Climbing Tower

Sorry I haven’t written lately.  Alba, my love and camp’s founder, had to be hospitalized again.  After two weeks, however, the good news is that she’s on the improve and should be home before long, perhaps even before our first training day for staff on May 22^nd.

I did start to discuss some of our innovations this year, and in this blog I want to tell you about an exciting new addition to Sewataro for 2010, a climbing tower.  It all started with our campers and the surveys they fill out at the end of the session about things they would like at camp.  The most repeated request was for a climbing wall.

So we started investigating the possibilities in the fall.  By the new year we were committed to making it happen, but wanted to check out as many varieties as possible first hand before deciding.  Christine told us about a climbing tower on the beach at her favorite vacation getaway, Aruba.  In January Mark, Rob, and I went to visit local climbing walls such as those at Lincoln-Sudbury High School and Bosse Sports.  We also trekked to Marblehead to inspect a tower built by the same company as the one Chris saw in Aruba.  And we ventured out to western Massachusetts to see samples at one company’s manufacturing site.  After all this investigation and multiple phone calls to various manufacturers, we decided on a permanent tower instead of a portable wall for both aesthetic reasons and because it more closely resembles the real thing.  Our criteria for our final choice were functionality, beauty, and authenticity. 

Mark scouted the property for just the right spot to locate it and found the perfect place on the hill above volleyball.  It needed some pruning and clearing, so, during their school vacation, our two youngest male Taylors, Cameron and Graham, with one of Graham’s camper friends, Josh, helped in the clearing of the site. 

Because the company that we settled on using is located in Colorado, there were logistic problems, such as getting it here and assembling it.  It arrived in sections about two weeks ago.  After making a concrete platform, Mark tackled the daunting enterprise of putting it together in less than a week with Rob’s skilled and my unskilled assistance.  Believe me, a project of this dimension does not go without challenges, but Mark is a genius of the practical, so all challenges were met and conquered.  Rob, calling on his vast experience in teaching climbing, has guided us in every step of the way, acquired all of the necessary ancillary equipment, and put together a training manual for the camp climbing staff.

We have an inspection of the tower this Friday, and on Saturday experts from Project Adventure are giving an intensive training course for all those involved with the activity. We are all excited as can be by this new adventure, and we are sure you all can’t wait to check it out.  So here are some photos of the process and the result.