The University of Massachusetts Club Climbing Team is accustomed to dealing with tough uphill climbs and rocky challenges, but on Nov. 7, 2025, they were hit with an unexpected obstacle. Their climbing equipment, along with several team members’ apartments, were lost after a fire destroyed the Olympia Place apartments.
Junior architecture and building construction technology major Helen Van Denbergh-Curry, the president of the Climbing Team, lived in Olympia Place. At 4 a.m. on Nov. 8, she watched her own apartment catch fire and burn. Because of her knowledge in architecture, she already knew many of her items inside would be lost.
“I had a lot of sentimental items in there,” Van Denbergh-Curry said. “I lost [a close family member] before college and I had a lot of their clothes, some notes, I had her ring and I can’t get those back.”
Van Denbergh-Curry had stored most of the team equipment in her apartment. Overall, the team lost two team ropes, a bucket of climbing shoes, stick clips, two slings, a couple chalk bags, seven helmets, harnesses, 24 quickdraws and more.
“There’s a lot of people that come in with zero skill and in the first few weeks, we do group activities and some climbing exercises,” Van Denbergh-Curry said, explaining that the gear was vital for training the new members of the team with.
Few members on the 30-40-person team have their own gear. A couple of members have their own ropes and draws that they share, but it’s certainly not enough for everyone.
“Occasionally, like the big spring break trips, we’ll have some more experienced members go so they’ll have their own gear,” Justus Schmidt, a junior civil engineering major and the team’s outdoor coordinator, said. “But, yeah, especially the [quickdraws], not too many people have their own so that’s the big thing that we definitely need to get figured out.”
Quickdraws connect rope to pre-drilled bolts on outdoor climbing walls and are a necessity for outdoor climbers. A single quickdraw can cost up to $40, and for a 40ft route needs 12 quickdraws to be safe.
Van Denbergh-Curry and Schmidt said that much of their equipment was donated or acquired over many years of fundraising and budgeting. The team estimates they lost about $2,100 worth of equipment. As a result, their spring break trip has been postponed.
The team’s equipment was stored in Van Denbergh-Curry’s apartment because of miscommunications with past climbing team leadership, as well as for convenience.
“In the Student Union, there are a couple lockers, through communication issues with past e-board members, we never got access to [the locker],” Van Denbergh-Curry said. “From what I have gathered, [the locker] was cleared out because we had all the gear and were sort of told, like, ‘If you’re on e-board, keep it in your apartment,’ and thought that was a safe option. Turns out it was not.”
Van Denbergh-Curry only found out they had a locker in the Student Union on Nov. 6, after receiving an email from the Student Government Association (SGA) notifying them they had to clean out their locker.
The climbing team’s advisor and the Assistant Director for Club Sports, Ernie May, explained that one of the climbing team’s storage issues is that they practice off campus, either at outdoor facilities or at Central Rock Gym in Hadley.
“A lot of times things end up, you know, in personal vehicles or apartments and stuff and that’s what we’re really going to try to rein in,” May said.
All club sports, including the climbing team, are in the middle of a transition from SGA to being managed by Recreation and Wellbeing (RecWell).
May explained the move will help delegate responsibilities from SGA to RecWell, including travel requests, funding, equipment checkout, training space, storage and more. The funding will still come from Student Affairs and Campus Life (SACL). One benefit of the move is more storage space and an inventory system.
“In the future, we are going to be able to house a lot of [club equipment],” May said.
May, who has a long career in collegiate athletics, said this is the first time he’s ever dealt with a situation like this, but he will do as much as possible to help the team.
“I’m going to do my best to help them,” May said. “I mean, they’re halfway decently funded … you know, compared to some of the other groups. But I don’t want them to have them to have to get go too deep into their pockets.”
According to Schmidt, the club’s budget is already strained.
“We are definitely a little short on money,” Schmidt said. “Last year, especially, we had very little funding. We got a little bit more this year. But it means we are at risk of not being able to pay for nationals if we don’t get additional funding for this.”
In 2024, the club filed an emergency funding request with SGA to send 10 members to nationals.
“We thought we were in a good place this year, where we wouldn’t need emergency funding,” Van Denbergh-Curry said. “But again, with the events that have happened? We are again just trying to figure out: can we let people intermediate compete at Nationals or not? We put a lot of focus in having anyone who wants to compete get the opportunity to. We have a lot of people in intermediate, and we don’t want to take [the] opportunity [to compete] away from people.”
Emily Gest, the associate vice chancellor for news and media relations at UMass, said, “We’re still collecting information from all of the different student groups and assessing needs, and we haven’t gotten all the information yet. So once you know we have that information, then decisions can be made … two months is a long time and not a long time.”
The team had to send a full inventory of the items lost to May. Gest and May said that the Dean of Students’ office will work to figure out reimbursement and next steps.
“The university is really working hard continually to support people impacted by the Olympia fire and support all student organizations. And sometimes it takes time to sort all this stuff out after the initial outlay or outlay from the Minuteman fund,” Gest said, adding that there is no way to estimate how long the process will take.
“The thing that we are mostly concerned about right now is our spring break trip, which is the major draw for people,” Van Denbergh-Curry said. “We’re put in a really weird position right now where we don’t like to give priority to people. We want it to be a first-come, first-served basis, but we will be giving people priority if they have their own gear.”
Not being able to provide extra gear will limit how many people can participate in practices and get engaged in the “niche” sport, as Van Denbergh-Curry explained.
“Long-term, I think we have enough people involved right now that are ready to help and figure it out that we shouldn’t see too much of a drop-off,” Van Denbergh-Curry said. “But again, it just adds to the many issues we have had in terms of funding and also getting people involved.”
Schmidt said one of the reasons he came to the University was for the climbing team and he’s stayed because of the community he’s found there. Even after losing their equipment, he’s certain that the club’s community spirit will live on.
“We can do the basics, but we can’t do the other team-building stuff, but I think [it] at least really makes the team grow,” Schmidt said.
Alexandra Hill can be reached at [email protected].
