Shredded rubber or pea gravel for outdoor climbing wall

I'm deciding which to get. Nicros seems to think their shredded rubber is superior to pea gravel. I'm concerned most about "dust", durability, and of course cost... not so much about the landing feel. Opinions?

And are there other sellers of shredded rubber that isn't simply recycled tires?

From Nicros:

Shredded Rubber.
From early climbing wall construction, two products seemed to prevail, pea gravel and shredded rubber. Over time, pea gravel has fallen out of favor due to wear issues on ropes, anchors, and other equipment and the dust it creates. In its place, shredded rubber triumphed.

Nicros offers two types of recycled shredded rubber chunks: black rubber and colored rubber. Both are economical, effective choices for landing surfaces. Each is low in odor, low in tire rubber content, free of steel wires and fiber, and contain very little rubber dust.

I've seen two signif. problems with pea gravel: the dust is abrasive so dirty shoes can seriously erode the holds. Seoond problem - I was landing in pea gravel off a boulder problem, and the gravel "splashed" as it tends to do (makes IMO a nice landing). But I had my mouth open and one of the flying stones chipped my front tooth. Rubber wouldn't do that.

Rubber is awful. You'll find little black bits every time you blow your nose after climbing. Also, you'll find black bits in your gear every time you go climbing outside and spread out all over your house. Unless you can find a sources not from shredded tires, you also will have little pieces of wire to deal with. They do hurt when stuck in your foot and I wouldn't let your good rope near it.

You should consider river rocks. They are large enough that there is little danger of splashing, and they won't get everyone's gear messy.

Ryan7crew wrote:Rubber is awful.

Yes. For all the reasons he said.

No experience with pea gravel. I know this isn't part of your original question but I would look for padded gym mats. Any reason it needs to be permanent? Can't you just drag a couple bouldering pads out? Our semi-permanent indoor solution was large open cell foam sheets (think 4'x8') with some carpet scraps over top.

My local gym uses Nicros rubber. It does get everywhere like people have said, but I would imagine that pea rock would get into my gear too. I have not noticed any wires in the rubber, so that is a positive.

Jawon wrote:I've dealt a lot with landscaping rocks and found that walking on river rocks is a little tricky and I'd worry about twisted ankles.

I wouldn't really want to land on river rocks (1" diameter or so) without a pad, but I don't think you would get hurt, and there is very little danger of twisted ankles. (I also wouldn't really want to land on gravel or rubber without a pad...) I encountered them at an indoor gym, where they were a bit of a pain because you wanted sandals walking between routes, but that's not really a drawback compared to gravel or shredded rubber. River rocks are a fantastic choice for outdoor TR/sport, but maybe not so great for bouldering.

I used pea gravel with the intention of adding a few large homemade drag pads over the top for my bouldering wall.

The pea gravel does get dirty (and in turn your shoes and the holds), and is heavier (something to think about, I had to wheel barrel the gravel from my front yard drive way, around the house, and up a trail, to get to my wall). Being outdoors, I'm sure that the rubber will end up getting dirty as well, so in the long run I don't think this should be much of an issue. If you go the pea gravel route use 6"+.

I imagine that the rubber is a softer fall (especially if you're wall is 45 degrees or more and you'll be landing on your back). I haven't had any issues with the pea gravel and landing, and regularly fall/jump from the top of the wall (14 ft up) and haven't found the pea gravel to be too hard of a surface.

rubber indoors, less dust. pea gravel outdoors or I use wood chips..less dirt , washes out nice in rain, and natural to environment.

Are those the only two options, would you be willing to use wood chips. You could get some cheep from a landscape supply house. It's soft and when it starts to pack to much fluff it up with a pitch fork. You can get I dyed pine for around 20 a yard and as a bonus it's all natural.

I didn't put a barrier underneath. If you put down 6" of pea gravel you might bury 1/2" (maybe less if you have a clay base) and then the rest of the pea gravel will just sit on top. A weed fabric would be a good idea to try to minimizing dust (your pea gravel will be mixing around as you fall/walk in it, so some bottom pieces will pick up some dirt and bring them up to the top).

