PLASTIC PARADISE: Urban Krag - Dayton, Ohio

A lot of climbing gyms look the same. With a few exceptions, their sprawling grey and brown climbing surfaces are constructed inside of rectangular industrial spaces, old factories or warehouses with brick or aluminum exteriors. That's not to say such gyms don't have great climbing, well-stocked pro-shops, or state of the art training facilities - it's just that many don't have much character, or at least that's what gym owner Karl Williamson would tell you. Making artful use of a once-abandoned 146 year-old Deutsche Evangelical Reform church, Williamson's Urban Krag Climbing Center in Dayton, Ohio, is steeped in character, and it may well be a one of kind.

"This place was one month off from the wrecking ball when I got it," Williamson explains, "It had been declared a nuisance." Williamson, who does restoration work and developed a love for climbing in Montana's Glacier National Park, moved back to his home town of Dayton and saw an opportunity in the old church, talking the owners into selling it to him as an alternative to demolition.

Built in 1859, the church was abandoned and fell into a state of disrepair so severe that Williamson could barely get into the building to look around. The renovation took well over a year, with two crews working on the project, in the course of which 44 pigeons and 11 cats were relocated. All that work wasn't cheap. "We had $300 when we opened the doors: that's how close we were running it," Williamson says. The end result, however, is eye opening - the architectural character of the climbing walls is accentuated by the unusual setting. Ornate stained glass windows, some still in the process of restoration, depict saints and idyllic scenes. As they enter, climbers pass under the shaft of a small brick bell tower that opens into an area full of pale, finished wood. The original bell, which was salvaged from the burnt remains of an even older church that stood in the same place, sits across from the pro shop. When Williamson rings it, it gives a clean, resonant tone." I wonder if the heat from the fire changed the way it sounds," he says. The impersonal feel that many gyms can have is absent here.

The floor of the church was removed to make room, and the main lead wall, which is 56 feet high and 30 degrees overhanging (that adds up to about 80 feet of climbing), runs from what used to be the basement up into the rafters. The entrance at street level leads to the front desk and pro-shop, and to a railed observation deck that looks out into the vast open space of the gym which is cut by multi-colored arches, arêtes, slabs, and caves.

The variety of terrain at Urban Krag is one of the aspects that sets it apart. Among the 8,000 square feet of climbing, there's a steep bouldering area full of high-quality problems of all difficulties, a deep, horizontal cave for bouldering that also turns into a lead wall, a pillar, a massive arête, two stations for teaching rappelling, a campus board, several high-quality, full length cracks of varying degrees of difficulty, some of which meet up mid-route with other cracks, and a bolt ladder. That's right, a bolt ladder. Though the current of climbing seems to be flowing away from traditional and aid climbing, Urban Krag keeps a wide perspective on the sport, offering classes in top-roping, leading, rappelling, and even aiding. This variety is part of a conscious effort on the part of Williamson to avoid being "tunnel-visioned," or catering to only one type of climber.

Besides this inclusive credo, there's another reason Urban Krag boasts an unusually fine set of cracks for a gym - his name is Steve Grossman. Grossman is a Yosemite pioneer, a first ascentionist with a strong code of ethics who climbed in a bold style in the 1970s. Urban Krag has a grandiose feeling that must have been influenced by Grossman's time among the sweeping faces and immaculate crack systems of Yosemite Valley granite.

The clientele at Urban Crag mirror the set-up of the gym in its diversity. Like any climbing gym, most of the customers are beginners: people stopping in for the first time, birthday parties, scout troops, and, of course, church groups. But then there are the regulars whose climbing interests range from bouldering and sport climbing to trad, aid, ice climbing, and even caving. A few regulars work on the advanced problems and the hard lead routes, but they mingle with the other members and accept the different motivations that people have for climbing. "Some climb for social reasons," observed Rick Kappel, a local hardman and school teacher who has climbed for fifteen years, "I climb for mental sanity and fitness." Whatever their motivation, the members here share both a love of climbing and a small community. "My grandma used to come to this place when it was still a church," Kappel said.

Though Dayton isn't a climbing center by any stretch of the imagination, Urban Krag members make the best of their situation with the fine assortment of routes and problems set by the gym's staff. Every employee sets, Williamson explained, "We start them off on boulder problems and let people criticize them." An effective teaching method, as long as the setters have thick skin. The gym also has one dedicated route-setter. When they've overdosed on plastic, the members head south to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky, a scant three and a half hour drive. There they can put the endurance they built up on Urban Krag's towering lead wall to good use on the 100+ foot sandstone routes.

"There have been some tough times here," Williamson says, sitting on the front steps and smoking a cigarette. "I've had to go months without a paycheck. But things have never been better than they are now." Which is a plus for this neighborhood, the Historic Oregon District of Dayton. On the corner of Cass and Clay, the church turned climbing gym adds a lot of that character that Williamson talks about. Members leave on their bikes and shout goodbye while the manager, Jared Embree, mows the grass between the sidewalk and the street. "I'm building a house in back of this place," Williamson explains. The house, which is attached to the rear of the gym, has recently been upgraded to include luxuries like air conditioning, though for a long time it was just an unfurnished space that served as his residence. A climber at heart, Williamson dismisses what some would see as a hardship: "It's not bad...it's kinda like camping."

This gym, though isolated from the climbing communities that surround Meccas like Boulder or Salt Lake City, maintains a genuine, respectful stance towards climbing, teaching anyone who cares to learn whatever it is they want to know. Williamson's dedication to the project is evident as he busily adds a large display of webbing spools to the pro-shop and talks about all the work he still wants to do to the place. Urban Krag has been around for a good part of the indoor climbing movement and has survived, with its unlikely building, in an unlikely location, for a long time. For the locals, Urban Krag must seem like a refuge in a sleepy town. Anybody passing through, perhaps on his way to a bigger metropolis or some place more plentiful with rock should take the time to stop in. An added bonus: you can tell your mom you went to church with a straight face.

Urban Krag
125 Clay St.
Dayton, Ohio, 45402
937.224.KRAG
www.urbankrag.com