Construction Update #2

It has been a good week. The Eldorado crew is now on site, and they have gotten down to work quickly, organizing their equipment, coordinating with our general contractor, and starting to assemble the many steel "shapes" that will be assembled together to create the climbing terrain. I've posted a few new photos to the Picasa Building album. The initial crew of 3 from Boulder is being supplemented by local workers that they have already hired, so the crew should be twice that size by Monday! And all of the Eldorado guys (as well as at least some of the local crew) are climbers; they joined the gang I climb with Wednesday night at Toronto Climbing Academy.

On the general contracting side, the plumbing rough-ins are complete and concrete has been poured to restore the floor. HVAC work continues after a few bumps along the way. It is tricky figuring out how to place ventilation ducts and lighting between the climbing walls in a way that preserves safe clearance and also results in effective lighting, heating and cooling in the space.

Supporting the Ontario Access Coalition

There is an excellent interview with Adam Reeve of the Ontario Access Coalition now posted at the Ontario Climbing site: http://www.ontarioclimbing.com/News/News.html. It's a very clear explanation of what the OAC does, and why it's important for climbers to support their work. Give it a read, and think about joining the OAC. You can do so (and learn more about their work) at http://www.ontarioaccesscoalition.com/. You can also sign up at one of the Tour de Bloc comps, where the OAC is running membership drives, with prizes given out and raffled off to new members and current members who make a small donation. True North Climbing is a pround supporter of the Ontario Access Coalition.

Youth Comp at Climber's Rock

Yesterday's Elevation Under-20 Youth comp at Climber's Rock was a blast. I spent the morning as a volunteer belayer, wanting to help out and also learn about how these comps work. I had only been at bouldering comps before, so it was great to learn about both how a roped comp works, and to see the kids climb. I had a lot of fun, and am looking forward to having these running in our gym next year.

There were 7 routes to climb in a flash format (which means each competitor only got one chance to climb each route). The score was based on the top 3 climbs, with points awarded for progress from hold to hold on each climb. There were 50 climbers, ranging from the Under-11 (and some were well under 11!) to the 18/19 year olds.

I was belaying on climb D, right in the middle of the range of difficulty. As the comp got started, our climb saw some of the stronger climbers, for whom that climb was a warm-up. Later on we got the kids moving over after doing some of the easier climbs, and at the end we had some of the younger kids giving it a try. The older kids were leading, while the younger ones were on top rope, so they kept me pretty busy switching back & forth between the ropes & belay devices between climbers! It was intense! I felt a little pressure when belaying the lead climbers, because I wanted to make sure I fed slack quickly at every clip so as not to impede the progress of a climber and cause a technical to be called (and a few of them went up really quickly!). I think I did OK. There were lots of falls of course, which is different from my usual lead climbing sessions; two of them were pretty exciting, but no one got hurt at all.

I was very impressed by the calibre of the climbers, and by the spirit of the group. The parents were all well-behaved as well! There were large showings from Climber's Rock and Boulderz (snazzy shirts, Andrew!), and climbers from several other gyms, including at least one who came from Quebec for the comp. James and Maria Richardson did a great job hosting the event, Aaron Eden did a fine job as Head Routesetter, and Tim Vince and Jeff Whattam ran a tight ship as head judges.

We will definitely be joining the party by hosting youth comps once our gym is up and running. Seeing the excitement and talent of all those kids, from the tiny ones to the nearly grown-ups, was really inspiring and fun.

Construction Update #1

Work is underway at last! Here is what is going on so far:

• The slab floor has been cut for the plumbing. Guys are digging and pipes are being installed:
• The HVAC work is in progress, with ducts going up:
• The stairway to the upstairs offices has been rotated into its new position. This had to happen to get it out of the way of the entrance doors, which have now been installed. As of today, for the first time we have an enclosed space with doors that can be locked!
• The landlord has started replacing the clerestory windows. The first step in this process is removing the old windows and replacing them with gorgeous plywood sheeting. This does a good job of (temporarily) blocking the natural light. Even better, we have no lighting in the space right now, since the old lights have been taken down and our nice new ones have not yet been installed. We have work lighting to get us through this dark period.
• Eldorado's first truck arrived today and got unloaded. Here we see lots of bags of cement (for the wall texture), and the frames for the wall access doors (to get in behind the wall in a few places) on top. The initial Eldorado crew arrives on Monday to start putting stuff together!