CWA Blog Archive-How Do You Decide What Colors To Set Your Walls

How Do You Decide What Colors To Set Your Walls

Pdf Summary

This article uses the deceptively simple question of wall color to argue for standardizing routesetting where possible. It opens by establishing routesetting's centrality: it's the product that ultimately pays most of the bills, and regardless of your role, it all comes back to how climbers grab the grips. Every time a setter puts screwdriver to bolt to plastic, there are a thousand decision points, and the author, self-deprecatingly claiming maybe six days of setting experience, asserts there's definitively a right way and a wrong way, since routesetting is a highly technical, professional field involving both specialized skill and creativity. The author, an operations leader with more than 10 years across several industries, argues that standardizing what can be standardized makes everyone's lives easier, and draws a pointed analogy to skiing. Like climbing grades, ski slope difficulty is hard to pinpoint, but regardless of the operation, the scale, green, blue, black, double black, is consistent. So why not climbing? The author acknowledges the complication that a double black diamond in New England differs from one in Utah, just as climbing grades vary by region and gym, but suggests that even imperfect standardization provides value. The article frames color and grading systems as an area where the industry could benefit from more consistency, letting climbers understand difficulty across facilities the way skiers understand slope ratings anywhere they go. The throughline is that routesetting, for all its creativity and technical artistry, includes elements like color-coding and difficulty communication that could and arguably should be more standardized across the industry. Borrowing the ski industry's consistent difficulty scale as a model, the author argues that standardizing standardizable elements reduces confusion and friction for climbers moving between gyms, without stifling the creative, skilled core of setting. For operators, the piece invites reflection on whether their color and grading choices serve climbers' need for legible, consistent difficulty communication, suggesting the industry is still finding its way toward useful standards.

Asset Caption

This piece uses wall color to argue for standardizing routesetting where possible. Noting setting involves a thousand decision points and pays the bills, the author draws a ski analogy: slope difficulty varies by region but the green-to-double-black scale is universal. Standardizing standardizable elements like color-coding helps climbers read difficulty across gyms.