About IMPACT

The inception of IMPACT Climbing goes back to a pivotal moment in founder Kyle’s life—an unexpected termination from a GM position. From that moment, Kyle vowed to break himself from the constraints of traditional employment, catalyzing the commitment and establishing a venture during the challenging economic downturn of 2008/09. The initial venture involved a portable climbing wall, an ambitious endeavor that demanded many hours for both setup and dismantling, all for a brief two-hour event. Notably, this was not paying the bills.

Kyle approached Rockwerx with a contract, outlining terms that caught them by surprise: exclusive rights to Canada, ownership of the Rockwerx name, and access to their manufacturing and trade secrets. Uncertain about their reaction, Kyle was astonished when they promptly signed back, confirming his exclusive rights to construct climbing walls under the Rockwerx brand. At that juncture, Rockwerx stood as the largest builder in the USA. Remarkably, sales surged from zero to over $1 million in just 1.5 years.

With a strong growth cycle for the climbing industry and the economy in general. He partnered with Adventure Solutions USA, making us the go-to place in Canada for all adventure based experience like high ropes courses, adventure play structures, and ninja warrior courses. This only lasted about 2 years as the partnership was unbalanced and the plan was not sustainable and top heavy, creating the fall of Adventure Solutions in Canada. Turns out building and focusing on what you know best, work best.

Responding to the industry demand of a plywood climbing wall as opposed to concrete, Kyle developed a new texture for plywood climbing walls, known today as VelvetGRIP. Many companies in the industry caught on and started their own version of this smooth but yet extremely durable texture, budget-friendly and high-performance climbing wall solution.

Aspire Climbing & Fitness is born. Expanding the business vertically is a model that has lasted the test of time.

Expanding our product reach through partnerships and international trade. This is a slow burn and is more for networking and word of mouth, as organic growth takes time but pays dividends in the end.

Creating our own texture was key in our development and locked Impact Climbing in as the real player in this industry. In 2018-19 all eyes were on what we were doing. Without knowing it, other companies were following our lead with our design criteria and manufacturing processes, like natural wood wall colours and fine Velvet-Grip texture.

IMPACT was having the biggest year we have ever seen, the shop was buzzing, things were flying and psych was high!

And this too will pass

This was the “comeback” kid year – do or die. Nothing was easy and all you could do is grid and move forward. There was nothing as far a social media from Impact because we were working hard in silence to build bigger than ever. All said, we had a great year, built more projects than any other year in our history, worked with some of the largest companies in the world, created new products, hired more staff, developed amazing partnerships and much more. The general population never sees the work being done and assume you are not working. The year 2023 was a year of building.