If you’ve been around climbing a while, you’ve likely heard of Obe or seen him climbing in a film. But even if you haven’t, there’s plenty of content in this installment to appreciate: a tale of stumbling upon climbing and grinding it out to make a living from it; memories from climbing’s early days; reflections about mentorship, coaching, and passing it on to the next generation; words of wisdom on riding the highs and lows of our relationship to climbing; and more great stories for anyone psyched on climbing. Plus, it all came together on the 26^th anniversary of Obe and Chris Sharma’s road trip that fueled the Rampage film so many of us know and love.

So, whether you’re on your way to work at the gym or maybe doing some holiday shopping, we hope you take a moment to enjoy giving this instant classic another listen.

Once A Climber, Always A Climber – CBJ Podcast with Obe Carrion

Obe Carrion is the guest of this CBJ podcast episode, hosted by John Burgman. Obe has long been one of the biggest names in the game as a pro climber. Over the years, he has worked with multiple brands, and he’s been in multiple climbing films, including 1998’s Free Hueco! and 1999’s Rampage. He has been a coach, a mentor, and through all of the evolutions he has remained a force of nature in the climbing industry. John and Obe talk about Obe’s career and psych in climbing: how psych is never a constant, but how there can be value in it as an unknown, and in the way that motivation comes and goes and then comes back again eventually. Obe also reflects on climbing in the 1990s, the filming of that famous Rampage documentary—in which Chris Sharma stole the show at an X Games in San Francisco, 26 years ago—hanging with Sharma, coaching the next generation, and evolving with the times.

General Topics Covered

• Introduction and Obe’s Background
• Career Decisions and Early Development
• Competition Scene and Mentorship
• Sponsorship and Professional Development
• Bouldering Boom, The Video Era
• Rampage Film Production
• Transition to Coaching
• Coaching Philosophy and Modern Climbing
• Industry Evolution

Show Notes

• Find Obe Carrion on Instagram: @obe_carrion
• Rampage on YouTube

Thank you Approach and Kilter for your support!
And thank you Devin Dabney for your music!

The post The Top CBJ Podcast Episode of 2025 for Gym Operators appeared first on Climbing Business Journal.

Welcome back to the Setter’s Archive, where we explore the foundations of modern routesetting through classic wisdom. Here you’ll find setter essays originally published in The Art of Coursesetting and Fundamentals of Routesetting. We’re revisiting these stories in their original form because, while much has changed in the routesetting world in the last two decades, many core concepts remain the same. We hope these excerpts help you keep reflecting, learning, and growing professionally.

For more routesetting content, be sure to check out The Impact Driver podcast, Ask a Setter series, Truth Behind the Trade chapters, Behind the Wrench interviews and other routesetting-related articles on CBJ.

Intro by Holly Yu Tung Chen

Climbing competitions have been around for as long as climbing gyms, and there are even some that pre-date the oldest climbing gym. Back in the days of bring-your-own-crashpad bouldering comps, one of the key figures was prolific competition organizer and setter Scott Rennak.

Rennak wrote Organizer Tips for Bouldering Comps for Louie Anderson’s 2004 edition of The Art of Coursesetting (republished in 2014 as Fundamentals of Routesetting), which was itself the 5th rendition of this material that originally appeared in the ABS Organizer Handbook. The collection of tips was from the days before dedicated bouldering gyms existed. “To my knowledge it was the first time anyone had ever put this stuff into written form,” says Rennak.

Having founded the American Bouldering Series (later acquired by USA Climbing) and set for more than 50 competitions over a busy five-year setting career, Rennak was among the handful of setters at the time who were leading the charge with their understanding of bouldering comp logistics.

Bouldering competitions today are filled with the latest macros and fiberglass shapes, boast bigger cash prizes, and rely on social media for promotion instead of paper flyers, but many aspects of the logistical side of organizing a bouldering comp remain largely unchanged, making these 20-year-old tips still a trusty companion for any organizer and setter to have on hand.

ORGANIZER TIPS FOR BOULDERING COMPS

by Scott Rennak

INTRODUCTION

There is no perfect formula for competition organization. Every gym has different facilities to work with, and every competitor field is unique. Careful planning helps ensure a good comp, although there is a learning curve. The more comps you organize, the less mistakes you’ll make.

Bouldering comps are the easiest type of event to organize. They also are the most popular among competitors—bouldering comps are fast-paced and fun.

The information here is intended to help organizers understand what makes a good bouldering comp. Like anything, there is always more to add. Contact us with your ideas, as we’ll be adding new topics and revising the existing topics in future updates. [Editor’s Note: This sentence appeared in the original text but these updates have since stopped.]

GOALS, FINANCES AND PRIZES

Before anything else, ask yourself why to hold a bouldering comp. To promote the gym? To excite regulars? To get a gym full of new problems? No doubt there’s a mix of influences—collectively they dictate what direction to head in, which helps you understand which aspects of the event need more attention.

Talking with gym owners, it’s often cited that “comps never make money.” While that can be the case, it doesn’t have to be. Effective planning can go a long way toward creating cost-effective events.

So, decide what kind of event you want to hold. Is it going to be a big weekend event where folks travel? Is it a weeknight locals-only type of comp? Both can yield great results, yet both can be botched by misunderstanding your goals as the organizer.

Do you intend to have a cash purse or prizes? Lots of comps these days only do a door raffle among competitors. It seems like the same people are always winning the stuff (and often selling it for peanuts just after the awards), and lots of the winners are sponsored already anyway. Maybe the competitors at your event would rather just recognize the winners and give the booty out randomly? If you feel you really need to give the winners something, maybe you should consider a modest cash purse. Ask around—most top dogs would prefer $50-$100 cash over gear.

Two major factors contribute to the cost of an event: loss of regular business and time spent setting. Both of these are highly avoidable. Unless you expect the revenues from a large turnout, why close the gym for a day? Maybe you can run the comp in the morning or evening, leaving half a day of regular business—weeknight events are very popular among gym owners for this reason. Likewise, why strip the entire wall only to re-set it the next day? Especially if you’re planning a low-key local comp, leave the extra holds on the wall and save yourself the time/effort.

PUBLICITY AND PROMOTION

Effective publicity can take time to organize, but it’s easily worth the trouble if taken seriously. There are two main directions to focus on: publicity to increase attendance and publicity to promote the gym.

To draw competitors, send fliers to all area gyms and shops (with week-before follow-up calls), and hype the event to your own regular members. Stress how much fun it’ll be, and how it’s open to all skill levels (not just the experts). Send the fliers at least a month before the comp and include all the important details about the event. You might also send them to area schools and youth groups that you know of—many schools now have climbing walls and teams that compete. Don’t underestimate how far someone might travel to come to your comp—send fliers out to a radius of a half-day drive. You might also include your waiver and a pre-registration form if you decide to have pre-registrations.

To promote the gym, mail or email press releases out to area radio stations, TV stations, newspapers and magazines in the area. Make sure you give follow-up calls—it can make the difference between a listing on the calendar and a full-page photo and article. Most of these media groups are interested in stories on different and exciting activities for their listeners/readers. Local sports magazines are always interested in both climbing and competitions, and they’d probably cover the event. Climbing comps are great community interest stories, especially if there is a large local youth following. Use your comp to show the community what your gym has to offer.

SPONSORSHIP

Good sponsorship is early sponsorship. Send out solicitation letters as soon as possible; 3-4 months is best.

There are many local sources for sponsorship. Send letters to area businesses such as fast-food chains, music stores, brewpubs, hotels…use your imagination. Getting local companies involved will foster community and possibly provide new customers for your gym. It also helps promote the growth of competition climbing and reduces the strain on the climbing industry. Not to mention that competitors love free food and refreshments!

Spend the time calling those that don’t respond within a reasonable time. Many companies receive tons of solicitations and won’t respond to everything. Taking the time to call lets them know that you are truly interested in helping promote their business. Also, be reasonable with the company. If they are small or new don’t expect or ask for a lot. Often, companies have a yearly sponsorship budget to adhere to, so don’t be surprised if there isn’t as much gear available at the end of the year.

Always remember: Sponsors are sending stuff to the event in exchange for the publicity they receive from you. Sponsors often send promotional items to display and hand out at the event—banners, stickers, samples, brochures, etc. Put them up in a visible place without impeding the climbing.

STAFFING

Volunteers

Volunteers are important ingredients to the success of any comp. Typical volunteer responsibilities can include setting the problems, cleaning the gym, stripping walls or helping out on competition day.

Treat them well! Incentives such as free passes and memberships can get help from climbers who might not have gotten a membership anyway. If you can, give them free comp t-shirts. Making volunteer t-shirts a different color can help competitors identify who is a judge during the comp, and the volunteers enjoy having a unique shirt. Try to have food and drink available for them while they’re helping.

Start volunteer sign-up sheets at least two weeks before the comp, and be sure to have them include their phone number. On the list, have shifts when you need help, and try to get the volunteers to show up for the set times. Post fliers to let your customers know that you will need volunteers the night before and the day of the comp.

Extra help the night before ensures that the setters can dedicate their time to putting up fun and thoughtful problems without worrying about cleaning or removing holds and tape. Instruct volunteers completely about what they should be doing—if possible, have them assemble at a given time for an instruction meeting. [Editor’s Note: More information about the ins and outs to the administrative side of volunteering can be found here.]

Setters

Well-set and well-graded events are a sure way to make the competitors’ experience a good one. It’s important to have several different setters. You might encourage your local members (that aren’t competing) to set a problem or two for the comp—the more variety you have the better.

Designate a head setter whose responsibility it is to have the problems set and graded by a reasonable deadline that allows enough time to print scorecards. The head setter should be present during the comp so as to answer any technical questions about the problems.

How to compensate your setters is completely up to you—some will set for memberships, others may want to set for gear. Especially if paying cash, clarify ahead of time what’s expected of the setters. [Editor’s Note: Today most routesetters will expect proper payment. Visit CBJ’s 2025 Compensation Report to see what other professionals in the industry have been paying/earning of late, based on CBJ’s survey of climbing gym staff.]

Judges

Judges are a sticky subject. Most often comps can be run without them—competitors initial each other’s scorecard to verify completion. The standard ABS format does not use judges. If judges are used, make sure plenty are available—not enough judges is a sure way to slow the comp down. One or two per wall section is recommended. Having many floating judges also works well.

