In my early twenty’s I regularly went to a indoor rock climbing gym. I would climb till my arms were so pumped and sore that I would have trouble driving home. I enjoyed the challenge and the exercise. Slowly over time I climbed less, until it was a distant memory of a time before work, life and being adult took over.
Many years later when I was looking for a sport’s activity for Alec. Rock climbing seem the obvious choice. Alec enjoyed it and I started getting back into it as well. Soon I had family members wanting to join us and rock climbing became a bit of a social event.
The bug got hold of me again and I started to improve quickly. I soon found that I needed to climb more than once a week if I wanted my climbing to progress.
This motivation is what I needed to make the decision to build my own climbing wall. I had always toyed with the idea, but as always not enough time, no suitable area and the list went on and on.
The plan for the wall was simple. But it soon turn much bigger and complex project. With a angled section and a overhang.
I started with a bare wall in my garage. I then made a frame for a angle section and screwed on ply wood to box it in and gradually filled in more sections of the wall and some of the roof.
Before the ply could be screwed to the wall I had to fix a thread into the timber for the climbing holds to be screw into.
For this I used t-nuts. To fit the t-nuts a 12mm hole is drilled and the nut placed in the hole. Each t-nut then had 3 screws to hold it in place.
This was done to every piece of ply that covered the wall and roof. A total of 283 t-nuts was used. So that meant 283 12mm holes drilled and with each t-nut having 3 screws. 849 screws had be screwed in.
Once the timber work was completed it was time to paint. First I painted the entire wall white. Then the rest of the family help decorate it. Everyone got involve even Hayden.
The next step was to make the wall safe for the kids and myself. With the overhang being 2.6 metres high off the ground. I had to have something that you could fall onto with out getting hurt.
I ordered a crash mat on-line thinking it would come complete. But Instead I got 2 big pieces of foam than a week later I got the cover. To be fare the company I brought it off did ring me to tell me that’s how it’s done. They didn’t mention however the foam would come in two pieces which created I bit of confusion at first.
With the wall finished I have no excuse not to climb. I now also have a small obsession with climbing holds. Over time I will increase the amount and variety to add to the fun. After all I have 283 places to put them.
Kethel Boys Adventures 