Climbing Wall

Ahhhh, finally, after all these years I finally have my very own climbing wall to play on. I have always wanted one, but living in the dorms in college didn’t really allow the room to build a climbing wall…especially with the amount of crap I own. I would have had to throw a few computers out the window to make room…*hrmmm…now that I think about it…* Anyhow! I then lived in apartments, and well, I don’t think they would look too kindly on me having a romp fest on there cardboard, paperthin walls. You know the kind. The kind where you can hear exactly what your four neighbors are doing. But then I moved into a house with an unfinished basement…perfect! It’s even heated too! Begin Phase I.

Planning:

I really didn’t do a whole lot of planning. In fact, I was just ready to start climbing, so I wanted to get some wood up and see what it looks like later. I knew the basic concept of framing, and well, had an idea of what to get, but I didn’t exactly know how it would all go together, but then again, how hard can it be?

Buying:

This was the easy part. I went to Home Depot and picked up a lot of 2×4′s. I also picked up some plywood. I initially got some crap plywood because of the price, but when I looked at how it had holes in it every so often in the layers, I opted to shell out the cash for the birch plywood. Also I got a lot of 3-inch wood screws, a 12V cordless drill and a small handsaw. I went to my favorite store, REI and got tons of metolius holds.

Framing:

This phase took a while. I didn’t have a lot of time to work on it really because I was always doing something it seemed. However, I found that my drill worked out really well with the two batteries, so one can be charging while one is in the unit. I kinda just orchestrated how I wanted it to look on the spot, but I know I wanted an incline, and some dihedrals and stuff, so I just kinda made it happen.

Adding Holds:

This was the fun part, because finally I got to see results and test my route-setting skills. Putting on the holds consisted of me using the t-nuts and screws and putting them on the plywood with an allen wrench.

Playtime:

After I got everything done, I started playing on it and load tested it. I think I did a pretty good job, as there are only a few holds that spun a little. It took me about three seconds for me to get blood on my wall though. I got a little excited and tried a dyno and totally screwed it up. Hehe…oh well.

Cost:

I put this down here in hopes people don’t get discouraged from building their own woodie. My climbing wall is 104 square feet and it cost me a little over $800. Most of that was on climbing holds, but what I should have done was buy in bulk and that would have saved me $200, but oh well, I have the kind of holds that I like.

I hope you found this page informational, and if you have any questions on building your own climbing wall, lemme know! I will be glad to help you in any way I can.

Here is a picture of what it looked like in my old house. (Wall version 1.0)

So I moved to Boulder, and I had to take down my entire wall. Now, I had *not* planned taking it down when I was designing it. I had stripped a lot of screws putting it in place, so it was *torture* getting them back out. However, I eventually got it all deconstructed, and began to put it up in my new home! This time in the garage instead of the basement.

It took me a while to figure out what to put where and how to support it. The main difference between my last design and this design would be the fact that before, I had joists above to screw into, now I didn’t have any wood up high to secure the top of my wall with. So, I had to really think how things would be secure and not fall apart. This was a monumental task, however, I eventually thought it all out in my head and started building.

The first thing I wanted to do was make the design a lot more fun. I wanted different looks, different angles, different movements. So I decided to start building a cave section. I built this so that I could work on my roof technique. The plan was for it to be a lot bigger, however, I soon noticed I was using up all my wood! I needed some for the other sections! Yeesh!

The next section I started was the layback section. This I set at a pretty decent angle so that it would be a challenge. I have yet to actually climb it, however by the time you read this, I probably *have* climbed it many times over, but it looks like some fun. This section actually was left half built for like 3 months. I started it, but never got back around to finishing it. Well now I put panels on it, and it looks much better! It’s climbable! yay!

I had plans for a better chimney section which would link the two sections together. However, I ran out of wood and screws. So it’s incomplete at the moment, however you can still check it out in the pictures below. This would be the next area I would work on. Then, if I were to expand more, I think I would make some easier angled stuff closer to the garage door, and left of section two.

Well, I’m sure you didn’t even read this and just wanted to look at the pictures. So, here are the new pictures of my wall Version 2.0. If you want to know more about the framing behind the panels, just ask.

Slug Bugs, Music, Cold Weather, Snowmobile Rides and Closing Time

When you wake up in the morning, and read the weather report, only to find out that the wind chill for your scheduled destination is -25 degrees, you get chills just reading the report. Well, that’s exactly how it went…my goosebumps had their own zip codes. Winter Park, had an obscene amount of new snow over the weekend, and this was the day I was going to teach Emily (Colleen’s friend) how to snowboard. This would also mark day two for Cobes. It was all of a couple degrees out in the morning, and that made the driving slow because there was snow on the ground, and it was cold out, and it was hard to get motivated. But here are the girls looking glamorous as ever first thing in the morning!

Not to mention, they had baked me cookies! MMMM! What better way to butter up your driver than bring him homemade cookies! Score! After the long trek up to Winter Park, up and over Berthoud Pass, we arrive at Winter Park, and the first words out of Em’s mouth were, “Is it closed?” There were absolutely NO CARS to be found! If any of you have ever snowboarded over a holiday, or Spring Break, you know how big of crowd can be waiting to board the lifts…well, let me show you one advantage to being a local:

Shizam! The only car in the whole parking lot!!! And this is at 11am! Haha, Gugals would be happy as I cut one giant cookie before sliding to a stop to park. Snow Ninja Emily jumped out and made sure that nobody would take our spot…

Then again, if you were to have a look at this next picture, who would mess with these two girls in the FIRST place? They act like they are the only ones on the mountain or something!