A head judge should be designated in case of any competitor disputes during the event. This person should be present for the entire comp and should be familiar with the problems. The head judge can also be the competition organizer, the head routesetter or anyone else of responsibility.

RISK MANAGEMENT

All gyms have their own insurance regulations and policies concerning risk management, but there is little true advice concerning bouldering and bouldering walls. Bouldering is inherently more dangerous than roped climbing in a certain sense for one simple fact: every fall is a ground fall. Ankles get twisted or broken, heels get bruised, and just about anything else can happen in those five to fifteen feet to the ground.

• Bouldering areas should be well padded. As rudimentary as this statement seems, some gyms still don’t provide sufficient padding to reasonably prevent injury. Ideally, a climber should be able to fall off the top of every problem.

• Ask competitors to bring crashpads, in the flyer. Many competitors own pads and, unless you have incredible landing areas, you could use as much padding as you can get. [Editor’s Note: Visit the CWA’s 2025 Industry Practices resource for updated flooring information.]
• Encourage proper spotting. Just like belaying, spotting is a skill, one which most climbers don’t understand well. Provide instruction or demonstration before your event in proper spotting techniques.
• Bouldering areas should be free of obstacles, such as railings, benches or other hard objects. Climbers can come shooting off the wall in any number of unexpected ways, so there shouldn’t be any chance of landing on something or hitting something during the fall.
• Set easy down climbs for boulder problems. For youth especially, jump-offs can be a good distance. Any fall has potential for injury—give competitors the option to downclimb.
• Use back-up screws, especially for large holds. Back-up screws will prevent hold spinning, which can cause injury.
• Bouldering areas should not be too high. This is left ambiguous deliberately since different types of padding lend themselves to different wall heights. Just remember that climbers often fall off the last moves of a problem. Please keep most of the problems below a reasonable height.
• Qualified medical personnel should be present for the duration of the competition. Accidents do happen, especially in large groups of people pushing each other to their limits. Having a well-stocked first aid kit and someone who knows how to use it pays off if an accident happens. [Editor’s Note: More information about common accident response mistakes can be found here.]

STARTING THE COMP

Registration

Sign-in areas should be well equipped and staffed so as to minimize the time spent during sign-in. Competitors want to get in, warm up and look at the problems. If you can make registration short and easy, they will be in a good mood from the beginning.

The Pre-Comp Talk

About 15 minutes before the climbing starts, assemble the competitors and explain the rules. Be sure to discuss all of the following:

• The full scoring process
• The point system
• The scorecard and how to record their attempts and ascents. Let them know to turn their scorecard in when they are done climbing.
• How to handle technical incidents (hold spins, etc.)

Running Time

Once the comp gets started, be sure to keep things moving. Use a PA system to make announcements, troubleshoot issues quickly and efficiently, and treat all competitors fairly. Keep good, high-energy music playing, and circulate among the competitors to make sure they’re having a good time. If you’re having a raffle or fundraiser, announce it regularly during the comp.

Emergency Kit

A box of items should be assembled in case a problem arises during the comp. The following items should be included:

• Set of wrenches and a drill for spinning holds
• Extra problem-marking materials
• Spare holds (with bolts or screws) that are fairly universal (basic edges, pinches, pockets, jugs and footchips) in case a hold breaks
• Short ladder
• Well-stocked first aid kit

SCORING

Scoring is usually done in one of two ways: per hold or per problem. Problems scored per hold are usually upper-end onsight events with judges. Most bouldering comps are scored per problem—only complete ascents earn points.

There are many good scoring systems. The best thing to do is settle on a system and use it repeatedly in the majority of your comps. Most scoring systems have deductions for falls—some will subtract points for every fall, some just for the first couple falls. When choosing a scoring system, keep in mind the complexity of adding and the difficulty of enforcing (counting falls can sometimes be tedious).

Adding Scores

Don’t be afraid to ask competitors to circle the scores to be added and add them prior to remitting the scorecard. Then, as the cards are turned in, double-check the top finishers. This can save A LOT of time.

Have all necessary scoresheets and scorecards prepared ahead of time. Whether you use a computer to add scores or simply calculators and handwritten spreadsheets, have the system prepared, and fully instruct whoever will be using it. Include on the scorecard a spot for competitor comments and suggestions.

Add or check scores in a separate area away from competitors. Using a computer can sometimes be more efficient than using calculators by hand, but only if the people using it are familiar with its operation. Scoring by hand can be very fast but can mean spending a little more time the next day inputting everything into the computer for remittance.

After the scores have been added and double-checked, have one person compare and write down the standings. Check that the final scores seem appropriate. If it appears that someone has a lot more points than most others in their division, perhaps they belong in an upper division. Look at the difficulty of the problems they did—are they appropriate for their division? Often there are one or two over-rated problems, but if it seems they don’t belong in the division they entered, make the necessary adjustments.

Sandbaggers and Cheaters

Not all sandbaggers are doing it intentionally—every comp has folks that compete in divisions too low for their ability. In most cases, upon finalizing the scores, it’s obvious if someone doesn’t belong in the category they entered. Look at the difference in points between the top finishers in the division. As the event organizer, it’s your responsibility to move competitors into the appropriate division. A good rule of thumb: If they did 20% better than the next climber, bump them (sometimes 1st and 2nd are way above 3rd—bump them both!).

Cheating is a whole different animal and should be dealt with accordingly. It might be as blatant as claiming an ascent that didn’t happen, or as simple as weighting a foothold that wasn’t marked. Regardless, when noticed it cannot be allowed. Be firm but tactful—they might be cheating, but they’re also your customer.

POST-COMP

Raffle and Award Ceremony

Be enthusiastic when giving out the awards! Keeping people interested and having fun ensures even non-winners have a great time. Before starting the awards, thank the volunteers and sponsors.

• Hold prizes up for all to see before giving each one away. Announce who donated it. Competitors like to see what other people are winning, and sponsors send the stuff for it to be seen.
• Give prizes to alternative categories, like “best spotter”, “coolest pants” or “most problems completed”.
• Collect small items to toss out to the crowd, like keychains, energy bars or chalk.
• Have winners stand together for a picture.

Thank Sponsors

As soon as possible after the comp, write a letter to the sponsors letting them know how the comp went and thanking them. Include a list of the final scores, photos from the event, and if possible a copy of the promotional items that displayed their logo. Be sure to return sponsor banners if they ask.

The post Organizer Tips for Bouldering Competitions – The Setter’s Archive appeared first on Climbing Business Journal.

This episode of the Climbing Business Journal podcast is a little historical. There is so much that is often recounted and celebrated related to the heritage and lineage of outdoor climbing, and there is an equally fascinating counterpart to that history with the history of indoor climbing. The wonderful industry that we have now with climbing gyms includes components that are largely unique to the indoor scene. Things like routesetting and artificial holds, coaches, comps…These elements didn’t just appear suddenly in gyms; they had to germinate and develop over a long period of time. And that’s not news to anyone who is listening to this podcast. It is worth pointing out that, more often than not, there was a person or a small group of people who were at the vanguard of those ideas and various developments.

That background leads to today’s guest, Mike Pont. Mike was one of the people leading the charge in the earliest days of indoor climbing, and particularly the earliest days of routesetting. He was among the first group of people in the United States who actually thought of themselves as routesetters in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when climbing gyms were few and far between. And Mike Pont, along with a few other people, helped make routesetting a concept and helped put it into practice. Mike was also involved in organizing some of the earliest large-scale climbing competitions in the U.S. and was involved in the climbing portion of the ESPN X Games. He basically had a front row seat for the generational turnover in sport climbing and in the climbing industry that occurred in the 90s. Mike and host John Burgman get into all those instrumental beginnings for our industry on today’s show.

General Topics Covered

• Early Climbing Experiences
• The Birth of Routesetting
• Competition Development
• American League of Forerunners
• ESPN X Games
• Competition Routesetting
• The New Generation of Climbers
• Coming Full Circle

Show Notes

• @mikepont1

Thank you EP Climbing and Rock Gym Pro for your support!
And thank you Devin Dabney for your music!

The post A Pioneer of the Climbing Gym Industry – CBJ Podcast with Mike Pont appeared first on Climbing Business Journal.

Welcome back to the Setter’s Archive, where we explore the foundations of modern routesetting through classic wisdom. Here you’ll find setter essays originally published in The Art of Coursesetting and Fundamentals of Routesetting. We’re revisiting these stories in their original form because, while much has changed in the routesetting world in the last two decades, many core concepts remain the same. We hope these excerpts help you keep reflecting, learning, and growing professionally.

For more routesetting content, be sure to check out The Impact Driver podcast, Ask a Setter series, Truth Behind the Trade chapters, Behind the Wrench interviews and other routesetting-related articles on CBJ.

Intro by Holly Yu Tung Chen

In the early 2000s, youth climbing was still finding its foothold—long before national teams, training plans and tiny comp shoes were standard issue. At that time, most routes were set with adults in mind, and juniors were expected to adapt.

This essay comes from one of the early setters who not only recognized that gap but made it his mission to fill it—national routesetter and, later, iconic hold shaper Kevin Branford. It was a fitting essay from Kevin; as a five-time Junior National Champion, he understood intimately how routesetting for youth athletes differed from setting for adults. After his years as a competitor, Kevin joined the crews that had routeset for him, setting alongside pioneers like Tony Yaniro and Mike Pont for many National-level events, for both youth climbers and adults. Today he continues to routeset regularly, is a professional climbing coach, and is also a prolific hold shaper, with over 1000 designs in the marketplace.

Below you’ll find a deeply thoughtful reflection on the challenges and rewards of setting for young climbers—how body size, hand strength and movement literacy shape a route’s success, and how subtle tweaks (like hold orientation, foothold placement and zigzagging sequences) can make the difference between a route that excludes and one that empowers. Even today, as youth programs flourish and gym walls stretch higher, the core insights here remain as useful—and often overlooked—as ever.

Setting for the Junior Powerhouse

By Kevin Branford

I began competing at the age of thirteen, and from that time on, most all of the competitions that I participated in had routes set by the great setters of that period: Tony Yaniro and Mike Pont. At the time, there was no such thing as junior competitors—only adults. Subsequently, there was absolutely no emphasis put on setting routes for young climbers. It has only been in the past eight to ten years that there has been an ongoing improvement to this facet of the sport.

