Feeling boulder?

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This article was published 21/08/2020 (2151 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg’s climbing community is getting their first bouldering-only facility and its opening Sunday.

The Hive has three locations in B.C. and was looking to expand into Winnipeg and Kori Cuthbert, was actively looking to open up his own climbing gym.

“I was looking into opening up a climbing gym in the city for a while,” said Cuthbert, managing partner with The Hive in Winnipeg.

“I used to work at the University of Manitoba, managing their facilities for the past five years, for the climbing wall anyways. During that time, I always envisioned and wanted a bigger, better climbing community in Winnipeg.”

The new facility at 7-960 Lorimer Blvd. is 12,000-square-feet with close to 5,000-square-feet of bouldering walls.

Cuthbert was travelling with the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides for work and was visiting gyms in Vancouver Island, Canmore, Toronto and Winnipeg. Then, his sister mentioned she climbed at The Hive in Vancouver and told him to reach out to them. He reached out and partnered with Andrew Coffey, owner of The Hive, who said he was looking to expand into Winnipeg.

“It brings a very modern concept of climbing,” said Cuthbert. “You don’t necessarily need any rope, harnesses or any knowledge — it’s a very easy entry level, it limits barriers that way. The other thing with it as well too, is it makes it easier to have that social community and for people to kind of hang out.”

Cuthbert added there’s a need for more climbing businesses in the city.

“Prior to us opening, the University of Manitoba and Vertical Adventures is kind of the primary places to climb… there’s no place where it’s dedicated climbing only in the south end of the city and it’s a more modern aspect, too,” he said.

The Hive will be offering youth programming as well, and information will be updated on The Hive’s social media accounts, website and newsletter.

COVID-19 delayed construction of the bouldering facility, because they had supplies coming from Quebec and everything was locked down during the pandemic. He added there will be additional health and safety measures taken throughout the day-to-day operations once they open their doors to the public.

The Hive is restricting capacity to a booking-based system, which is what the province is recommending for most fitness centres, said Cuthbert.

“We’re doing 30 people per hour to start, our reduced capacity due to the pandemic recommendations is 125 and we’ll probably be operating closer to 60 to start anyways and see how the traffic flow goes from there.”

Cuthbert said customers will also be required to wash their hands when they arrive, wear a mask and use liquid chalk for climbing.

“Liquid chalk is an alcohol-based product. It’s a drying agent and because it’s alcohol based it has some sanitizing properties to it as well,” he said. “As you climb, you sweat. Liquid chalk keeps your hands dry so that you’re a little easier to grip on things that way.”

kellen.taniguchi@freepress.mb.ca