New, full-service rock climbing gym will honor memory of owner’s son

Rock climbing has gained popularity in the past several years, and now Wichita soon will have its first full-service rock climbing gym.

Bliss Bouldering and Climbing Complex is projected to open Nov. 27 at 11114 E. 28th St. North, near K-96 and Greenwich.

“I think we need some alternative forms of recreation and exercise,” David Korjte, owner of Bliss Bouldering and Climbing Complex, said about Wichita. “We don’t have a lot of that here. We don’t have mountains, any oceans, surfing or skiing.”

Right now, the YMCA and Kansas Cliff Club offer rock climbing in town. But the Cliff Club is almost exclusively for experienced climbers, and the YMCA doesn’t offer as much rental equipment or as large of a variety in climbing walls as Bliss is planning.

Korjte said Bliss will offer more climbing variety for all skill sets in a centralized location.

The gym will have rock climbing walls, bouldering walls, an advanced training room, a yoga studio and some cardio equipment. The complex also will have locker rooms, showers, meeting space, rental equipment, a lounge and retail store for climbing gear, and will offer classes, rental space for parties and competitive teams.

The idea

Kortje has a deeper reason behind his decision to open Bliss.

He started rock climbing regularly about seven years ago with his son, Caleb Kortje, who was 15 years old at the time. He said Caleb loved the sport and started competitive bouldering, a strength-driven form of rock climbing that doesn’t use ropes and sits lower to the ground.

Kortje said he and Caleb traveled the country for bouldering competitions and admired the full-service clubs in other cities.

“We traveled around to a lot of different gyms around the nation,” he said. “We kept commenting how cool it would be to have something like that in Wichita. They were clean, well kept, had great ropes to climb.”

But Kortje said Caleb had depression and took his life about three years ago, when he was 19.

Since his death, Kortje said, he’s tried to think of a way to honor Caleb and decided he would “go big or go home” with a full-size climbing club.

“I think he’d be thrilled,” Kortje said. “One of the things he really loved to do is take people who had never climbed before and introduce them to it.”

The club’s name comes from a quote Caleb always wanted tattooed: “Follow your bliss” from a poem by Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist.

Kortje said the gym will have an indoor waterfall with an engraved picture of Caleb in his honor.

For Kortje and his family, the gym has been a form of healing.

He, his wife, 25-year old daughter and 19-year old son developed the gym together and all plan to work at the gym when it opens.

“It’s never anything you forget about,” Kortje said about Caleb’s passing. “But it really has been good from that standpoint. It’s giving our family something to focus on that we all love.”

About the gym

A Nebraska native, Kortje moved to Wichita for his medical residency in 1989. He now practices family medicine at South Wichita Family MedCenter.

He said he plans to continue his work as a physician when the gym opens, and split his time between the two. He said he works about 32 hours a week at the Family MedCenter and would likely work another 30 hours at Bliss each week.

Kortje said the total project costs around $1.5 million. He said he researched climbing gyms for about a year, financed the project for another year and broke ground about six months ago.

The gym has yet to receive its rock wall shipment, but Kortje said he plans to have four auto belays – a system that allows people to climb without a partner – and about 40 regular belay stations – where a person on the ground holds a rope to catch the climber.

Kortje said the gym will have 7,065 vertical square feet of rock climbing space and 2,100 vertical square feet of bouldering space.

Gym staff will switch the climbing courses – the placement of foot and hand holds on the walls – on a weekly basis.

He said he tried to incorporate environmentally sustainable features in the gym with flooring selection, natural light use, eco-friendly light fixtures and biodegradable soaps.

“Most of us rock climbers like to go outdoors, so want to keep our environment as clean as we can,” he said.

Internationally, rock climbing has gained momentum in recent years.

Emblematic of its popularity, sport climbing appeared on a proposal for new Olympic sports for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games.

“It’s exploded in the last few years in becoming mainline,” Kortje said.

The Bliss Facebook page already has more than 1,300 likes.

Kortje said he plans to have one professional rock climber at the opening celebration of the gym on Jan. 8. and another professional climber later in the year. He also said he hopes to bring in professional route setters to place the hand and foot holds on the walls.

Kortje didn’t want to disclose the names of professional climbers and setters yet.

Except for the yoga classes, he said, he plans to have the gym fully operational by late November.

This story was originally published October 7, 2015 at 7:13 PM with the headline "New, full-service rock climbing gym will honor memory of owner’s son."