Yes I had 2 yards of pea gravel delivered. Save your back (do you really want to pick up and unload 150+ 50 lb bags?) and get it delivered. The main driver of cost will be the delivery fee. Buying pea gravel by the yard is much cheaper than Lowes/Home Depot by the bag. Most of them will load your truck for free if you have something heavy duty, but make sure you do your homework on your load calcs. I almost took my F-150, figuring I could make two trips at a yard each, but then checked the payload weight max and the weight of pea gravel per yard and found out I'd have to make four 1/2 yard trips. Delivery was $35 for me (I do live 15 blocks from the landscaping yard so it could be more for you) which was well worth it for saving me the hassle of picking it up and unloading it from my truck bed. Bust out your math skills and make sure you get enough or too much, you can always find other things to do with it. Most places will let your order it by the 1/2 yard.

If you add wood mulch (better than chips) to your options, it seems like it beats either choice in every single way you can think about. Cheaper, lighter, softer, organic, smells better (for a while), looks better...

Most of my area is now wood pine bark or chips. It crushes down some, blows around in very strong winds, compresses into soil and rots out too. And it's all natural to my soil, and matches the landscape wood mulch or chips well. But I only replace maybe 10 bags of it per season which is not too bad a cost. Smells and looks fresh to put down the new layer each year too.

^^^What he said. Look into mulch, not chips. Go find some you can grab a handful of. A really thick bed will last a season, then just add some more. Fluff with a rake like has been previously said.

Mike Lane wrote:^^^What he said. Look into mulch, not chips. Go find some you can grab a handful of. A really thick bed will last a season, then just add some more. Fluff with a rake like has been previously said.

I never really liked the mulch thing,,unless you get like a ton of it to pile up. The red pine park was thick enough for padding the ground well, and sturdy enough. Mulch seemed to just, well, 'mulch' into the ground more easily and disapper faster. Unless it was a foot deep which then would blow or kick away from langing area. My bark layer was never more than 3 -4 inches thick fresh. Mulch seems to work nice in a small circle around a tree as yard decor, but I havent'had much luck with the mulch over my main 12 by 18 ft. landing area under the wall. Most of the time, I pull out a large 6 by 12' , 30 inch thick pole vault pit pad to cover the area for climbing anyway.

Jawon, it's really only the chunks that get everywhere. I don't notice any issues with air quality or finer partials, only larger easy to clean chunks.

Woodchuck ATC wrote: I never really liked the mulch thing,,unless you get like a ton of it to pile up. The red pine park was thick enough for padding the ground well, and sturdy enough. Mulch seemed to just, well, 'mulch' into the ground more easily and disapper faster. Unless it was a foot deep which then would blow or kick away from langing area. My bark layer was never more than 3 -4 inches thick fresh. Mulch seems to work nice in a small circle around a tree as yard decor, but I havent'had much luck with the mulch over my main 12 by 18 ft. landing area under the wall. Most of the time, I pull out a large 6 by 12' , 30 inch thick pole vault pit pad to cover the area for climbing anyway.

The stuff I have on my property is somewhere between the no bueno 2-3" long decorative chips which looks like BBQ hickory from the store and the shredded fluff you can get, which also is awful. I keep it at about 6" deep on average, it does not blow away, I often walk over it barefoot and it has a spongy feel. But then I have tons of vegetation on my land and rent a chipper every Spring to mulch all the branches I have to deal with yearly. but since you mention it, I am going to go out and pick up a pole vaulting mat at Wal Mart today, that sounds awesome.

Back in the early 90's when I was a Austin, TX Parks Commissioner, I was able to get climbing recognized as a park activity and the first thing we were able to do was remove a cement slab and put in pea gravel at Bull Creek Park. The slab had broken at least two ankles and needed to go.

The Central Texas Mountaineers and Austin Parks and Recreation Department partnered on the project with club members excavating the pit and building a retention barrier. Then PARD filled the pit with pea gravel, which was their recommended soft landing for play grounds, etc.

