Being a rock climber in Louisiana is not always easy, see Life as a Louisiana Climber below. Especially with the closest climbing gym 45min away. There used to be a climbing gym here in NOLA but did not come back after the hurricane.

So my friend Alex and I decided that we needed to build one. A bouldering area that is. Alex had built a small one before and I have never tried to build one before this one. We found a great spot in the warehouse where I work. The ceilings are 15ft high, with a large area width wise for future expansions. The ceiling of the warehouse has 1/2 inch iron c-beams.

When we were in the early stages of design, ie pen, paper, and tons of dreams, we wanted to have three sections the width of a sheet of plywood. These sections would be different angles varying in difficulty. We decided to use steel studs due to their reasonable cost and ease of fabricating. I have helped my parent build a house out of steel, so I was familiar with different fabrication techniques.

As we started with the first section we used 1 1/2 in anchors to secure studs to a brick wall. And anchors (1 1/2 in) in the ceiling. In the ceiling we were able to secure four studs to the c-beams. When we had not attached the plywood yet, the studs seemed very flimsy. But I remember this being the case growing up with my parents house.

Before you can attach the 3/4 in plywood to the structure, you must drill holes every square foot, that way we were able to insert t-nuts. This was the part of the wall that took the longest. Star helped us throughout this process and really started to show some talent with a drill (Hey baby if medicine does not work out, you always have construction). After this we attached the first piece of ply to the bottom of the wall. This one piece stabilized the wall dramatically. We added the rest of the wood, three and a half sheets total. We immediate added holds to create a route and started to run laps on it.

We knew right way that this 60 degree way would not suffice, even for a short time. We started a few days later to on the next section. This section was planned to be 45 degrees but would turn out to be 44 degrees. Very close for two guys with international business degrees. Where there is a will, there is a way. We connected the walls with a flat surface that would be a great point to transition between the two walls. We currently have over 200 holds on the wall. I think that we need twice as many.

It took a total of about 50hrs to build the wall. With a total bill of $450 in materials. Most of this was donated by the climbers that frequent the wall. The holds have been donated by many people, and the cost does not include any holds.

After this experience I will be building many walls in my future, especially with all of the moving that Star will be doing. But at least that way Star and I can try many different designs before we build one in our straw bail house in the southwest.