How to place or position climbing holds on our wall?

How to place climbing holds?

The positioning of climbing holds on the wall can be divided into two systems: structured or random.

Structured positioning of climbing holds

On climbing walls with structured or grid-like arrangement, the attachment points are at specific and even distances from each other, so they are equally spaced. It is important that the wall has the symmetrical and even arrangement of the attachment points.

To construct such a wall, we first draw horizontal lines with distances of 30 cm from each other on the surface. We start by drilling the first hole at the end of the line, now follow the horizontal line and drill holes every 30 cm so that they later form a straight line. In the next horizontal line, we repeat the process but start with the first hole at 15 cm from the end of the line. This way, the attachment points are later arranged offset to one another and the desired structure is created when we now drill holes alternately once at the end of the line and once with 15 cm offset.

The dimensions given above are guidelines that can individually modified depending on the desired density of the holds.

Climbing walls with structured positioned holds look very organised and are therefore visually pleasant. Usually, they are used on climbing walls where the aesthetic aspect is more important than the functional (e.g. in public places, schools, communal spaces etc.). However, their functionality is lower because the holds always must be placed at equal distances from each other (or a multiple distance thereof), which makes the activity more monotonous.

Random arrangement of climbing holds

For the random arrangement of the climbing holds, there are no dimensional specifications for the holds, but that does not mean that we cannot arrange them evenly on the wall.

The simplest way is to divide the panel into 1x1 metre squares, into which the holds are then drilled randomly. The most common density is between 6 and 8 holds per square metre (which means between 6 and 8 holes in each square of our wall).

Once the holds are placed, the remaining holes are filled with XXS-footholds to create more climbing opportunities on the wall.

We recommend calculating only half a metre of height for the lowest square and to fill them with 3 to 5 XS-footholds. This way, the costs for the climbing holds can be reduced and due to their low position will only be used as footholds and not as handholds anyway.

Due to the random arrangement, the wall is more similar to natural rocks, where the distances between the holds neither follow a structure and ordered scheme. This can make climbing more varied and strengthen the climbers´ perception of movement.