We put down about 20 inches of pea gravel, and I witnessed folks agar in from the top of the boulders (18 feet) and penetrate ankle deep into the gravel. Yes there is dust and over time, outdoors with rain, etc. the bottom layer does harden with mud. Back then, pre-crash pads, folks used carpet squares to clean their boots, etc. now days folks place their pads on top of the gravel...

Over its 20+ year history it has been judged a success, and has been refreshed once. It has survived floods and years of use. It also was a physical sign marking Bull Creek as the first city designated rock climbing park in the Southern US.

It was the start of the relationship that has led to sanctioned bolt replacement and maintenance for climbing in all of Austin's Green Belts and provided a club-government example that led to Travis County's purchase of Riemers Ranch as a climbing park...

Sorry for the long answer, but sometimes a little pea gravel can mean a lot!

I think the rubber does hold bacteria a bit more too, doesn't rinse off as clean as the pea gravel would. Some local villages do provide a tree and branch removal service, and have piles of wood chips free for the taking from their city site. It's not the prettiest, and often has sharp chunks, more than ice bark. But an idea if you want quantity to go cheap.

James Crump wrote:Back in the early 90's when I was a Austin, TX Parks Commissioner, I was able to get climbing recognized as a park activity ... It was the start of the relationship that has led to sanctioned bolt replacement and maintenance for climbing in all of Austin's Green Belts and provided a club-government example that led to Travis County's purchase of Riemers Ranch as a climbing park...

My wife and I climbed there 2 weeks ago while visiting our daughter, who lives in Austin. You did work to be proud of.

Having landed on both kinds of material, it's been my experience that both work fine for low drops, but if you come off from higher up pea gravel absorbs energy better and more smoothly. Shredded rubber is a harder landing if you are more than about 8 ft high IMO. Mulch even more so.

Closing the loop on this in case others find it helpful. Here's what I ultimately decided...

Option 1: Nicros rubber chunks: Too expensive (for me). Truly too expensive if you need it shipped. The cost is $22 per 50lb bag and they said I'd need about 35 bags for 150 sf at 6 inch depth... so total of $750... double that for shipping. In short, no way jose. Other rubber chunk/mulch suppliers might be a little cheaper, but not much.

Option 2: Pea gravel: Too sharp. To landscape material suppliers "pea gravel" is usually the sharp kind that would not be pleasant to fall on, plus they compact and lock together greatly reducing energy dissipation. The cheapest quote I got was $50 per cubic yard. 3 cubic yards plus $150 delivery plus day laborers to help shovel/move all that gravel dumped in my driveway would have totaled about $400. Going with rounded pebbles triples the material cost, so total of about $600.

Option 3: Bagged pea pebbles from Lowes This is what I ultimately chose. Benefits:

1. Nicely rounded.

2. Good size. Maybe a bit small, but if you mix in the next larger size, I think you'd get pretty good energy dissipation.

3. Easy loading. They will forklift the whole pallet to the front and if you're nice to them, they'll even load it for you.

4. Easy unloading. The bags are very manageable so this went very fast (using a dolly) as opposed to shoveling a big mound of gravel and wheelbarrowing it from my driveway to the backyard. My back is truly thankful for it and there is absolutely no clean up.

5. Get only the amount you need. I made a couple rounds after realizing I needed more. No problem. And I can replenish as much as I need later on. I probably wouldn't have gotten the right quantity by getting one load from a dump truck.

6. Kids can help. Child labor ripping open the bags and unloading them. They had a blast.

I ended up doing way less than the 6 inch depth all around because after putting in the first batch, I realized I really didn't need it that deep everywhere. For instance, in the center I keep it shallow.

So I got about half of what I originally intended. 75 bags for a total of $300. And the work ended up being way easier than I anticipated. The bagged pebbles are more expensive per unit than bulk, but not having to pay for delivery or day laborers, plus the minimal effort made it a really great deal. Hope this helps.