Because … It’s There Wild Walls Climbing Gym Will Put Climbers To The Test In Vertical Competition

Back in 1965, when the Beatles were filming “Help!” and The Who were singing about their g-g-generation, another group of innovative young Brits were building the world’s first indoor climbing wall at Leeds University.

Nowadays, of course, the British Rock Invasion sounds like ancient history.

But the British Rock-climbing Invasion is just finally sweeping America, and Spokane, for a change, is on the leading edge of a trend.

More than 200 commercial walls have been built in the United States in recent years, and one of the biggest - Wild Walls - is located in the old Armory Building at 202 W. Second.

On Oct. 28, Wild Walls and Mountain Gear will co-sponsor the first Spokane Vertical Festival, an all-day climbing competition that’s attracting entries from as far away as Eugene, Ore., and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Experts can earn points toward their American Sport Climbing Federation rating, while beginner and intermediate climbers of all ages compete for prizes, bragging rights and personal challenge. Spectators are welcome to watch from the gym’s second-story wraparound mezzanine.

Wild Walls isn’t the area’s first climbing facility. Eastern Washington University built an outdoor practice wall back in the early ‘70s, and Mountain Gear, 2002 N. Division, opened Spokane’s first commercial climbing wall in 1989. Earlier this year, REI erected two 28-foot-high stonelike climbing columns in its store at 1125 N. Monroe.

What distinguishes Wild Walls, though, is its radical geometry and massive size. Constructed of 16 tons of steel and 275 sheets of plywood, the 40-foot-high structure resembles two glacier-etched peaks turned upside down and connected at the top.

The surface is covered with assorted hand and foot holds strategically placed to make a climb easy (rated W-1) to nearly impossible (W-5).

Because it’s free-standing, the wall can comfortably accommodate 20 climbers at once, with another eight or more traversing the “boulder cave,” an area where climbers practice moves without tying into rope and harness.

Wild Walls evolved out of a collaboration between two local climbing buddies, retailer Timon Behan and emergency room physician Bill Lockwood.

Aware of America’s rising interest in rock climbing - participation has doubled in the past five years to an estimated 600,000 today - Lockwood and Behan figured Spokane, already a hotbed of “rock jocks” and “hang dogs,” was an ideal market for a serious indoor wall.

But they had to think big. “If we’d built a standard plywood wall in a warehouse somewhere, in two years someone else would have come along and built this,” Lockwood says.

Christian Griffith of Boulder, Colo., designed the wall, and a team from San Diego cut and welded the internal steel frame. More than 100 local volunteers then spent several thousand hours drilling 16,000 holes in the 5/8-inch steel and attaching the plywood skin.

The wall is so overengineered, Behan says, “If Spokane ever has a number-seven earthquake, this will be the only thing left standing.”

That doesn’t mean climbers don’t need to take precautions. Safety is top priority at Wild Walls, as it is throughout the sport climbing world. (The British Orthopaedic Association reported in 1993 that wall climbing had a better safety record than squash and soccer.)

“Sprained ankles and wrists are about the worst that can happen,” says Lockwood, “and even those are rare.”

“But we emphasize this sport is not without risk,” Behan says. “It’s dangerous. That’s why you have to learn how to use your rope and other equipment. Someone can get hurt, especially if they don’t finish their knot or (their anchor partner) lets go of their brake hand.”

Wild Walls offers a two-hour introductory course ($30) several times a week, and all climbers must pass a “belay” check ($5) before they’re allowed to anchor another climber.

A basic package of climbing gear - shoes, harness, belay device and lock-in carabiner - sells in Wild Wall’s pro shop for $150, or can be rented for $8. Climb time is sold by the day ($9), month ($55) or year ($390). Hours are noon to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday.

Naturally, some traditional rock climbers scoff at the notion of scaling synthetic cliffs where the person tied to the next rope might be a novice. But Lockwood insists there’s much to recommend the sport, not the least of which is convenience.

“It’s a lot easier to get strong in here than outdoors,” he says. “If you go to Minnehaha (a popular climbing spot on Upriver Drive), it takes three hours to do two climbs. You spend all your time getting there, setting up a climb, doing it, taking it down, moving it to another area, setting that up, doing it, taking it down. If you come in here, in an hour and a half your fingers are so tired you can’t write.

“And the finesse and the meditative aspect of climbing are probably greater here than outdoors,” Lockwood says, “because you’re not having to worry about whether your (hardware) is going to pull out or you’re going to get stuck in a rainstorm. You focus totally on your technique.”

With dozens of routes of various difficulty to choose from, climbers can push themselves as much or as little as they wish. (To avoid arguments among the most serious climbers, Lockwood and Behan decided against using one of the more precise standard methods of rating routes. Instead, they stick with an easy-to-understand W-1 through W-5 system. Routes for the Oct. 28 competition were set by Mike Pont, a nationally recognized climber.)

What’s clear here and elsewhere is that wall-climbing gyms have made what once was an elite sport accessible to almost everyone. While most climbers are in the 13-to-24 age range, people as young as 4 and as old as 67 have reached the top of Wild Walls since it opened six months ago.

About two-thirds of the climbers are male, “but women generally climb faster and better than men,” Behan says, “because they trust their feet more - they don’t grip the wall and hang like monkeys until they’re so tired they have to let go.”

Regardless of gender or g-g-generation, those who take on Wild Walls have something in common, the owners say: a desire for personal challenge … not so much to discover what’s at the top of this indoor mountain as to discover what’s inside themselves.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CLIMBING FEST The Spokane Vertical Festival will be Oct. 28 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at Wild Walls, 202 W. Second. Advanced and open competition finals begin at 6 p.m.