Weekend Project: Climbing Wall for the Bowflex

My toddler-aged son has loved the climbing walls at various playgrounds around Seattle this summer. With the start of the rain, which should stop sometime in April, the playgrounds have been a little wet and cold. I wanted to encourage this new love since it combines physical and metal challenges and came up with the idea of building an indoor climbing wall. I did not want to get too over the top with bolting boards to my new refinished basement.

Instead, I thought that attaching a 3/4″ plywood board to the Bowflex might be a better bet. A little online research led me to some great instructions at Three Ball Climbing. REI had a very reasonable set of bolt-on chips by Metolius. It turned into a great father/son project. The only thing better was the boy getting all the way up to the top within the first ten or so tries.