Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Fantasy Gym: The Starwhal

Heya, folks, I'm back with another addition of Things I Wish I Had, aka Fantasy Gyms. Like last time's Rock Box, this wall is defined by a space constraint- in this case, height. The Starwhal is a simple one-wall training area, primarily useful for traversing. It is 12 meters in length and fits in a room with a three meters roof- only slightly higher than usual. This time I haven't made an actual gym with check-in and amenities- the Starwhal would be suited for a large home wall or for a sports club or training center.



As you can see, this wall isn't tall and it isn't very deep, either- the wall projects out 1.8 meters at the deepest, making it suitable for a long room that otherwise doesn't have a lot of room to spare. At no point would climbing the wall take more than two or three moves, but hey, that's what traversing is for!



I tried to pack in as much as I could in a limited space. The two major overhangs are at 15 degrees and 30 degrees, and the whole wall features a number of mini-arĂȘtes and dihedrals.



Between the 15 and 30 degree segments is a flat bit with a tapered mini-chimney- this area could be used for all kinds of challenging reaches and backwards movements.The name "Starwhal" is, of course, taken from the big star-shaped feature in the center of the 15 degree area and the fact that naming climbing walls is pretty arbitrary. This feature can be used to change up a wide variety of holds- the bottom is nearly a roof, and the top is a mini-slab for difficult negative holds to be made usable.

This was a quick wall I put together to experiment with packing features into a small traverse wall and in making a wall that was visually appealing in a room that might serve other purposes. As you can see I tried spicing it up with colors, the colors here are more or less the theme colors of my village, but could also be great if you happen to be a Packers fan.

I think you could do a lot worse than a design like this if you found yourself with a single flat span of wall to work with when making a climbing area!

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