I took my first coursesetting clinic from Tony at the age of fourteen, and that was the beginning of my love for this aspect of the sport. I realized that setting routes was not only about spinning holds onto a climbing wall, but about creativity, deviousness, and the setter’s ability to design a route that tests each climber’s ability to read sequences, their overall fitness level, and their ability to formulate a strategy by which they envision climbing to the last hold. I have been fortunate through the years to have an ongoing tutelage from and friendship with Tony. Because of this, the joy of coursesetting has continuously been a large part of my life. My specialization, if you will, resides in setting routes for junior competitors.

My setting “internship” (for lack of a better term) in the junior circuit began at the JCCA Junior National Championships in Portland, Oregon, in 2000. At that time, I really started to focus my energy into learning what it takes to set a spectacular route for young competitors. Before I go over the challenges that come as a result of setting routes for juniors, I think it is necessary to describe the way I lay out an onsight route. Following that, I will go over what I think are some of the main challenges of setting for juniors: body size, hand size and strength. I will also give away some of my “secrets” about directional handholds and footholds, as well as the benefits of having a route that zigzags back and forth across a wall, instead of taking a direct straight-up-the-wall approach.

When I lay out a route for a competition, I consider a couple of very important things. First and foremost, I try to design a route that has fun and exciting moves. If a route has moves that are uninteresting, I would not want to climb on the route myself, much less put it up and tell young climbers to climb on it. Secondly, I take into consideration what the relative rating of the route must be, who will be climbing on it, and the overall size (height) and strength of the competitors. In a qualifying round, there can be multiple flashes of the route or routes, while in the Semi-Final round there should be only two to three flashes (if any), and the ideal situation for any routesetter is to have only one Bash of the Finals route, with the rest of the field falling successively lower on the route. In my opinion as a setter, it is best to design a Semi-Finals route that is close to the grade of the Finals route, so as to get the most accurate representation of the climbers’ ability. If the entire Finals group has flashed their Semi-Final route, there is not much technical information on which to base the Finals route grade.

The first eight to twelve moves of the route are designed to get every climber off the ground and going on the route, yet keep them challenged. Every climber must be able to do these moves unless a catastrophe happens. The subsequent moves should get gradually harder, and depending on the field of climbers, the route could either stay relatively straight forward or could get increasingly more confusing. I like to see a route that begins to spit people off in the mid-section and allows only a portion of the field to get to the upper sequence of moves. Now on to the unique issues that come with setting routes for junior competitors.

Body size poses a unique dilemma because of the fact that in many of the age categories represented by juniors, the kids are starting to grow. It is very possible to have a climber in the twelve to thirteen age category that is very small, and another that, for this group, is basically a giant. Knowing the size of the competitors is a large part of successfully putting up routes for juniors, but it is not the only criteria. Kids, by nature, can basically grasp onto any hold that is put on the wall in front of them. Taking this into consideration, any setter that is concentrating on juniors must have a good knowledge of movement and an even better repertoire of individual moves in their head. When I am setting for juniors, I try to concentrate on the direction that the holds are turned, and the footholds that are available for use (I will come back to this topic a bit later).

With a simple turn of a hold, and the addition of an extra foothold or two, a route can be transformed from a regular (adult type) route into a route attainable by juniors. Footholds are not the only answer to this challenge, but with an emphasis on having an ample number of footholds, and the proper spacing of correctly turned handholds, youth, both short and tall, have a better chance at climbing up the route.

Another great technique that I use is to put smaller, less positive holds in between possibly longer moves, in order to give the smaller climbers an extra choice in their route. If the holds are placed in such a way so as not to give the smaller climbers a large advantage, and not change the intended sequence of the route, then this can also be a useful tool in having a good route. Another challenge of setting routes for juniors is the fact that their hands are smaller, thus allowing them to stick three or even four fingers into a normally two-finger pocket. Worse yet is their ability to try and crimp the edge of the hold that is against the wall. The latter of the two is a bit more difficult to regulate, but it’s not a problem that can’t be remedied with a little sandpaper and Bondo®. Again, because there are a plethora of hold companies, and an almost endless number of handholds and footholds, there are nearly unlimited combinations of holds that can be used to set a great route.

One thing that absolutely must be taken into consideration when setting a route for juniors is to not use holds, such as large pinches, for categories that potentially have kids with small hands. In my opinion, it is best to avoid using these types of holds on most routes, especially in a competition setting. Routesetters should make every attempt to use a smaller pinch, or simply a different hold. For the older age groups, this may not be quite such a problem, but it is better to err on the side of caution when dealing with hand size.

Lastly comes the issue of strength. In my experience, most youth climbers develop unbelievable amounts of endurance before they ever develop power. Power is usually something that develops when the juniors reach the fourteen/fifteen age category and above. Difficulty competition climbing should not focus on power; rather it should be focused primarily on the climber’s ability to read route sequences, and their overall fitness. Obviously when routes are being laid out for the older categories (routes of 5.12 and harder), they are, by nature, going to have hard moves. What needs to be avoided is having a boulder problem or a crux move in the route. When I set routes for an onsight competition, I focus my efforts into making a route that flows from hold to hold up the wall, getting progressively harder. When I set for a redpoint comp, cruxes aren’t as much of an issue, but nonetheless (in my opinion), it is not about who can pull an insanely hard move or sequence of moves, but rather the climbers’ ability to tie the moves together.

Now I will expand a bit more on the topic of directional handholds and footholds. I think it is appropriate to begin by saying that this is probably one of the most valuable techniques that I have in my routesetting repertoire. Having the ability to place handholds on the wall so that they can only be used by a certain hand, or so that a foothold can only be utilized from one direction, gives any routesetter the ability to force the climbers to do a desired move. In this situation, if the climber gets the sequence backwards, ideally it will prevent them from advancing any further on the route. If the climber wishes to get higher on the route, they must reverse a sequence, and attempt to do the correct sequence to move through the “wall puzzle.”

In my judgment, a good directional handhold is one that can only be used, for instance, as a left hand undercling, or as a right hand gaston. One type of hold that makes forcing a sequence possible is a pocket. Pockets make it very difficult to match hands, as well as being a great sequence-forcing hold. It may be possible to match hands on the hold, but the move that must subsequently be executed still remains in the desired sequence for the route. In the same manner, a directional foothold is one that is only usable from a certain angle or direction. Footholds that a climber can utilize by standing directly on top of them are ones that I do not ordinarily choose to use.

One final topic that I think is necessary to address is sort of the “icing on the cake” for a quality junior competition route. I always make an effort to design a route that zigzags back and forth across the climbing wall. I do this for two reasons: The first reason is that designing a route that navigates side to side on a wall extends its length. Many modern climbing gyms have the height necessary to test endurance, but, in my opinion, the longer the route, the better. The second reason that I choose to zigzag routes side to side is that it creates moves that are very difficult to skip. When a route takes a direct line up a wall, a person’s height may allow them to skip moves. With sideways movement, moves are much more difficult to “cheat.”

Setting routes for juniors can be a challenging yet rewarding part of the sport. With this in mind, go out there and set some great routes, keeping in mind the height, hand size and strength of the climbers.

The post Setting for the Junior Powerhouse – The Setter’s Archive appeared first on Climbing Business Journal.

Welcome back to the Setter’s Archive, where we explore the foundations of modern routesetting through classic wisdom. Here you’ll find setter essays originally published in The Art of Coursesetting and Fundamentals of Routesetting. We’re revisiting these stories in their original form because, while much has changed in the routesetting world in the last two decades, many core concepts remain the same. We hope these excerpts help you keep reflecting, learning, and growing professionally.

For more routesetting content, be sure to check out The Impact Driver podcast, Ask a Setter series, Truth Behind the Trade chapters, Behind the Wrench interviews and other routesetting-related articles on CBJ.

Intro by Holly Yu Tung Chen

Kenny Matys is the founder and president of Atomik Climbing Holds, a company he launched in 2002 after more than a decade of experience as a professional climber and nationally certified routesetter. His climbing career began in the late 1980s and quickly rose to the elite level, where he competed in IFSC World Cups, the X Games, and other top-tier events across North America. He trained in many storied gyms, such as Joe Rockhead’s and Gravity Vault in Canada, as well as Utah’s Rock Garden, The Quarry and Momentum. Over the years, he set routes for more than 110 competitions and helped shape the early days of indoor climbing in North America.

Before routesetting became professionalized, certified, and endlessly Instagrammed, it was passed hand-to-hand like a craft—learned on ladders, refined through failure, and shaped by observation. Kenny Matys’ essay, originally titled “Personal Insights,” is a window into that bygone era. While some references may feel dated (hello, 30-foot ladder), many of the lessons here are timeless: setting with intention, respecting all bodies, and always double-checking your backup.

It reminds us that setting is more than placing holds in a pattern; it’s about reading bodies, understanding movement and setting with intention. The author shares not only practical advice but a philosophy: routes should challenge and teach, but they should also welcome and inspire. It’s a belief in balance—between fun and function, art and craft, safety and spontaneity. Some details (like the 30-foot ladder on painted concrete) may feel like a relic, but the values endure. In republishing this piece, we hope to honor the roots of our practice—and reconnect with the creativity and care at its core.

Today, Matys remains a hands-on leader at Atomik who is actively involved in wall builds, hold design, and production. As the company’s current Production Manager, he ensures every product meets the standard he wished for as a young climber—back when the dream of a climbing life was just beginning.

Personal Insights

By Kenny Matys

Routesetting is not just bolting on holds in some random pattern. Also, being a great climber does not necessarily mean that you will be able to set quality routes. A routesetter is an artist. Their skills include being well-rounded in terms of footwork, movement and, most important, creativity.

At one point in my career, onsighting was a weakness. I saw routesetting as the vehicle to educate myself on being able to judge distances and figure out sequences from the ground. Every good routesetter can usually see the secrets of a route from the ground.

Though I was certified by Tony Yaniro via the American League of Forerunners in the early 90’s, my indirect mentors were the climbers in our sport. It never mattered how good the climber was in order to learn from them. A five-year-old beginner can teach you just as much as a professional climber can. Routesetters work for the general public most of the time, so I feel they should watch them equally as much as the higher-end climbers. It is important to have an understanding of the reaching capabilities of all heights, sizes and abilities.

In my opinion, a route should achieve three things: It should teach a lesson or test a skill, have flow in between moves and be fair for all heights. Above all, it should be fun.

