The Climbing Wall Association's blog is a place for indoor climbing professionals to find useful and relevant information from industry and business experts. Stay on top of best practices, thought leadership, and trends by subscribing to our newsletter!
Calgary Climbing Centre Facility Manager Ali Obreiter keeping it real and passing on knowledge as the Head Belayer at Alberta Youth Provincials in March 2022. Photo: Brendan Ward This is Part II of an article series on mentorship. Don't miss the first one! If you’re thinking,... Continue Reading
For most industries, weekly meetings communicate company-wide information, address problems and solutions, and serve as a general staff check-in. For many climbing gyms, since leadership positions are specific, it can be easy to overlook how those roles overlap and how the crossover of... Continue Reading
Ever wondered what routesetters are paid, on average? What about workload expectations, or benefits? These data points are hard to qualify and only become more necessary as the indoor climbing industry marches into the future. Fortunately, the 2022 CWA Summit will feature the hard work of two... Continue Reading
Shards of glass fly everywhere, tiny fragments are strewn across the floor, leaving me scrambling to pick up the pieces. “I told you not to pick up that glass!” I shout in my head, but what comes out of my mouth is more mature. Against my impulses, and despite my rule of not touching... Continue Reading
Photo: Becca Manners Anyone who has held the title General Manager or similar knows that the word "general" can be a blessing and a curse. Middle management is challenged with some of the hardest roles in the industry, catering to those above and supporting those below, balancing to the best of... Continue Reading
Photo credit: Rich Crowder In the more than a decade since the start of the CWA Summit, the event has never been projected to be this large. The event continues to grow over time, much like the indoor climbing industry itself. With that in mind, we highlight a rather topical session at the CWA... Continue Reading
You have grown your youth program, interviewed many coaching candidates, and finally hired new coaches. Instead of throwing them in the fire and hoping they don't get burned, put the same care and attention into your coaches as you do into preparing your climbers. I developed a five-week... Continue Reading
The 2022 CWA Summit starts on May 18, 2022 – which means it’s officially less than three months away. To help you prepare to join us in Salt Lake City, we’re excited to highlight another conference session. In both the Coaching & Training and Program Management tracks,... Continue Reading
Like with any job, performance evaluations are a valuable tool. Assessing how a routesetter is progressing and what they need to work on serves as an opportunity to provide feedback on how the overall routesetting program is running. There are several ways to conduct an evaluation depending on... Continue Reading
Mentorship has a well-established role in the history of climbing. Not surprisingly, it has a key role in the indoor climbing industry as well. Understanding mentorship, and how to utilize it as a training and performance tool, can take your team from ‘epic-ing’ with every challenge,... Continue Reading
We’ve all done it: spoken airily about things that we would like to see or that ought to be. But when it comes to action, we seem to lack the conviction or the earnest desire to implement all that we can imagine. Since the events of spring and summer of 2020—I’m referring to the... Continue Reading
Ground Up Climbing Centre, Squamish, B.C.Photo: Ian Coll A little over an hour north of Vancouver, the mountain community of Squamish is perched below gargantuan peaks of the Canadian Rockies. The town boasts a population of around 21,000 and is an adventure haven. But when Lauren Watson moved... Continue Reading
