Climbing in the comfort of your own living room
It would be an understatement to say I've moved a lot. Sometimes I've lived for months in the back of my pickup. Occassionally I've settled for a time in a ramshackle cabin, a sweet chalet, and the odd apartment dwelling.
At various places I've even stayed long enough to build a personal climbing wall.
Now a resident of chilly, sunny, high-altitude Flagstaff, I find myself thinking again about assembling another wall. I've got all the holds, resting quietly in a box towards the back of my gear closet.
The nice thing about filling your living space with a large piece of plywood are the options that open up for personal training. If you even committ to hanging off your holds for ten or twenty minutes a day, you can dramatically improve your strength and technique. You can pull your mattress, couch pillows or futon under the wall and mess about to your heart's content. An indoor wall is a completely personal experience (unless you invite your friends). You can play whatever CD's motivate you, and even climb naked. Why not?
If you find pumping plastic at the local gym an intimidating experience, going it alone is a great compromise, a decent alternative for when you can't get outside to rope up with friends or go bouldering.
It doesn't take too much effort to build your own personal rock gym. Some folks find a simple 8x6 plywood panel is enough for a pump, while others go all out to retool their garage or basement into an elaborate bouldering cave.
You don't have to design your wall from scratch.
Tradgirl http://www.tradgirl.com/rc/faq7.htm#home... offers a selection of wall plans for all climbing skill levels. Her site lists dozens of articles for building walls in the home or backyard, with design schematics and useful training programs.
She discusses alternative training tools as well, including the errata of fingerboards, hangboards, campus boards, strips and glue-ups. More info than you can shake a stick at. One unusual and amusing article hails from a reader who turned his backyard tree into a three-route, overhanging roped backyard "wall".
Metolius, a premier maker of plastic climbing holds, sports a highly informative link. Metolius has detailed blueprints and directions for constructing both simple plywood panels and complex bat caves. http://www.metoliusclimbing.com/
One Metolius article offers advice on adding variety to your wall (so you don't grow sick of your training routine), and another details their famous 10-minute training program - and it lists modifications to suit all climbing levels from novice to expert.
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