind of pressure on people, and the backdoor is always open.”

Rae Becke, general manager and head coach at Venturing Hills Farm, plans to host the region’s first outdoor rock climbing camps for kids at the farm this summer on the cliffs visible behind her.

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