Arthur is the guy behind Route, a free app to help you train better and keep your home wall fresh with new routes. Be sure to check it out if you’ve got a climbing wall at home or are thinking about building one – lots of fun route ideas and helpful content (like how to score cheap climbing holds).
Here Arthur talks about how to build a home climbing wall, balancing climbing/work/life, and running a proud Minnesota climbing company.
Favorite MN climbing area?
This is actually a hard one. I probably have to go with Taylor’s Falls (Interstate Park). I know there is better bouldering elsewhere with more problems, but Taylor’s Falls is where I learned to climb (I’m sorry to all the other climbers at T.F. in the summers of 1996-97). Going there is going back home, and it’s hard to beat T.F. on a perfect fall day with no bugs.
Favorite style of climbing?
Bouldering – I love the simplicity of solving a problem with just minimal gear, and it’s a style I can do with my family.
How’d you end up making a route sharing app?
After a break from climbing (college, kids, career, etc.) I found myself in the most stressful (and unhappiest) job of my life, on the suggestion of my incredibly supportive wife I got back into climbing as a way to relieve some stress. Around this time my sons (I have 3 sons) and I embarked on building a treehouse, and quickly the idea of a climbing wall was added to the plan. We ended up building a 0º – 8’x13’ wall. We got a couple boxes of seconds from Escape and some holds donated from my brother in-law. We struggled with setting the wall, learning how to use the holds, avoiding setting ladders, and ensuring there were enough climbing possibilities for everyone. I turned to Instagram to find routes, and I noticed other people (and gyms) were posting routes they had made and started emulating them. This is where the idea came from. After a bit I realized it’s not that hard to translate a route to another wall with similar holds.
So what is Route?
At its simplest Route is an app and community for people who climb and train on home walls. Climbers can browse and post their own routes to the app. All it takes is a photo of the route and a route map (details here, it’s easy), along with details about their wall.
There are of course other features that let you browse by tags or grades, save projects, post send videos, remix routes you like, and soon you will be able to have members of your wall so a group that shares a wall can more easily see each other’s routes and progress.
What do you do for your day job? How does your job influence your route setting/climbing life (or does it)?
In my day job I am a UI/UX designer. I work with a team of product people and engineers to figure out how a product should work and a design how it can be used. This can be an interface for an app or something less tangible like a new way to shop. I see route setting as just another form of design. You are creating a route for a climber to achieve a specific goal; this can be a grade, a specific move, or just pure enjoyment.
I think there are a lot of designers that climb because it activates that same part of your brain. It’s a series of problems to solve, and even though you use the same tools, the solution is different every time. You solve a climbing problem the same way you solve a design problem: iteration.
What would you say to someone thinking about building a home climbing wall? Any advice?
I have a few pieces of advice.
- Build the wall at an angle, vertical is good if you can go tall, but you’ll get more mileage out of an angled wall. And if you’re building more than one wall don’t forget about slab.
- Make sure you have access to the back of the wall, you’re going to need to get back there, you will have spinners and stuck bolts.
- Screw in t-nuts are better then pound-ins and are worth every penny, Escape industrial t-nuts are the good stuff. If you already bought pound-ins, get a pack of screws-ins and when you get the inevitable spinner, you’ll be ready to replace it with a screw-in.
- Don’t skimp on materials. I know we’re all on a budget, but the difference between saving money on undersized lumber or OSB instead of plywood is not really that much and having a shaky, dangerous wall is not worth it.
- This one came from Dr. Z from Climbing Hold News Review. Don’t forget about padding! It’s expensive, but a ER visit is more expensive. Make sure you at least have enough crash pads to cover the area, and combining it with some thicker gym padding underneath is a good way to get some increased safety.
Any tricks for keeping cost down on a home wall?
My biggest tip is spend the money up front to do it right. Make sure it’s big enough for what you need, built strong, and safe. The biggest waste of money is a wall you are not going to use. After construction the biggest expense is holds. I recommend boxes of seconds and mystery boxes to start out with. When ordering specify what you need, steeper walls need more positive holds, and many companies will do their best to accommodate this. More info on hold ordering here and here. The last is DIY with your scraps. Extra plywood can be made into volumes (you’re going to want volumes) or laminated and turned into holds. Same goes for the lumber cut offs – jugs and foot chips are pretty easy to make if you are just looking to fill out your wall.
How do you balance work/climbing/climbing company/family? Any words of wisdom?
Not sure if it’s balancing or juggling, I am definitely overstretched. I am lucky enough to be in a position where I have a flexible job I enjoy, and some time for freelance (where I do extra app stuff). I balance these as much as possible with family and climbing, and the home walls help with this. I don’t need to go to a gym every time I want to train (I go to MBP at least 1x/week), but also can more easily be involved with my family.
Sometimes it feels like putting out fires, but at this point I’ve learned 2 things that help. First when it starts to feel like there are fires popping up, taking an hour to do a survey of everything in progress helps tame not just the work, but the stress that comes along with it. The second is a cliché but true – sleep is important. Years of being a designer and freelancer have taught me the value of sleep. It’s hard to put stuff down and go to bed, but almost always you get that work done better and quicker the next morning. Also, the crazy thing is, this applies to climbing too. Sleep helps cement your muscle memory, and that is why you can often send a route (or a portion of a route) that you couldn’t the day before.
You’re often sharing cool photos of your kids climbing. How is climbing as a family? Any things you’ve learned about introducing kids to rock climbing?
First we only do bouldering. We will get to top roping and lead as they get older and can get proper instruction (I DO NOT want them learning the way I did). That being said I climb with my family a lot. It’s alway an adventure, and we have picked up a few pointers over the years. First is don’t push (until you have to) – kids will climb naturally, even kids that are scared of heights will start climbing. We started with our outdoor climbing wall, and at first the kids would just climb halfway, but within a few weeks as they became better and more comfortable they would go to the top. Occasionally you need to push/encourage them to go a bit out of their comfort zone, but that is definitely kid/parent specific.
The other major part is preparation. There is no impromptu trip with kids. Get all the gear together the night before, or someone will be looking for their chalk bag 10 minutes before you leave (it doesn’t matter if they need the bag or not). Also, at least for us, bringing reading/drawing materials is a must, one kid will decide they are done for a bit, that’s fine they can read.
Lastly make sure the kids have some ownership of it. Try to get them to pick out some routes, have them pack their own gear, or haul a pad. And always bring a garbage bag/gloves/grabber. It’s never too early to teach “Leave No Trace.”
Why Minnesota? Why Minnesota climbing?
I’ve lived in MN for most of my life, I grew up here, I love the place. It’s hard to find a combination of quality of life, (schools, jobs, commute,etc.) balanced with incredible outdoor spaces so close to home. That is the obvious stock answer, but it’s true.
What I love about MN climbing is the awesome homegrown scrappy nature of our climbing scene. How many other areas with no “real” mountains have produced Olympic and world class climbers, and tons of successful climbing companies? We have an awesome special scene that is shown not just through skill, but through kindness and support.
Be sure to check out Route App here…