After President Donald Trump claimed skilled rock climbers could not scale a portion of his border wall for the U.S.-Mexico border, a Kentucky climber has taken that as a challenge.

Rick Weber, a retired engineer in Wolfe County, built a wood replica of an 18-foot high portion of the border wall that includes 6X6 columns and a 60-inch high plate atop. He is now planning a competition to see if members of the rock climbing community can scale his replica wall.

When visiting a portion of the border wall construction in California last month, Trump boasted that “this wall can’t be climbed.”

“We had 20 mountain climbers. That’s all they do — they love to climb mountains,” Trump said in September. “They can have it. Me, I don’t want to climb mountains. But they’re very good, and some of them were champions. And we gave them different prototypes of walls, and this was the one that was hardest to climb.”

Weber wrote on RockAndIce.com that no one in his climbing community knows any of these mountaineers and questions their existence.

“More importantly, to declare something to be impossible to climb to a bonafide rock climber is to issue a challenge,” Weber wrote.

Since hearing Trump’s claim about the wall, Weber erected his own border wall that consists of four columns spaced 12 inches apart. It’s the same height as portions of the wall already in place at the border. Weber owns Muir Valley, which is a rock climbing park in the Red River Gorge.

Several high-ranking mountaineers disputed to The Daily Beast Trump’s claims that climbers have tested portions of his wall.

“We live in strange times,” Marc Norman, CEO of USA Climbing, the sport’s national governing body, told The Daily Beast. “I am not aware of any of our athletes being contracted to do such work. Ironically, I have heard rumors of climbers being contracted by zoos to test animal enclosures, but that is about all.”

Other climbers said it was “preposterous” or that it would be hard to find professional climbers willing to help Trump.

But these climbers will get a chance to climb Weber’s wall in a competition to take place Friday and Saturday near the Muir Valley parking lot in Wolfe County. Trophies for the free contest will be awarded to the fastest times as well as the cleverest technique and best costume, Weber wrote.

The event coincides with Rocktoberfest, a popular event held at Red River Gorge for professional climbers.

As it turns out, Weber’s wall is not unscalable. Weber wrote on Facebook Sunday that one man needed just 37 seconds to scale it by using just a belay rope.

Weber’s competition follows recent news regarding the border wall, in which Trump privately mentioned fortifying a moat around the wall stocked with alligators or snakes, the New York Times reported.

https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article235870842.html

Just another in a long list of Trump lies exposed.

Mountain climbers scale replica of Trump's border wall in under one minute: report

Several mountain climbers have reportedly scaled a wooden replica of President Trump's steel border wall that was built to disprove Trump's claims that a portion of the wall is "impossible to climb."

Rick Weber — a 75-year-old retired engineer, and active rock climber — built a replica of an 18-foot tall section of border wall in Kentucky earlier this month, inviting mountain climbers to compete to see who could climb it the fastest.

Weber said his proposed challenge was inspired by Trump's visit to a section of border wall in California last month, where he announced that 20 of the most skilled mountain climbers out there had been tasked with trying to scale the wall, but were unable to do so.

Some raised questions over Trump's claims of a climbing test, however, with award-winning climbers saying they "never heard of any climbers ever being recruited to try and climb a border wall." Weber too said he was skeptical of the climbing test, prompting him to create his climbing challenge.

As of Friday, Oct. 11, The Courier-Journal reports that numerous people have already scaled the replica wall, including an 8-year-old girl, even though Weber's competition isn't until this weekend.

According to the Courier-Journal, 30-year-old Peter Favaloro of Boston reached the top of the wall in about a minute. The novice climber told the publication he traveled to climb the wall after seeing news coverage about it.

Another climber, 29-year-old Erik Kloeker, made it over the wall in approximately 30 seconds during a demonstration for reporters. He later climbed the wall a second time while also juggling.

Weber, who is certified by American Mountain Guide Association as a Single Pitch Instructor, admits his wall is not exactly the same as Trump's but says it doesn't matter. He says if you can climb his wooden wall, you can climb the larger steel wall.

The section of border wall Weber replicated is closer in style to a 18-foot steel bollard wall erected by a private company in May of this year, but is made of wood instead. The new section of wall Trump spoke of in California last month is a steel bollard wall that includes beams filled with concrete and stands at 30-feet tall.

Trump ran on the campaign promise of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a pledge that has led to funding battles with lawmakers. Trump has since declared an emergency in order to reallocate billions of dollars in military funding for wall construction.

The section of wall touted by Trump in September is one of the first new sections of the wall built since his emergency declaration.

Weber's official competition is set to take place Friday and Saturday. On Friday afternoon, he posted to Facebook that the fastest wall-climb so far was 17.25 seconds.

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/465415...1-minute-report

The avg man is not climbing those walls. There is also a big difference between steel and wood when it comes to gaining purchase through pressure.

Trump also didn't claim that they were unclimbable but just that this model was deemed the hardest to scale.

Me personally I would have made a concrete wall 30 to 50 feet high and 10 to 20 feet thick that military grade vehicles could cruise along at the top of the wall. Something more permanent and intimidating.

Steel after all will rust over time.

The average man can climb those barriers.

I might be alone in this, but the idea of building a Wall to keep out would-be immigrants is beyond ignorant to me.

What would possibly make you think you are alone on that? lmao

You don't need a wall for legal immigration. The USA allows more LEGAL immigration than any 10 other countries combined. The USA is MORE than generous with our legal immigration policies when compared to the rest of the world.

It's the people coming in by breaking our laws that you have to keep out. People who don't respect our country's laws have no right to immigrate here.

It’s like he hasn’t been paying attention at all lmao

I'm just showing yet once again what a liar Trump is. I know you would love to change the subject, but try to stay on topic.



Trump: "You can fry an egg on that wall," he said. "This wall can't be climbed."



I guess that nobody informed him about that great new invention they call gloves.