The lesson on a particular route should teach or test a wide range of things: foot or hand switching, cross-overs, flagging, dynos, or even power and endurance. The list is long. I try to never saturate the route with the “lesson” to teach. Few climbers want to get beaten down by the same move over and over. For instance, I always get a climber off the ground and into their own rhythm before integrating a particular lesson. The length of your problem or route will determine where it should be. If you break the space available into fifths, the lesson will appear in section two, three or four. Not many climbers like to have a difficult move right off the ground or at the very end.

Flow in a route can be achieved several ways. I feel flow can only be understood and achieved by knowing how far your target group can reach. For example, it is unfair to put a small left-hand crimper with the next hold, a right-hand crimper, outside of a smaller climber’s reach. Instead, I recommend putting a very small intermediate hold part way through the move and bringing the far right hold within the climber’s extended reach. Sure, it will be a little harder for the climber with a shorter reach, but it will be possible. Being short is a fact of life. Super long, unreachable distances in routesetting should not be. Having fun on a route is of paramount importance. Even in a stressful competition environment, why not put a smile on the crowd’s face as well as the competitor’s? Short moves, long moves, flagging…mix it up!

When learning how to routeset, I recommend the following steps: First, set your route with some sense of intention. Choose your holds because of their purpose, not because they were on top of the hold bin. It’s difficult to set with holds that offer multiple ways to grab. Choose holds that can be rotated to make a move easier or harder.

Now that your route is set, climb it without hold buckets or haul bags (a set of wrenches and a few footholds in a small bag on your harness is a good idea). When you feel like there is some flow missing, add a foothold. A foothold is a hold small enough to not be used as a handhold appropriate for the grade. If you make changes like a turn of a hold or an added foot, reclimb the route. Once satisfied, put different sized climbers on your route. Just watch. Don’t yell out beta; see what they do. Observe, take note and listen to what the climbers say about your route. Don’t rationalize your actions. Lots of the comments you will hear will be negative because your route may have exploited the climber’s weakness. Often I go back up and add a foot or an intermediate because it is needed, not because someone can’t do the move. Over time, you will have enough “engrams,” or movement memories, in your routesetting library that you will automatically set with that extra foothold or intermediate before you ever climb the route yourself. Routesetting is a creative art. Take pride in what you are creating.

There are a few last points I would like to add. Twice in my career I have had potential accidents while routesetting. I am grateful that I was trained properly to prepare myself for both. One time, I was on the very top of a 30-foot ladder and it slipped out on me. (The feet were on painted concrete floor and it was a humid day. If you have ever been on a 30-foot ladder, you know how much they bounce on the way up as well). I was attached to the wall with two separate points of protection and aside from making an awesome crashing sound, all was well. I strongly recommend having a buddy keep their feet at the base of the ladder until you are clipped in.

The second time was while I was setting on very steep terrain. I was clipped into one bolt using a long sling and two oval carabiners. My back-up protection was a locking carabiner on my harness and an oval on the top of a daisy chain. As I was inverted and bolting on a jug, my twisting position unclipped my primary. I fell to my back-up protection, collected myself and then checked my shorts. These two separate occurrences have refined safety rules that I never wander from, nor do my team. Always use locking carabiners on your harness and always use two points of protection while routesetting.

Good luck, have fun, be creative and always be safe.

The post Personal Insights – The Setter’s Archive appeared first on Climbing Business Journal.

Welcome back to the Setter’s Archive, where we explore the foundations of modern routesetting through classic wisdom. Here you’ll find essays from famous works in the routesetting field, or simply routesetting articles published years ago that still ring true today. We’re revisiting these stories in their original form because, while much has changed in the routesetting world in the last two decades, many core concepts remain the same. We hope these excerpts from setting experts around the industry help you keep reflecting, learning, and growing professionally.

For more routesetting content, be sure to check out The Impact Driver podcast, Ask a Setter series, Truth Behind the Trade chapters, Behind the Wrench interviews and other routesetting-related articles on CBJ.

Intro by Holly Yu Tung Chen

Ty Foose has been setting competitions for decades. When Foose wrote How to Set the Perfect Competition in 2004—featured in Louie Anderson’s The Art of Coursesetting book—he was already a household name in the climbing industry. Now, he is an industry legend.

As climbing competitions have evolved significantly over the years—from grassroots events to highly organized, global spectacles—climbing holds have also evolved to fit the need. Foose was at the genesis of it all. He was setting competitions when blocking holds to prevent spinners was common practice, and he was shaping intricate designs from a trailer parked just outside Hueco Tanks State Park without the help of digital or 3D modeling.

Foose has held several titles in his storied career, including Routesetter, Head Setter, Director of Routesetting, Vice President of Development, and now Vice President of Product and Process at Trango. He’s witnessed the industry change from the grungy 90’s rock gyms of old to the shiny facilities of today.

Despite the leaps and bounds the industry has traveled and all that Foose has witnessed, the heart of climbing competitions—fairness, separation, spectator interest and technical issues—in many ways remains the same. Foose’s essay is still relevant today, and it’s a great first read for setters who are new to competition setting.

How to Set the Perfect Competition

By Ty Foose

Competition routesetting can be very complex, strenuous and stressful. There are many critical decisions to be made—many times at the last minute. Use this short guide and list of tips to help determine what should get priority when it comes to setting a great competition.

A “perfect” competition is defined by the following four qualities, and they are listed here in order of importance:

1.  It is a fair contest
2. It determines a winner and separates the field
3. It maintains spectator interest
4. It has no technical incidents

Fairness

If the competition does not provide an equal challenge for all competitors, it is an exhibition, not a competition. The routesetter usually faces issues of fairness when set­ting height-dependent moves. This can be a loaded subject, as people will often complain that a move is reachy, when in real­ity they just lack the power to perform the move. When you have both tall and short climbers on the winners’ podiums, you have successfully avoided reach issues. Here are four ways to set around height-dependent problems.

A. Know Your Competitors

Who is the shortest competi­tor? Who is the tallest? You may not always be able to accom­modate the shortest competitor, especially if kids are compet­ing with adults, but you want to make sure that the moves you set will be within the reach of well over 90% of the competitors. Ask the shortest competitor to show you their reach (look at wingspan, length of legs from core, and maximum overhead reach).

B. Use “Reach Runners”

A reach runner is a forerunner who is similar in height to your shortest and/or tallest com­petitor. These climbers are often not as strong as the competi­tors, so you may have to power-spot them through the moves, but this will still give you a feel for the distance of the move­ments. Use these runners in addition to the forerunners who are helping you ascertain difficulty and sequences. If it seems that a move is much easier for a taller person, try moving the footholds to even the difficulty.

C. Measure Distances From the Core, Not Just in Maximum Reach

Remember that a shorter climber has shorter legs as well as arms. This is most evident on moves that require the feet to be spread wide apart, which will position the core of the short­er climbers much lower on the wall.

D. Mix Scrunch Moves and Stretch Moves

A large number of moves in climbing are naturally easier for taller climbers, so it is good to offset this in a competition by adding sequences that will require core power and/or flexibility by taller people. This is easily done by placing footholds high and close to the handholds. Again, use a “reach runner” to make sure you are not making it overly difficult on taller competitors.

Determining a Winner

Once you have ensured that you have fair grounds for competing, the next priority in setting is to separate the field. The ideal result is to have no ties, with competitors evenly separated in score all the way from first to last place. Ties may occur as a result of the method of scoring, so as a setter you need to understand the scoring system thor­oughly. As it relates to the setting itself, ties happen when there are cruxy moves and inconsistent pacing within the problems. When there are only a few moves per problem, each and every movement needs to be set as a critical scoring opportunity. Carefully analyze the difficulty of each move and make sure that you do not have easier moves in the middle of the problem. Your goal should be to have a few climbers fail on every one of the moves in a problem, and not most of the competitors falling at the same one or two moves. This will require that each and every move is about the same relative difficulty.

Maintaining Spectator Interest

Keep these suggestions in mind and your spectators will stay engaged and entertained.

A. Allow for Alternative Sequences

Build in options for the climbers. It is always exciting to see a competitor do a move in a different way and still pull it off.

B. Get Climbers Off the Ground

Spectators want to see people climb, so make the first couple of moves easy enough for most competitors to cover some yardage. Raise the difficulty after the first move or two, and then keep it consistent to the end of the problem.

C. Create Variety

Setting many different types of moves will display the strengths of different competitors and keep the spectators from getting bored with the same movements and body positions.

D. Build to a Climax

Save your most dramatic sequences for last. Make sure that the last problem is in the prime location for viewing and is designed to showcase the final duel for the top competitors.

Avoiding Technical Incidents

The most common technical incident is a spinning hold. The first way to reduce the chance of a hold spinning is to make sure that they have all been thor­oughly tightened. Holds will “settle” after initial tightening, so it is important to do a round of final tightening after all the routes have been set and forerun. If you are setting on a ply­wood wall, spinners are easily cured by adding a woodscrew or two to the edges of holds. Textured walls that do not accept wood screws can be more challenging, but there are still several solutions. First, try to use predominantly urethane holds. These tend to bend into the texture and lock themselves into place. Also, you can really crank down the bolt on these without wor­rying too much about breaking the hold. If there is still con­cern, bolt on a hold that touches the other and blocks it from spinning. Be sure to have forerunners try to use the new holds as a hand or foot placement to make sure they do not change the problem. Other technical incidents happen when other holds are left on the wall or a climber goes “out of bounds.” If possible, remove all extra holds from the area, and very clearly mark what is on route. Use your forerunners to see how close they can get to boundary markers or off-route holds.

Remember, becoming a better setter is a never-ending process. Keep notes about each competition and always look for ways to improve. Happy setting!

The post How to Set the Perfect Competition – The Setter’s Archive appeared first on Climbing Business Journal.

Welcome to the Setter’s Archive, where we explore the foundations of modern routesetting through classic wisdom. Here you’ll find essays from famous works in the routesetting field, or simply routesetting articles published years ago that still ring true today. We’re revisiting these stories in their original form because, while much has changed in the routesetting world in the last two decades, many core concepts remain the same. We hope these excerpts from setting experts around the industry help you keep reflecting, learning, and growing professionally.

For more routesetting content, be sure to check out The Impact Driver podcast, Ask a Setter series, Truth Behind the Trade chapters, Behind the Wrench interviews and other routesetting-related articles on CBJ.

