I thought it would last twenty minutes

The message a customer sent us, and the pattern we keep seeing in our inbox

A customer called Lisa wrote to us a while back. She had bought a Boulder Block for her kids and she was, by her own account, not expecting much.

"Thought this would entertain them for maybe 20 mins... It's been 2 weeks and they still rush to it after school. LIFESAVER for days we can't make it to the gym! Even got their friends hooked!"

Lisa

We have read that message more times than is probably healthy. Not because it is flattering, though it is. Because it is the same message we keep getting, from different people, in slightly different words, over and over.

They all start in the same place. Low expectations.

The two days a week problem

If your kid has fallen for climbing, you already know the shape of this.

The gym runs a youth session twice a week. You drive them there. You sit in the car park, or you stand at the bottom of the wall and watch them do the same overhang eleven times. They come out buzzing. They talk about it the whole way home.

And then it is Wednesday. And Thursday. And Sunday, and it is raining, and the gym is closed, and there is a seven year old in your house with a very specific kind of energy and nowhere to put it.

This is not a small niche. Youth climbing participation in the US reached roughly 2.1 million kids in 2023, up 28 percent in a year. Which means a lot of houses have the same five day gap in them, and a lot of parents are quietly losing the same argument about screens on a wet Sunday afternoon.

We have not solved that. We are three climbers who make things, not child development experts. But the gap is real, and it is the reason most people find us.

"It's a block of wood"

Here is the part we appreciate about the messages we get. People tell us they doubted it first.

They say some version of the same thing. It is a wooden block with screws in it. It costs fifty three dollars. What exactly is going to happen here.

That is a fair question and we are not going to talk you out of it. We would rather tell you what tends to happen next, because that part surprised us too.

The product is called the Boulder Block. It is about ten centimeters across, made of wood, with twelve real climbing holds bolted to it.

What tends to happen

The pattern in the messages is consistent enough that we can almost set a watch by it.

• Day one. They solve the easy routes and feel pleased with themselves.
• Day three. They get stuck on one, try it six different ways, and will not put it down.
• Week one. It turns up at the breakfast table.
• Week two. They go to it before they have taken their shoes off.

One parent, Shenhav, told us her daughter takes it everywhere. When someone asked her whether it was really worth the money, she answered:

"100%!! Quality is amazing and she hasn't touched her iPad since"

Shenhav

We want to be careful here, because it would be easy to overclaim. We are not going to tell you this fixes screen time, or makes anyone stronger, or turns a kid into a better climber. We have not measured any of that and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

What we can tell you is that people keep writing to say their kid still uses it long after the point where most things end up in a cupboard. That is the only claim we are making, and it is the one we have the most evidence for.

Why it does not run out

This is the part that actually explains it, and it is the reason we built it this way.

Most toys have one thing to do. You do the thing, you learn the thing, you are finished with the thing. The Boulder Block comes with a deck of cards.

There are thirty two designed routes in the box, across four layout families, in four difficulty levels running from yellow at the easy end to purple at the expert end. Each card shows exactly which holds to use. Some carry special moves: dyno jumps, match holds, rewind routes. There are progress tracker cards, so they can log what they have sent the way climbers keep a logbook.

So on day one there are thirty two problems in the box, not one.

But that is not really the thing.

There is an allen key and twelve screws in the box, and the holds move anywhere you want them. Which means that once a kid has worked through the cards, they do not put it away. They start building their own routes. They set a problem, they try it, they make it harder, then they hand it to you and watch you fail at it.

That is the moment it stops being a toy and starts being a hobby. It is also the reason the messages we get are about weeks and months instead of afternoons. There is no last level.

In the box: the block, twelve real climbing holds, an allen key, twelve screws, a canvas pouch, and the deck of thirty two route cards.

See how the route system works →

Other people's houses

A few more of the messages, exactly as they were sent to us.

Sandra, on her daughter Gretel:

"Gretel invented her own way to play since her hands are small - she lets the block hang and alternates hands. Kid's a genius 🤯 Best birthday gift!"

Sandra

We did not design it to be used that way. She worked it out herself, which is roughly the whole point.

Sarah, on her husband:

"36 year old man playing with a wooden block for 2 hours straight. I've created a monster 😅 He's literally timing himself and keeping a spreadsheet of his best times. Boys never grow up"

Sarah

And Mike, who we think about often:

"Coach recommended this. Henry beat my time on the blue route. I'm not bitter. Not at all. 😤"

Mike

Be warned. It is very common for the adult who bought it to end up losing to a nine year old on their own living room floor.

Who we are

We are Luke, Ryan and Paolo. Three climbers who went looking for a climbing gift worth giving, could not find one, and decided to make our own.

That is genuinely the whole origin story. There was no gap in the market we spotted on a spreadsheet. We wanted something better than another mug with a pun on it.

If something goes wrong with your order, Ryan usually answers the email. He is a real person and he is quite good at it.

If you want one