The Dartmouth Mountaineering Club is lobbying the Office of Residential Life for permission to replace a racquetball court in Maxwell Hall with an indoor climbing wall.
The club presented its proposal to ORL two weeks ago and the office says it hopes to respond sometime this week.
The indoor wall would allow Dartmouth climbers to practice and teach mountaineering skills year-round, during winter and bad weather.
The Mountaineering Club, a division of the Outing Club, has been trying to gain approval for an indoor climbing facility for 15 years, according to Director of Outdoor Programs Earl Jette.
The club's written proposal states that the availability of indoor climbing is important to the quality of a mountaineering program the size and scope of Dartmouth's.
A question of where
The club has secured funding for the wall and the proposal states that questions of safety, liability and administrative support have been resolved with the College.
According to the proposal, only one issue remains: the location of the wall.
Dean of Students Lee Pelton approved the proposal early this term, according to club member Chris Carson '95. Carson said Pelton told the club approval for the location must be granted by whatever administrative body governs that space.
Accordingly, use of the Maxwell racquetball court must be approved by ORL.
"After detailed conversations with athletic department officials, ORL and Dartmouth administration officials, we have determined that a Maxwell racquetball court is not only an optimal space, but the ONLY available space," the report stated.
The proposal asserts that the space in Maxwell would see more use as a climbing wall than it does as a racquetball court.
Assistant Dean of Residential Life Alison Keefe said ORL may not be able to give up the space in Maxwell.
"We are a little apprehensive about taking away a racquetball court," she said. "But we're really excited about the project and would like to see it happen."
"We would love to see a climbing wall somewhere in the institution," Keefe said. "We need some kind of indoor facility."
But she said ORL might encounter structural problems with the space in Maxwell that would make construction of a climbing wall impossible.
The club's rationale
Currently, students practice climbing on campus outside using Bradley and Gerry Halls and Bartlett Tower. These outdoor walls are more difficult than real rocks and a tough way for beginners to learn, Jette said.
The report stated that indoor climbing practice would make climbing on the rocks outside safer for students. The climbing wall would accommodate different ability levels and allow the Physical Education Office and Outing Club to offer more climbing lessons.
The report emphasized the popularity of climbing and noted that the Physical Education Office cannot currently accommodate all the students who want to sign up for climbing lessons.
Mountain climbing has increased in popularity in recent years nationwide and at Dartmouth, according to Carson. About 100 climbers are on the Mountaineering Club's blitz list.
The Outing Club pressed for approval of an indoor wall in Fairchild Hall last year, according to Brian Kunz, assistant director of Outdoor Programs.
The new wall was "99 percent sure" when the approval was suddenly taken away for administrative reasons, Kunz said.
Funding for the indoor wall was donated by the parents of a Dartmouth alumnus who died in a climbing accident. Jonathon Daniels '86 died in 1990 while on a climbing expedition in the mountains of Poland.
His parents made a donation of several thousand dollars in his memory later that year.
The Outing Club is prepared to provide its own additional funding, according to Kunz.
Questions of safety
Kunz spoke to Daniels' parents when they were making their decision to donate the money. He said they were initially unsure if they wanted to promote climbing after their son died in a mountaineering accident.
But after hearing more about their son's involvement in the Outing Club, they decided to target their donation toward a climbing wall, Kunz said.
Kunz said he hopes the College has not been reluctant to build a wall because it sees climbing as a dangerous sport.
Since 1963, five Dartmouth students and five alumni have been killed while mountain climbing, according to Dean Engle '91. Engle has just finished writing a history of the Mountaineering Club, to be published this fall.
Only one of the ten deaths occurred on a trip organized by the Mountaineering Club, Engle said.
Jette said that lack of support for the climbing wall could be based on misinformation about the dangers of climbing.
"When you consider the amount of climbing that has gone on in the last 30 years," Jette said, "the number of accidents is very, very small."
Sources of risk in mountaion climbing include loose rock, adverse weather, fatigue and inadequate or damaged clothing or equipment.
Kunz said that the risks involved in mountain climbing are comparable to those in driving, and that risks are minimized by proper instruction and oversight by the Outing Club.
"Given the risks, the College offers courses in climbing, reviews organized trips, oversees the Mountaineering Club activities. Providing these services educates the students to be safer climbers," Kunz said.
A paradox at Dartmouth
The Mountaineering Club's proposal stated that the absence of a wall at Dartmouth was a paradox, since the club's history puts it at the "forefront" of collegiate mountaineering.
"In terms of mountaineering tradition, Dartmouth has the best in the nation," Carson said.
"It has an amazing place in the history of North American mountaineering. The list of first ascents by [Mountaineering Club] alums is extensive."
"Every college in the country has a climbing wall. Dartmouth has the oldest Outing Club in the nation," Carson said. "I was really surprised when I got here to find there was no climbing wall."