Intro by Holly Yu Tung Chen

Climbing competitions have evolved over the years from niche events into a drama-filled, spectator sport. The Olympics, World Cups and other world-stage events now draw thousands of viewers both in-person and online. But local gyms still host beloved comps with spectacular finals rounds that fill the gym with pumped-up crowds.

Joe Czerwinski, the owner and routesetter at Focus Climbing Center, is no stranger to routesetting for a live audience. Czerwinski has been setting for as long as he’s been climbing—three decades. In the early 2000s, Czerwinski was the setter for the Asian X-Games. He’s also set for the Gorge Games in Hood River, Oregon, and the Ford Adventure Sport Challenge in Vail, Colorado (now the Vail World Cup). “Most of the events were filmed for TV,” Czerwinski told CBJ, “so if the climbing was boring, the viewer was not watching and started looking for NASCAR.”

Recently, Czerwinski developed the Desert Classic, a local climbing competition at Focus with a large cash purse that has been attracting professional climbers, such as Matt Fultz, Kelly Birch and Natalia Grossman.

In this short but timeless essay—originally published in Louie Anderson’s instrumental The Art of Coursesetting book, released in 2004—Czerwinski talks about the mindset a routesetter must inhabit to set novel and exciting problems to keep audience members engaged. “With high-end setting there is no box,” he wrote then, and hopefully these tips help you to unbox your own creativity today.

SETTING FOR SPECTATORS

By Joe Czerwinski

Can you think of one mainstream sport that has become profitable without the aid of television? I can’t think of one either. If climbing is going to evolve into a mainstream sport, it will need televi­sion as its promotional tool.

For high-end spectator events, I believe the most important aspect of setting is to make the boulder problems exciting for the camera and the non-climbing spectator. The boulder problems must look impossible and the actual climbing must look spectacular. Non-­climbers can’t relate to someone slowly grappling [their] way up a line of heinous slopers, no matter how hard or cool the prob­lem may actually be. It appears boring and uninteresting. To truly attract the attention of spectators, the movements must be flashy, quick, powerful…and to a degree unbelievable. If it looks easy the crowd will dismiss it, with “that looks easy, I could do that,” and walk away or change the channel.

The most important aspect for this style of setting is the ability to think outside of the box. With high-end setting there is no box. One must posses the mentality to attack different ideas and try new things. For example, set a double dyno in a roof. The individual move might not be too hard, but the crowd sees someone leaping backwards, flying through the air, catch­ing a hold and swinging around like a monkey. It’s impressive and captivating. Other tricks I’ve learned throughout my five years of high-end competition setting are rose moves, campusing, footless cross-unders, and dynos (which, if properly designed, will be executable for all competitors). More extreme moves can be figure fours, run and jumps, and wrist grabs.

Other ideas I, or others on my setting team, have used include theme routes (all screw-ons or all pinches, etc.), climbing feet first out a steep prow, holds in geometric patterns, attaching non-climbing holds to the wall (i.e. steel pipe), or even drilling holes into plywood walls to create pockets.

Some may think this style of setting is not a true repre­sentation of the sport. However, my experiences setting for some of the biggest television bouldering competitions prove that this is what major production companies want to see. We have to ask ourselves if we want the sport to remain as it is, or to evolve.

The post Setting for Spectators – The Setter’s Archive appeared first on Climbing Business Journal.

For more routesetting content, be sure to check out The Impact Driver podcast, Ask a Setter series, Truth Behind the Trade chapters, Behind the Wrench interviews, and other routesetting-related articles on CBJ.

Introduction by Holly Yu Tung Chen

As the routesetting industry goes through growing pains, routesetters and routesetting organizations alike are grappling with the question of how we mentor and educate the next generation of plastic slingers. Unsurprisingly, Setting Tips, written by Scott Rennak in 2003—as part of his Organizer Handbook for hosts of competitions in his American Bouldering Series, and shared with Louie Anderson while the pair collaborated on Anderson’s foundational The Fundamentals of Couresetting book—still serves as a good starting point for routesetters two decades later, because the core of routesetting is all about the athletics of movement.

Rennak was not only a proficient competition setter and organizer; he also had a career as a commercial setter. He set at Climb Time of Cincinnati (and lived behind the slab wall like a true dirtbag) before he moved to the heart of the Front Range climbing community in Boulder, Colorado, where Rennak set at The Spot Boulder—one of the oldest bouldering gyms in the country.

While trends have come and gone, much of the advice Rennak gives here is still relevant today: not getting trapped into making all cruxes hand-cruxes; how to set moderate problems with bad holds; and why good variety helps even out the playing field. Whether you’re a veteran setter looking to reminisce about the good ol’ days, a novice looking to begin your routesetting education, or a setting educator looking to build a curriculum, Rennak’s 20-year-old “Routesetting 101” exposition is a great place to start.

SETTING TIPS

by Scott Rennak

First and foremost, it must be said that setting is an art. It requires time and dedication—practice makes perfect. Although setting is largely inspiration and visualization, the information covered here should help.

Know yourself as a climber. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Know your ability level for different styles of movement; understanding your own abilities is possibly the most important factor to being an effective setter.

Determine your personal setting style, and deliberately avoid it occasionally. [Like most setters], you probably tend toward a certain style of problem. It might be statics, dynamics, power-fests, technical nightmares, slopers, pockets, crimps—whatever. We all have strengths and weaknesses; just don’t make everyone conform entirely to yours.

In gyms, keep an open mind and listen to your audience. Remember, you’re setting for them. Their input is important and should be heard. Take the time to listen and you might even learn something helpful.

If you’re a comp setter, hang out for the comp. You know the sequences perfectly, but competitors might have trouble. And if they don’t figure out the moves, whose problems are going to get dissed? A little beta, fairly inserted, can help competitors send. And that’s what they’ve come to do.

Climbing outside is the most valuable source of ideas for setting. Mother Nature has formed rock in infinite variety, and much is to be learned from her creations. If your future includes a lot of setting, do yourself and your customers a favor: travel as much as possible. While Mother Nature has infinite resources, you have only what you’ve seen, touched, and climbed on. Climbing on different rock—granite, sandstone, limestone—gives you different experiences to draw from.

GOOD, ENJOYABLE PROBLEMS

It’s a big bite to chew. Who really wants to define a good problem? Every problem is a good problem! If you don’t think so, you aren’t looking at it right. However, I’m going to take the user-friendly stance of a commercial climbing facility in describing a good problem.

A good problem thinks of its audience. Everything about a good problem is mindful of the needs and abilities of the climbers that will be on it. This includes hold selection, body movements, height dependency and, of course, difficulty.

A good problem builds better climbers. For many climbers, the entire purpose of indoor climbing is to get better. Setters are in the unique position of creating the tools to achieve this [objective]. Good problems improve strength, technique, route finding and precision.

One climber’s favorite problem is another’s worst nightmare. Admittedly, it’s impossible to set problems that everyone likes. However, there are certain aspects of a problem that are, more or less, universally admired.

An enjoyable problem has interesting moves. Creative movement is probably the hardest thing to learn, yet the most important. It’s a product of indoor and outdoor experiences and personal insights into climbing movement. Varied and thought-provoking body movements help make an enjoyable problem.

An enjoyable problem is comfortable to climb. If it hurts, most people won’t like it. This means holds that tweak your tendons, moves that mangle your body, or falls that aren’t fun to take. While those [factors] are all important aspects of outdoor climbing (and should be represented indoors in moderation), they seldom are enjoyable to the general indoor crowd.

PLANNING AND EFFICIENCY

Several weeks before the comp, walk through the entire setting and forerunning process. Good planning can help prevent serious headaches the night before.

Ask yourself: Where should the problems be concentrated? At what maximum density? How many problems, in total? [What about] their grade disbursement? What unique features should be used? How much time will be needed for preparations? How many setters, forerunners, wall-strippers?

The gym will need to be split into rough sections before setting. Problems should be set within the section boundaries. By keeping problems within sections, you’ll maximize the number of people who can climb simultaneously.

Make as many sections as possible, while leaving adequate room for creative problems. Try to conserve unique features like arêtes and dihedrals, and make good use of them. Mark the boundaries once you’re ready to start setting. Most sections shouldn’t have more than five overlapping problems. Be especially cautious about how the problems are set, avoiding situations where climbers in adjacent sections could fall into each other.

Pre-set problems. Remove the holds after setting and create a map. Or leave the holds in place, but turn them. You can have numerous quality problems ready weeks before the comp, reducing the stress the night before.

Strip bouldering-specific areas first, usually a couple days before the event. Get volunteers or other employees to strip the walls. The setters belong setting; that’s where they’re most useful. Do them a favor and arrange for others to strip the walls.

Spread the difficulty all over the gym, with hard and easy everywhere. Help the climbers to circulate, and allow everyone to climb all the walls. Beginners want to get up the 45-degree walls too.

Having plenty of easy problems is critical. Remember that these events are meant to be fun and inspiring for all levels of climbers. Tailor the grade distribution below to your own clientele.

There are two principal schools of thought concerning setting efficiency: painstakingly work out the subtlety of every move to perfection, or toss something up that’s fun but might not work exactly how you’d like. Neither is wrong—different circumstances call for both [methods]. For high-end competitions, and high-end problems, being well thought-out and working perfectly is essential. However, for most comps and general gym setting, the time required to achieve this [intricacy] is unavailable.

Problems should be properly marked, labeled and graded no later than one hour before competitors arrive.

HOLD SELECTION

There is no formula for choosing holds. Enough variation in climbing movements prevents any standardized sizing. However, several factors dictate what usability is needed:

• Difficulty of the problem
• Surface angle of the wall
• Orientation on the wall

Handhold usability combines its size and positivity. A half-pad incut and a three-pad sloper might be similarly useable.

Set some easy problems with bad holds; help beginners learn to use them. Take weight off bad handholds with large feet; relieve bad footholds with generous hands. Knee-bars, heel-hooks or the plain old big-honking-jug-foot can make miserable handholds feel great. Opposition moves make tiny edges and smears more tolerable.

Set some hard problems with good holds. Hard problems do not necessitate tweakers; give advanced climbers a break. Use bad (or non-existent) footholds to make large handholds feel worse. Turn big holds into underclings, dyno to them and force climbers to match all over them.

Choose holds that force what you want, no more. Extra features on a hold means extra options. Multi-directional holds and large matching holds give competitors ways around your sequence.

