Photo: Kingdom Climbing. Louie Anderson and the Factory’s battlefield.
Kingdom Climbing will host America’s first ever officially organized routesetter competition on March 1st, 2014 at The Factory Bouldering in Orange, California.
The event, dubbed the Kingdom Games, will feature setters invited from 25 commercial climbing gyms from around California and Arizona. Along with three technical judges there will also be pro and amateur climbers that will help in the judging of the setters’ problems.
The routesetters will be judged on creative, aesthetic and technical aspects of the problems they put up during the event. There will be an overall winner as well as specific category winners. Every setter will take home a set of holds from Kingdom Climbing for participating and the winners of each category will get a hold credit to use in purchasing holds from Kingdom. The cumulative winner will get an even bigger hold credit to spend for their gym.
The event will be held at The Factory Bouldering gym which is owned by shaper and local legend Louie Anderson. The setters will compete on the Factory’s new 4,000 square feet of bouldering wall addition.
Anderson breaks the rules down for us:
At the start of the event each setter will select their holds from three groupings of bagged Kingdom Climbing holds.
The setters will be able to select only the holds, without knowing which wall angle those holds have been assigned to.
Each setter will then be challenged to create 3 problems, one each in the Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty ranges.
The setters will have 3-4 hours to set, forerun and tweak their problems.
“Next a group of 50-60 ‘pro’ and amateur climbers will have the chance to climb all of the problems. They will have one or two categories that they can score the problems in. In addition there will be three judges that will score them in other, more technical categories,” said Anderson.
Over the years routesetters everywhere have dreamed of a setters comp. But until now it’s only been a dream.
Mark Bradley, owner of Kingdom holds said the genesis of the Kingdom Games came from a desire to set better problems than other setters he has worked with. “The setters comps is an idea that me and Kyle Mrohs have spent years talking about while setting together,” said Bradley. “It’s safe to say that we always pushed each other to see who would create the best problem that day. I think it was from that mentality of always trying to bend the limits of our own imaginations that the idea arose.”
Bradley will use the Kingdom Games as a brand launch for his new climbing hold company Kingdom Climbing. Bradley told CBJ, “I’ve wanted to put this event together for a long time just purely because I think it will be a lot of fun. Being able to use it as the launch for Kingdom Climbing is just the excuse that makes it possible.”
Full disclosure: CBJ Editor-in-Chief, Mike Helt, will be one of the technical judges for the Games.
Do you want to save money? Increase your setters’ efficiency? Make your gym look fantastic? Then it may be time to ditch the tape that’s hanging off your climbing wall and move into the future with monochromatic routes and boulder problems.
What’s Monochromatic route setting you ask? It’s the process of setting all routes or boulder problems with the same colored holds. This does not mean every hold in the gym is blue! It means that each route will be designated by the hold color instead of tape color.
Advantages to Setting by Hold Color
Long term cost savings
Faster setting
Environmentally sound
Cleaner walls
Less waste
Faster striping of the wall
No daily tape maintenance
Fewer issues for color-blind climbers
Disadvantages to Setting by Hold Color
Chalk and rubber may hide the color of the hold
May need to have a lower density to keep routes separate
Fewer hold options for routesetters depending on gym’s hold selection
Hold companies have yet to standardize colors
Photo: Boulderwelt
If you’re a new gym, making monochromatic setting standard practice is as easy as falling off a ladder. If your facility has been stuck on tape for years, don’t fret, you’re only a few steps away from freeing up your staff from tasks such as sticking, re-sticking and peeling off tape.
The Six Basic Steps to Going Mono
1. Start by setting routes and problems with monochromatic holds, but still use tape. This will allow your members to get used to seeing color-coordinated routes and they will soon catch on that different routes have different colors. Next you’ll be able to eliminate the tape. Set some areas without tape and once your members get the hang of it, slowly move on from sector to sector, removing the tape and leaving behind beautiful looking monochromatic problems.
2. Having colored routes will look great and your members will notice. But make sure you have a proper communication plan so you don’t leave climbers dazed and confused. Hang posters with details on the monochromatic setting. Share the changes on your social media sites. Put up a Q&A or comment board. Make sure you have enough staff during the first few weeks to walk the floor answering questions and soliciting feedback.
