Route Setting - Level 1 Course (Bouldering)

Indoors all day today at The Beacon Climbing Centre near Llanberis. I've been on a course to become 'qualified' as a route setter for boulder problems in a climbing wall. Having been doing this independently for many years, I was surprised to find out that a 'Route Setter Association' had recently been formed and a qualification devised. I was slightly sceptical about such a thing, but decided that I probably ought to go along to see if I'd been doing things right all these years! The course lasted one day and started off with a morning of theory to (literally) cover the nuts and bolts of it all...

Then it was into the cavernous stores to select our equipment and holds of choice...

 

Then sort out what types of routes required what types of holds...

 

Then getting to it! We had a whole blank section of wall each with which to create some bouldering problems (or 'blocs' to the route setting types!). It might seem like an obviously easy task, just drilling some hand holds onto a wall, but there is actually quite a lot to consider. The movements, the users, the features, how it starts and finishes etc etc... all have to be considered to make the route fun, enjoyable and challenging at the same time. I think the main thing that I'll take away was how to up the efficiency of work - I'm much faster now than previously after a few top tips.