Use screw-ons to make the most of your wall. Screw-on jibs are great for tiny, realistic feet. Larger screw-ons are good for making pinches and slots. Screw-ons aren’t limited by t-nut placements, so they’re inherently better for creating movements exactly the way you want.

Be careful when using large, high-profile holds. They shouldn’t obstruct other problems.

VARIETY, STYLE AND CONSISTENCY

Good variety within a gym or comp is essential, so mix it up. Customers and competitors come to be challenged and to send. They bring their own skills, which may be drastically different than your own. A good setter puts up problems for everybody.

A problem’s style is reflected within its crux(es). These, in turn, create the overall effect of the problem. Ask what makes the problem hard: Does it require power, endurance, or good technique?

The word technical gets thrown around a lot when setting. What is it for a problem to be technical? Answer: to require good route reading and creative use of the body. A technical problem requires knowledge and proficiency in movement and the ability to decipher sequences.

Watch the flow of difficulty throughout a problem. Indoor problems are normally internally consistent (cruxes tend to be within a few grades of the rest of the moves). Early cruxes, while possibly realistic, leave us deflated for the finish—it’s best to spread the difficulty out. Problems that continually get harder, or have several successive cruxes, are perfect for weeding out competitors. Avoid good rests in boulder problems for comps—competitors will hang and shake versus trying, falling and letting the next person go.

Good variety includes:

• Power, endurance and power-endurance problems
• Obvious and devious problems
• Static and dynamic problems
• Smooth, comfortable problems and awkward, realistic problems
• Hard slabs and easy overhangs
• Underclings, gastons, and sidepulls
• Slopers, crimpers, pockets and pinches
• Big right-hand moves and big left-hand moves
• One-move-wonders and enduro-fests
• Sit-starts and jump-starts

Each individual problem can include much of the above, or little. Theme problems (e.g. pocket or gaston problems) reward climbers’ strengths, isolate their weaknesses, and are great to have in moderation.

Don’t get trapped into making all cruxes hand-cruxes. Remember, hands and feet working together determine a move’s difficulty. Use evil smears, tiny edges and scummy heel-hooks as cruxes too.

Good variety evens the playing field. It demands a climber to be well-rounded to excel. At competitions, this [even playing field] is the goal. Ensure a fair fight; set good variety.

HEIGHT DEPENDENCY

“I tried, but I just couldn’t reach the next hold.” We’ve all heard and probably said this [sentence]. Outdoors, it means turn it on or find a new problem. Indoors, there are many implications. Luckily, we have the opportunity to prevent height–dependent indoor problems, should we want to.

Most problems should not be height-dependent, to make them fun for everybody. Especially with the growing number of youth [climbers] coming to gyms, it’s financially unwise to beat them up with reaches. However, if everything goes for kids, what’s left to challenge the rest of us?

Some problems should be height-dependent. I might get [ridiculed] for saying that statement. Don’t get me wrong, we all want [young climbers] to send. We also want them to appreciate problems they can’t do. If you can’t get away with having a few height–dependant problems, offer alternative holds for Juniors and give them boosts to high starts.

The ignored cousin of the reach, the scrunch is equally disabling. We normally don’t worry much about tall climbers; things always seem easier for them. Abundant in the form of low traverses and butt-dragging sit-starts, scrunchy problems should not be overdone.

Several distances to keep in mind, any one of which can cause height dependency:

•     Hand-to-hand
•     Hand-to-foot
•     Foot-to-foot

Prevent height-dependent problems with additional feet. Place extra feet high, low or to the side, where only tall or short climbers will use them. Make long moves easier with high feet, low starts easier with wide feet. Occasionally, extra footholds become hands for the small-fingered; we all know that local 45-pounder who monos bolt-holes.

Height-dependent problems shouldn’t decide winners at comps. Therefore, for every height-dependent problem, set several others at the same grade that aren’t. With enough carefully set alternatives, even the most self-righteous competitor can’t argue.

FORCING MOVES

“Hey, that’s not how it goes!” Setters hate it; there’s seemingly always another way to do a problem, a testament to the variety in abilities among climbers. However, skipping sequences is often preventable.

Before grabbing the wrenches and attacking the holds, question the necessity of a change. Often good problems (indoors and outdoors) are done with alternate sequences. Given that the different methods are similar in difficulty, does their difference actually matter? One person’s easiest way up is sometimes another’s hardest. If the sequences require contrasting techniques, more variations make the problem more accessible.

Every hold on a problem provides an option, sometimes several. Too many holds can mean too many options. It’s generally not an issue with hands; most setters don’t put extra handholds on a problem. Many do, however, include superfluous footholds. Extra feet, while often increasing your problem’s overall sendability, reduce the chance competitors will use your sequence. Only holds needed for a send should be on the wall (by people of differing heights, of course). Avoid unnecessary multi-directional holds and holds large enough to match.

Make your sequence the easiest way up (the easiest to those for whom the problem is intended). If another sequence or way to grip a hold is possible, try it: back-step vs. toeing-in; gaston instead of crossing-through. Most problems can go differently, but at vastly different grades. If the alternate [way up] is harder, you’re okay; easier, and it’s time to grab the wrenches and tweak.

Climbers like to jump. They will, and right past your moves if you let them. Never underestimate the airtime of a psyched-up climber. Especially watch problems that cross back over (above) themselves. Where dynos are possible, put the feet low or to the side. The dyno becomes more awkward, and less likely.

LABELING PROBLEMS

Mark all holds and features clearly. Nothing causes as much mayhem as poorly labeled problems. All natural features should be labeled “in” or “out”. Special instructions (e.g., sit-down start, any feet, arête is in) should be noted clearly at the start of the problem. Beginning and ending holds should be designated.

Labels need to be seen from all vantage points on a problem. Handholds used later as feet need to be visible from the higher position. Use two labels if necessary.

Avoid situations where the label will be worn off with traffic. Foothold labels especially are prone to being rubbed off. Labels that wear off are great fuel for picky climbers.

Mark problems that overlap with obviously different colors (not hard with so many colors available). Also, using sponsor stickers as problem markers adds spice to the appearance, and gives recognition to your supporters.

For comps, every problem should be labeled with its number and total point value. The labels should be written in large, clear print with a bright–colored marker.

FORERUNNING

Forerunning consists of attempting, critiquing, altering and grading a problem. The focus is improvement; a well-forerun problem achieves the desired movement at the desired grade.

Grades represent a problem’s consensus difficulty, ideally; [in other words], how hard it is for a climber of average height and weight, with average flexibility, finger strength, and technique. For anyone else, it could feel vastly different. Several people, with different styles and strengths, should forerun each problem.

It’s hard to grade problems well below your ability. Continually think about the effort needed to grab onto and move between the holds. Don’t underestimate your finger strength, power or technique. Consider the appropriateness of moves. Sure, that rose-move is rad, but on a V0?

Work out as many moves as you can on projects. Put a jug ladder nearby to avoid working it ground-up. Think carefully about every move and every stance. After working it, compare it to the other hard problems. Try to rank them in order of difficulty, and then guesstimate the grades.

While the V-system is widely used, its interpretation varies. One region’s V8 is another’s V6. No matter—the real deal is to have internal consistency. Two problems given the same grade in a gym should be the same difficulty.

At competitions, achieving consistency is like pulling teeth. With limited time and energy, it’s difficult to accurately grade everything. Fresh forerunners, who come in later in the setting process, can help that consistency happen.

This scale has proven to split the ability levels well. To minimize ties, try to give each problem a different grade. For example, two easy V4s might get 74pts and 76pts. Long or high problems should be a little overrated to compensate for the extra energy and attention they require.

Every move of every problem should be forerun in competitions. Too many comp problems never get sent, or are improperly graded, because of assumptions. It may not be necessary to actually do a move to educate a guess about its feasibility and relative grade. However, guessing how a move will go, without trying it, is unacceptable.

The post Classic Setting Tips for Modern Gyms – The Setter’s Archive appeared first on Climbing Business Journal.

Today’s guest is John McGowan. I don’t even know the single best way to describe John. Entrepreneur, business developer, old school climber but new school visionary, adventurer, all of the above. I will say this: If someone were putting together a list of the most important figures of the climbing gym industry of the past 35 or 40 years, basically as long as there has been some semblance of an American climbing gym industry, John McGowan would absolutely be one of the names on it. He has started businesses that have contributed immensely to key evolutions of the climbing industry, as you will hear about. In terms of his resume, he founded Boulder Rock Club in 1990. He and a business partner, Steve Holmes, then founded Eldorado Climbing Walls a few years after that. Later, he and Steve Holmes also started TRUBLUE auto belays. And more recently he was involved in founding Riversmith, which is a company that he will explain more about in the conversation.

Thank you Kilter and TRUBLUE for your support!
And thank you Devin Dabney for your music!

Timestamps

00:00 – Intro
03:27 – Finding gold
11:58 – McGowan’s climbing history and opening Boulder Rock Club
15:32 – The monthly membership model
17:56 – The early 90s climbing scene
23:26 – Routesetting in the 90s
29:03 – Transitioning from Boulder Rock Club to other businesses
32:59 – The importance of a partnership in starting a business
36:31 – Keys to founding a business that actually works
39:28 – McGowan’s current business, Riversmith
43:23 – Make it better, make it easier
48:46 – Passion projects as potential businesses
51:19 – McGowan’s contact info
52:17 – Closing

Abridged Transcript

BURGMAN: I heard a rumor that I hope is true, because I’d love to hear the story, that you discovered gold, which sounds to me like some sort of Indiana Jones-meets-prospecting type of situation. Can you confirm or deny this? And if you can confirm it, I am a captive audience.

MCGOWAN: Okay, well, I can confirm that. It’s sort of a weird part about my history. After college, I ended up ski-bumming over in Europe for a couple of years, and that led to sort of taking an interest in sailing. And I eventually ended up living in Cape Cod. After that, I bought a little sailboat; it was a little, 20-foot sailboat. One thing led to another and I eventually sailed it down to Venezuela. That led to some inland travel. And after traveling around a bit, I met a guy who was interested in dredging for gold down in Venezuela. Ultimately, four years later, I ended up dredging for gold. And that’s sort of what funded a lot of the climbing interests. So, you’re right with that one…

You said that the dredging for gold helped fund your initial forays into climbing business. Were you a climber at the time?

