Roped Climbing Walls

If you have a larger budget and staff with the relevant climbing related expertise and training, then a roped climbing wall is well worth considering. If you don't have staff with any climbing qualifications then Beacon can also provide a range of Training Courses to help you make best use of your climbing wall.

Beacon Climbing Walls specialise in the design and construction of innovative plywood climbing walls with styles varying from relatively flat panelled walls (perhaps with a few plywood volumes for added interest) to highly multifaceted plywood designs with a huge variety of climbing angles. Beacon has extensive experience working with schools and educational facilities and can design a modern, versatile wall to suit any requirements.

Roped Wall Pros

Children get to climb high.
Activity is more exciting.
Develops confidence & trust.
Opportunity to participate in NICAS*.

Roped Wall Cons

Supervision needs to be by trained staff.
Specialist equipment necessary.
More expensive than traverse walls.
Structural calculations will be necessary.

* NICAS (the National Indoor Climbing Achievement Scheme) was introduced in 2008 as a nationally recognised climbing proficiency scheme with 5 levels and the scheme is perfect for school walls with roped climbing facilities. For further information, check out the NICAS section on the Beacon Climbing Centre website.

Case Sudy: Argoed High School

Due to space limitatins, it is not always possible to construct a climbing wall in a dedicated area and Beacon Climbing Walls provided Argoed High School in Flintshire with a successful solution by designing and constructing a climbing wall that attached to the end wall of the existing school sports hall.

The design specification included creating a reasonably multi-faceted plywood climbing wall with plenty of interesting angle changes and some small overhangs, but the climbing wall could not impinge upon the area used for playing ball sports.

For this reason we kept the first 2m of the climbing wall completely vertical to remain flush to the sports hall wall and then packed in as much interest above this as possible with angle changes and overhanging structures.

At a later date we also retro fitted our hinged mats to protect users of the sports hall running into the climbing wall. These hinged mats feature 90mm thick foam in a heavy duty tarpaulin cover and gives good ankle protection for climbers when folded down. Folded up, the hinged climbing wall mats protect non-climbers running into the wall and also deter unauthorised use of the climbing wall.

See the Roped Climbing Walls section of the Beacon Climbing Walls website for further case studies.