Since it's my birthday month and I needed a more regular place to shower, I decided to get a rock gym membership. It has been a couple of years since I have been climbing regularly and though my favorite climbing buddy currently lives in Astoria, I decided it would be a fun way to get exercise and focus on a skill to reduce the stresses of tiny house building, work, etc. The gym I go to has a bouldering area and a rope area with top ropes, lead climbing and auto belays. The auto belays enable you to belay yourself while climbing via a mechanism at the top so you don't need to have a partner. They are pretty great except for not having the ability of more abruptly catching and stopping you if you fall so it is more difficult to get back on the wall when that happens. In the few weeks of climbing almost every other day, I have been able to go from a 5.7 to 5.10- which is the highest level I was able to climb previously. One of my current favorite routes is a 5.10- called "push it real good" which involves stemming and mantling up the wall, really fun!
Naturally, I decided that I should install some rock holds in my tiny house. I needed something to hold onto while climbing up and going down my loft ladder as well as something other than a ladder to open up the window above the door. So I went to a local outdoor store and scored some used holds. In this process, I learned that holds get anchored in two different ways: T-nuts with bolts or screws. Smaller holds are screwed in from the face of the wall and larger holds typically require T-nuts which must be installed in drilled out holes before the wall panel goes up. I bought larger holds so I could use them with more ease without climbing shoes. Unfortunately, I had installed my wall panels months ago and was not going to take them down to get access for the T-nut installation. So I decided to get some beefy lag screws and use them in place of the bolts. The downside of this technique is that I cannot easily tighten the screws over time like you can with the bolt system so I will either have to get longer screws or move the holds to new locations. I also might be able to drill holes and add secondary screws to add more structural strength. All of the holds are currently screwed into studs so we will see how they hold up over time!
