Extreme Makeover - Backyard Edition

The weather has been surprisingly uncooperative lately. But I have been outside a little lately - a day bouldering at Oak Flats, some time up at Sun Spots and a little bit of bushwhacking and exploring for new boulders. And making lots of enemies in the world of internet ethics police - wheres my pad???

The most exciting thing lately has been the construction of a small woodie in our backyard. I've been contemplating this idea for a while, but usually get bogged down in the planning process when I remember that I have no carpentry skills. This time when I started mulling over the idea, I forced myself into committing to the project by running to Home Depot and buying a bunch of wood. HAHA, take that common sense! You won't win this time!

With the limited space in the backyard, I'm decided to build an 8'x8' main wall, with a 2' kicker at the base (a short vertical wall for starting with your feet). The wall will overhang about 35 degrees, steep enough to be hard, but not so steep that every hold has to be a jug. Eventually I hope to enclose the sides in with two vertical walls for the kids, but that will be a little later.

So far the kicker is complete, t-nuts and all. The main wall is framed, and ready to be mounted. Hopefully I'll have some friends swing by tomorrow and help with the heavy lifting involved in that step. Then once Kerry gets the plywood painted, we can mount that up and start setting! I've got some holds coming from Contact Climbing, a local company that makes excellent holds. I would have bought from them just to support the local guys, but fortunately they really do make some of the best holds on the market. I also got a couple good deals on ebay for a few more holds, so by next week I should have 60+ holds ready for action.

At this point I figure I will be getting stronger one of two ways: 1) climb on the wall a lot, get stronger, or, 2) lose a finger in sawing a 2x4 and gain superhuman powers like Tommy Caldwell. Win-win!