3. Try to limit your routes to a maximum of six different colors; there is no need to have a dozen or more colors as they won’t be differentiated enough. These colors are ideal because of their brightness and distinctness: Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Orange, Purple.
Unless your gym is huge and you can keep the slightly different colored routes away from each other, stay away from ambiguous colors like grey and pink; avoid multi-colored holds because they just look ugly and will confuse the crap out the climbers. If you must, you can also include black and white in your color scheme, but keep in mind that black tends to turn grey from climbing chalk and white turns grey from shoe rubber.
4. Monochromatic route setting works best if all your hold colors are of the same exact color; all your reds need to be the exact same hue of red. No scarlet, pink, or faded orange. When ordering new holds, purchase from companies that can guarantee all the colors will match. Some hold companies already offer standard Pantone or RAL colors, and hopefully they will all move toward this direction. If your favorite grip maker isn’t doing this already, let them know it’s something your gym wants!
Photo: Rock Candy
5. Sell off all those ugly, multi-hued, faded and chipped holds. Don’t leave them lying around for a setter to get a crazy idea in her head like setting some “retro” Yaniro route!
6. Clean off all the tape and never buy it again! This is really the best part. Ordering tape only to use once and then throw it away is extremely wasteful. Even though tape balls are cool they’re wasteful too. Ordering colored holds is like putting solar panels on the roof of your house: Expensive at first but quickly pays for itself over the life of your gym (although, we haven’t heard of any monochromatic tax credits, yet).
Photo: Seattle Bouldering Project
Advanced Monochromatics (AKA Circuits)
It is only natural to think that hold or tape color corresponds to a difficulty level. “So, are the blue routes easier than the red routes?” has been heard in every gym ever built. So why not go along with this completely commonsense approach. Once you have rid your gym of nasty tape you’ll have the perfect opportunity to start setting circuits. Circuits are set so that each hold color designates a difficulty level. For example all red holds will be V2 – v4 or 5.11a – 5.11d. Why not make it easy on your customers and give them what they intuitively want, while getting them away from chasing grades!
After reading CBJ’s list of Top Cities to Open a Climbing Gym many readers wanted to know where to open a bouldering-only gym. So we put our best researchers on the task and came up with 24 cities that could make an ideal home for a bouldering gym.
While both traditional gyms and bouldering gyms offer climbing to their members, the differences between these two types of facilities is vast. The business plan for a bouldering gym is sufficiently different — from its staffing plan, building requirements and marketing strategy — that bouldering gyms deserve their own list of top cities.
Bouldering gyms are particularly attractive to college age climbers that enjoy the social aspect of climbing as much, or more, than the athletic aspect. Many of these customers are not likely to visit a traditional rope gym where they have to bring a belay parter or climb solo on auto belays.
One of the main benefits to opening a bouldering gym is the lower capital and on-going costs. The start-up costs are significantly lower due to building space, building modification and equipment costs, and once the facility is operational the number of employees needed to supervise climbers, instruct first-time customers and manage parties is much lower. They can also fit into urban areas where 60 foot tall gyms are not allowed by zoning.
Take a look at our list and then start writing that business plan.
Jason Kehl is best known for climbing crazy highballs and sending hard projects. Wait, Jason Kehl is best known for his surprising and original climbing holds. No, really he’s known for his entertaining stilt-walking slide shows. OK, it’s really hard to sum up Jason Kehl, but what brings all of his exploits together is creativity.
After 6 months of design work and another 6 months of construction by Walltopia, he can now add climbing wall designer to his resume. With his first foray into wall design at the new Earth Treks climbing center in Golden, Colorado, Kehl is hoping to push the boundaries of what a climbing wall can look like. “We have just scratched the surface. I don’t think there is a limit. The only limit I see is functionality, you could have a really interesting design, but if it doesn’t climb well it defeats the purpose,” said Kehl in an interview with CBJ.
The philosophy of form-meets-function is epitomized in the design of products that must be functional, but may also be beautiful so that the user finds satisfaction or joy in using the product. This is never more apparent than with climbing wall design. Historically climbing walls have been designed more for function than for form, but with this project Kehl wanted to take head on the task of blending these aspects.
