World Class Climbing Centre For Wellington

Project 2017-01-17 11:43:35 +1300

"I don't want to build a Boulder Gym,

    I want to build a world class climbing experience!"

"Business worthy" is a poor goal for a climbing gym. It restricts the holds you buy, limits the shapes that you climb on, lowers the quality of climbing to the highest bidder... kids birthday parties.

Its time Wellington had superior climbing...

 Its time Wellington had world class routes...

We want a facility that is better than "Business Worthy"...

It's time for beautiful climbing ..

And that is happening....now!

The lease has been signed...

The structural engineers have finished the designs...

 

 One more hurdle, building consent, and its ALL ON.

 

 

 

 

 

"I don't want to climb in a bouldering gym,

I want to have a world class climbing experience!"

Pledge today to experience world class.

 

 

 

 

Is this project just for boulderers? No!

The changes that we can make will improve all levels of climbing. When we get enough pledges to complete all the stages listed below, we will have:

• More leadable walls
• More top ropes
• Over 1000 new and unique holds spread over all the routes
• Large volumes on all the routes
• Less congestion for both ropes and boulders

Higher quality climbing on every wall at HangDog!

The boulder wall designs

The climbing community demanded clean, straight walls....so that is what we have designed. There will be plenty of room for extremely large volumes to add shape, dimension, and endless variation.

Check out the 3D video fly through here.

How good will it be?

That's up to you. Brook (the owner of HangDog) is putting in all his effort and money to build the Business worthy gym. But we want more. With your help we can bring it up to world class level.

Pads

This project will have seamless wall to wall padding to ensure no sprains or falls missing the pads. In fact, it'll have 144 square meters of padding.

We have two options for padding:

1) Minimum "business worthy" padding that is about 34cm thick for about $50,000 (no typo here)

OR

2) Something that you won't hurt yourself on. We have several designs and need to do more fall testing. Here is one proposal:

Let's raise $15,000

for some incredible padding

Each extra centimetre of regular foam costs $1000 for the 144sqm. So if we want 45cm of "world class" padding, it will cost an extra $15,000 above the uninspiring "Business Worthy" padding. Note: the blue crash pad in the picture above has 60cm of padding.

World Class Holds

To build a gym of the calibre that you want, we'll need a shit-ton of Holds. We are going to order holds from America (Teknik) and from Europe (Euro-Holds).

We'll order a total of about 1000 holds from the two suppliers. But the business will intentionally miss a large category of holds...the large ones.

This beautiful sloper from Psycho Art (Euro-Holds) is $120. It is lovely hand candies like these that a "Business Worthy" gym doesn't have.

Check out these blissful slopers from Teknik. A mere $312.

 Imagine if we each pledged for one giant hold and then shared it with eveyone else.

Our routes would be absolutely amazing.

You can choose what holds we order

When you pledge today, you can choose which Candy you want to buy. We'll be getting all the little ones anyway, you just need to focus on the big beasties that you really want.

Check out the holds from Euro-Holds (which includes Rockodromo, Daiholds, Psycho Art holds, Hito, and Levier)

http://www.psycoartholds.com/gb/

Also check out the holds from Teknik. The website isn't as flash but the reviews all say that Teknik holds are superb.

https://www.teknikhandholds.com/collections/all

Set your own route - When you pledge today, and choose to spend it on holds, then you will be able to set the first boulder route using those holds during one of our setting parties.

For more info check out HangDog's hold page

Better big wall routes

Two problems

1) The concrete on the pillar has a couple of good "natural" routes on it. And once you've finished them you never climb the wall again.

2) Hangdog does not currently have a wide continuous vertical wall.

One solution

So we are going to improve the quality of big wall routes by stripping the concrete off and replacing it with ply. With clean, straight ply we'll be able to set some excellent technical routes on the vertical face. Plus we'll be able to allow lead climbing on these walls.

When you pledge for concrete today, you'll be pledging for better lead climbing for all.

Improving The Tree

The wall known as The Tree is above Da Cave. The pillars on either side of the cave are notoriously hard to set on because of the concrete. We are going to put plywood over the front of Da Cave (remember you've got a bigger better one in the new area). This plywood will mean that we can have better starts to our routes on The Tree.

We are also going to cut off the right angle box at the top of Tree Left meaning safer and more fun Lead Climbing.

Have you ever not been able to see the colour of a hold?

If you choose to pledge for paint today, we'll paint all the walls, including the big roped ones, mostly white with a few elegant splashes of colour.

You'll never be stuck because you can't see the little camouflaged footer.

Lead and Top Rope Training area

Would you feel better knowing that your belayer had practiced catching someone falling onto first clip before?

After you pledge today, we will turn the south wall in the big boulder room (yellow and red) into a roped training wall that will allow lead climbers to safely practice first and second lead falls.

If the belayer has a bit much slack, then the climber will descend into comfortable pads...instead of comfort-less concrete. Hopefully the pads will be thicker than 34cm ;)

Much Beloved Birthday Parties

As you *may* have noticed we have a few birthday parties on the weekends.

WorkSafe has a system for dealing with hazards like these: Eliminate them, or if you cant, then isolate them, or if you can't, then minimise them.

Unfortunately these parties and other groups generate more money than the members do, so we can't Eliminate them.

So far at HangDog we've been attempting to Minimise them with careful instruction...but we often fail.

But now, after your pledge, we will be able to Isolate them. We'll be able to shove them into the Big Boulder room for belay practice and to learn about bouldering.

This leaves you smiling as you climb on the big walls or in the new Boulder Gym.

Pledge today for your own personal space and smile ;)

Preparation for outdoors

In the big boulder room, we'll set up double bolt belays at the top of each mini-lead climb. You'll be able to practice abseiling in preparation for outdoors.

If you mess up, you'll descend into the super thick bouldering pads from only 5m high.

You'll also be able to practice "seconding" someone up from below for multi pitch practice. This will be great for outdoor courses like the NZAC Summer Rock. 

Parties, Riots, and Competitions

Having the new Boulder area will enable us to host many more competitions and parties. The first party will be the "Near-Opening" party. When you pledge $250 or more and get your name on the sponsor board, you'll also receive a free ticket to the "Near-Opening" party.

Pledge today and add a Seed Song

When you pledge today, you'll be able to put your mark on HangDog by adding a "seed" song to the HangDog radio station.

We will quality control the music, e.g. Slayer and Justin Beiber wont be allowed :)

Can I split my pledge up?

We can do that. Just send an email to [email protected] with your suggestions of how you'd like it spent.

After pledging, the most important thing you can do is SHARE this on Facebook. If you want this gym to be world class we need to get everyone on board. Share this now to climb at the level you deserve..

"You don't want to climb in a bouldering gym,

you want to have a world class climbing experience!"

Pledge today to experience world class.

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