So, we get on our first lift after giving Emily some quick instructions on the LEAST likely way she will kill herself when she tries to get off the lift. She did fairly well, but of course an ugly patch of ice jumped out and attacked her snowboard and caused her to stumble over her untied shoelace which somehow got caught up in her untied leash, that she regretted tying, and….well, you get the point. She did a good job picking up the basics, and with all the fresh pow she was riding mighty fine! Co was flying compared to last weekend! What an awesome sight to see! She felt fearless she said in all the fluffy stuff. We make it to the next lift, and this time Emily made it, and it put a twinkle in my eye…Student One was flying down the mountain, and Student Two was now getting off lifts correctly! However, on the way down run #2, Emily stopped and I thought something was wrong…but don’t worry folkes, she just lost an earring and had to put it back in, but here’s the photo to show she successfully pulled off this daring maneuver while being in the middle of a run!

I think it’s time for some Action photos! Here is Emily…remember folks, this is her first day!

I was trying to get a picture of Colleen, but for *some* reason, I caught her in the middle of doing some sort of a cartwheel on the snow, with her snowboard still attached! In other words…she caught her front edge!

But as you can see, here are two pictures of her in better form….yay Cobes!

Emily really didn’t like walking with one foot strapped into her snowboard. She thought it was weird and that she looked goofy, and so, she preferred her own style of riding. It’s called walking. Well, walking with your snowboard. That has a better ring to it. Look for her signature clothing line due out in the Spring.

So who is this guy in the picture next to Colleen with the awesome backdrop?! Oh wait…I think that might be me!

Here’s a pic of the two girls, high up on the mountain! Watch out, these girls already ride blues!

Right after those two pictures, I decide that I have to make a little part into the woods a little bit to find some fresh powder, and well mainly to relieve myself because I had to go pretty bad. What’s that about not eating the yellow snow? Oh…right…don’t eat it! So yeah, I’m in the middle of these trees, and the powder stashes are so deep that I get stuck and can’t get back over to the run I want, soooooo, I am forced to go down the wrong way. Here is a quick picture of my line in the trees….

So there I am, cursing myself for not just holding it, and I know the girls are waiting for me on the run right next to me, but I can’t get there. It just so happens the only run I *could* climb out of the snow and get on takes me down the complete OPPOSITE side of where the girls are. So, I eventually crawl out of waist deep snow, strap back on my board, then book it down to the lift. I take the lift up and then am bombing it down Mock Turtle (hey, just trying to live up to the name) and there was this ski patrol guy who was closing off the run, but before he could close it off I went down it! Muhahaha! Well, I’m carving a nice line in the uncut snow, and I come upon 2 other ski patrol guys, who then proceed to assume that I must have ducked a rope to get on Mock Turtle, and so they tackle me! One of them went so far as to use his ski pole to push up against my neck to hold me down! What the heck!?! I am screaming for them to let me go, as I’m wrestling so they can’t cut my passess off, but the weight of these two guys with all their medical stuff in their backpacks were pretty heavy! However, I managed to sorta squiggle free and explain what I was up to. After I told them that there were two girls that were over on this side of the mountain that I was in a hurry to meet up with because they were probably wondering where I was, they decided to use the radio to see if my story had any validity in it. Well, it turns out that one of them had seen two girls being taken off the mountain on snowmobile just 10 seconds before they gangraped me. So here I’m thinking Cobes and Em got hurt! Turns out it wasn’t the two girls I was with that got taken off the mountain. So, then, they start chasing after me again, as if they were going to tackle me again! Well, then, guy at lift down below hops on his radio to report that there are two girls with snowboards waiting for a guy down at the lift. Well, that made my story check out, and the nutbaskets let me go! I meet up with the girls and explain what happened. But this was only the beginning!

We then take the lift up, but then for some strange reason, we decide to take yet ANOTHER lift up even higher as it was closing! Mind you, the previous lift was closing when we were on it, and they waited for me to show up. Now, the guy was closing it as Emily was walking in style with her snowboard at her hip up to the lift! After getting on, we make it to the very top of Mary Jane. There, we find five more ski patrol guys waiting for us! Yikes! What is this!? They were then, escorting us down the mountain! Making sure we made it alright. Well, after about 5 minutes they got tired of waiting, and told Emily to get on the snowmobile, as she was going too slow and she had a long way to go! Noooooo!!! They are taking my friend! So then, Cobes and I remain on the mountain and are riding down and it seems like every ski patrol guy on the mountain had to tell us that we were taking up their time and that they wanted to go home, and blah blah blah. Eventually one told me where we could find Em. It turns out to be logically the FARTHEST possible place from where my car was parked. Seriously, you would think if one car was parked in a lot, they could just drop you off at your car. But nooooo!

After much exhaustion, we made it back to my Blazer, only after Emily had turned into a popsicle and her teeth were chattering so loud I thought they were going to pop out. Only after we caught, what was it, two buses that still didn’t even manage to take us back to my car. *sigh*…but you know what…it was an AWESOME day of snowboarding, and everybody had a good time.