The Skeena Climbing Society is currently in the midst of fundraising in order to get an affordable Community Bouldering Wall that can be used year round built.
This wall would be on the smaller side and would not require ropes for people to use it.
One of their board members, Shannon Lawrence also explained a little more about what the Skeena Climbing Society is, for those who might not be familiar with them;
“It’s a group of volunteers that came together to make drop in nights at the Caledonia climbing wall. At the Caledonia High School, there’s a small top rope climbing wall and the board members who started it in 2017, facilitated drop in nights for the public. And they were also introducing climbers and non climbers to some outdoor events as well.”
And as for the fundraising, the Society managed to accrue over $8,000 in donations on GoFundMe for this project and their plan to get the rest of the money is through a BC Amateur Sport Fund, which is makes it possible for the Society to accept larger donation sums, and by going after certain grants.
The plan is for the wall to be held within the Terrace Peaks Gymnastics Club in Thornhill when it’s construction is completed.
Lawrence next mentioned that the creation of this wall has been in the works for quite some time now;
“We’ve had, over the past five years, about four different parties privately approach us, wanting to get some data so that they could open a climbing gym. And we supported them, but then they fell through or they didn’t end up doing their project. We’ve been running those Cal nights and we see that they’re over attended every time we have them. So we see that need cause we’re the in-between with the community. We decided to start looking at real estate and then talk to all of the members of the community that have been helping.”
Although there wasn’t an exact timeframe given on when the wall might be ready once fundraising is finished, it’s anticipated that it won’t take very long to build.