By Rylan Marshall
Traveling halfway around the world to develop a community of climbers may seem like a strange idea, but that was the driving force behind the creation of Wadi Climbing, the first and only climbing gym in Palestine.
The new facility is owned and operated by Will Harris and Tim Burns, two Americans that met at school in Colorado Springs, CO, and is located in Ramallah, a city whose population is in excess of 27,000. Wadi is opening doors to its bouldering-only facility today.
The Beginnings
The seed for Wadi Climbing was planted back in 2012 while Harris and Burns were studying abroad in Jordan. Taken by the burgeoning local climbing scene, the duo purchased memberships at Climbat, a large gym in the Jordanian capital of Amman, where they were immediately inspired by the way in which the gym functioned as a social centerpiece for the community. Trips to crags in Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine followed, and it wasn’t long before their wheels started turning.
“One of the things we noticed when we were first visiting Palestine was the lack of social spaces that revolve around health, activity, and community,” Burns said in an interview. “We travelled to Ramallah a couple of times to do market research and everything we saw indicated a climbing gym would be successful.”
Building Community
Success for any gym operator is dependent on getting people through the door, which is an easy task when there is a large, dedicated climbing community already in place. Boulder, Colorado, for instance, is able to sustain four large-scale gyms within blocks of each other thanks to one of the most serious climbing scenes in the country.
Ramallah, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Wadi’s solution was simple: create the community you want to serve. For nearly two years Burns and Harris split their time between developing new climbing areas in around Ramallah and starting a guiding service to take interested participants to these areas.
With assistance from travelling climbers and what few local climbers there were, the duo bolted over 100 routes on three different crags, all within fifteen minutes from Ramallah. “The cliffs are relatively short but the limestone is solid and fun to climb on,” Burns said of the area’s rock quality. “We started taking ‘Intro to Climbing’ trips to these crags and it took off.”
Taking anywhere from ten to twenty people at a time, they have guided 1,400 clients in the last year alone. While some of those are repeat customers, that remains an impressive number of people introduced to rock climbing, especially in a place devoid of the many recreational opportunities many westerners take for granted.
As the community flourishes, Wadi Climbing will continue to be the element that nurtures it. “Since we are the first company to introduce rock climbing in Palestine, we have done a lot of educating,” Burns explained. “The gym is just the next step and the people who have become climbers are excited to have a place to train and hang out during the week.”
This strategy is not dissimilar to many other climbing gym operators that are hoping to be successful in areas of the world that are not traditional hotbeds for outdoor pursuits. They hope to create climbers by providing fully-equipped, state-of-the-art facilities that attract anyone with an adventurous spirit and supple wallet, with the hopes that the experience will convert them into lifelong climbers.
The fundamental difference, however, is that Wadi is making climbers in the more traditional manner, by introducing them to outdoor climbing, educating them on the skills necessary to navigate real rock, and eventually providing them with a place to gather and connect with other like-minded individuals.
Partners in Climb
Working with Wadi Climbing as full partners are Lara and Joe Grosjean, operators of City Rock climbing gym in Colorado Springs. As patrons of City Rock years ago, Burns and Harris had befriended the Grosjeans, and when they developed the idea for Wadi Climbing they ended up working with the Grosjeans as consultants on the project. Burns elaborates on the progression from friendship to partnership by recalling that they would frequently meet to discuss what it would take to run a climbing gym. “They were always helpful and interested and one day they suggested that they would like to be involved,” Burns said.
Once a location was found and funding secured, the Grosjeans began their commitment to Wadi Climbing. Together with their three children, they temporarily relocated to Ramallah in January 2016 to oversee construction of the facility. Along with manufacturing the walls, the couple will be involved in nearly every aspect in the early days of the gym, including daily operations and routesetting.
The Facility
While nearby Israel has a healthy climbing community and upwards of twenty gyms, the market in Palestine is hardly comparable. This required Burns and Harris to look to other sources of inspiration for their gym. “Fitness gyms, mixed martial arts, and Crossfit have become extremely popular in the last five years,” Burns said. “We have focused more on learning from those type facilities.” (The Crossfit craze, it seems, knows no borders.)
Wadi Climbing fits into the mold of a small, low overhead, bouldering-only gym that has become de rigueur in the US and parts of Europe in the past few years. With 1,400 square feet of bouldering terrain, the gym will feature hangboards, a campus board, a gear shop, and a kid-oriented ‘adventure trail’ obstacle course.
For the first months of operation, staffing will consist entirely of the two owners plus one full-time employee and a couple of part-timers.
The Future
Though it is very early in the process and all focus is on opening the doors, the Wadi team remains dedicated to expanding and enriching the local community. With knowledge acquired in the early days, improvements to existing guiding and education programs will be made, including additional gym infrastructure that aims to supplement the social aspect of the facility.
Burns described Wadi’s place in the Ramallah community as, “An awesome hangout and training space for those girls and guys that are hooked on climbing.” This mode of thinking falls in line with other modern gym operators around the world who place a great emphasis on social workspace and community building.
Expansion is another possibility though one that may be a ways off. If their model works in Ramallah, Wadi Climbing could easily capitalize on the growing Middle East climbing scene by spreading smaller gyms throughout Jordan and Lebanon. But first, the duo is concentrating on increasing the terrain at the current facility by adding rope climbing to the mix.
The opening of Wadi Climbing will put Palestine on the map of countries with climbing gyms, but more importantly, it will signify the extension of the global climbing community. Regardless of financial outcomes and future expansion, the foundation that Wadi seeks to lay will provide a platform for future climbers to explore and engage in the sport in an area of the world not often thought about in climbing circles.
Climbing Business Journal is an independent news outlet dedicated to covering the indoor climbing industry. Here you will find the latest coverage of climbing industry news, gym developments, industry best practices, risk management, climbing competitions, youth coaching and routesetting. Have an article idea? CBJ loves to hear from readers like you!