Yeah, I grew up in Colorado and had a high level of interest in climbing, and so down in Venezuela, I did quite a bit of climbing—more typically in the area that I was living at the time down there, bouldering. But I was definitely a passionate climber. Whenever I could get a hold of a climbing magazine, I would certainly just go through it cover to cover and was starting to read a little bit about the emerging business of indoor climbing, and that kind of got me to thinking. Having grown up around Colorado, I definitely looked at that as being sort of an epicenter for climbing at the time, and ultimately began my escape from Venezuela, thinking about building a climbing gym in Boulder. By the time I actually got back, that was kind of the thought process: “Well, I’m just going to first of all explore the business of climbing and understand what that’s about.”

At the time, there was probably less than ten climbing gyms across the country…As I was exploring these different gyms, I was looking at the different operations and most of them were actually sort of a pay-to-play type of scenario, where you bought a guest pass in essence. But what I started to sense was there was one gym that was sort of doing a membership-based business. This kind of led me in Boulder to starting to think about the business of climbing as sort of a fitness club, which was very fortuitous in the early days.

What I did is I started looking around at different fitness clubs, just interviewing different people. And that’s really how I came across my [business] partner at the time, Scott Woodard. Scott and Karen Woodard at the time were running Boulder’s Pulse Fitness Clubs. And fortuitously enough, one of their fitness clubs—I think they had three of four around Boulder—had an adjacent space that was vacant in a building that Scott Woodard controlled. I presented Scott with my idea: “I really see the parallel of this being a great tie-in for fitness.” That led to Scott and I partnering up and starting the Boulder Rock Club.

Tell me about how you rolled out the initial membership structure and how people responded to that, because that would have been, as you just explained, pretty innovative for the time.

It was interesting, and I can’t say that we can claim sole ownership of that idea. However, most of the [climbing] gyms at the time were doing sort of a guest-pass scenario. There was a little teeny climbing gym that existed in Boulder, actually, when we started. It was at CATS Training Center, which was a gymnastics facility. They were a good example; they had perhaps 40 or 50 people climbing there, mostly just paying, I think, $5 a day in order to climb. And so, as I was kind of running the math on running a climbing gym, I couldn’t seem to make things work with just a guest pass scenario, especially given the seasonality of climbing. Ultimately, where membership came in, is really trying to sort of structure an annual plan in which we could survive both the winter, spring, summer and fall.

The [climbing] gyms that we toured, we did note that they were doing exceedingly well. Those couple of gyms that were doing this, they seemed like they were really cranking and they were growing a fast membership. So, as I was writing the business plan for the Boulder Rock Club, I projected that in our first year, even on our presale, we would probably start with about 100 members. As it turned out, when we got the idea out there before we opened, we sort of did a little bit of a police line inside the facility where people could come in and see the construction going on. While that was happening, we were selling memberships. Essentially, we launched with about 170 members or memberships sold, and ultimately that’s when we knew were on the right track of things.

The early 1990s. Can you give me an idea of the climbing scene?

I was of the belief that the only place that could support a climbing gym of that era was somewhere that had a high concentration of climbers. Later, I sort of evolved that theory into: “No, climbing is wherever there’s a large population, all of a sudden it can support it.” But in the early days there was this massive hidden climbing community around Boulder. What I remember is in the early days a lot of people had come in and there were these big-name climbers and just all these different people who were like, “No, I’ll never climb indoors.” They thought of it as almost the division line between sport climbing and trad climbing…And so the early dialogue that we had from folks was: “Yeah, this will never work.”

I remember one day, for example, Derek Hersey. I don’t know if you knew of Derek, but he was famous for climbing really hard climbs free solo at the time. So, he’d be out doing these insane things and just an amazing climber, an amazing spirit, and he was one of the few people who actually embraced it and basically said, “No, this is great because it’s creating this social environment.” Ultimately, we didn’t quite know what to expect in the early days. We didn’t know how important the social part of climbing was going to be. But what we saw within [those] probably first 18 months of being open is that, one by one, the people who were the most averse to what we were doing started embracing it and coming in—not so much to train, per se, but more for the social environment…

What were you doing for routesetting at the time? Because I know you mentioned the Paradise Rock Gym, and I know that Mike Pont, who’s someone you referenced, was working there as a routesetter for a time. And I know Christian Griffith was doing some routesetting, especially in the early 90s for Jeff Lowe’s circuit. Where were you finding routesetters? And if you could find them, were they getting any sort of training?

Paradise Rock Gym opened as we were just starting our construction, so they jumped us by a few months. And so, we’re starting to figure things out. I’m not sure how they got Kurt Smith and Mike Pont interested, but Brian Vandecrawl was the owner of Paradise Rock Gym. He was a very smart guy, and he really was the person who understood the power of routesetting. I certainly picked that up immediately from Brian, and it almost became sort of an escalation of who could set the best routes or who could recruit the best routesetters…We observed very early on that that is the product, the routesetting is the product. It’s certainly more important than almost anything that you’re going to do within a climbing gym. And so, you needed to invest heavily on that.

Now as far as actually getting people to do it, it was interesting because in the early days, even Mike and Kurt and Jimmy and all these guys, as great as they were at routesetting, they would typically migrate toward setting hard routes for themselves and their friends to climb. When they were setting a 5.13, they would set a masterpiece. But when it came to a 5.10, it was less than ideal. Ultimately, they became really adept at doing that, so I don’t want to say that they weren’t good at that, because they became excellent at it. But therein lay the real challenge of routesetting in the early days.

We found, for example, you could bring in the best climbers who could set a 5.13. They could set a 5.9, 5.10, 5.7…the 5.13 was going to be excellent, but the 5.7 was not going to be that great. And so, we thought, “Okay, well, what we’ll do is we’ll bring in 5.7 climbers to routeset the low end routes, or 5.10 climbers, or whatever.” But there was a distinct problem with that, in that those climbers were climbing 5.13 in three months. Just the act of routesetting at that level and climbing all your routes, it made them into hard guys immediately.

Ultimately, that sort of led to an evolution of investing really heavily in getting the routesetters to be in good alignment with the interests of the climbing gym to try to set really good creative routes, which I have to say is still probably one of the biggest difficulties in climbing gyms. If every climbing gym knew that this was of high importance, they might do things a little bit differently…

Can you talk a little bit more about that transition from starting Boulder Rock Club and then a second Boulder Rock Club, and then yourself going into building climbing gyms and the founding of Eldorado Climbing Walls as sort of the next step in the evolution of your own career? Right about 1995, if I remember correctly.

The entity that we hired to build our climbing walls for the first climbing gym, the first Boulder Rock Club, was a company called Radwall, and it was run by a guy named Wayne Campbell. He was an amazing artist. I have to say that their work was just impeccable; it was a beautiful type of work. But I’d been in construction before, and having kind of gone through that whole process, the way that they were building climbing walls, it was a panelized system that required you to frame up the entire climbing wall and then cut your panels, put them up to within a 32nd-of-an-inch tolerance, bring them down, then you would texture them, then you would hang them back up. It was this incredibly cumbersome process, which had some limitations as well. For example, you could use the seams. You could actually grab onto the seams or stand on the seams.

Ultimately, as I was kind of plotting the Boulder Rock Club 2, we were thinking, “There’s just got to be a better way to do this.” That led to experimenting around as we were coming onto building that. I remember building bouldering walls in people’s barns and just early ways to think about a different and faster way of building, a lower cost way of building, and a little more high performance…

Can you speak to the importance of partnerships? And maybe more specifically, what goes into making someone a good business partner?

With the right partner, you can actually build off of each other; it’s a momentum gaining kind of thing. And I would say with almost any business, there’s going to be a lot of effort in the early years, especially if you’re bootstrapping a company. That thing of having a partner to really build that momentum, I think it’s critically important, at least it has been within my career. As far as finding a good partner, it’s really interesting because I’ve talked to a million people who would say, “Well, I can tell you what you don’t want to do, and that is don’t ever do a 50/50 partnership. Those just don’t work. So, try to maintain controlling interest.” Ultimately, all of my partnerships have been 50/50 partnerships. I’ve had so many business people going, “Oh man, that’s insane. How in the world did that ever work? There are 10 million ways for it to fail.”

And I kind of thought back at my own career. For example, my partnership in Venezuela, actually that one did collapse. What happened down there was that I was working really hard and putting all this energy in, and my partner was just not. A 50/50 partnership under those terms is just not going to work. I later kind of thought about it in terms of: “Why don’t they work typically?” I think that, generally speaking, you have to both have a fairly high work ethic, and just trying to imagine how that can work over ten years, it’s sort of improbable in the first place. Second part of it is you have to have a similar type of intellectual capacity. You have to bring something to the table, and if one person’s really smart and the other one’s not, that also doesn’t work. So, there are a lot of reasons the 50-50 partnership doesn’t work. But I’ve found it in my life to be just a great system…

I’m sure we could devote a whole different podcast episode to it, but other than a good partnership, what are some keys to founding a successful business?

That’s another great question. I think ultimately my view on it is you don’t have to be the smartest, you don’t necessarily have to be the hardest working. You need to have, I think more than anything, a vision of where you want to go, and you have to have a fairly clear idea of where you’re starting from. Then it’s an incremental game. The way I think of any business, it’s not that you always make the right decision—that’s impossible. You’re going to make a lot of decisions in business and, incrementally, you want to make the right decision a little bit more often than the wrong decision. That incremental gain, in combination with having clarity of where you want to go, it means that you’re going to just walk slowly toward the finish line. All of these businesses, I think that’s the element. There was nothing that we did that was fast and easy. It was always just a slow, plodding thing.

I think another element to business success is exploring opportunities. I’ve had a lot of staff over the years who have said, “Wow, John, you’re so lucky because opportunities come your way. Boy, I just don’t know why they don’t come my way.” And I think just being receptive to ideas. My current observation is that everyone is bombarded with ideas all the time. Most choose not to see them, and some are like, “Huh, I wonder if that could work.” So that incremental movement forward…

Other folks who are starting businesses, if you’re not super well grounded, if you don’t know where you really are starting, it’s difficult to pick a direction. They end up working a little here, a little there, moving to the right, moving to the left, and not necessarily moving forward. So, I think it’s so important to be very well grounded within any business type of thing…

The post The “Indiana Jones of Climbing” – CBJ Podcast With John McGowan appeared first on Climbing Business Journal.

