Wall building

The last few months have been filled with lots of climbing wall building.

The Climbing Works has been offered some space in Broomhill Methodist church in Sheffield, so I spent a lot of April with my mate Rob building a very nice bouldering wall in there. Even though I say so myself, the end result is great - a bouldering wall that has been designed by route setters. Should be great to set on, and therefore will be great to climb on - a breath of fresh air from all the boring, generic, 'vanilla' walls churned out by the big wall building companies. Long live the small independant builders. No AI design for us - just the back of an envelope and a love of what we are doing.

After Broomhill it was on to the Foundry climbing centre in Sheffield. This is the orignal Sheffield climbing gym and is famous the world over. Once again, Rob and I were invited to come and rebuild a very large section of the main centre. Obviously, this was a job that we couldn't really refuse - a chance to update such an iconic indoor climbing venue? No brainer. Needless to say, it was a big old job but we managed to get it done within our limited timeframe. The crap photo of the unfinished wall below doesn't really give any idea of scale, but the wall is 10 metres high and 20 metres wide. I think we used 91 sheets of plywood to create it!

Again, it might be hard to see in the picture, but we decided to not stick to the modern, smooth, boring design ideas that are so prevalent nowadays. This is a gym with hard climbing pedigree, and we wanted to make a wall that would get the setters creative juices flowing and stimulate some original and authentic climbing movement. The gently overhanging flared 'slot' in the middle of the wall is just the sort of bold decision that professional climbing wall designers are too scared to make, but we know that it will be a joy to climb on. I can't wait until it's painted and I am allowed to get some holds on it....!

Tonight Lucy and I are off to a film premier in London - the filming work I was involved in at the start of the year is done and the release of the footage is imminent. An evening of hob-nobbing with the stars awaits - not my natural environment but I'll try my best not to appear too much of a country bumpkin! Maybe I'll post some more about this at a later date....