Photo: Cryptochild.com
His first decision was not to look at outdoor crags for inspiration, but to look towards art, especially architecture and sculpture. In his recent Dead Point blog, Kehl writes, “Some preliminary image inspiration included cathedrals, long bending metal sculptures, spiraling staircases and archways where it is just as important what you see through the arch throughout different points in the gym. I thought that it was important that this gym was not only functional but visually stunning and purposeful.”
Kehl believes that climbing gyms should not mimic outdoor crags but should be something completely different. “Why recreate rock when you can experiment and have fun with a whole new apparatus,” Kehl said. “Standardization bores me, I wish holds had many textures and materials. I feel the same way about climbing walls, I think they should be abstract as possible, but still follow the simple laws of nature.”
Photo: Earth Treks
Kehl and Chris Warner, President of Earth Treks, bucked another typical starting point for wall design: other climbing gyms. In fact Kehl believes that most gyms do a poor job of making a cohesive, fluid design, and he wanted to avoid this. “The walls all need to work together visually, like in nature everything is connected,” said Kehl.
One gym that did attract notice was the Climbmax in Stuttgart Germany. The German-based gym developer had recently opened their Stuttgart facility and the Earth Treks team saw a few things that they liked. Kehl said, “I saw some pics on Facebook and liked how there were lots of different terrain and stand out features.”
When looking at the Climbmax gym it’s easy to see a few of the similarities in the new ET – Golden facility.
Climbmax on left. Earth Treks on right
Perhaps the most important aspect of Kehl’s design philosophy is maintaining a sense of flow and balance. “If you change one thing, everything connected must also change, one wall becomes steeper, the opposing wall leans with it,” he said.
Kehl makes a distinction between outside climbing, which he finds un-inspiring for design, and natural shapes and forms. When asked about his recurring theme of the pentagon Kehl said, “It is … in nature, in flowers, spider webs and the star, and the 5 sides allow for more tapered angles unlike the 4 sided box. We tried to stay away from having anything too closed or too sharp. Having them recur is just a way to keep everything connected.”
For the Beginners
Kehl and the Earth Treks team also understand that the foundation of any climbing gym are new climbers. They appealed to these climbers by designing two separate teaching areas away from the prying eyes of more experienced climbers. This gives the new climber a safe and comfortable place to learn belay and movement technique.
These walls are not just the typical flat panel climbing wall with some old dusty holds on it. “I feel gyms neglect making the easier terrain interesting and just throw up a vertical wall,” said Kehl. Understanding that even beginners want more than just a boring flat wall, he designed corners, aretes, slabs and even overhangs into the learning area.
Photo: Earth Treks
3-D
In the recent video interview with ClimbingNarc Kehl spoke about the balancing act of creating wide open space with 3-D architectural features. “When I’m outside I like to climb on features, be it an arete or a big roof,” Kehl said. “I was trying to do a lot of different features in the gym so it felt like you were on the edge of something. It wasn’t like ‘oh I’m on a flat wall and this is where I am’. You have this more 3-dimensional feeling to it.”
This culminated in such features as the Death Star and as Kehl describes them on his DPM blog, “The Blade, The Wave and Ships prow in the back are all 3-D stand out features and are massive in size. With The Blade I really wanted to give the climber the feeling there on the edge of a massive boulder. The Coffin Prow is too big to span across and creates 3 separate aretes on this one feature.”
Moving away from expansive flat walls was a theme he took to the rest of the gym. “We were really focused as a group on having individual lines. So we have certain terrain here but then 10 or 20 feet down the wall it’s a lot different so you’re not just climbing the same stuff all the time,” he said.
Now that the gym is open and seems to be a huge success, what is Jason Kehl’s advice to future wall designers? “Work with the space, there should be give and take so everything can work together instead of feeling like an obstruction.”
We may be seeing more walls designed by Kehl in the future. “I love to create and I love climbing, from the tiniest foothold to a gigantic wall, there is still so much to do with design in the climbing industry,” said Kehl.
