Groundspeak Portal

This was mentioned in another thread, but I thought is was deserving of its own Category due to it being unique in its own right and unrelated to the previous Category proposal in many ways.  I've created a separate Group for anyone that it interested: The Belay Slaves

This has been on my wish list of Categories for some time, but never got around to submitting it.  The types of things that I'd be looking for in a submission would be....

1. Indoor Climbing Gym. One example near where I live would be Sanctuary Rock Gym

I hosted an Event there a few years ago.  Even got to belay, our then Volunteer Geocache Reviewer (...."Hey, you remember that Listing of mine you Archived.....;)   )



2. Outdoor Climbing Walls.  An example of this would be climbing walls at "Adventure Centers" such as this one at Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort:



What I'm NOT looking for is....

1. Small climbing walls attached to children's play structures such as this:



2. Temporary climbing walls like what you might see at a County/State Fair.

In general, I'd like submissions that are tall enough and scary enough to require a belay.  Comments and/or suggestions always appreciated.

TIA,
Mike
aka Touchstone

Nice idea.  You need to think about criteria for the waymark - if it's indoor does the wamarker have to go inside or will the outside of the building do?

The reason I ask is that I know the location of one of these, inside an old church.  However, I've never been inside, and it's often closed when I'm there.

Edit:  This is the one I'm referring to: http://www.manchesterclimbingcentre.com/index.htm

Since I think I'm the one who mentioned it, I think it is a great idea.   A lot of these are indoors, so you have to take that into consideration.  Some may be on campuses, etc.

You might want to make a miminim height to provide an objective way to weed-out kids playscapes.  I'm not at all into this sport, so I don't know what might be good variables.  It'll take some reasearch or someone who is familiar with these.  But, I thinkl it could be an informative category.

Like many of the commercial sort of Categories out there, I think that outside coordinates would be sufficient.  The Church in Manchester is well known and perhaps one of the oldest indoor climbing gyms in the U.S.  That would be a perfect submission IMO.

You might want to make a miminim height to provide an objective way to weed-out kids playscapes.

Great suggestion.

I'm not a huge fan of the "death by variables" type Categories, so I usually stick to very basic ones like addresses and "how did you like it" type things, and in nearly all the Categories that I manage I prefer making them optional.

Although my wife and I have over 30 years of climbing experience, I don't presume to be an expert on these things, but I could see the following Variables as being helpful:

1. Address

2.  Cost (if any)

3. Square Footage of Wall Space (if known....usually gleened from the website for the gym)

 

 

More possible variables:

Hours open.
Wall height.
Equipment rental available?
Belay staff available?
Classes available?
Membership required?

At my University's gym, you have to be a student or faculty member or pay for a community member membership to the "Rec Center" to gain access to the wall.  Once you've done that you must pay to use the harnesses/shoes and pay to be belayed.  Or you can bring your own equipment, pay to take the belay test, get the tag that says you've passed and then do it whenever you want...as long as it's within the climbing wall's operating hours, which are different from the building's operating hours. 

So I think hours and equipment availability are important too.

touchstone:

Like many of the commercial sort of Categories out there, I think that outside coordinates would be sufficient.  The Church in Manchester is well known and perhaps one of the oldest indoor climbing gyms in the U.S.  That would be a perfect submission IMO.

You might want to make a miminim height to provide an objective way to weed-out kids playscapes.

Great suggestion.

I'm not a huge fan of the "death by variables" type Categories, so I usually stick to very basic ones like addresses and "how did you like it" type things, and in nearly all the Categories that I manage I prefer making them optional.

Although my wife and I have over 30 years of climbing experience, I don't presume to be an expert on these things, but I could see the following Variables as being helpful:

1. Address

2.  Cost (if any)

3. Square Footage of Wall Space (if known....usually gleened from the website for the gym)

 

 

Please consider omitting or at the least making 'address' an optional variable. This is a GPS based game after all. While I get that this isn't geocaching, the GPS component should be the unifying aspect.

While I concur that most Waymarks can be located simply from Google Maps, let's not bypass technology all together.

BQ

silverquill:

Since I think I'm the one who mentioned it, I think it is a great idea.   A lot of these are indoors, so you have to take that into consideration.  Some may be on campuses, etc.

You might want to make a miminim height to provide an objective way to weed-out kids playscapes.  I'm not at all into this sport, so I don't know what might be good variables.  It'll take some reasearch or someone who is familiar with these.  But, I thinkl it could be an informative category.

First, I think this is a great category idea. I used to have a lot of fun on these, and I know of a couple I could waymark.

Second, I don't think the indoor/outdoor thing really matters. What is being sought after is a permanent climbing wall, but not of the playground variety. I think SQ's idea of a height requirement would work perfectly. Say 15 feet/5 meters?

Bump..

Forgot to Open Enrollment on the Group....nooby error :P

The Belay Slaves

Thanks, and no prior experience required :)

Mike
aka Touchstone

Category passed Peer Review and is up:

Artificial Climbing Walls

Thanks to all the voted and especially for the comments.

A couple comments on the "playground equipment" question, which I thought was implied in the height requirement.  Nonetheless, stated it explicitly in the final version.

One suggestion on some html issues in the Instructions for Posting field that I couldn't get hammered out, so I moved the relevant portion up into the Description area where html seems to be acceptable

In addition there was also a couple of questions about shipboard climbing walls on cruise lines.  I hadn't considered that before, but I guess my inclination would be to include it, but was wondering if anyone has ideas on how your would base something that moves in a static coordinate system like Waymarking?

touchstone:

In addition there was also a couple of questions about shipboard climbing walls on cruise lines.  I hadn't considered that before, but I guess my inclination would be to include it, but was wondering if anyone has ideas on how your would base something that moves in a static coordinate system like Waymarking?

Congratulations!

I wouldn't include things on boats, trains, planes or other whathaveyous that are not static.

Redneck Parrotheads:

touchstone:

In addition there was also a couple of questions about shipboard climbing walls on cruise lines.  I hadn't considered that before, but I guess my inclination would be to include it, but was wondering if anyone has ideas on how your would base something that moves in a static coordinate system like Waymarking?

Congratulations!

I wouldn't include things on boats, trains, planes or other whathaveyous that are not static.

I agree I would not include any non-static ones.  What coordinates would a person use for those climbing walls... could get them out in the ocean if that happens to be when a person decided to waymark it.  I consider these in the same category as other excluded temporary climbing walls, they are only temporary in a given location, the fact the return to a port every week or two is the same as a climbing wall at a fair only more frequent.

BruceS:

Redneck Parrotheads:

touchstone:

In addition there was also a couple of questions about shipboard climbing walls on cruise lines.  I hadn't considered that before, but I guess my inclination would be to include it, but was wondering if anyone has ideas on how your would base something that moves in a static coordinate system like Waymarking?

Congratulations!

I wouldn't include things on boats, trains, planes or other whathaveyous that are not static.

I agree I would not include any non-static ones.  What coordinates would a person use for those climbing walls... could get them out in the ocean if that happens to be when a person decided to waymark it.  I consider these in the same category as other excluded temporary climbing walls, they are only temporary in a given location, the fact the return to a port every week or two is the same as a climbing wall at a fair only more frequent.

 

Taking a seat on this band wagon.  There is no 'need' to include these.

BQ

the blue quasar:

Taking a seat on this band wagon.  There is no 'need' to include these.

BQ

I'll beat the drum and add an agreement to the previous comments.

Good suggestions.  Updated the Description to exclude Cruise Line Climbing Walls.