Gym: X-treme
Location: Miami, Florida
Opening Date: April 15, 1998

It is not hard for Derek Waggoner to identify the catalyst that led him to founding a climbing gym in South Florida. “Essentially it started with Hurricane Andrew in 1992,” he says without hesitation. More specifically, the hurricane’s destruction of a gymnastics school that Waggoner was operating in Miami at the time set off a fascinating chain of events. In the process, Waggoner would soon leave Florida altogether, start a new job as a financial advisor across the country, and dismiss climbing as an idiotic pursuit…only to fall madly in love with climbing and end up back where he started—in Miami.

But it all starts with Hurricane Andrew.

In fact, Waggoner was not alone in having his business—that gymnastics school—destroyed by the infamous hurricane system, which hit landfall in the early morning hours of August 24, 1992. According to estimates and after-the-fact calculations, by its end Hurricane Andrew caused $27.3 billion dollars in damages to people in and around Florida’s Miami-Dade County. It would prove to be the “costliest” hurricane in American history up to that point. Innumerable families were impacted and untold numbers of buildings and businesses were destroyed. Now, nearly 30 years later, Waggoner speaks of the hurricane’s force as if it was omniscient and deliberate—but that is only because the destruction was indeed so swift and widespread: “Hurricane Andrew came through and decided to take away all my clients, as well as the building and everything else,” Waggoner reflects.

In the wake of the destruction, Waggoner decided to pack up his belongings in South Florida and move to Colorado. He admits that he always wanted to “live the Rocky Mountain life.” But for Waggoner back then, this meant fishing. And he did fish a lot upon relocating to Colorado. He even encountered climbers at one point while out fishing but “thought it was the dumbest bunch of idiots I’d ever seen in my life that would go and climb a rock.” Yet, increasingly swept up in the Colorado outdoorsy milieu over the next couple of years, Waggoner eventually found himself taking an introductory climbing class at the Sport Climbing Center in Colorado Springs. After just a few minutes of belay instruction, Waggoner was hooked on climbing. Beyond that, he soon became friends with the owners of the Sport Climbing Center—he started climbing often with them too—and the idea of opening a climbing gym down south, in his home of Miami, soon sprouted.

A Hard Sell

The idea to open a climbing gym in Miami had come to Waggoner relatively quickly, but the necessary preparation and paperwork would be more methodical. One of the first challenges was obtaining financial backing for a climbing gym from some Miami banks. “I talked to three different banks and had two offers,” Waggoner recalls. “And it was a mixed bag—one bank was like, ‘You’re going to lose [everything], the others were just totally intrigued by it.”

Insurance paperwork was another challenge, as most companies and attorneys in South Florida were unfamiliar with the concept of indoor climbing as a business entity in the mid-1990s. As a solution, Waggoner—who had since moved back to Miami from Colorado—simply copied a release form that he had obtained from the Sport Climbing Center back in Colorado Springs. “I had no idea if it was valid or not, or if it would work in Florida,” he admits, although the paperwork would prove to be an effective and successful template for opening a Miami gym.

Beyond the legal logistics, Waggoner was increasingly convinced that climbing could be popular in South Florida—particularly because the sport had captivated him so quickly; he was living proof of climbing’s appeal. On top of that, Waggoner’s previous business contacts in the gymnastics world could help spread the word about his new Florida climbing gym endeavor, as climbing and gymnastics had crossover appeal that dated all the way back to gymnast John Gill’s pioneering of modern bouldering in the 1950s. There was also the sheer population of Miami. “I might be taking a smaller percentage compared to Denver or wherever, but the number base was there,” Waggoner explains of his mindset at the time. “Climbing was still semi-new to me, but I knew all people had to do was get a taste of it. Try it one time. If we could get people in the door, the gym would sell itself provided we didn’t scare them off.”

Waggoner’s previous connection to that climbing gym in Colorado Springs would prove beneficial again once a building was found in Miami. To design and construct the climbing walls in Florida, Waggoner used the same contractor (Ric Geiman) and company (Sport Climbing Concepts) that had built the walls of the Sport Climbing Center—and gave a directive to essentially “replicate” that Colorado wall design.

In total, Waggoner would create his climbing gym in Miami—X-treme—with a startup cost of $125,000. His brother, Kynan, would greatly help with the operations. The climbing walls, which Derek Waggoner describes as straightforwardly as “TJIs [joists], Simpson brackets, and some sheeting,” would measure 32 feet at their highest point. The interior would span 14,000 square feet, much of which was eventually covered with pea gravel as floor cushioning.

Nowadays, Waggoner is able to describe X-treme’s initial ambiance with honesty and the benefit of hindsight: “The lighting inside—it was just old lamps, typical gym of the ‘90s, back of a warehouse, dimly lit,” he says. But at the time of the gym’s opening in 1998, the newfound presence of a climbing gym in Miami—regardless of dingy lighting—was a big deal.

The Routesetting Epicenter

There was a period of learning that took place for Derek and his brother Kynan, as well as the customers when X-treme began its operations. As athletic and fit-conscious as many people were in Miami, the nearest outdoor climbing was in northern Georgia, nearly a day’s drive away, so there was a lot of initial unfamiliarity with the sport. “We started getting phone calls and people were asking, ‘Well, what else do you have to do [at the gym]?” Derek Waggoner remembers. “‘Do you have video games or bowling?’ How do you explain it? With the media at the time, we didn’t have Facebook or Instagram yet. It was newsprint and radio. How do you explain what’s inside a climbing gym?”

And Waggoner admits that he and his staff were “pretty green” as well, prompting a period of “trial-and-error” for properly running the gym. One of the most pressing issues was in matters of routesetting—and, specifically, the lack of trained routesetters available around South Florida. To solve the problem, within the first few months of X-treme operations, Waggoner flew back to Colorado to take a routesetting clinic hosted by the ASCF. At the clinic, Waggoner met Tony Yaniro—already among the most accomplished and distinguished routesetters in American history—and established a friendship that would result in Yaniro occasionally traveling down to Florida to set at X-treme.

Another Colorado resident that Waggoner connected with was Kevin Branford. Although still just a teenager, Branford was one of the most accomplished American competition climbers. Branford, a national team member, had won the prestigious Tour de Pump series in 1994, participated in the climbing portion of ESPN’s first-ever Extreme Games (later rebranded the X-Games) extravaganza in 1995, and won his age division at the ASCF’s Junior National Championships in 1996. Waggoner first invited Branford to come down to X-treme and set for an ASCF regional competition. But Branford returned to Miami multiple times to teach clinics at X-treme and set non-competition routes.

“I started officially working for Derek when I was probably 20ish,” Branford recalls. “I would go down [to Miami] in the summertime when I was in college, and I would stay for three and a half months.”

Completing this all-star crew was another young routesetter named Molly Beard. For a number of years, the team of Yaniro, Branford, Beard, as well as Derek and Kynan Waggoner, was among the most prolific and proficient in the country—venturing beyond X-treme and setting routes for National Championships, Junior National Championships, and competitions for the newly formed, kid-focused Junior Competition Climbing Association (JCCA). “There was no money, but all of us were committed to giving the kids the best, fairest competition possible,” says Beard. “It felt like we all could see what this fledgling [JCCA] organization could do and wanted to be sure it would happen. So, we worked unbelievably hard, suffered long hours, destroyed our skin and bodies, all with the driving goal to make it happen for the kids. I mean, Nationals now routinely use a crew of 12-15 routesetters. For several years it was just the four of us. So we bonded pretty hard over that. It made for some fun times setting when there wasn’t that crazy pressure and lack of time! And ice cream. We ate a lot of ice cream.”

In a sense, that same small squad of routesetters evolved the style of American routesetting that had been established approximately a decade prior. “We were all mentored by Tony [Yaniro], and his influence is undeniable,” Beard expounds. “His vision was to see a spread of placement based off of one or two points (therefore moves) between the competitors. Very finely tuned routes and forerunning was key. How different this was from previous years, I honestly don’t know: I only know stories secondhand. But hearing those stories of ridiculous bottlenecks, reachy routes, and flaming egos was enough…we understood the huge value of functioning as a team, of balancing out each person’s strengths and weaknesses to make the best competition routes possible. Modern holds were showing up at this time as well. I remember fighting over the VooDoo and Pusher stuff because it was so new and really good for forcing moves.”

A New Era

As the 1990s evolved into the 2000s, X-treme continued its operations—hosting a wide range of programming, from instructions to birthday parties. “Great exercise. Great fun. And it definitely beats pumping iron,” one writeup in the local Florida press proclaimed about the facility.

Competitions at the gym continued to be incredibly popular too. One particular event at X-treme had upwards of 50 sponsors; the title sponsor prize was a new mountain bike from Cannondale.

Particularly in hindsight, Waggoner sees the gym and all its events and programming as helping to give birth to a climbing culture in South Florida that still exists to this day. “I would say X-treme was the one that started the [climbing] community down there,” he says.

Waggoner admits that there were some climbers in South Florida before the founding of X-treme. He offers one anecdote about a few die-hards who used to illegally scale a lighthouse at Key Biscayne with climbing equipment. But it was X-treme that largely gave the disparate climbers in the city a sense of unification—an inclusive hub—and Kevin Branford agrees. “Derek basically had to build a market for [the gym] because people in Miami didn’t really know what rock climbing was,” Branford reiterates. “I think that was one of the things that drew me to liking Miami so much; I could help educate people and give them the best information that I had at the time about learning how to climb, about routesetting, about training practices. The people in Miami didn’t have any preconceived notions of how it was supposed to be.”

Derek Waggoner sold X-treme in 2013, and focused instead on a business of installing, inspecting, and repairing climbing walls on cruise ships with his other company, Xtr Services—through which he continued to employ Branford. Derek’s brother, Kynan, continued routesetting and eventually became the CEO of USA Climbing, a post he held through climbing’s formal inclusion in the Tokyo Olympics. In a unique twist, in April of 2019, Derek Waggoner and some business partners reacquired the gym that had started as X-treme. It is still in operation today as The Edge Rock Gym – Miami, although the interior (including the original lighting and flooring) has been significantly revamped and redone since the X-treme iteration.

Additionally, Waggoner currently operates the Gripstone gyms in Colorado and Arizona—fittingly with Tony Yaniro. But, in many ways, it all started with X-treme. “I had no idea how large my circle of friends and family would grow after I opened those first doors,” Waggoner concludes.

The post Spotlight on the 90s: X-treme appeared first on Climbing Business Journal.